Ryzen Architect Jim Keller Joins Intel

MrRobot · 26 Apr 2018 at 12:27

AMD should (hopefully) be good for the next 3-5 years providing they increase core count per CCX.

Aretak · 26 Apr 2018 at 12:29

For the record, Jim Keller had little to do with Zen's design. The chief architects were Suzanne Plummer and Mike Clark. Keller was working on K12, which seems to have been canned at this point. I guess that doesn't make for a good clickbait headline though.

james.miller · 26 Apr 2018 at 12:42

Aretak said:
For the record, Jim Keller had little to do with Zen's design. The chief architects were Suzanne Plummer and Mike Clark. Keller was working on K12, which seems to have been canned at this point. I guess that doesn't make for a good clickbait headline though.

Are you sure? Keller was a corperate VP and a chief architect and i thought it was his decision to can k12?

Martini1991 · 26 Apr 2018 at 12:42

Aretak said:
For the record, Jim Keller had little to do with Zen's design. The chief architects were Suzanne Plummer and Mike Clark. Keller was working on K12, which seems to have been canned at this point. I guess that doesn't make for a good clickbait headline though.

Zen has always been pegged as kellers?

ltron · 26 Apr 2018 at 12:56

4K8KW10 said:
In December 2016, a news appeared that Intel started designing a new architecture succeeding Core. https://wccftech.com/intel-developing-new-x86-uarch-succeed-core-generation/

I think Intel doesn't need Keller at all. Since they designed the leading x86 without him anyways. And when Keller worked for AMD, he still couldn't deliver something really better.

https://wccftech.com/intel-developing-new-x86-uarch-succeed-core-generation/

If they didn't need him why would they hire him? If this turns out to be true of course. Keller demands an extremely high salary. Also, you underestimate what a struggling company a fraction of the size of Intel was able to pull off.

They really did pull a rabbit out of the hat. Yes, the architecture is a bit of a compromise and not quite as good at gaming as some hoped. However, it's cheap to manufacture, has high yields and is very scalable to high core counts while being very power efficient. This is very unusual for AMD which has produced graphics cards in recent years which are the opposite of these things and have been failures.

Don't forget that 6 months to a year before Ryzen their share price was at its lowest ever and they looked to be going bankrupt. They probably would have too if Ryzen had been another failure.

sideways14a · 26 Apr 2018 at 13:01

Keller is well known for hoping between companies, i expect him back at AMD after intel

4K8KW10 · 26 Apr 2018 at 13:06

ltron said:
If they didn't need him why would they hire him?

Maybe he looked for a job? Maybe because they are scared of AMD now and seek for a solution, sometimes in a panic mode.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 26 Apr 2018 at 13:28

I suspect this is more about Intel making more moves into AI and deep learning,as Keller was involved in that kind of stuff at Tesla.

Aretak · 26 Apr 2018 at 13:40

james.miller said:
Are you sure? Keller was a corperate VP and a chief architect and i thought it was his decision to can k12?

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. AMD haven't even officially confirmed that it is canned, let alone who made the call. That is what Keller was working on before he left though. It's possible that it being scrapped could even be the reason he left AMD, given that he left back in 2015 and K12 hasn't materialised (it was originally due last year).

Martini1991 said:
Zen has always been pegged as kellers?

No it hasn't. Not by anybody who knew what they were talking about anyway. Maybe Keller was given the credit thanks to his meme status, but he was not behind Zen. Mike Clark was the chief architect and Suzanne Plummer lead the team (though is now working on the Radeon side of things). You don't have to take my word for it, as AMD have confirmed all this many times:

Clark is currently working on the Zen 5 architecture due a few years down the line.

SiDeards73 · 26 Apr 2018 at 16:12

Aretak said:
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. AMD haven't even officially confirmed that it is canned, let alone who made the call. That is what Keller was working on before he left though. It's possible that it being scrapped could even be the reason he left AMD, given that he left back in 2015 and K12 hasn't materialised (it was originally due last year).

No it hasn't. Not by anybody who knew what they were talking about anyway. Maybe Keller was given the credit thanks to his meme status, but he was not behind Zen. Mike Clark was the chief architect and Suzanne Plummer lead the team (though is now working on the Radeon side of things). You don't have to take my word for it, as AMD have confirmed all this many times:

Clark is currently working on the Zen 5 architecture due a few years down the line.

If this is true, they moved the right person to RTG then! should hopefully pay dividends once she gets that ship in order with her peers etc.

eddyr · 26 Apr 2018 at 18:30

Aretak said:
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. AMD haven't even officially confirmed that it is canned, let alone who made the call. That is what Keller was working on before he left though. It's possible that it being scrapped could even be the reason he left AMD, given that he left back in 2015 and K12 hasn't materialised (it was originally due last year).

No it hasn't. Not by anybody who knew what they were talking about anyway. Maybe Keller was given the credit thanks to his meme status, but he was not behind Zen. Mike Clark was the chief architect and Suzanne Plummer lead the team (though is now working on the Radeon side of things). You don't have to take my word for it, as AMD have confirmed all this many times:

Clark is currently working on the Zen 5 architecture due a few years down the line.

I recall Keller being far more interested in talking about K12 in an interview way back, seeming somewhat un-enthused about the underdevelopment x86 architecture.

Dredging up the old memories, I recall AMD's plan was for a uncore design to be relatively interchangeable for use with both x86 and ARM cores. Implementation and a lot of groundwork would no doubt be different but if that was how it was intended, then even if K12 was Keller's primary focus I doubt he would not have serious input and be responsible for some pretty fundamental design choices that influenced Zen.

AndreiD · 26 Apr 2018 at 19:07

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/jim-keller-joins-intel-lead-silicon-engineering/
Confirmed by Intel!
Seems they're recruiting all semiconductor talent they can get, but I'm not sure Zen is to blame, their revenue and margins were still holding strong despite AMD bringing in the heat.
Having Intel's R&D budget and talent at his disposal must be something of a dream come true for Keller, he can literally do anything at Intel.

Zeed · 26 Apr 2018 at 23:17

Boomstick777 said:
Makes you think, with Keller joining Intel. Intel really are worried about Ryzen. AMD woke Intel up. Now just need to do the same with DGPU, although the evil green empire is trying to stop them at every turn with dirty business tactics xD Might be harder than ever for AMD to compete in GPU space.

If nv really would want to finish amd gpus off they could slash prices by 50 bucks on all cards. Afaik amd cards cost more to produce so that would be it. Good for amd they went gpp way not price drop way.

Interesting times ahead in cpu department.
In Gpu hmm nothing 2 wait for another volta killer on 7nm next year by then nv shoukd have something faster than titan v on market.... I hope.

Cooper · 27 Apr 2018 at 13:15

I suspect they want Keller to work on the latency issues Intel are having with their inter connectors on the ever increasing core counts of CPU's.

The Ryzen design is ahead of Intel in this respect.

AndreiD · 27 Apr 2018 at 14:08

@Cooper their mesh is quite a bit lower latency than AMD's infinity fabric, if Keller is going to work on anything then it's probably going to be a new uarch.
AMD's fabric latency between dies on the same package is higher than Intel's socket to socket latency in a 4P configuration, as seen in this article. It's probably one of the reasons why Epyc hasn't really been able to make inroads in the server market.

iakhtar · 27 Apr 2018 at 15:01

I'm thinking new uarch too, going to be a very interesting couple of years coming up

solado · 27 Apr 2018 at 15:52

Boomstick777 said:
This is fine, AMD can just re hire him after his stint with Intel xD

Pretty much this.

It's not uncommon for people with talent in an industry to bounce between the top companies as they offer bigger and bigger pay checks.

Perfect_Chaos · 27 Apr 2018 at 16:23

Ocean Cove, that's what Forbes says anyway.

smilingcrow · 27 Apr 2018 at 20:06

MrRobot said:
AMD need to ramp up core count fast, 6 core CCX if possible @7nm, beyond 7nm, 8 core CCX.

6 core is the strong rumour and would be slightly conservative considering they are moving from 14 to 7nm which could allow them to double the core count and still have a smaller die.
6 core gives them more room to compete at lower price points with a much smaller die than Zen 1.
Note that Zen+ is the same size as Zen even though it is a small shrink as it has more dark silicon.
I'm not sure than an Intel 8C @10nm will compete well overall with a Zen 2 12C @7nm.
The core count advantage increases from 33% to 50% which is a 50% jump.
An 8C CCX on mainstream AM4 pushes it into i9 territory with TR2 becoming a 64 thread monster.
My bet is on a 6C CCX.

DragonQ · 27 Apr 2018 at 20:35

If they did manage 8 core CCXs they may well split their lineup a bit: <=8 cores for gaming (reduced latency, no inter-CCX issues) and >8 cores for workstations. I think 6 cores is more realistic though.