AMD’s Fifth Column Lead by Former Intel Fellow

AMD executives recently disclosed that they were working on two brand new MPU designs, in addition to everything already in their pipeline. One design is targeted for mobile products, the other for servers. One of the two will also be modified for use in desktop systems. Given that AMD is also working on the K8L, which is slated for release in 2007, we were curious where they had managed to find the design resources for these projects. The answer lies in Fort Collins, the epicenter of Intel’s Itanium design efforts.

We recently learned that Sam Naffziger, formerly an Intel Fellow and Director of Itanium Circuits and Technology, has departed from Intel. Before leaving, he was responsible for the design of Montecito (a dual core, dual threaded Itanium processor), which has been delayed by nearly a year due to problems with an extremely interesting and aggressive dynamic feedback mechanism, codenamed Foxton. Foxton integrated an on-die ammeter that measures current, and a microcontroller that can dynamically adjust voltage and frequency based on measured results. Naffziger joined AMD in late February or early March, and will help start a Fort Collins design center.

AMD initially aims to hire 30 designers in Fort Collins, but will increase the head count to 200 if there are enough interested engineers. Managers from AMD moved to the area in early January to set up an office; they have posted ads in the local paper also held a job fair.

The real question is what the team at AMD’s Fort Collins design center focus on. Considering that most of the engineers in the area have worked on PA-RISC or Itanium, it seems reasonable to expect that they will concentrate on the server side, rather than on desktop or mobile MPUs. Either way, this should open up some interesting possibilities for AMD, and some new opportunities for Colorado residents.