AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx • Hacker News Board

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#21

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

lnsru wrote: post #8

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

If I have one wish for AMD, I wish that they would make FPGAs (and Xilinx) a more open and diverse platform like the PC. Not that the PC is perfect (there's still closed-source firmware), but any improvement to the current state of FPGAs would be welcomed.

What’s wrong with current state except that the chips have lead time of 52+ weeks?

The development side. Compiling and simulating your Verilog/VHDL can be done with open source software, but to put it on the FPGA itself, you generally need closed source (and sometimes paid) tools to generate the bitstreams. Contrast that with microcontrollers such as the ATMega which can be programmed from start to finish using an entirely FOSS stack - even the bootloader and programmer. And for some reason, these companies consider the bitstream formats trade secrets and refuse to document them at all.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#22

Post by ZetaZero » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

chomp wrote: post #11

CountSessine wrote: post #7

Why? Has Intel done anything with Altera? I’m curious. AMD’s acquisition of ATI is generally viewed as a strategic error. Does this make more sense?

> AMD’s acquisition of ATI is generally viewed as a strategic error. Historically it was (when AMD was drowning in debt from the acquisition and had no competitive processors on the timeline), but is this still true? For instance, all of the major game consoles (ps4/ps5/xbone/xbox series x/switch) use AMD boards, and as I recall, those deals lifted the company's financials quite well.

It's complicated. The margins on console chips are lower than PC margins. When AMD had spare capacity (GloFo), that was great. But with everyone at TSMC and AMD demand high, those wafers could be used for more profitable chips. But the console deals definitely helped AMD in the dire times.

IMO, the strategic error was AMD paying a bunch of cash for ATI, instead of an all stock deal. In 2006, with their stock near the all time high (~$40) AMD decided to borrow $2B instead. Six months later, AMD is issuing shares at $14 to meet expenses. Two years later, AMD is trading at $1.50, and on the verge of bankruptcy. In retrospect, AMD's outcome could have been vastly different if they had done the all-stock deal in 2006, or even issued shares instead of borrowing.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#23

Post by stefan_ » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

chomp wrote: post #11

CountSessine wrote: post #7

Why? Has Intel done anything with Altera? I’m curious. AMD’s acquisition of ATI is generally viewed as a strategic error. Does this make more sense?

> AMD’s acquisition of ATI is generally viewed as a strategic error. Historically it was (when AMD was drowning in debt from the acquisition and had no competitive processors on the timeline), but is this still true? For instance, all of the major game consoles (ps4/ps5/xbone/xbox series x/switch) use AMD boards, and as I recall, those deals lifted the company's financials quite well.

Console deals are terrible margin - there is a reason AMD won all those deals. If you have competitive chips, you would rather use your silicon otherwise.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#24

Post by smoldesu » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

libertine wrote: post #18

KeyBoardG wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, although Switch uses NVidia Tegra, not AMD this generation.

For now they do, honestly it would make more sense to maybe consider an AMD SoC.

It's interesting to think about. I'm not so sure myself; yes, an AMD chip would probably yield better GPU performance, but people forget that Nvidia just flat-out has the better software stack. Would games like Red Faction have made it to Switch without CUDA physics? Would No Man's Sky be viable on Switch without leveraging it's massive optimization stack for Nvidia hardware? How about the Borderlands collection and it's extensive use of PhysX?

I can see where the case for AMD could be made (the Steam Deck's APU is truly impressive), but I think Nintendo has invested pretty heavily into the Nvidia stack at this point. The Tegra boards that they made the original Switches with were left over from the Nvidia Shield; nobody was sure if the concept would take off or not. Now that the Switch has outsold the Wii, I'd imagine Nvidia and Nintendo are working very closely to design a successor to the chip, even if it's not going to be a mobile console.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#25

Post by enragedcacti » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

libertine wrote: post #18

KeyBoardG wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, although Switch uses NVidia Tegra, not AMD this generation.

For now they do, honestly it would make more sense to maybe consider an AMD SoC.

I would be a little surprised if they switched off of ARM. Even the Steam Deck with its custom AMD SoC is much closer to laptop specs and wattages than the switch e.g. 20w+ SoC, more than 2x battery capacity vs Switch. The switch has a lot more in common with phones than it does with other consoles or PC portables so IDK if we will see AMD SoCs with the right power profile for nintendo's needs.

Nintendo could use one of the new Samsung SoCs with RDNA2 graphics though. Those could be pretty good competition for Tegra X* chips.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#26

Post by wheybags » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

ZetaZero wrote: post #22

chomp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AMD’s acquisition of ATI is generally viewed as a strategic error. Historically it was (when AMD was drowning in debt from the acquisition and had no competitive processors on the timeline), but is this still true? For instance, all of the major game consoles (ps4/ps5/xbone/xbox series x/switch) use AMD boards, and as I recall, those deals lifted the company's financials quite well.

It's complicated. The margins on console chips are lower than PC margins. When AMD had spare capacity (GloFo), that was great. But with everyone at TSMC and AMD demand high, those wafers could be used for more profitable chips. But the console deals definitely helped AMD in the dire times. IMO, the strategic error was AMD paying a bunch of cash for ATI, instead of an all stock deal. In 2006, with their stock near the…

It's possible they offered shares behind closed doors and were turned down though.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#27

Post by libertine » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

enragedcacti wrote: post #25

libertine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now they do, honestly it would make more sense to maybe consider an AMD SoC.

I would be a little surprised if they switched off of ARM. Even the Steam Deck with its custom AMD SoC is much closer to laptop specs and wattages than the switch e.g. 20w+ SoC, more than 2x battery capacity vs Switch. The switch has a lot more in common with phones than it does with other consoles or PC portables so IDK if we will see AMD SoCs with the right power profile for nintendo's needs. Nintendo could use one…

I said that it would make more sense because they would open their platform to a lot more games, maybe it would cut a lot of dev work, and they'd might to it with competitive prices (like the Steam Deck has shown).

Now, Nintendo doesn't care much about that because they're into their own thing, they don't even see themselves as a tech or gaming company, the position themselves as an entertainment company.

Like, I think they see themselves closer to Disney than to Sony Computer Entertainment.

About the power profile, the switch came out with around 2h-3h battery life while gaming, depending on the game of course, I don't think it would be much of a problem.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#28

Post by libertine » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #24

libertine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now they do, honestly it would make more sense to maybe consider an AMD SoC.

It's interesting to think about. I'm not so sure myself; yes, an AMD chip would probably yield better GPU performance, but people forget that Nvidia just flat-out has the better software stack. Would games like Red Faction have made it to Switch without CUDA physics? Would No Man's Sky be viable on Switch without leveraging it's massive optimization stack for Nvidia hardware? How about the Borderlands collection and…

Yeah, but even if you missed on some of those games that were made with the help of marketing budgets from NVIDIA (to use such proprietary tech), would on the other hand opened potentially the door to thousands of other games (if they went the x86 rout).

Probably one the of the best things that happened to the gamedevs, console wise, was Microsoft and Sony going for x86 and AMD SoC.

What you're saying, which is true, is that Nintendo likes to cut costs and it's cheap on the hardware they use because they care more about the content for their IP, not much for the tech behind it. They could keep stretching the switch for 3/5 or more years if they wanted to.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#29

Post by rjsw » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

If I have one wish for AMD, I wish that they would make FPGAs (and Xilinx) a more open and diverse platform like the PC. Not that the PC is perfect (there's still closed-source firmware), but any improvement to the current state of FPGAs would be welcomed.

I was productive using the previous generation Xilinx toolchain (ISE) within a few months of starting from scratch. I had hobbyist electronics experience but other than that was coming from a pure software background.

Re: AMD Receives Approval for Acquisition of Xilinx

#30

Post by enragedcacti » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #24

libertine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now they do, honestly it would make more sense to maybe consider an AMD SoC.

It's interesting to think about. I'm not so sure myself; yes, an AMD chip would probably yield better GPU performance, but people forget that Nvidia just flat-out has the better software stack. Would games like Red Faction have made it to Switch without CUDA physics? Would No Man's Sky be viable on Switch without leveraging it's massive optimization stack for Nvidia hardware? How about the Borderlands collection and…

> Would No Man's Sky be viable on Switch without leveraging it's massive optimization stack for Nvidia hardware? How about the Borderlands collection and it's extensive use of PhysX?

To be fair, developers have been making games run on underspecced AMD hardware for more than a decade at this point between the XBox One and PS4, and any games coming to PC have to have AMD alternatives to CUDA physics, PhysX, etc. anyway.

Also, its not like the AAA ports have been without issues, many of them run poorly and look pretty awful compared to first party efforts like BotW. Their optimization stack might be amazing, but recycling the shield SoC AND underclocking it is definitely causing some pain.

It does seem like Nintendo has buddied up to NVidia more than console manufacturers usually do so I think its likely they stick with NVidia but I wouldn't write off the possibility entirely, especially since AMD seems so willing to please with custom solutions even for much lower volume products like the Steam Deck.