AMD on track to increase instructions per clock tick of 40 percent for Zen

AMD says it is on track to achieve the previously claimed 40 percent increase in instructions per tick with the Zen architecture. That said the manufacturer when announcing the quarterly figures. AMD suffered another loss in the quarter.

The first Zen processors will be available in 2016, but will only make a noticeable contribution to sales in 2017. “We believe they will see AMD return to the mainstream server and high-end client markets in a significant way in 2017,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said in a statement. Zen is a completely new architecture that should ensure that 40 percent more instructions can be handled per clock tick than the Excavator cores can handle.

AMD also confirms that a new GPU generation will be released next year whose performance per watt is twice as high as with the current offering. The reason for the significant increase in the efficiency of the coming GPUs must be sought in changes to the architecture, but also in the fact that AMD will have the chips made using a FinFET process.

AMD’s third-quarter revenue fell from $1.43 billion to $1.06 billion, equivalent to $1.26 billion and $933 million, respectively. The loss was $197 million. The Computing and Graphics branch is still struggling. The introduction of new video cards such as the R9 Fury and new Carrizo processors resulted in an increase in turnover compared to the previous quarter. However, sales did not increase enough to increase sales from a year ago: sales of the Computing and Graphic division fell from $781 million to $424 million.

AMD also starts a joint venture Nantong Fujitsu Microelectronics. The remaining part of the chip production facilities will be transferred to the joint venture. In addition, the company will focus on the packaging and testing of chips. The divestiture will bring AMD $320 million and will also transfer 1,700 employees from the company to the joint venture.