AMD Zen 2 nm architecture starts with EPYC CPUs - Talks 5nm also

The second quarter results for AMD ended strong, during the Q2 presentations the company also talked about upcoming products a bit. That includes the first 7nm processors based on the Zen 2 architecture.

 Lisa Su has confirmed that the Epyc family for servers will be released initially, and Ryzen 3rd gen will follow shortly after. AMD CEO Lisa Su announced that the sampling of the first Zen-2 processors already has recently begun, which would be the server chip Rome, that is to succeed Naples in the Epyc family in 2019. During Computex last June, AMD had already announced the first functional chips from Zen 2 for servers.

7-nanometer EPYC processor with Zen 2, code-named Rome, in the second quarter. And the quality and bring-up has gone very well. I am happy to report that we have just started sampling in 2019, strengthening our already outstanding competitive position in the market.

Many roads may lead to it, but when exactly Rome will reach the market in the coming year remains to be seen. However, in the question and answer session after the quarterly conference, Lisa Su made it clear that Zen 2 would first join the Epyc server family. followed by consumer products of the Ryzen family at 7 nm.

For what we know, third Ryzen generation (Ryzen 3000) have codename Matisse and are the successors of Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2000). An unofficial roadmap had already pointed to Matisse in the fall of 2017 with Zen 2 in 2019.

Thank you. Lisa, a couple of questions. The timing of the Ryzen version of 7-nanometer after EPYC, when will that happen in 2019? Is that the quarter or six months? Just the timing. And then the second question is how many of the mega data center guys are you actually engaged with the moment? Thanks.

Hans Mosesmann - Rosenblatt Securities, Inc. (via Seeking Alpha)

Yeah, okay. So, Hans, on the timing of the 7-nanometer Ryzen, I would just keep it as it's after the 7-nanometer EPYC. So we'll launch 7-nanometer EPYC first. I would not say, it's very far out, but I would say it's after. And then, in terms of mega data centers, we are engaged with all of them in some way, shape or form across CPU and GPU. On the CPU standpoint, I would say, we are heavily engaged with five.

Lisa T. Su - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (via Seeking Alpha)

7 nm in, first look at 5 nm

Lisa Su also hinted at the future. Thus, there are likely to be several 7nm versions (optimizations) before switching to 5nm. AMD had a first look at 5 nm and assumes that this process will be "very competitive ". 

What we see in the foundry roadmap is actually a very nice cadence of technologies. So we do believe 7-nanometer wants a large node. There will be derivatives of 7-nanometer, 7-nanometer, 7-nanometer plus. 5-nanometer and 5-nanometer is very competitive as well. So again, our goal is to use the best of the technology can offer in the foundry market, and then differentiate on architecture, and product positioning, and those kinds of things.

Lisa T. Su - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (via Seeking Alpha)