Signs tip up that AMD is heading for a server push

CHIP DESIGNER AMD seems to be planning a big campaign to get its processors under the bonnets of servers again.

Chimpzilla wants to gain back some of the ground it lost to Intel in the server market. A few years ago it caught Intel by surprise by creating its Opteron server products that allowed it to be competitive on Intel's turf. All of the top OEMs including IBM, HP and Dell bunged AMD chips into servers and flogged them to corporations.

The move left Intel stunned and it took Chipzilla nearly a year to catch up and take the server crown back from AMD again. Many have been waiting to see what the next move will be.

Obviously Bulldozer, which is being hyped by the IT press at the moment, will be AMD's next champion, but it will take a lot more than a good product to knock Intel out of the top slot. In fact Intel has a few ideas on that front involving its Atom chip that might make buyers think twice.

Already the tech press is expecting a lot from Bulldozer, but AMD has learned that technology is not enough to hold onto the market.

It seems that this time AMD is not just going to burst onto the scene with new technology and hope it succeeds. It appears to be planning the ground a lot more carefully.

In a prelude to the attack, it seems that AMD has gone headhunting, taking staff from both Nvidia and Intel.

The outfit recently hired former Intel senior principal engineer Donald Newell, who according to Rick Bergman, SVP and general manager of AMD's products group will bring a "strong combination of leadership skills, engineering and design expertise and strategic direction".

Other than Bulldozer there also appears to be something happening in AMD's GPU arm to counter anything that might come out of Intel based around cheap banks of Atom chips in server farms.

It is to be expected that the ATI arm of AMD will lose its identity as its technology gets pushed into servers and mixed CPU and GPU products, and AMD has already announced as much.

It also appears that AMD is preparing other technology improvements that will act as side salads to make the Bulldozer meal.

Xbit labs seems to think that the Bulldozer chip armed with its Turbocore feature to counter the Turbo mode of Intel's chips will be effective in the server market.

AMD said that this will translate into a big boost in performance when using single threaded applications, and there should be some interesting capabilities for heavier workloads.

All of this indicates some careful planning by AMD. It looks like Chimpzilla is planning a long campaign to take some server market share back from Intel and keep it. µ