[H] Reports Rick Bergman fired..

[red1776]

Well this may explain quite a lot
From HardOCP:

AMD Fires Rick Bergman Under Cloud of Mystery

Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager at AMD has been fired according to HardOCP sources. AMD has given no reason as to why the well seasoned Bergman was leaving his position. It was told to us that Bergman had interviewed for the just-filled CEO position months back at AMD and had been turned down. Since then we have been lead to understand that AMD has lowered the boom on Bergman for not managing the GlobalFoundries relationship properly. Sources tell us that GlobalFoundries is simply not up to the task of supplying AMD its needed parts and Bergman is first in line when it comes to the responsibility of making sure AMD is sourced properly. We understand that Bergman will be the first of the dominoes to fall.



Rick Bergman is senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s products group, with responsibility for delivering AMD’s computing platforms and managing the graphics and microprocessor product development teams.



I first met Rick a bit over 10 years ago. Rick was a hell of a nice guy and we wish him the best.

The announcement can be seen here:
http://hardocp.com/

...And Tweak Town is reporting that he has resigned...
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/20864/amd_s_head_of_products_group_rick_bergman_resigns/index.html

 

[Route44]

Yes, it most certainly does. I also believe that their new CEO sized up AMD's situation and is fast clearing house and setting up his own team. He has to have the freedom and the guts to do this because AMD certainly could not and will not survive unless tough decisions are made with vision, mission and purpose cast and revitalized.

Plus, it wasn't only the BD delays. The 6970 and 6990 cards are in high demand, especially in the mobile gaming sector but many custom builds are being delayed because laptop manufacture's are waiting on their orders, especially the 6990M to be delivered. This is some seriously lost revenue because Nvidia rules the mobile gaming sector but AMD was making some serious inroads until these shortages hit.

PC Perspective had an article last week entitled, "Where have all the 6970 cards gone?"

I can also see AMD and GloFlo on a collision course with the former needing their own factories/foundaries. But that is going to take a ton of $ which AMD has nigh little of.

 

[red1776]

I agree. That article ""Where have all the 6970 cards gone?" was actually a month ago, and they have been stocked again, but yeah it's been nothing but delay, out of stock , and problems with their chip supplier (GloFlo). I think he is getting his own team in place post haste. I think it is fascinating that AMD has had a lot of failure over the last 5-6 years, but they seem ill equipped to deal with successes. They seem to have rested on their laurels after they one upped Intel with the x64 k-8/k-10 Hyper-transport architecture. I am starting to get the impression that Bulldozer is not going to hit its stride until its second incarnation (Volan/Vishera) $245 for the flagship is not good news.

 

[Route44]

I couldn't agree with you more especially about BD hitting it's stride in it's second generation. Like I PM'd you earlier BD needs to fall in-between the i5 2500K and the i7 2600K for it to do well. If it can do that it will help immeasurably.

So, that article was a month old; strange, it feels like I just read it. :blackeye:

 

[Ritwik7]

The Intel i7 2700K arrives next month. Competition is getting tougher. The Fusion APUs were a step in the right direction but I still don't see Bulldozer upping the i5 2500K in it's first iteration. Just like in the case of the Phenoms, the second generation chips were much better compared to the first. I was pretty sure that AMD would dominate the market in terms of price vs. performance when I first saw how the X3 720 and X4 955 delivered. That was till the i5 760 hit shelves.

However, the BD architecture has been something that I have been looking forward to over the past couple of years. Awaiting benchmarks. If nothing else, I'm expecting interesting results.

 

[Archean]

Add to this the fact that GPU on IVB CPUs will nearly double the performance of each EU (along with the 33% increase in the execution hardware) probably mean that IVB will be relatively closer to Liano when it comes to GPU performance, which is pretty decent achievement in itself. I think in next two years on-chip GPU performance probably will be similar, which could mean further trouble for AMD, in addition to the issue of them struggling with improving their CPU performance. Personally I would like AMD to improve their game and at least give Intel a good run for their money.

 

[dividebyzero]

Add to this the fact that GPU on IVB CPUs will nearly double the performance of each EU (along with the 33% increase in the execution hardware) probably mean that IVB will be relatively closer to Liano when it comes to GPU performance, which is pretty decent achievement in itself.

True enough.
AMD-philes (and the company officers via various forums) a very quick to recite the mantra that AMD CPU's are "fast enough" for most customers uses- a convenient fallback position when you not market/performance leader- yet cannot/ will not -make the same distinction regarding graphics. For the majority of users, 3D gaming doesn't register anywhere on their list of priorities. So long as the machine can 1. display video content, and 2. can do so with the minimum of driver glitches, the majority of desktop- and the vast majority of portable- system owners are going to be satisfied with the feature set.

AMD at present seem to be fully engaged in playing the blame game. GloFo for crappy yields, TSMC for constained wafer starts (graphics), Dirk for emphasising server and performance desktop. Add in the defections of Bergman, VerHeul and an ever increasing cast of players, and it seems as though AMD is being made over in the image of the BoD (bean-counters) and out with the engineering.

I give it eighteen months before AMD are better known for producing focus-group whitepaper wielding middle-managers than innovative technical design.

 

[dividebyzero]

Rick Bergman takes the reins at Synaptics