AMD: Zen is Alive, Zen is on Track

After first revealing Zen to the public earlier this year, AMD has released an update for their much-anticipated architecture. Speaking to the public at Computex, CEO Lisa Su provided a number of key updates, mainly on the timeline and production.

According to AMD, Zen has received samples back from the fab several months ago, likely around the time of the first public reveal. Since then, AMD has been working on improving and iterating on their architecture. AMD also has working silicon to show off, with CEO Lisa Su waving a Zen CPU to the crowd. These working engineering samples were also reliable enough to run the demos at the event and render video.

AMD has also confirmed that Zen will feature 8 cores and 16 threads with SMT for their Summit Ridge platform. The goal is still 40% IPC increase over Bristol Ridge which is already well ahead of where Bulldozer was all those years ago. The socket will also be AM4 meaning DDR4 and likely cooler compatibility. The 40% IPC goal is also that much higher due to the improvements the 7th generation APUs have brought.

Over the next few weeks, AMD will start sampling chips to select partners with wider sampling for the rest of Q3. Given this timeline, I expect that we will see Zen arrive to market sometime in early Q4. With only a few months to go, I can’t wait to see what AMD will be offering in their return to the high-end market.