AMD and Rumors and Nvidia

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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/18/the-big-rumor-that-caused-tr…

Remember the above rumor back in May, not true. I know there was at least one other rumor, but cannot recall it now that was completely denied as well.

Now we have rumor that AMD IP is being considered or maybe even used by former AMD chid designer, now Tesla chip designer.

This usual short (and he has lost his shirt on a few shorts in the last year or two) but surprisingly turned utterly bullish on Nvidia earlier this year, as a change in his usual MO, says whoa, wait a minute:

http://www.barrons.com/articles/amd-dead-on-departure-in-a-i…

This AMD thing, uh uh, not a chance.

Rut ro?

It technically makes sense that Tesla might need to use the IP from other companies, and in particular since their head tech guy in regard is from AMD, it is probably IP that he worked on himself while at AMD, so it is natural it would become part of his work. That makes sense.

It makes some sense (not as much) but some sense, that Tesla may be working on an ASIC to meet some future or current autonomous driving need. Albeit, why a company burning through this much case would do so in-house seems rather extreme. Nvidia spent $3 billion developing their latest flagship AI chip. But leave it to Mush to find a loop hole in physics somewhere to have it makes sense.

But it does not make sense that AMD would have ore AI IP, or better autonomous driving IP than Nvidia. It also makes no sense that Tesla would suddenly turn to AMD when they have a 5 year contract I believe it is, with Tesla, and Tesla has years of experience investing in AI and autonomous driving that AMD does not.

I also see many other opinions and facts have begun pouring in on the subject (to be reviewed) but to this point, I don’t recall seeing a single confirmation of this, yet another AMD rumor.

Another day in the market, a market full of shysters, and thieves, and snake oil salesmen, and then there are the rest of us little old fools just trying to successfully invest a little.

Tinker

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https://www.autoblog.com/2017/09/21/tesla-amd-artificial-int…

In fact denial, rather complete denial, from the fabricator of AMD chips.

Tinker

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Tinker,
Last I read, both TSLA and AMD refused to comment on “rumors.” If they did, they’d probably have to hire a few FTE just to address them.

Meanwhile, there’s been some backing away or qualification or denial of the original comment.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3296918-amd-partner-denies-tes…

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It is possible, but how likely is it that Tesla took sampling of AMD chips from a foundry that is not the foundry that AMD uses for their own chips if their IP is underlying the chip? I don’t know, you tell me, I am not a chip designer (probably should have been, but another lifetime. These chip designers are almost like gods it seems - if they are any good).

Further, as I discussed on the New Paradigm board a bit, even at the June, 2017 trade show, where all the big chip companies showed up, AMD was finally putting forward its entry into the AI field, but there was no mention of autonomous driving, whereas Nvidia was all over autonomous driving at the trade show.

Does it make sense, given that Mobileeye/Intel and Nvidia have years of experience and actual product in autonomous driving, and yet Tesla is going to go with AMD, a product (if it exists) that has only just been born no later than last year, with 0 time in the field, no prototypes until now, and is going to displace Nvidia?!?

Like I said, it is Musk, so who knows, but this absolutely makes no sense, this rumor. And AMD is full of false rumors. This is because AMD is the most full of hope stock in the entire stock market. It has had it for decades. Why? Because AMD is always "cheap’ and yet the markets it is in have utterly enormous TAMS (they are Intel’s CPU market, and Nvidia’s GPU market) and all investors think is that AMD needs just take 10% market share from one of these companies and like OMG! Or so goes the thought process.

So here, AMD taking over Tesla…were rich! Is how it goes.

I will not rule anything out, but yeah, there is little analysis that makes it credible, and no sourcing revealed, and finally an utter denial by the AMD foundry.

Ah, will move on and see what may or may not come of it.

Tinker

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I thought it was crazy also until I remembered that Jim Keller was hired by tesla in 2016. He was the chip designer responsible for the AMD K8 architecture (remember athlon 64?) which was wildly successful. He was then hired by apple to develop their in house chip design. He got them started with the a4/a5 and set them on the path for future processors. I can’t overstate how groundbreaking it was at the time for apple to begin designing their own processors. They went from being a company that only used other peoples processors to design processors that outperformed all the mobile competition. He then returned to AMD to develop the Zen architecture which has single handedly resurrected AMD desktop/server processor business. He also did their hypertransport development which is what has allowed these massive core counts from AMD. On top of that he co-authored the x86-64 instruction set which toppled intel itanium. This guy has had a massive impact. Everything he touches turns into gold. Long story short he now heads autopilot engineering at tesla and has strong ties with AMD. So yes, I can see tesla having a deal with AMD, and yes I think it could be big.

-ethan

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