Latest Company Press Releases

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — April 26, 2010 — Following the launch of the ATI FirePro™ V8800, the industry’s most powerful professional graphics card ever created3, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced new additions to its next-generation ATI FirePro™ family – ATI FirePro™ V7800, ATI FirePro™ V5800, ATI FirePro™ V4800, and ATI FirePro™ V3800 – offering professionals in the digital content creation (DCC) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) industries advanced performance and features at every price point. AMD also announced the ATI FirePro™ 2460 Multi-View, a low profile, quad display graphics solution designed for financial institutions. These latest ATI FirePro solutions are expected to be available from HP, CDW, Newegg, Tiger Direct and other online retailers.

“AMD’s new ATI FirePro workstation graphics cards are the world’s first workstation class graphics cards to support up to four monitors on a single card – enabling increased productivity for professional graphics users,” said Janet Matsuda, senior director, Professional Graphics, AMD. “Our new ATI FirePro family delivers new value at every price point.”

“HP’s workstation customers are professionals at the top of their games who demand the latest technologies with the best possible performance,” said Jeff Wood, director, Worldwide Marketing, Workstations, HP. “HP recently expanded its workstation lineup to provide customers with an option for every need. Combined with our powerful HP Workstations, this new generation of ATI FirePro graphics cards delivers exceptional solutions that enable higher productivity levels for our customers at every stage of the game.”

The next generation of the ATI FirePro family of professional graphics cards is designed to meet the specific needs of each market segment. The cards have been tested in real-world scenarios to help ensure compatibility and stability for certification with many leading software applications. Each card supports Microsoft® DirectX®11, OpenGL® 4.0 and OpenCL™ along with ATI Eyefinity technology – providing professionals with the ability to expand their display resolution for increased productivity.

• High-end: With 2GB of GDDR5 memory, the ATI FirePro V7800 offers superior performance capabilities1 and visual quality in a compact single slot form factor. Its massively parallel architecture can handle computationally or visually demanding applications without negatively impacting performance. With ATI Eyefinity technology, professionals can drive up to three independent 30” displays at one time.

• Mid-range: The ATI FirePro V5800 is a true workhorse and offers professionals the perfect balance of price and performance. Featuring 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and support for up to three independent displays through ATI Eyefinity technology, the ATI FirePro V5800 delivers more than double the performance capability of the previous generation.

• Entry-level: The ATI FirePro V4800 features 1GB of GDD5 memory and delivers 1.25X the performance capability compared to the previous generation, with outstanding results for entry-level CAD users with up to three display support through ATI Eyefinity technology, all at value level pricing. With 512 MB of DDR3 memory and a 30-bit display pipeline7that offers accurate color reproduction and exceptional visual quality, the ATI FirePro V3800 brings dramatic performance and to entry-level 3D graphics professionals.

The ATI FirePro 2460 Multi-View is a low profile, quad display graphics solution designed to improve the visual experience for financial traders while simultaneously helping to reduce power and cooling costs for some of the world’s largest financial institutions. With an average board power consumption of 13W, ATI FirePro 2460 is designed to meet the performance and productivity requirements of enterprise environments without increasing the power consumption needs of users while offering the capability to support multi-monitor ATI Eyefinity technology.

AMD First with Top-to-Bottom OpenGL^® 4.0 and 3.3
Support on Windows^® and Linux Platforms

 AMD continues its commitment to OpenGL community with wide-ranging driver support across ATI Radeon™, ATI FirePro™
and ATI FireGL™ graphics cards

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Apr. 5, 2010 — AMD (NYSE: AMD) today continued its proud tradition of driver firsts, announcing widespread support of the recently-published OpenGL^® versions for Windows^® 7, Windows^® Vista, Windows^® XP, and Linux^® across select ATI Radeon™, ATI FirePro™ and ATI FireGL™ graphics cards.  OpenGL^® 4.0 is now supported on ATI Radeon™  HD 5900, HD 5800, HD 5700, HD 5600, HD 5500 and HD 5400 series graphics cards, and OpenGL^® 3.3 is supported by all discrete graphics products from AMD – both consumer and professional graphics – released since the spring of 2007.  The new functionality is made possible by a beta driver, available on the AMD website.

“AMD’s ability to support OpenGL 4.0 and OpenGL 3.3 almost immediately after the release of their specifications is an incredible feat on the part of our OpenGL software team, and speaks volumes to the commitment and continued support for the many developers utilizing OpenGL,” said Ben Bar-Haim, general manager, AMD Canada and corporate vice president, Software Engineering, AMD.  “As a company that believes in and encourages open industry standards, maintaining OpenGL as a strong and viable graphics API is very important to AMD.”

AMD’s beta driver for OpenGL 4.0 and 3.3 includes:

Full compatibility with the OpenGL 4.0 standard on AMD’s most recent graphics products, the ATI Radeon™ HD 5900, HD 5800, HD 5700,  HD 5600, HD 5500 and HD 5400 series:

o    Offloading of geometry tessellation from the CPU to the GPU, for a more flexible and productive workflow

o    On the ATI Radeon HD 5800 and HD 5900 series graphics cards, double precision processing, designed to enable more accurate modeling and higher quality rendering, applicable to both consumer and workstation uses¹

o    Seamless interoperability between OpenGL and OpenCL™, or other external APIs

·         Support for OpenGL 3.3 functionality across all of AMD’s discrete graphics products – ATI Radeon™, ATI FirePro™ and ATI FireGL™ graphics cards – released since the spring of 2007 

Supporting Resources

• AMD.com: ATI Catalyst™ OpenGL^® 4.0 beta driver download
• AMD Developer Central blog: Ready, Willing and Able – AMD Supports OpenGL^® 3.3 and OpenGL^® 4.0

·         Khronos Group press release: Khronos Unleashes Cutting-Edge, Cross-Platform Graphics Acceleration with OpenGL 4.0
Twitter: Tweet out the news of AMD’s OpenGL 4.0 and 3.3 support
Twitter: Follow AMD graphics news on Twitter at @ATIGraphics
Facebook: Become a fan of AMD technology on Facebook

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

^1. OpenGL 4.0 is fully supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5400, HD 5500, HD 5600 and HD 5700 series graphics cards, with the exception of double precision feature, a feature that will be enabled for those products at a later date.

WD® LAUNCHES NEWEST WD VELOCIRAPTOR® – THE WORLD’S FASTEST SATA HARD DRIVE NOW HAS TWICE THE CAPACITY

10,000 RPM, 2.5-inch, 600 GB, 6 Gb/s SATA Hard Drive Delivers High Performance and Capacity for Both Enthusiast and Enterprise Customers

LAKE FOREST, CALIF. – Apr. 6, 2010 – WD® (NYSE: WDC) announced today that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor® 450 GB and 600 GB hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA family of hard drives. The new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is designed for blade servers, high-performance PCs, Mac® computers, professional workstations, as well as 1U and 2U rack servers that require a balance of high performance and capacity. As the only 10,000 RPM SATA hard drive on the market today, and a favorite amongst enthusiast and enterprise groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive now comes packed with twice the capacity and up to 15% performance increase over the previous generation.

 The most popular hard drive for high-performance enthusiasts who demand the ultimate SATA drive, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive is built with enterprise-class mechanics that provide 24x7 durability under high-performance demands and packs up to 600 GB of capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor. The WD VelociRaptor drive is also available in the IcePack™[1] enclosure, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink – a factory customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps this powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop chassis and 3.5-inch HDD form factor enterprise chassis.

“WD is a leader in the performance and reliability of enterprise SATA hard drives,” said Tom McDorman, Vice President and General Manager of WD's enterprise business unit. “Demand for performance combined with an increase in capacity continues to rise and WD is the leader in this category. WD customers can rely on the new WD VelociRaptor to deliver high performance under the harshest conditions, while continuing to keep user data safe.”

Features of the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:

• Killer speed – SATA 6 Gb/s interface and 32 MB cache enhance the next generation 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor making it up to 15% faster than the award-winning previous generation.
• Monstrous capacity – WD VelociRaptor SATA drives are available in capacities up to 600 GB, double the capacity of the previous generation.
• Rock-solid reliability – Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive.
• Ultra-cool operation – Consumes no more power than the previous generation WD VelociRaptor while offering double the capacity and higher performance.
• IcePack mounting frame – The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor is enclosed in a backplane-ready 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed in high-performance desktop chassis.
• Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) – Optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.
• NoTouch™ ramp load technology – The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit.
• Environmentally conscious – In addition to being ROHS compliant, this generation of WD VelociRaptor is also a halogen-free design.

Price and Availability
 WD VelociRaptor (model WD4500HLHX and WD6000HLHX – 3.5-inch version with IcePack) hard drives are available now at select distributors and resellers. WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch hard drives (model WD4500BLHX and WD6000BLHX) are under evaluation with OEM customers and will be available through select commercial distributors within this quarter. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 450 GB (model WD4500HLHX) is $299 USD and the 600 GB (model WD6000HLHX) is $329 USD. More information about WD VelociRaptor hard drives may be found on the company's Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=821.

WD® INTRODUCES 2.5-INCH SATA HARD DRIVES THAT MEET DEMANDS FOR TODAY’S AV/DVR AND SURVEILLANCE MARKETS

WD AV-25 Hard Drives Provide Cooler, Quieter Operation with Lower Power Consumption and are Ideal for 24x7 Multimedia Streaming Environments

As demand has increased for digital video storage, including high-definition (HD) video, and as the variety of video-systems configurations increases, WD® (NYSE: WDC) today expanded its line of hard drives for AV/DVR and surveillance applications to include small form factor, 2.5-inch SATA hard drives. WD AV-25 hard drives provide high reliability with a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 1 million hours and are engineered specifically for demanding, always-on multimedia streaming applications, while running at cool and quiet temperatures.

In addition to high reliability, WD AV-25 hard drives meet the demanding requirements of the AV/DVR and surveillance markets by offering customers universal compatibility, low power consumption and the ability to simultaneously record multiple audio and/or high-definition video streams. The new WD AV-25 hard drive is ideal for applications such as DVRs (digital video recorders), digital video surveillance and other small form factor environments where power consumption and 24x7 reliability are critical.

“Customers that market audio and video recording applications, such as DVRs, media centres and mainstream surveillance systems, often require 24x7 operation from hard drives,” said Jim Welsh, senior vice president and general manager of WD's branded products and consumer electronics groups. “WD AV-25 hard drives are designed to withstand these demanding environments and offer consumers a small form factor solution that consumes less power, generates less heat, and operates quietly and, most importantly, reliably.”

Features of the WD AV-25 hard drive include:

24x7 reliability - Designed to last in always-on streaming digital audio/video environments such as DVR/PVR, digital video surveillance and other demanding multimedia applications.

 Advanced Format technology - Leading edge technology that delivers improved video quality and AV performance through enhanced error correction capability.

SilkStream™ technology - Optimised for smooth, continuous digital video playback of up to five simultaneous HD streams. SilkStream is compatible with the ATA streaming command set so AV customers can use standard streaming management and error recovery options.

Ultra-cool operation - A cool drive is a more reliable drive. WD continues to develop new and innovative ways to keep drives cool while they are operating.

Quiet - Noise levels have been minimised to less than one sone - virtually below the threshold of human hearing.

Low power consumption - The drive draws less than 2 Watts while operating and a mere 4.75 Watts during spin up.

1 million hours MTTF (MTBF) - Best-in-class reliability for small form factor AV storage.

Preemptive Wear Leveling (PWL) - The drive arm frequently sweeps across the disk to reduce uneven wear on the drive surface common to audio video streaming applications.

Price and Availability

The WD AV-25 hard drive is offered in capacities of 160 GB, 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB and has a 3-year limited warranty. The WD AV-25 160 GB, 250 GB and 320 GB hard drives are available now from select e-tailers and distributors. The WD AV-25 500 GB hard drive will be available next month. MSRP for the WD AV-25 hard drives range from $50.00 USD to $80.00 USD depending on capacity. More information about WD AV-25 drives may be found on the company's Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=811.

Performance engineering leaders to meet at first joint ACM/SPEC workshop in San Jose

SAN JOSE, Calif., December 17, 2009 – World leaders in performance engineering for computing systems will meet at the first joint workshop of The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC), January 28-30 in San Jose, California, USA.  Discounted advance registration is available until December 31 at http://www.inf.pucrs.br/wosp/.

The joint ACM Workshop on Software and Performance and SPEC International Performance Evaluation Workshop (WOSP/SIPEW 2010) will feature four tutorial sessions and more than two dozen selected papers from industry and academia. The program also includes a panel discussion on future directions in performance engineering and seven poster sessions. 

David Patterson, the Pardee Professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, will present the keynote address, “Software Knows Best: Portable Parallelism Requires Standardized Measurements of Transparent Hardware.”

In addition to the keynote, Jerry Rolia (HP), Diwakar Krishnamurthy (University of Calgary) and Giuliano Casale (SAP Research UK) will present an invited talk: “BAP: A Benchmark-Driven Algebraic Method for the Performance Engineering of Customized Services.”

For more information

WOSP/SIPEW 2010 is sponsored by ACM SIGSOFT and ACM SIGMETRICS in cooperation with SPEC.  Siemens is a corporate sponsor.  General chairs for the conference are Alan Adamson from the SPEC Board of Directors and Andre Bondi of Siemens Corporate Research USA.

Program information and registration fees may be obtained at http://www.inf.pucrs.br/wosp/.