Exclusive Q & A with Janet Matsuda, Senior Director Professional Graphics AMD (ATI)

As many now know "The Prof" as he is quaintly known by many travels an extensive amount, now and again he bumps into a few infamous people. The unsung heroes and driving forces behind some of the most famous companies in the world. Often many will sit down and chat off the record, though a few, just a few like to step over and give him an unprecedented no holds barred interview. Today is no different as he had the exclusive chance to chat with Janet Matsuda Senior Director Professional Graphics for the ATI FirePro Division.


How long have you been at AMD and what is the primary focus of your position.

Janet Matsuda - I joined in January 2007 am responsible for the professional graphics business within AMD. The management team brought me on board to drive an increased focus and therefore growth of the professional graphics business at AMD.


Therefore if you could be as so kind; what would be a brief sample of a day in the life of Janet Matsuda at work.

Janet Matsuda - The first year was spent working internally to ensure we had the strategy, technology, and processes to deliver a great product. After two years I am happy to report I spend more time meeting with our software partners, OEM customers, end customers and channel partners to determine how we can continue to create value for users and make sure they know about the great ATI FirePro products.


What has been your previous history prior to AMD and obviously how relevant is this to the graphic card industry

Janet Matsuda - I spent over 10 years at Silicon Graphics, mainly in the advanced graphics business. I was responsible for products you may remember from the past, including Onyx, RealityCenter, RealityEngine, and InfiniteReality. After SGI I left the graphics world and joined Mercury Interactive, but AMD provided an opportunity for me to return to this world of 3D graphics that I love.


What do your think is the most compelling reason for companies and individuals to buy your workstation products?

Janet Matsuda - Particularly in this economic environment, companies need to deliver products that will give them an edge. People need to use their talents effectively and work to their full potential. ATI FirePro delivers outstanding application performance that frees engineers and designers to focus on the task and not wait for the computer to catch up.


Where do you think that the GPU engine is heading.

Janet Matsuda - GPUs will continue to be more powerful, and have the edge over CPUs in performance per watt. We added double-precision floating point capability last year to support technical GP-GPU applications through our ATI Stream initiative; you’ll see more general purpose computing features appear over time. This creates a fantastic opportunity for software developers to leverage the GPU for specific types of compute loads in addition to the graphics work they’re already doing.


Do you think that OpenCL now will become a standard to be fully implemented within workstation environment soon?

Janet Matsuda - ISVs have been waiting for an industry standard, and are evaluating OpenCL now. OpenCL will create an explosion of GPU-accelerated applications, because it provides GP-GPU developers with an industry-standard, low-risk way to develop cross-platform applications. We’re working now to add OpenCL compliance to our ATI Stream SDK, and our major ISVs are very eager to use it for all kinds of applications. Interesting applications in the workstation space include digital content creation, CAE, rendering, finance, medical imaging, and oil and gas.


What do you see as the major barrier in the well voiced current credit crunch arena and how do you see ATI moving forward, maintaining its current position within the market place.

Janet Matsuda - The ATI FirePro products have a compelling value, and I believe companies are more open to switching their graphics provider in this tough economy.


Could you possibly demonstrate where your products are being used by Government bodies and the major corporations and how much of an improvement has it made their current solutions?

Janet Matsuda - One area we have seen an increase in adoption is with the Dassault software customers using either Catia or SolidWorks. Large automotive and aerospace customers have adopted AT FirePro because of the outstanding application performance. These companies generally will not disclose the hardware they use because they feel it gives them a competitive edge.


At IBC you successfully trialed your Framelock solution are you planning to launch anything within this arena soon?

Janet Matsuda - Stay tuned.


Will the major OEM's be quick in the uptake of this new offering from ATI and do you see many sku's being adjusted or gained with the new product

Janet Matsuda - The OEMs have already voted based on application performance leadership, and the ATI FirePro product will be offered in a large number of platforms in 2009. You will see announcements to this effect in the next weeks. I believe commercial customers will increase their adoption of ATI Firepro as well.


FireStream, is now becoming slowly but surely an integral solution within many sectors how do you foresee its uptake as we do not see as much marketing on the product as other mainstream FirePro products.

Janet Matsuda - Our FireStream products are off to a good start in the research community. Their strong double-precision floating performance (up to 240 GFLOPs) is compelling to those deploying HPC applications, and the deployable form factors make it interesting to data centre managers and OEMs. We expect that the availability of OpenCL will create an abundance of new accelerated applications beyond the research space, in mainstream markets like manufacturing and entertainment.


We hear a lot of issues affecting other graphic card manufacturers does this affect your GPU's and graphic cards or have the company been lucky with its architectural designs

Janet Matsuda - I believe it is more than luck. We have carefully selected manufacturing processes and technologies that maximize reliability.


It's apparent that Intel will be launching a new graphic card solution soon how will this affect your future graphic card strategies and do you as a company see this as an imminent major threat within the workstation market place.

Janet Matsuda - I never would underestimate Intel, but our focus is on delivering value to customers today.


The mobile marketplace is a bitterly fought after sector, how do you foresee the forth coming quarters to be favourable?

Janet Matsuda - Mobile computing is a trend that continues to gather momentum and the application performance of ATI FirePro is interesting to customers in both desktop and mobile form factors.


Will if any of the new sku's have an effect upon the major OEM's decisions of making more flexible mobile ATI solutions available to the end users.

Janet Matsuda - We have offerings today with HP and Lenovo and look forward to continuing to enhance their offerings in the future.


A substantial amount of platforms are Intel based within the workstation arena, how will this affect your business within the future as on the CPU side you are a major competitor

Janet Matsuda - Today’s world is full of examples where companies cooperate in one area and compete in another. Our team works closely with Intel to ensure our OEM partners can get full benefit from the ATI FirePro card on their Intel-based systems.


Stereoscopic 3D entertainment is fast becoming the vogue phrase of the multimedia market, do you possibly foresee this becoming a cost effective solution for the workstation market place at all. Previous trends on stereo 3D glasses have been of a premium with forth coming announced autostereoscopic 3D (AS-3D) displays may offer end users another effective solution - what are your current thoughts within this new technology.

Janet Matsuda - Stereoscopic content creation, editing and post production are rapidly becoming an essential part of making movies. Workstation customers are becoming very aware of this. Stereoscopy has had a number of false starts at the movies, but this time things look serious. A number of new players are bringing a variety of display technologies to bear hear, from LCD to DLP, from shutter glasses to polarised glasses, and also auto-stereo. As for cost, with all the different display players and modes competing, this will likely come to a balance soon; the premium will get smaller, but is unlikely to go away for quite a while.


Will ATI be supporting this new technology uptake very quickly?

Janet Matsuda - ATI FirePro products already support all major stereo display modes and we continue to track this space closely.


10-bit display are coming to market now. How does this change things for ATI and for the application developers that want to use it?

Janet Matsuda - We’ve had close partnerships with players in the medical market where 10-bit grayscale (particularly over DV) is important, and we’ve leveraged this for users who want 30-bit color (10 bits for each of R, G and B), particularly in the film and broadcast space. Seamlessly driving 30 bit color is one of the advantages of DisplayPort, and was a key reason for us to move fast and be first with DisplayPort-enabled products. ATI has made it very easy for developers to get 10 bit or 30 bit content to the screen through OpenGL on ATI FirePro cards, and we’re working with them to make the simple changes to adopt this technology.


With what we have discussed today were do you foresee the company being positioned within the next five years and do you think that growth within ATI will have been reflective of the work you and your team have laid out in your long term strategies? Certain forecasting from other sources see a slow if any increase in market share, are they wrong to surmise this?

Janet Matsuda - I believe that AMD is well positioned for the future CPU / GPU world. The acquisition of ATI and separation of the Foundry Company are two strategic moves the company has made. The professional graphics business is a significant segment in the discrete graphics market and we are committed to strengthening our share by delivering application performance leadership, assurance of reliability and visionary innovation for professionals.


Do you think AMD may ever consider spinning off its ATI division as a separate company once more? It is fair to say that ATI workstation division has been extremely successful last year growing from strength to strength

Janet Matsuda - AMD is the only company in the industry that provides both CPU and Graphics. Our AMD company tagline is ‘the future is fusion’. I don’t see that strategic direction changing.


With such a demanding high profile position you maintain within ATI, how does it affect your family life and hobbies as it has to be extremely difficult juggling all these demands from such a high profile position.

Janet Matsuda - Every job in my career has required careful balance, and I think many professionals face this challenge. My kids are into sports activities so I spend most weekends cheering them on. When I am not travelling, I try to get home for dinner with the family and get back online later in the evening.


Janet, our thanks indeed for this frank and honest chat. I am sure that many of our readers will have picked up some valuable information within.

There we are, a detailed insight and some very interesting information for many analysts and the like of the comings from within ATI. The question on the lips, who is on "The Prof's" list next, 'fraid to say - just watch this space as it will be very interesting indeed.