AMD is indeed great company. If not AMD now we would buy Intel processors with awful perfomance (like Pentium 4 or Itanium), overpriced, and requiring overpriced platform and memory (Rambus...)
Nevertheless Intel is too powerful and capable to great things if kicked to ass.
In this TL among IT history I listed some events which could help AMD to perform more successfully.
1993 – first Am486’s, joint venture Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Limited, or Spansion
1994 – AMD aquires Nexgen Nx686 assets (RISC86 ALU core) and team, AMD’s team helps with FPU & P5 bus& production (implementation), Compaq and AMD form long-term alliance, Am486DX5-75/133 16KbL1, Am5x86-100-133 as Pentium analog (Am486DX5 core+32Kb L1 on P5 bus)
1995 – Large-scale production begins at Fab 25, AMD Nx686 (32KbL1 + AMD's FPU), Intel launched PentiumPro
1996 – Dirk Meyer (21264) started Alpha-like K7 CPU design
AMD takes part in NGIO, FIO, creates with DEC и Compaq HyperTransport: PCI programming model (IRQ, DMA), LVDS peer-peer proc-proc[chipset] serial scalable high-speed packet-switched bus, chain topology, DDR. Coherent interprocessor mode – low latency, cash coherency. Based on IEEE 1596.3-1996 SCI-LVDS (Scalable Coherent Interface).
Partially free specifications for chipset/peripheral implementation-only HT1 max – noncoherent 32bit/400 – free HT controller and implementation help
1996end – AMD K6-2 (MMX+64KbL1+pipelined FPU), Cyrix acquired by NatSemi, AMD develops SuperSocket7: AGP, SDRAM PC100, 75/83/100FSB(25/28/33 PCI)
1997 – ATI aquires Tseng Labs's graphics assets, adopted engineer’s team, launches Rage128, Intel aquires Chips&Technologies(DX5,laptop), Nvidia Riva128
1997 – 0.25, K6-3 3DNow+ 166-300 MHz, Intel PentiumMMX, PII, AGP, K7 announce
1998 – 0.25, K6-3 400 128KbL2, PowerNow, AMD-Motorola 0.18 copper alliance, common fabs usage, 3Dfx buys STB, Nvidia Riva128ZX (OpenGL ICD), Intel acquire Real3D: i740, AGP2x, Riva TNT, Rage128MAXX.
1999start – 0.25, K7 Athlon/Opteron 400..700 (SSE, 0.25, 128KbL1, 512-2048Mb L2 in MultiChipPackage (IBM's C4 flip-chip) ), ThermalControl, heatspreader, SocketHT 1 link up to 2*32bit 600 MHz 4.8 GB/s.
Chipsets: for Athlon – 1 link ( 2*16bit 400 MHz 1.6 GB/s) (VIA(AMDtuned) –AGP4x+64bit SDR133),
for Opteron chipset – up to 4 links (AMD+Alpha: 256bit ECC SDRAM).
“Ahead the race – Athlon", "MORE Perfomance for the same price”
1999-2001 - real - Intel not successful with RDRAM, Itanium, 1GHz 0.18 P3, 0.18 Pentium4
1999 – ATI acquired ArtX, Via – Centaur и Cyrix, AMD builds up Fab30 200-мм 0.18, Riva TNT2, Rage128Pro, Rage128MAXX Pro, DX6.1(Win98SE), DX7 (Win2000), alternative Radeon256 (pureDX7->simple->fast, HyperZ, 4*1, SDR&DDR), Geforce256, PIII, AGP4x, i820, ATI chipset for AMD Athlon: HT+64bit133MhzSDRAM+integratedRage
2000 – Creative buys out Aureal (bankrupcy), Nvidia buys out 3Dfx, GeForce2GTS, Nvidia’s and ATI’s 128bit SDRAM SocketHT чипсеты (ATI uses Ali south bridge), Flipper (DX8.1 GameCube, Wii), Intel-Amd x86-extensions crosslicensing (SSE2,x64), AMD lets UMC, TSMC manufacture K5+, K6 to stiffen low-end competition with Intel & Via in socket7 segment.
2000end – 0.18 K8 AthlonXP/Athlon64/Opteron 800-1200, 256Kb L2, x86-64, SocketHT2-800 (backward compatible with SocketHT), 1/2/4 links HT2 ([2*16bit]800MHz 3.2GB/s) (3-other CPUs,1-chipset/memory), heatspreader, MS DX8, ATI Radeon2 (8500)(pureDX8->simple->fast(325MHz), HyperZ, 4*2),
Geforce3, Nvidia’s and ATI’s 128bit DDR SocketHT чипсет, Nvidia in XBOX.
2001 – HP buys Compaq, DX8.1 (WinXP), Athlon 2000+, P4 2000, Sun’s Opteron adoption and DDR chipset.
2002 – Intel acquires 3Dlabs (DX9.0, OpenGL2 P10), AMD merges with ATI, 0.15 R300(R9700), 0.13 K8 3000+, AGP8x, AMD-IBM 0.09 alliance, ATI Imageon, Via buys S3 graphics division with DX9 chip designs
2003 – AMD buys Sensaura и Ali(Uli)-for chipset techs, SIS buys Trident. DX9, Win2003. Geforce 5x00(NV30), October – ATI 9800XT. Freescale, Chartered make 0.13 Athlon64s for AMD. AMD lets UMC, TSMC to make K7s to increase supply, propagation and adoption of AMD HT platform.
ATI quickly advances over Nvidia in manufacturing tech, XBOX360: dualcoreK8+R500(unified shaders architecture), CrossFire over HT2
2004 – AMD starts to build Fab36 (in operation – 2006, 65 nm), May – R420 0.13low-k 16*1, September– X700, 6600, October – 0.11low-k R430 16*1 (DX9+), K8 MCP 1/2/4 cores (../DUAL/QUADRO)
2005 – 0.09 R440 Radeon X900 (24*1), Geforce7800, September – X950, Gf7900, 2-4 ATI chips via HT-Crossfire, “More power at less power”,
Fusion MCP for low-end/mobile: CPU+X300HT-DDR2/DDR3”.
2006 – Intel Conroe ("PentiumPro strikes back";-) )(0.065 dualcore 64bit, FB-DIMM),
AMD Athlon K9 X2 (half-quadcore design ;-), L3 cash, higher IPc), 0.09 256bit GDDR4(2,5GHz) DX10 Radeon1800 (24 ROP + 32 TMU, external interface chip (HDMI/TDMI/TVOut/Audio/Crossfire) and 384bit GDDR3(1600GHz) Geforce8800,
Nvidia buys Transmeta for CPU technologies
2007 – 0.08 Radeon 1850 256bit GDDR4@3200, Gf8900, Radeon 1600, Vista, 0.045 K10, MCP Athlon quadcore
Intel buys Havok, AMD buys PhysX