Bulldozer (microarchitecture)

Bulldozer - Family 15h
General information
LaunchedOctober 12, 2011; 13 years ago (October 12, 2011)
Common manufacturer
Architecture and classification
Technology node32 nm
Instruction setx86-64-v2
Physical specifications
Socket
Products, models, variants
Core names
History
PredecessorFamily 10h (K10)
SuccessorPiledriver - Family 15h (2nd-gen)

The AMD Bulldozer Family 15h is a microprocessor microarchitecture for the FX and Opteron line of processors, developed by AMD for the desktop and server markets.[1][2] Bulldozer is the codename for this family of microarchitectures. It was released on October 12, 2011, as the successor to the K10 microarchitecture.

Bulldozer is designed from scratch, not a development of earlier processors.[3] The core is specifically aimed at computing products with TDPs of 10 to 125 watts. AMD claims dramatic performance-per-watt efficiency improvements in high-performance computing (HPC) applications with Bulldozer cores.

The Bulldozer cores support most of the instruction sets implemented by Intel processors (Sandy Bridge) available at its introduction (including SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, CLMUL, and AVX) as well as new instruction sets proposed by AMD; ABM, XOP, FMA4 and F16C.[4][5] Only Bulldozer GEN4 (Excavator) supports AVX2 instruction sets.

  1. ^ "FX Processors". AMD. February 24, 2016. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  2. ^ "AMD ships 16 core bulldozer powered Opteron 6200". Engadget. November 14, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  3. ^ Bulldozer 50% Faster than Core i7 and Phenom II, techPowerUp, January 13, 2011, retrieved January 23, 2012
  4. ^ AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual Volume 6: 128-Bit and 256-Bit XOP, and FMA4 Instructions (PDF), AMD, May 1, 2009, retrieved May 8, 2009
  5. ^ Striking a balance, Dave Christie, AMD Developer blogs, May 7, 2009, archived from the original on April 2, 2012, retrieved May 8, 2009