List of AMD CPU microarchitectures

Last updated July 09, 2023

The following is a list of AMD CPU microarchitectures .

Nomenclature

Historically, AMD's CPU families were given a "K-number" (which originally stood for Kryptonite,^[1] an allusion to the Superman comic book character's fatal weakness) starting with their first internal x86 CPU design, the K5, to represent generational changes. AMD has not used K-nomenclature codenames in official AMD documents and press releases since the beginning of 2005, when K8 described the Athlon 64 processor family. AMD now refers to the codename K8 processors as the Family 0Fh processors. 10h and 0Fh refer to the main result of the CPUID x86 processor instruction. In hexadecimal numbering, 0F(h) (where the h represents hexadecimal numbering) equals the decimal number 15, and 10(h) equals the decimal number 16. (The "K10h" form that sometimes pops up is an improper hybrid of the "K" code and Family XXh identifier number.)

Family number		Name
Decimal	Hex (h)	Name
05	05h	K6
06	06h	K7
15	0Fh	K8 / Hammer
16	10h	K10
17	11h	K8 & K10 "hybrid"
18	12h	K10 (Llano) / K12 (ARM-based)
20	14h	Bobcat
21	15h	Bulldozer / Piledriver / Steamroller / Excavator
22	16h	Jaguar / Puma
23	17h	Zen / Zen+ / Zen 2
24	18h	Hygon Dhyana
25	19h	Zen 3 / Zen 3+ / Zen 4
26	1Ah	Zen 5

The Family hexadecimal identifier number can be determined for a particular processor using the freeware system profiling application CPU-Z, which shows the Family number in the Ext. Family field of the application, as can be seen on various screenshots on the CPU-Z Validator World Records website.

x86 microarchitectures

Below is a list of microarchitectures many of which have codenames associated:^[2]

AMD K5 – AMD's first original x86 microarchitecture. The K5 was based on the AMD Am29k micro architecture with the addition of an x86 decoder. Although the design was similar in idea to a Pentium Pro, the actual performance was more like that of a Pentium.
AMD K6 – the K6 was not based on the K5 and was instead based on the Nx686 processor that was being designed by NexGen when that company was bought by AMD. The K6 was generally pin-compatible with the Intel Pentium (unlike NexGen's existing processors).
- AMD K6-2 – an improved K6 with the addition of the 3DNow! SIMD instructions.
- AMD K6-III Sharptooth – a further improved K6 with three levels of cache – 64 KB L1, 256 KB full-speed on-die L2, and a variable (up to 2 MB) L3.
AMD K7 Athlon – microarchitecture of the AMD Athlon classic and Athlon XP microprocessors. Was a very advanced design for its day. First generation was built with a separate L2-cache chip on a board inserted into a slot (A) and introduced extended MMX. The second generation returned to the traditional socket form factor with fully integrated L2-cache running at full speed. The third generation, branded as XP, introduced full support for SSE.
AMD K8 Hammer – also known as AMD Family 0Fh. Based on the K7 but was designed around a 64-bit ISA, added an integrated memory controller, HyperTransport communication fabric, L2 cache sizes up to 1 MB (1128 KB total cache), and SSE2. Later K8 added SSE3. The K8 was the first mainstream Windows-compatible 64-bit microprocessor and was released April 22, 2003. K8 replaced the traditional front-side bus with a HyperTransport communication fabric. SledgeHammer was the first design which implemented it.
AMD K9 – unfinished successor to K8. The codename was recycled at least once until ultimately being dropped before any public mention of it.
AMD Family 10h (K10) – based on the K8 microarchitecture. Shared Level 3 Cache, 128-bit floating point units, AMD-V Nested Paging virtualization, and HyperTransport 3.0 are introduced. Barcelona was the first design which implemented it.
AMD Family 11h – combined elements of K8 and K10 designs for Turion X2 Ultra / Puma mobile platform.
AMD Fusion Family 12h – based on the 10h/K10 design. Includes CPU cores, GPU and Northbridge in the same chip. Llano was the first design which implemented it. Fusion was later re-branded as the APU .
AMD Bobcat Family 14h – a new distinct line, which is aimed in the 1 W to 10 W low power microprocessor category. Ontario and Zacate were the first designs which implemented it.
- AMD Jaguar Family 16h – the successor to Bobcat. Kabini and Temash. CPUID model numbers are 00h-0Fh.
- AMD Puma Family 16h (2nd-gen) – the successor to Jaguar. Beema and Mullins. CPUID model numbers are 30h-3Fh.
AMD Bulldozer Family 15h – the successor to 10h/K10. Bulldozer is designed for processors in the 10 to 220 W category, implementing XOP, FMA4 and CVT16 instruction sets. Orochi was the first design which implemented it. For Bulldozer, CPUID model numbers are 00h and 01h.
- AMD Piledriver Family 15h (2nd-gen) – second generation Bulldozer (First optimisation). CPUID model numbers are 02h (earliest "Vishera" Piledrivers) and 10h-1Fh.
- AMD Steamroller Family 15h (3rd-gen) – third-generation Bulldozer (Second optimisation and die shrink to 28 nm). CPUID model numbers are 30h-3Fh.
- AMD Excavator Family 15h (4th-gen) – fourth-generation Bulldozer (Final optimisation). CPUID model numbers are 60h-6Fh, later updated revisions have model numbers 70h-7Fh.
AMD Zen Family 17h – the successor to Bulldozer. First AMD architecture to implement simultaneous multithreading and Infinity Fabric. Based on 14 nm process, included in the Ryzen CPU line.
- AMD Zen+ Family 17h – second generation Zen architecture (optimisation and die shrink to 12 nm).
- AMD Zen 2 Family 17h – successor to the Zen and Zen+ architectures based on 7 nm process, first architecture designed around chiplet technology.^[3]
- AMD Zen 3 Family 19h – architecture in the optimised 7 nm process, successor to the Zen 2 architecture.^[4]
- AMD Zen 3+ – 2022 revision of Zen 3 used in Ryzen 6000 mobile processors using a 6 nm process.
- AMD Zen 4 Family 19h – successor to the Zen 3 architecture, in 5 nm process.^[5] Used in Ryzen 7000 consumer processors on the new AM5 platform with DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support. Adds support for AVX-512 instruction set.
- AMD Zen 5 Family 1Ah – successor to the Zen 4 architecture, planned in 3 nm.^[6]

Other microarchitectures

AMD Am2900 – Bit-slice architecture designed in 1975.
AMD Am29000 – Popular line of 32-bit RISC microprocessors and microcontrollers.
AMD K12 – ARM64/ARMv8-A

Related Research Articles

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., commonly abbreviated as AMD, is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets.

Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and the first desktop processor to reach speeds of one gigahertz (GHz). It made its debut as AMD's high-end processor brand on June 23, 1999. Over the years AMD has used the Athlon name with the 64-bit Athlon 64 architecture, the Athlon II, and Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) chips targeting the Socket AM1 desktop SoC architecture, and Socket AM4 Zen microarchitecture. The modern Zen-based Athlon with a Radeon Graphics processor was introduced in 2019 as AMD's highest-performance entry-level processor.

The AMD K8 Hammer, also code-named SledgeHammer, is a computer processor microarchitecture designed by AMD as the successor to the AMD K7 Athlon microarchitecture. The K8 was the first implementation of the AMD64 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set architecture.

The AMD Family 10h, or K10, is a microprocessor microarchitecture by AMD based on the K8 microarchitecture. The first third-generation Opteron products for servers were launched on September 10, 2007, with the Phenom processors for desktops following and launching on November 11, 2007 as the immediate successors to the K8 series of processors.

AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit (CPU) and 3D integrated graphics processing unit (IGPU) on a single die.

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. Bulldozer is the codename for this family of microarchitectures. It was released on October 12, 2011, as the successor to the K10 microarchitecture.

The FMA instruction set is an extension to the 128 and 256-bit Streaming SIMD Extensions instructions in the x86 microprocessor instruction set to perform fused multiply–add (FMA) operations. There are two variants:

AMD Steamroller Family 15h is a microarchitecture developed by AMD for AMD APUs, which succeeded Piledriver in the beginning of 2014 as the third-generation Bulldozer-based microarchitecture. Steamroller APUs continue to use two-core modules as their predecessors, while aiming at achieving greater levels of parallelism.

AMD Excavator Family 15h is a microarchitecture developed by AMD to succeed Steamroller Family 15h for use in AMD APU processors and normal CPUs. On October 12, 2011, AMD revealed Excavator to be the code name for the fourth-generation Bulldozer-derived core.

Zen is the codename for a family of computer processor microarchitectures from AMD, first launched in February 2017 with the first generation of its Ryzen CPUs. It is used in Ryzen, Ryzen Threadripper, and Epyc (server).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zen (first generation)</span> 2017 AMD 14-nanometre processor microarchitecture

Zen is the codename for the first iteration in a family of computer processor microarchitectures of the same name from AMD. It was first used with their Ryzen series of CPUs in February 2017. The first Zen-based preview system was demonstrated at E3 2016, and first substantially detailed at an event hosted a block away from the Intel Developer Forum 2016. The first Zen-based CPUs, codenamed "Summit Ridge", reached the market in early March 2017, Zen-derived Epyc server processors launched in June 2017 and Zen-based APUs arrived in November 2017.

Socket AM4 is a PGA microprocessor socket used by AMD's central processing units (CPUs) built on the Zen and Excavator microarchitectures.

Zen 2 is a computer processor microarchitecture by AMD. It is the successor of AMD's Zen and Zen+ microarchitectures, and is fabricated on the 7 nm MOSFET node from TSMC. The microarchitecture powers the third generation of Ryzen processors, known as Ryzen 3000 for the mainstream desktop chips, Ryzen 4000U/H and Ryzen 5000U for mobile applications, as Threadripper 3000 for high-end desktop systems, and as Ryzen 4000G for accelerated processing units (APUs). The Ryzen 3000 series CPUs were released on 7 July 2019, while the Zen 2-based Epyc server CPUs were released on 7 August 2019. An additional chip, the Ryzen 9 3950X, was released in November 2019.

Ryzen is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors designed and marketed by AMD for desktop, mobile, server, and embedded platforms based on the Zen microarchitecture. It consists of central processing units (CPUs) marketed for mainstream, enthusiast, server, and workstation segments and accelerated processing units (APUs) marketed for mainstream and entry-level segments and embedded systems applications.

Zen+ is the codename for a computer processor microarchitecture by AMD. It is the successor to the first gen Zen microarchitecture, and was first released in April 2018, powering the second generation of Ryzen processors, known as Ryzen 2000 for mainstream desktop systems, Threadripper 2000 for high-end desktop setups and Ryzen 3000G for accelerated processing units (APUs).

Zen 4 is the codename for a CPU microarchitecture designed by AMD, released on September 27, 2022. It is the successor to Zen 3 and uses TSMC's N5 process for CCDs. Zen 4 powers Ryzen 7000 mainstream desktop processors and will be used in high-end mobile processors, thin & light mobile processors, as well as Epyc 9004 server processors.

References

↑ Hesseldahl, Arik (2000-07-06). "Why Cool Chip Code Names Die". forbes.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
↑ "List of AMD CPU microarchitectures - LeonStudio". LeonStudio - CodeFun. 3 August 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
↑ "AMD Unveils 'Chiplet' Design Approach: 7nm Zen 2 Cores Meet 14 nm I/O Die". AnandTech. 2018-11-06. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
↑ "AMD Launches AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processors: The Fastest Gaming CPUs in the World" (Press release). Santa Clara, California: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. 2020-10-08. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
↑ "AMD Zen 4 processors could destroy Intel thanks to their 5nm designs". TechRadar. 2020-03-25. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
↑ "AMD confirms Zen4 & Ryzen 7000 series lineup: Raphael in 2022, Dragon Range and Phoenix in 2023". videocardz.com. May 3, 2022.

External links

AMD website

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[Forbes-Chip-Names-1] Hesseldahl, Arik (2000-07-06). "Why Cool Chip Code Names Die". forbes.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.

[leon-2] "List of AMD CPU microarchitectures - LeonStudio". LeonStudio - CodeFun. 3 August 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2015.

[3] "AMD Unveils 'Chiplet' Design Approach: 7nm Zen 2 Cores Meet 14 nm I/O Die". AnandTech. 2018-11-06. Retrieved 2020-10-12.

[4] "AMD Launches AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processors: The Fastest Gaming CPUs in the World" (Press release). Santa Clara, California: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. 2020-10-08. Retrieved 2020-10-12.

[Zen4-5] "AMD Zen 4 processors could destroy Intel thanks to their 5nm designs". TechRadar. 2020-03-25. Retrieved 2020-12-10.

[videocardz-6] "AMD confirms Zen4 & Ryzen 7000 series lineup: Raphael in 2022, Dragon Range and Phoenix in 2023". videocardz.com. May 3, 2022.

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