Hammer is AMD's eighth generation CPU core, designed to deliver high performance through a balance of IPC and operating frequency. It is the first microprocessor to implement 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture. The Hammer core forms the foundation for a portfolio of server (Opteron), workstation (Athlon 64) and high-end consumer processors (Athlon FX).

This talk will focus on design goals, the details of its microarchitecture and ongoing improvements.

Hammer is an aggressive, out of order, 3-way superscalar processor with large, on-die L1 and L2 caches. It can issue up to 11 operations from its 3 schedulers to its various execution units.

One of the key features of Hammer is its integrated DDR memory controller, contributing to low memory latency. The processor supports up to three HyperTransport links, which can directly connect to other Hammer processors enabling 'glueless' multiprocessor support.

About the speaker:

Kevin J. McGrath is a Fellow at AMD, California Microprocessor Division. He is the architect of AMDs 64-bit extensions and currently manages the Hammer architecture and RTL team. His work experience includes 20 years in CPU design and verification, first for Hewlett-Packard and later for ELXSI, eventually working on the microarchitecture of the Nx586, K6, and Athlon processors, leading the microcode team for those projects. McGrath has a BS in engineering technology from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.

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