Mark Papermaster, AMD CTO / Ian Interviews #47

In this interview, I sit down with Mark Papermaster, CTO and Executive Vice President at AMD, to discuss his illustrious career and the company's relentless drive toward innovation. From his early days at IBM and senior roles at Apple and Cisco to spearheading the turnaround of AMD with the Zen architecture, Mark shares firsthand insights into "pedal to the floor" engineering. We dive deep into the future of high-performance computing, exploring the upcoming Zen 7 microarchitecture, the new ACE (Advanced Matrix Extensions) engine, and why Mark believes that in the face of technical barriers, "innovation rules". [00:52] When Mark and Ian First Met [04:21] Zen proving ground years [05:20] Success with customers [08:08] Single core performance limits [11:37] Pivotal architectural big bets [16:41] First time, right silicon [18:10] AI in design verification [20:00] Lessons from IBM mainframe [24:15] Encouraging future hardware engineers [25:58] Algorithm vs. silicon marriage [27:53] Engineering skill acquisition strategy [30:08] ZT Systems rack co-design [31:37] Overcoming the power wall [38:45] Optical vs. copper architecture [41:08] Annual AI compute cadence [42:26] Balancing pathfinding and treadmill [45:36] 2026 industry outlook ----------------------- Need POTATO merch? There's a chip for that! http://merch.techtechpotato.com http://more-moore.com : Sign up to the More Than Moore Newsletter   / techtechpotato   : Patreon gets you access to the TTP Discord server! Follow Ian on Twitter at   / iancutress   Follow TechTechPotato on Twitter at   / techtechpotato   If you're in the market for something from Amazon, please use the following links. TTP may receive a commission if you purchase anything through these links. Amazon USA : https://geni.us/AmazonUS-TTP Amazon UK : https://geni.us/AmazonUK-TTP Amazon CAN : https://geni.us/AmazonCAN-TTP Amazon GER : https://geni.us/AmazonDE-TTP Amazon Other : https://geni.us/TTPAmazonOther Ending music:    • An Jone - Night Run Away   ----------------------- Welcome to the TechTechPotato (c) Dr. Ian Cutress Ramblings about things related to Technology from an analyst for More Than Moore #techtechpotato #amd #interview ------------ More Than Moore, as with other research and analyst firms, provides or has provided paid research, analysis, advising, or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, which may include advertising on the More Than Moore newsletter or TechTechPotato YouTube channel and related social media. The companies that fall under this banner include AMD, Applied Materials, Arm, Armari, ASM, Ayar Labs, Baidu, Bolt Graphics, Dialectica, Facebook, GLG, Guidepoint, IBM, Impala, Infineon, Intel, Kuehne+Nagel, Lattice Semi, Linode, MediaTek, NeuReality, NextSilicon, NordPass, NVIDIA, ProteanTecs, Qualcomm, Recogni, SiFive, SIG, SiTime, Supermicro, Synopsys, Tenstorrent, Third Bridge, TSMC, Untether AI, Ventana Micro.