User:Karpių3/AMD Ryzen Development in the 2010s

AMD Ryzen is a series of x86-64 microprocessors produced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Introduced in 2017, Ryzen represents AMD's primary line of processors in the consumer market, competing directly with Intel's Core series. The development of Ryzen in the 2010s was a critical period for AMD as it sought to reclaim market share and technological leadership in the CPU segment.

Overview
Ryzen was developed under the codename "Zen." It marked AMD's return to competitiveness in the high-end desktop CPU market segment, which it had somewhat ceded to Intel in the previous years due to the underwhelming performance of its Bulldozer series.

2012-2015: Early Planning and Design

 * In the early 2010s, AMD recognized the need for a fresh microarchitecture to replace the less competitive Bulldozer series.
 * Work on Zen began, aiming at a modular design, better energy efficiency, and significant IPC (Instructions Per Clock) improvements.

2016: Announcement and Hype

 * AMD officially announced the Zen microarchitecture in 2016.
 * Demonstrations showcased a substantial performance uplift compared to previous AMD architectures and competitive performance against Intel's offerings.

2017: Ryzen Launch

 * Ryzen was officially launched on March 2, 2017, with the Ryzen 7 series (the high-end lineup) leading the way.
 * Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3, targeting the mid-range and entry-level segments respectively, were released later in the same year.
 * The CPUs were well-received, with particular praise for their multi-threaded performance and value proposition.

2018: Zen+ and Ryzen 2000 Series

 * In April 2018, AMD released the Ryzen 2000 series based on the Zen+ microarchitecture, representing an optimized version of the original Zen.
 * Built on a 12nm process, these CPUs offered higher clock speeds and improvements in memory and cache latency.

2019: Zen 2 and Ryzen 3000 Series

 * In July 2019, the Ryzen 3000 series was launched, based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture and built on a 7nm process node.
 * This generation introduced chiplet design, separating the CPU cores from the I/O into different dies, which brought about increased core counts, greater power efficiency, and overall higher performance.
 * Zen 2-based Ryzen CPUs, for the first time in many years, started outperforming their Intel counterparts in several benchmarks and applications.

Impact and Significance

 * The introduction and successive iterations of Ryzen in the 2010s rejuvenated AMD's standing in the desktop CPU market.
 * Ryzen's competitive pricing and performance pressured Intel, leading to increased innovation and competitiveness in the CPU market.
 * The success of Ryzen provided AMD with a solid revenue stream, enabling the company to further invest in R&D and make strides in other segments, such as GPUs with the RDNA architecture.