What you’ll learn:
- 为工程团队设定伸展目标的重要性。
- 如何在整个公司为由此产生的月球项目建立支持。
- 创建节能计算机处理器。
Atamd, we design state-of-the-art high-performance processors to service the world’s compute infrastructure. Staying on the cutting edge of technology requires bold engineering, but it also requires bold thinking—to cast a vision five years or more into the future by creating stretch goals.
尽管设定拉伸目标的想法可以个人适用，但它也适用于整个组织。这不是胆小的事情，因为这项工作需要对技术，未来趋势，也许最重要的是愿意承担计算的风险。风险并不总是会得到回报，但是当它确实如此，结果非常令人满意。
每个新项目都有不确定性的要素。除了没有达到目标的技术风险外，即使从工程学的角度来看，产品也可能无法满足动态市场的需求。这是我从较早的经验中第一手所知道的，这是Itanium processorengineering team. One thing is certain—playing it safe ensures a lack of breakthroughs and ultimately leads to irrelevance.
大胆
As a leader within a major engineering organization, I push my team to reach for bold goals. Embracing the future means setting stretch goals—goals that go beyond what we know we can comfortably do, to what we believe we can possibly do with hard work and creative thinking. Stretch goals keep a company at the top of its game.
这种心态在2014年导致建立一个目标，以提高我们移动处理器的典型使用能源效率（在笔记本计算机中使用的典型用途），到2020年的25倍，恰当地命名为AMD25x20 Energy Efficiency Initiative。在过去的六年中，我们取得了10倍的进步。这跟踪了那个时期的半导体行业的平均值，因此被认为是一个良好的成就。但是我认为，随着整个公司的更大创新和专注，我们可以更好地提高能源效率。
能源效率是性能的比率和处理器的典型使用能力。除了提高性能的好处外，效率提高有助于延长电池寿命，能够开发较小且较少的物质密集型设备，并限制计算设备数量不断增加的整体环境影响。
节能路线图
不仅仅是一厢情愿的思考，我们花了很多时间来弄清所需的内容和成功的可能性。虽然最初对工程团队来说似乎令人生畏且不可能，但我收集了他们的意见，对目标进行了相应的调整，并致力于根据技术证据获得购买的配方。我们还围绕提高能源效率如何通过提供高度理想的节能产品来使地球和公司受益。
That said, there was a certain amount of evangelization required around the value of the goal and the means to achieve it. Essentially, it was a process of building support by finding fellow champions who wanted to join and help lead. This same approach enlisted the support of senior leaders at AMD, a requisite for any large engineering project. As more people learned of the goal, we saw more colleagues who wanted to participate and contribute.
一开始，我们通过路线图获得了合理的知名度，从一开始就可以实现的目标，但是在半导体行业的六年是很长一段时间。我们的“ Carizzo”处理器已经设计了，将对目标进行实质性改进。除此之外，我们对我们和我们的合作伙伴在全日制视野中可能做的事情进行了明智的计算。
Once announced publicly in 2014, some external observers expressed skepticism the 25x goal could be achieved, likely based on industry advances up to that point and the already-looming slowdown in Moore’s Law. We certainly did not think the goal was unobtainable but also knew that it required the best execution possible to succeed, with little room for error.
A “Zen” Mindset
在此时间范围内，25x20并不是唯一的伸展工程目标。该公司还将我们的CPU核心的微观结构过渡到所谓的“ Zen”。在此过程中，我们的团队设定了一个伸展目标，以实现 +40％的每个周期指令（IPC），以提高我们的CPU性能。Zen IPC和25X20是协同作用的，其中一个有助于推动并满足另一个需求的成就。
Similar to 25x20, there was skepticism internally and externally of the CPU design team that the aggressive goal could be achieved, but specifics were established. As the team met milestones along the way, the confidence increased, with the end result exceeding the goal at +52% IPC at introduction.1
There were times over the six-year 25x20 initiative when success wasn’t certain. The known technology in 2014 would not support the goal. The same was true as late as 2016. By 2018, with our 2020 product under design, we could see the path to success, but we still had to prove it. There were several times when the outlook was clouded, and 2018 was such a moment.
Reflecting on Renoir
I will not call it a moment of alarm, but there was a period of reflection and recalibration as the 25x achievement of our 2020 “Renoir” product was uncertain. Great engineering is typically the result of the stress and pressure of necessity driving innovation.
在这种情况下，我们承担了实施的挑战Modern Standby, a feature of the Windows 10 operating system. This complemented capabilities we had created in hardware and firmware to enter an energy-efficient low-power state when the processor is idle, but what we developed didn’t deliver the expected power savings initially. The path forward required close partnership with Microsoft to bring the feature to fruition.
Had we not been successful with this feature, we would have had to find another path to be successful. Defining numerous alternative paths are a good strategy to keep in mind when reaching for stretch goals. For nearly every innovation created to achieve 25x20, and there were several others along the way, alternatives also existed that involved different methodologies or technologies. There was always a Plan B for every critical step.
实现任何拉伸工程目标具有内在风险，在我们突破界限时，可能会有25x20的风险。加上我们公开报告每年我们的进展,提高了粘度ibility of the work and thus the stakes.
Reference
1.“ ZEN”体系结构与“ PILEDRIVER”体系结构的世代IPC升高为 +52％，用Specint06用GCC 4.6 –O2编译为固定的3.4 GHz。“ ZEN”体系结构与“挖掘机”体系结构的世代IPC升高为64％，用Cinebench R15 1T和Specint06测量，并用固定的3.4 GHz编译了GCC 4.6 –O2。系统配置：AMD参考主板，AMD Radeon R9 290X GPU，8-GB DDR4-2667（“ ZEN”）/8-GB DDR3-2133（“挖掘机”）/8-GB DDR3-1866（“ PILEDRIVER”），Ubuntu Linux 16.x（Specint06）和Windows 10 X64 RS1（Cinebench R15）。Specint06分数：“ Zen”与“ PILEDRIVER”（31.5 vs. 20.7 | +52％），“ Zen”与“挖掘机”（31.5 vs. 19.2 | +64％）。Cinebench R15 1T分数：“ Zen”与“ PILEDRIVER”（139 vs. 79 | +76％），“ Zen”与“挖掘机”（139 vs. 88 | +58％）。
