AMD终于要苦尽甘来了？

f high-bandwidth memory. AMD has been playing catch-up ever since NVIDIA launched the GTX 970 and GTX 980 last year at disruptive price points, but if the company can release competitive products in 2016 alongside NVIDIA, it could begin to claw back some of its lost market share.

Semi-custom growth
Sales of semi-custom SoCs for use in the major game consoles have provided AMD with a much-needed source of revenue and profits, helping to partially offset weakness in the rest of its business. This revenue will eventually begin to decline, however, as sales of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One peak sometime in the next few years. At the moment, the game consoles are the only source of semi-custom revenue for AMD, but starting in late 2016, that will no longer be the case.

AMD first announced two semi-custom design wins in late 2014, followed by a third design win earlier this year. The first two are expected to generate a total of $1 billion of revenue over the course of three years, beginning in 2016. During AMD's latest conference call, CEO Lisa Su confirmed that revenue from these products would begin during the second half of 2016. No details on the third win have been released, but it's possible it involves Nintendo's rumored NX game console.

With sales of the game consoles still going strong, and with new semi-custom revenue coming next year, 2016 is shaping up to be a solid year for AMD's semi-custom business.