AMD’s R&D Budget increased by 15% in 2017
AMD’s R&D Budget increased by 15% in 2017
Given AMD’s financial situation, Ryzen is nothing short of a miracle, a compelling architecture that was developed on a shoestring budget, especially when considering the R&D spending of both Intel and Nvidia.Â
AMD’s plans are not for Ryzen to become a one-hit wonder and for Radeon to remain in the same market position, which means that a lot of AMD’s recent earnings are getting pumped into research and developments, with 2017 seeing a huge increase in spending when compared to 2016. Over the year, AMD’s R&D spending has increased by around 15%, an increase of $152 million. This isn’t a small chunk of change and should help the company develop more exciting products moving forward. Â
While AMD’s R&D spending has decreased moving into Q4, this change is likely due to the general market slowness of this quarter when compared to Q3, as can be seen by AMD’s decreased profits this quarter.Â
| R&D Budget (Million) | 2016 | 2017 | Increase (YoY) |
| Q1 | $242 | $266 | 9.9% |
| Q2 | $243 | $279 | 14.8% |
| Q3 | $259 | $315 | 21.6% |
| Q4 | $264 | $300 | 13.6% |
| Full Year | $1,008 | $1,160 | 15.0% |
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Moving into Q1 2018, AMD plans to deliver more revenue growth, with a broader release of Raven Ridge (Ryzen CPU Vega Graphics) on both the desktop and mobile markets as well as the release of Intel’s Kaby Lake-G (where AMD supplies the graphics component).
Interest in AMD’s EPYC processors is also expected to swell after the reveal of Spectre and Meltdown, especially after Intel’s launch of buggy firmware mitigations and the fact that they are worse affected than equivalent AMD processors.Â
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2018 should be the first full year where AMD is profitable, which means that the company is likely to continue growing and increasing their R&D spending as time moves on.Â
You can join the discussion on AMD’s R&D spending on the OC3D Forums.Â