Company Success Stories - QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies
QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies Uses the AMD Opteron™ Processor to Power Design Automation Applications for Sophisticated New Chipsets
Profile
QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies
"At the end of the day, it all boils down to how fast we can push the jobs through the computing environment in order to take advantage of the substantial investments made in the EDA software licenses. In this area, the AMD64 platform provides the best CPU performance. - Mike Broxterman, IT staff manager"
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Challenge
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QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies (QCT) designs and tests the chipsets used to power feature-rich wireless devices – a fast-growing market.
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QCT is dedicated in using only the fastest, most advanced technologies available to meet their customer’s needs.
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Solution
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QCT invested in over 800 2P and 4P AMD Opteron™ processor-based servers for its QCT data center.
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The 64-bit capability of the AMD Opteron processor, with backwards compatibility in 32-bit, was an important selling point for Mr. Broxterman’s team.
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Impact
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QCT has experienced dramatic performance improvements, from 2X to 2.5X faster than with the systems they were previously using.
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QCT is also pleased with the low power requirements of the AMD Opteron processor, given its high-performance capabilities – calling this the ‘icing on the cake’.
Organizational Profile
QUALCOMM, Inc. (www.qualcomm.com) is a leader in developing and delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services based on the Company’s CDMA digital technology. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., QUALCOMM is included in the S&P 500 Index and is a 2005 FORTUNE 500® company traded on The NASDAQ Stock Market® under the ticker symbol QCOM.
QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies (QCT) is the largest provider of 3G chipset and software technology in the world, with more than 1.5 billion chipsets shipped. QCT supplies more than 50 customers with solutions that power the majority of the more than 700 commercial 3G wireless devices that support over 150 3G network operators in 70 countries around the globe, and has the largest CDMA engineering team in the wireless industry.
Challenge
As consumers continue their insatiable desire for more sophisticated and feature rich wireless devices, QCT is tasked with designing and testing the chipsets powering these products. QCT’s software and hardware engineers use cutting-edge methodologies and tools to build complete chipset solutions within ever-shortening time-to-market windows. With more devices available for all tiers of the market, from entry-level voice and basic data handsets to high-end multimedia PDAs, and new wireless market segments emerging, the professionals within QCT strive to explore new, faster ways to deliver outstanding products to meet QUALCOMM’s stringent requirements.
The hardware engineers in QCT rely on over 1800 electronic design automation (EDA) software tools to support all the layers of design for QUALCOMM’s newest, most complex chipsets. These EDA tools require enormous computing capacity to operate efficiently. To ensure computer resources meet the demands of the engineers, QCT has a specialized IT group that manages and supports the compute environment.
Mike Broxterman, Staff IT Engineer Manager, oversees the computer resources in San Diego. “With the large number of EDA applications required to meet our product development objectives, and the demands placed on the computer resources, we are constantly searching for the best performing systems.”
Mr. Broxterman added, “Compute performance also directly impacts our cost structure, because the most expensive part of the design and testing process is the EDA software licenses. It’s not unusual for the price of some of the more sophisticated solutions to approach $1 million. Therefore, the faster simulations run, the less time you have the licenses checked out. This capability both maximizes our IT investments as well as keeping engineering projects moving forward.”
Solution
QUALCOMM invested in over 800 2P and 4P AMD Opteron™ processor-based servers for its QCT data center. “We’re driven by whatever is the highest-performing solution on the market,” said Mr. Broxterman. “AMD clearly demonstrated the superiority of the AMD Opteron™ processor, and the performance and functionality gain over our previous systems was impressive.”
The 64-bit capability of the AMD Opteron processor with Direct Connect Architecture, with backwards compatibility in 32-bit, was an important selling point for Mr. Broxterman’s team. QCT is utilizing the benefits of AMD Opteron processors with existing 32-bit versions of the applications running on a 64-bit Linux OS.
Impact
According to Mr. Broxterman, QUALCOMM has seen critical performance improvements. “In head-to-head comparisons, we’ve seen 2X to 2.5X performance gains compared to competing systems. When you’re talking about a single simulation taking as long as 17 hours, cutting that time in half is a very significant improvement.”
The overall improvements offered by the AMD Opteron processor gives QCT the ability to run more simulations in the same period, as compared with its previous systems. “We can now run more tests than was possible with the resources we were using before, which gives us the ability to stay ahead of the growing demand for more sophisticated chipsets.” QCT now uses the AMD Opteron processor for a majority of its EDA chip simulations.
Mr. Broxterman was also pleased with the low power requirements of the AMD Opteron processor, given its high-performance capabilities. “The icing on the cake was the lower power requirements of the AMD Opteron processor as compared to the competition. This allows us to maintain a higher density of servers in our existing physical facilities, greatly expanding our computing capacity without the costs traditionally associated with adding more resources.”
“Our experience with AMD has been outstanding,” added Mr. Broxterman. “AMD invested time and manpower to help our engineering community fully understand ways to maximize the processor capabilities in our EDA setting.”
Quote
“At the end of the day, it all boils down to how fast we can push the jobs through the computing environment in order to take advantage of the substantial investments made in the EDA software licenses. In this area, the AMD64 platform provides the best CPU performance.” – Mike Broxterman, IT staff manager
About AMD
AMD (NYSE:AMD) designs and produces innovative microprocessors, Flash memory devices and low-power processor solutions for the computer, communications and consumer electronics industries. AMD is dedicated to delivering standards-based, customer-focused solutions for technology users, ranging from enterprises and governments to individual consumers. For more information, visit www.amd.com.
© 2005 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Opteron, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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