Sam Naffziger Explained

Sam Naffziger
Birth Name:Samuel Naffziger
Alma Mater:California Institute of Technology (BS)
Stanford University (MSc)
Employer:AMD

Samuel Naffziger is an American electrical engineer who has been employed at Advanced Micro Devices in Fort Collins, Colorado since 2006. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2014 for his leadership in the development of power management and low-power processor technologies.[1] He is also the Senior Vice President and Product Technology Architect at AMD.[2]

Education

Naffziger received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and a Master of Science in computer engineering from Stanford University.[3]

Career

Early career

For eight years, Naffziger led the Itanium design team at Hewlett-Packard before moving to Intel in 2002.[4] At Intel, Naffziger played a leading role in the introduction of two major Itanium models at the International Solid State Circuits Conference, the McKinley processor in 2002 and Montecito in 2005.[5]

2006-present: Advanced Micro Devices

Naffziger was an architect lead on AMD's Ryzen processors that launched in March 2017.[6] He was the lead advocate for AMD's Ryzen and Epyc lines to move to a modular, chiplet-based approach.[7] Towards the end of 2017, Naffziger began to lead the AMD graphics team in bringing a chiplet architecture to graphics with the RDNA 3 architecture, released in 2022.[8]

Academic works

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2014 elevated fellow . IEEE Fellows Directory . April 12, 2017 . December 31, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141231094853/http://www.ieee.org/2014Fellowclass . dead.
  2. Web site: Sam Naffziger . AMD . en-US . April 3, 2023.
  3. Web site: AMD Senior VP and Low-Power Guru, Samuel Naffziger, Addresses the Looming Electronics Power Challenge . All About Circuits . en-US . April 3, 2023.
  4. Web site: Kanellos . Michael . January 25, 2002 . Intel’s Itanium: Plan B in the works . ZDNet . en-US . April 3, 2023.
  5. Web site: Shankland . Stephen . March 29, 2006 . AMD lures high-ranking Itanium designer . ZDNet . en-US . April 3, 2023.
  6. Web site: Chuang . Tamara . March 3, 2017 . AMD unveils faster, half-price computer chip . The Denver Post . en-US . April 3, 2023.
  7. Web site: Alcorn . Paul . Walton . Jarred . June 23, 2022 . Into the GPU Chiplet Era: An Interview With AMD's Sam Naffziger . Tom's Hardware . en-US . April 3, 2023.
  8. Web site: Brosdahl . Peter . November 22, 2022 . AMD Lead Engineer Sam Naffziger Explains Advantages of RDNA3 Chiplet Design . The FPS Review . en-US . April 3, 2023.