AMD is calling this time of the year as its ‘5 years of Zen’ time, indicating that back in 2016, it was starting to give the press the first taste of its new microarchitecture which, in hindsight, ultimately saved the company. How exactly Zen came to fruition has been slyly hidden from view all these years, with some of the key people popping up from time to time: Jim Keller, Mike Clark, and Suzanne Plummer hitting the headlines more often than most. But at the time AMD started to disclose details about the design, it was Mike Clark front and center in front of those slides. At the time I remember asking him for all the details, but as part of the 5 Year messaging, offered Mike for a formal interview on the topic.
