Dirk Meyer talks up Atom-competitor
TALKING TO Dodgytimes, AMD's CEO Dirk Meyer set a timeframe for the arrival of the Intel nemesis's Atom-smasher: "2010", he said.
AMD's new chip will target a form factor other than netbooks, Meyer indicated, though he wasn't more specific about what that might be. AMD is already on record as being uninterested in fighting for the netbooks market.
While it's true that the line between ultralight notebooks and feature-filled netbooks gets blurrier by the minute, it's not clear how AMD can challenge Intel's Atom without designing a chip for netbooks. However, Atom's biggest enemy is itself, thinks AMD.
Whatever small, low-power chip AMD ends up building, "samples are expected to be delivered to partners in 2010," Meyer said.
Currently AMD's chips for the notebook segment are built on Puma, which is soon to become the Tigris platform (Caspian dual-core CPU, 2MB L2 cache), Yukon (single core Neo), and Congo (dual-core Neo), which will all soon be supplemented by AMD's planned Atom-smasher chip, of which very little more is known.
Meyer took the time to say something else. He dissed ARM for having a "lack of software support". Well, if the world revolved around Microsoft Windows, that might be true, but ARM is notorious for powering all sorts of embedded applications environments and consumer electronics devices.
Whatever the case, AMD evidently believes its planned new CPU will surpass Atom with regards to both pricing and, hopefully, performance.
A sidenote in all this is that Meyer did mention that while AMD's current CPU manufacturing is in GloFo's able hands, things aren't carved in stone and other partners will be considered in the future. But somehow we doubt we'll ever see Global Foundries building Intel chips. µ
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How about the VIA Nano? Available now and super-scalar giving a much better experience than Atom. Lenovo S12 can come with one, but just not in this country and I don't exactly know why.
the Mad Winemaker
It's so damn hard to find a retail store for nano that it makes me wonder if intel has been doing it's behind the scene marketing (you know, the EU/Jap/Kor conviction) and keeping nano from the retail outlet. Forget about ordering online as the shipping really shoots up the price.
Atom is designed for mobile devices, CE, smartphones, netbook was just an offshoot (and probably a temporary one). So while 2 years later AMD will develop a competitor, the SOC atom design will finally start heading to where it was designed to go, and that's not netbooks.
Again, AMD has mis-read and mis-timed the market. Either that or its not AMD developing an atom competitor, it's AMD developing an ultra low end mobile chip.
The question for Intel is do they try to beef up atom for ultra low end notebooks/netbooks or do they scale down existing designs (like AMD is doing).
Could it be that AMD is developing a chip for Apple in their new yet to be released tablet. Hence why no one knows anything about it...?
I wish Atomshmasher knew what he was talking about. Sadly it's a load of balls.
Atom was NEVER INTENDED for the cellular market. It was aimed at MIDs/UMPCs and cleverly used the binning process to its advantage by sending the 4W chips out on bigger surface areas.
Atom will get down to that level but it will take Intel a year or two. Why the hell would they care about that market when they are making it hand over fist with netbooks? Their only prayer is that the GM4500 of Pineview fends off ION.
FFS get informed.
Perhaps they did the right thing and advanced Bobcat.
Hell, an optimized Stars core could run dual at 35W.
I'd shrink the Rana and Propus to 32nm which would be serious overkill, but hey it's mobile.
My bet is they twiddle about with the new Athlon ...
A good mobile part comes from a very mature process and many steppings.
Watch that space I would predict.
The chap above is rightminded but has anger issues ... he is probably rolling out a new vole product on his servers??
I meant 5W. with a low clock - say 1GHz.
After a long drought and continued loss in marketshare to Intel in 2008, the first quarter of 2009 must have brought cheers to AMD with their marketshare growing from 10.5% in Q4/2008 to 12.9% in Q1/2009. Intel, almost in same vein lost marketshare by 2.5% from a high of 81.6% achieved in Q4/2008 to 79% in Q1/2009. This is significant, as this was achieved in an environment og global recession/slowdown and particulary more prominent as global microprocessor revenues declined by about 20% in the same period.
Rich before you tell people to get informed, perhaps you can do a bit better on reading comprehension and research.
Atom has ALWAYS been intended for MID/UMPC/SMARTPHONE (did not say CELL PHONES in general)... this may not be where Atom has taken root today, but it IS what Intel had intended it for....
Here's a link showing I know 'nothing of what I talk about': (If you don't like this one I can probably dig up a hal a dozen more)
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Intel-Eyes-Big-Market-for-Atom/
'"If you accept that the value proposition of the high end of the mobile phone market is full Internet access that happens to have voice, my view is that it's easier to add voice to a small computer than vice-versa," he said.
Otellini said he also expected the new Atom processors to start appearing in consumer electronic devices such as TVs, ultra-low-cost "netbook" mobile PCs, and as embedded processors in a wide range of other products.'
....So when you say Atom was "NEVER INTENDED" for the cellphone market, basically Otellini was confused in the quote above from 2008? Atom was an attempt by Intel to branch away from computers/notebooks/netbooks... that was the whole point!
I think Intel expected sales in the netbook area, but nowhere near this popularity... keep in mind this chip was designed and put into motion before the global recesssion. While Intel is obviously trying to take advantage of this now... given the shortages reported in H2'09 and Intel's original comments, I'm not sure what any of what I said is considered "a load of balls", as it is apparently you who is talking out of your ----.
But thanks for providing absolutely no information, demonstrate the knowledge that you apparently don't consider a smartphone a cellphone and have an inability to follow the tech even loosely.