Advanced Micro Devices has unveiled some aggressive strategies to gain a major share in the fast evolving processor and graphics card market in the coming years. For the last few years the company has been losing ground to its arch rival Intel in processor market. Its Phenom range of CPUs failed to counter the onslaught of Intel’s successful Core 2 Duo family of processors. The revamped Phenom X2 lineup was bettor but Intel’s performance monster Core i7 series trounced it easily. Hence, AMD decided to revamp it existing product line and introduce new architecture.
AMD made foray into graphics card manufacturing after acquiring ATI technologies in the recent past. The senior Vice President of AMD, Rick Bergman revealed the upcoming CPU and graphics card lineup of the company. To counter the competition from rival graphics card maker Nvidia, AMD will launch its next lineup of graphics card powered by Hemlock chips. This will be a dual GPU solution aimed at serious gamers.
In the first half of 2010, AMD will release at least 4 new CPUs as well. This will include a mobile Quad core chip with battery life enhancing technology embedded. To woo the desktop users, a six core CPU with multi-display technology will be released. By 2011, AMD wants to introduce its much touted Fusion chips in laptop and desktop computers. In fact, AMD has been engaged in the development of Fusion platform for quite some time. According to the company Fusion will feature the CPU and GPU on the same silicon ship, which will result in a performance boost. While the company’s new Phenom II CPU is built on a 45 nm process, the upcoming Llano chip will be made using a 32 nm process.
In 2011, Llano will be made for laptop and the platform is likely to be named Sabine. It will feature 4 processing cores and DirectX 11 technology. The desktop platform for the chip has been named Lynx. Apart from these CPU platforms, AMD also revealed its plan for developing revamped x86 architectures code named Bobcat and Bulldozer. The latter will be used for desktops, laptops and Servers while the former will be used in net books and ultra portable laptops.
Apart from the launch of a plethora of new processor platforms, AMD thinks that the headline grabbing antitrust lawsuits against Intel will help it in the long run. Dirk Meyer, the CEO and President of AMD feels that the lawsuit will provide a space for the two companies to compete on par.
However, it will be a tough task for AMD as Intel currently holds more than 80 percent of the CPU market. Besides, Intel is not going to sit complacent with the consecutive success of its Core 2 Duo and Core i7 CPU series. Its upcoming Sandy Bridge platform is designed to replace the existing Nehalem architecture. AMD’s success with the upcoming architecture will also depend on their popularity and adoption among software code developers in the coming days. Without properly optimized OS and applications no processor can be utilized properly.
