AMD didn’t stay silent while Intel and Qualcomm were talking up their new chips and business opportunities this week. In fact, AMD made waves of its own at CES with an impressive tech demo that showed off the capabilities of its next-gen Trinity APU chips, which are scheduled to launch later this year. The company also outlined some of its plans for the ultrathin notebook market.
AMD didn't want to let the year slip by without making one final hardware announcement, and so the chip designer today announced the addition of new A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) based on Llano. There are more than a dozen new chips in all, split between the desktop and notebook, and all of them sporting mostly minor updates, but updates nonetheless.
With a minimum of fuss and fanfare, AMD and NVidia have made some changes to their mobile lineup over the past few days. First off, AMD quietly released seven new Llano A-series APUs to its lineup, but that’s overshadowed by the launch of the new Radeon HD 7000M graphics chips. Actually, the Radeon HD 7000M series only sort of launched. Rather than unveiling new, awesome 28nm GPUs, the HD 7000M models announced yesterday are basically just rebranded 40nm HD 6000M chips. Nvidia's new GeForce 600M series is likewise pretty much rebranded 500M chips.
From a manufacturing standpoint, it's been nothing short of a challenging year for AMD. Poor yields affected AMD's 32nm Llano Fusion APUs (Accelerated Processing Units), which ended up delaying its release. Looking ahead, it appears AMD's next generation Trinity APUs will enjoy a smoother rollout and won't be hit by the same yield issues that plagued Llano.
Oh, AMD, you wiley stage magicians. While the company was busy showing off its Opteron 6200 and 4200 enterprise processors with one metaphorical hand earlier this week, the other metaphorical hand was secretly tweaking prices on several of its processors while everyone was distracted. Heck, they even introduced a new quad-core processor and next to nobody noticed! Penn and Teller, eat your hearts out.
Announced earlier this year at AMD’s Computex press conference, the Trinity accelerated processing unit (APU) will replace the chip maker’s Llano APU, which has been experiencing shortages due to poor 32-nm yields at Globalfoundries. Until recently, we only knew that Trinity would arrive in 2012. But thanks to Thomas Seifert, senior vice president and chief financial officer of AMD, we now have a much better idea about Trinity’s releases schedule.
After somewhat of a rough start to the year, chip designer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) bounced back in the third quarter and posted a 7 percent sequential and 4 percent year-over-year increase in revenue of $1.69 billion, net income of $97 million on earnings per share of $0.13, and operating income of $138 million. All of these figures are higher than the ones posted in the same quarter one year prior, and that's in large part because of AMD's Accelerated Processing Units (APUs).
The idea of flooding the market with affordable ultra-thin and -light notebooks dubbed ultrabooks is undoubtedly Intel’s brainchild. The world’s leading chip maker has even set up a $300 million fund to impart some initial impetus to the whole concept. Given its efforts, it has to be said that Intel deserves first dibs on ultrabooks. However, AMD is unlikely to watch from the sidelines for too long.
Back in August, Advanced Micro Devices launched a couple of new E-series accelerated processing units (APUs), namely the E-450 and E-300. The launch of the two dual-core chips effectively doubled the number of E-series APUs on the market. But, according to a report, that count will soon be halved as AMD plans to retire the first two chips in the lineup.
Disney’s Appmates iPad peripherals are a testament to the fast-evolving technology habits of kids. Needless to say, they are an innovative way of engaging with kids constantly riveted to their various gadgets and gizmos. Toshiba, on the other hand, is targeting a completely different subset of children with its Satellite L735D Kids’ PC - those whose don’t really appreciate the tablet form factor. The Satellite L735D Kids’ PC is essentially the Satellite L635 with an updated processor and some other minor changes.
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