AMD recently announced three new low power platforms for tablets or notebooks. First, the Elite Mobility platform (Temash) includes both dual-core and quad-core processors and is designed to compete with Intel’s Clover Trail in the Windows 8 slate sector, as well as Celeron and Pentium processors in the budget laptop space. AMD will position it as having more performance than Atom but at lower cost than Core.
Second, the Mainstream platform (Kabini) is based on the same low power core, known as Jaguar, but it is targeted at laptops, pushing quad-core designs into cheaper PCs. There is also a new version of Kabini, called Kyoto, designed to take on Atom and ARM in micro-servers. Third, AMD expanded its Richland platform with seven new chips, including some low-voltage versions designed for thinner and lighter laptops.
AMD remains disappointingly over-focused on conventional form factors like laptops, but its chips are driving down power and becoming inherently more mobile, and so potentially suited to tablets and convertibles.
But AMD plans to offer support for both of Google’s operating systems, as well as continuing to support Windows. This is a reversal from a statement earlier this year, by Lisa Su, general manager of global business units at AMD, that AMD had no plans to support Android. Now, she has told Computex: “We are very committed to Windows 8. We think it’s a great operating system, but we also see a market for Android and Chrome developing as well.” With W8 not taking off quickly, AMD faces slow progress for its newest processors, and Android may be a target for its new Temash silicon, to bring in new revenues and address the (perhaps surprisingly) emerging sub-sector for low cost, low power Android PCs.