Computers - Software Hardware : AMD Prepares Move to ‘Seattle,’ Its First ARM Chip

[Gorilla]

Advanced Micro Devices has been using the same technology foundation as Intel since the 1980s. Now the underdog chip supplier is fleshing out plans to diverge.

The company on Tuesday is announcing “Seattle,” the code name for a new chip based on the ARM Holdings designs that prevail in smartphones and tablets. But AMD is aiming the microprocessor at server systems, a market where low power consumption is becoming nearly as important as in mobile devices.

Its shift is not a surprise. AMD, whose minority share has withered in so-called x86 server chips that Intel also sells, has since early 2012 been signaling plans to augment that product line.

Seattle will come in versions with eight processor cores, or calculating engines, and later 16 cores, AMD says. It is expected to operate at a frequency of 2 gigahertz or greater, and to integrate a series of other features that normally require separate chips–including an AMD connection technology called the “Freedom Fabric” for packing chips extremely close together to save space in computer rooms.

Besides the new ARM-based chips, AMD on Tuesday is announcing two x86 server chips–code-named Berlin and Warsaw–that also are scheduled to arrive next year

Full Article: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/06/17/amd-prepares-move-to-seattle-its-first-arm-chip/tab/print/

This company really needs to stay viable to keep competition alive in chip making. They exploited quite a few of Intel's mistakes back in the day, beating them to x86-64 being one of their most amazing moments. I wish them the best of luck. Intel's fabrication capabilities and the fact that it spends an R&D budget that's larger than AMD per year make them pretty tough competition.