LAST WEEK AT the Spring Processor Forum, AMD let fly some of the details of it's next architecture, the K8L. Now, attentive watchers will realise that AMD promised two new architectures in the same two year time frame, so what is the other? In short, mobile.
Details are very very sketchy right now, but there is definitely a new AMD mobile part starting to make the rounds in Taiwan, and the code name Bulldozer keeps cropping up at the same time. One thing is for sure though, the Turion X2 is far from the only answer the green guys will have for Merom.
This seems to be the first tentative poke above water for the added design teams AMD is building in the background. Up until now, AMD has basically taken an existing server design, the K8, and bent it into service as a laptop part. This was a functional but far from optimal solution, especially in the face of a second generation dedicated mobile part from Intel.
AMD had to either do it from the ground up or cede the market to Intel. From the sound of it, it is not going to give an inch, and if it takes dedicated design teams to do it, that is what AMD will do. It will be interesting to see if it can stay as disciplined and focused as the K8 squad with larger numbers and more irons in the fire. µ
theinquirer.net
Sounds like they have working silicon to me, so how could this be the K8L Doug has assured us isn't due out until mid 2008??
If we're lucky, Hans will write something up based on the die photo in the LL article. |
