Interesting concepts and platforms

Jul 28, 2007 11:10 GMT  ·  By

Now that AMD has finished its merger and integration with the graphics chips manufacturer ATI, a number of interesting and less traditional computing solutions and concepts may appear on the market in the following years. At the AMD Analyst Day conference there were many subjects approached and among them the subject of future graphics chips. AMD and ATI offered an impressive roadmap and according to Rick Bergman, AMD Senior Vice President and General Manager of Graphics Products for AMD cited by the news site Ars Technica the company has adopted a new slogan for their graphics cores: "AMD wants to make the chips that power "all of the screens in your life"".

The AMD and ATI roadmap addresses the computer desktop platform, as well as the notebook and even cell phones. In order to address the need for a new mobile platform AMD already rolled out the "Kite", the Turion 64 X2 mobile processor, the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400/2600 series DX10 cards backed up by the M690 chipset. As a replacement for the "Kite" platform, the company has plans for the "Puma" that will be "first ground-up notebook platform, with mobile-specific integrated northbridge architecture" made entirely by AMD. Another interesting idea is the PowerXpress feature that will allow users to run a discrete graphics card when powering from the main grid and an integrated one when on battery in order to save power and increase battery life.

The real treat of the AMD roadmap is the section dedicated to the desktop platform. It is made up of two rather distinctive parts: the desktop performance and the mainstream one. The performance platform, with the code name "Spider" will be soon followed by a better version named "Leo". The more important feature of these platforms is the implemented CrossFire version 2.0 technology. "While AMD's Radeon X2900XD GPU was introduced to the scene as the smallest 65nm part in their lineup, AMD expects a 55nm GPU in 2008 under the Leo platform, as well as support for DX10+ in its new high-end R7XX series of graphics cards". The desktop mainstream platform offers a nice surprise too, as the Pinwheel ? as it is called ? is due out this year and according to Bergman, "GPUs aren't all about graphics anymore; they're also about video technology". "To that end, the HD2000 cards feature unified video decoder (UVD) technology which dedicates hardware to manage high-definition content. Bergman also added, "Every major desktop OEM will announce HD2000 series products this fall.""

The presentation of the next generation of integrated graphic cards and displays for cell phones revealed the capabilities of a technology called by AMD "Imageon". "AMD plans 428x240/800x480 cellphone display resolutions with 3D graphics, 3 megapixel cameras with MPEG4 video encoding, support for AMR/MIDI/MP3/AAC/AAC+ audio, and support for the MPEG4/H.264 codec commonly found in QuickTime 7 media". In the future, the plans are getting even more ambitious as the company expects to be able to "provide 800x480/800x600/1024x768 display resolutions on cellphones, with more advanced 3D graphics and up to 12 megapixel cameras in 2009, along with 3D audio/voice recognition audio features".