14 DAY TRIAL // AMD is going to be a key player on the ARM server market, but that doesn't mean it isn't designing ARM-based chips for other things. If recent rumors are true, we may soon have something competing with NVIDIA's Tegra processor.
The folks at the SweClockers website are the ones that have provided us, and the rest of the world, with this new information.
Essentially, Advanced Micro Devices is putting together a system-on-chip featuring several ARM Cortex A57 or A53 cores.
Those are general-purpose cores, which means they will be able to effectively carry out all the operations that a tablet is expected to handle.
Add to that a Radeon graphics processing unit and you really have everything you need to make a good, strong slate PC.
This, at least, is the impression left behind by the sudden report. It doesn't contradict previous findings, and it definitely fits ARM's stance, as well as that of AMD.
The chip will probably rely on AMD's “modular chip” approach and will use 28nm manufacturing technology, at least at first.
The modular approach means that extra cores could, eventually, be added, making the platform scalable. It's different from NVIDIA's tactic, which has, so far, consisted of advancing the Tegra much like Intel does, with new core architectures and die layout.
It might help catch up to NVIDIA though, albeit not immediately. After all, it's doubtful that AMD will start out with something as good as NVIDIA's Logan (Tegra 4 successor). NVIDIA has been at this for years already, and AMD is still catching up on the laptop front, let alone the tablet sector.
Then again, this will be different from there, where AMD is working with x86 against the other and much larger x86 expert. And its graphics are as good as NVIDIA's, so ultimately it will fall to the ARM side to make the difference, unless AMD hits snags in the miniaturization of the Radeon GPU.