With the netbook market getting so crowded with each passing day, it's very likely that AMD will soon provide a new low-power CPU meant to take on Intel's Atom. As we already told you a while back, the new CPU is expected to be launched by the end of the year.

Back when we first brought you the news, the estimated launch time was based on speculations alone. More specific details about the product surfaced because of a leaked slide, which made it into all the news last month. Now, newly appointed AMD CEO Dirk Meyer has confirmed that the Sunnyvale chip maker is working on its own low-power CPU core, meant to compete with Intel's Atom. However, despite the fact that all the early speculations have finally been confirmed, there are no official details on the new chip. Meyer stated that such information would only be made available in November.

Even with Meyer's recent announcement, the general state of confusion created by AMD's low-power processing unit is still at extremely high levels. For starters, no one can really say whether the forthcoming CPU is based on the leaked slide and if it has anything to do with the "Bobcat" core AMD announced last year. As for that last part, a recent piece on the ArsTechnica website indicates that the information currently available on the "Bobcat" architecture suggests that there are differences between it and the leaked BGA CPU.

First of all, Bobcat is expected to be a completely new CPU designed specifically for the low-power operating devices, whereas the leaked chip doesn't appear to have anything architecturally new about it. As a matter of fact, the latter CPU is said to provide an 8W TDP level, whereas the Bobcat is expected to be capable of scaling from 1 to 10W. And this is one thing that the "BGA CPU" doesn't seem capable of achieving.

If AMD succeeds in providing the world with its own version of a low-power, netbook-ready CPU, then the Sunnyvale chip maker is on its way to becoming the third player on this market, one that is currently led by Intel, which is closely followed by VIA. This will also mean that the market will have a more competitive edge, although it is yet uncertain whether AMD's new product will actually be ready to take on Intel's Atom.