14 DAY TRIAL // Without too much publicity, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) has presented its next generation of mobile processors. The event took place in Japan. The new mobile processors have an advanced memory controller and two processing engines. AMD stated that the Yamato project aims to system developers, easing the developing process and the notebook manufacturing, based on the AMD technologies.
The platform presented at the Japan event, according to sources, is built on the Nvidia nForce chip, has an Nvidia GeForce MXM graphic model, a hard disk, an optical unit and all the other components that a laptop computer has.
The AMD dual core processor inside uses the Socket 1 infrastructure and a dual channel memory controller, but the clock speed is not yet known. The new platform is not a laptop all the way, but a set of components put in a special case. This kind of case is used for the developing and testing processes of mobile computers.
The Yamato project wants to allow notebooks to run AMD Turion processors, which consume less electricity, offering a longer battery life, of more than five hours. The platform was jointly developed by AMD, IBM Japan, but also by Nvidia. Moreover, AMD will maintain its politics of allowing third party chipset designers to offer core logic sets for its new mobile technology.
Also, AMD is said to plan sharing all its design materials with its production partners, insisting on the use of commercially available components. But for fulfilling these plans, AMD needs reference designs developed with chipset manufacturers.
Until now, only Nvidia presented a reference motherboard. But the Nvidia chipsets are not used in notebook computers. Now, ATI is expected to propose a reference design. The company offers chips for the majority of the mobile computers that run on AMD chips. From now, the battle between ATI and Nvidia will take place also on the mobile segment, hopefully leveraging the prices.