14 DAY TRIAL // AMD is expected to announce today a few of its objectives regarding a netbook processor it plans to release as Atom's competitor. According to some voices, this would be Bobcat, the UMPC-oriented processor, but the chip maker could present other processors. About four months ago, AMD’s CEO, Dirk Meyer, said that AMD would discuss its response to Intel's Atom at an analyst conference in Q4; the event will take place today.
AMD's Bobcat surfaced more than 18 months ago and was presented as an alternative to Intel's Celeron M chips which were meant for the UMPC market. In the meantime, the Santa Clara chip maker launched Atom, and there are two flavors of the chip available on the market at the moment, 'Diamondville' for netbooks and 'Silverthorne' for MIDs.
The role that Bobcat will have on the market is currently unknown, yet it is important to note that the chip features a single 1GHz 64-bit core, 128KB of L1 cache, 256KB of L2, an 800MHz HyperTransport link and a DDR 2 memory controller. The CPU should fit inside an 812-pin 27mm² BGA package and comes with an 8W TDP. A few weeks ago, AMD was rumored to be canceling the Bobcat project, but the chip maker rushed to deny the rumors.
Undoubtedly, Intel's Atom uses less power than Bobcat, since Diamondville has a 2.5W TDP. On the other hand, Atom works with a northbridge that needs 22W of power, which places AMD's CPU on a better position, even if Intel's chip also includes a graphics core. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily imply that Bobcat will go against Atom. AMD announced sometime in September that it would prepare a set of low-cost single- and dual-core Athlon-based "AMD Ultra-Value Client" processors expected to surface these days.
The Sunnyvale company is said to be releasing a dual-core UVC, 3250e, featuring a 22W TDP and a 1.5GHz core clock, as well as a 2650e CPU running at 1.6GHz but consuming only 15W. Both of these chips should come with 512KB of L2 cache per core. There are some voices that say the UVC could become a Diamondville rival, at least on the desktop segment.
Although MIDs didn't manage to enter the market as expected, netbooks did, driving PC sales up during the second quarter of the year. AMD expressed its skepticism regarding this market segment, yet some would argue that was the case only because they didn't have a processor to sell to netbook makers.
In the meantime, Atom managed to dominate the area, outpacing possible competitors as the VIA C7-M CPU. We will learn very soon whether AMD has something to go against Intel's low power chip or not. Atom was chosen as an option by most vendors, including HP, which announced a refreshed netbook lineup featuring Atom instead of the initially used C7-M. On the other hand, Acer, whose Aspire One is placed second after Asus Eee PC in popularity, announced that its next netbook would probably feature another processor. Perhaps the vendor has an AMD chip in mind.