AMD’s Core Innovation Update press conference kicked off
earlier today and became the place for the company to outline its new ambidextrous
approach and architecture. It was also the place where the company announced
that it has acquired the license to build ARM chips.
Having said this, the company also announced two of its
latest project that uses ARM’s technology. On one hand is the new Project
SkyBridge that uses an ambidextrous design framework. This means that the new
chip will offer pin-for-pin compatibility between x86 and AMD systems.
Project SkyBridge will comprise of 20nm APUs and SoCs and
will feature AMD’s new Puma+ x86 cores and ARMs low-power A57 64-bit cores.
Moreover, these new family of chips will support the company’s Heterogeneous
System Architecture (HSA) and Graphics Core Next (GCN) technology.
AMD plans to bring Project SkyBridge to mass consumption by
2015. But for the meantime, the chipmaker is placing its bets on its first
64-bit ARM processor – Seattle.
Scheduled for release in the first half of 2014, Seattle
will feature a 28nm 64-bit ARM server processor. The chip can be equipped with
up to 8 ARM Cortex A57 cores and can have up to 4MB shared L2 and 8MB L3 cache.
It can store up to 128GB per core and sports dual channel DDR3/4 with ECC up to
1866MHz.
Moreover, the chip is also ARM Server Base System
Architecture specification compliant. The company plans to use Seattle as a
first step to acquire the same level of dominance it has enjoyed in the console
and data center industry.
Whether this strategy will prove successful in the future
remains uncertain. However, with Project SkyBridge and Seattle it looks like
the future is bright for AMD.
