When netbooks hit the big time in 2008, chip maker AMD too a sort of wait-and-see approach. It wasn’t until this year that the company started to get serious about the budget ultraportable space, with the introduction of its new Nile platform that covers chips for low power 10 inch netbooks and for more powerful 11 and 12 inch models with higher performance graphics and dual core processors.

So it’s not that surprising to learn that AMD isn’t in a hurry to launch chips destined for tablets. While tablets with x86 and ARM-based chips are all the rage at the Computex trade show in Taiwan this week, let’s be honest. Right now there’s only one blockbuster tablet on the market: The Apple iPad. That could all change in the next few months as other companies start to bring devices to market. But it’s still a little early to tell whether the iPad shows there’s a huge demand for tablet-style devices… or just a demand for Apple branded devices.

DigiTimes reports that AMD is staying out of the tablet game for now, and instead plans to continue targeting its next-generation low power Bobcat chips at netbooks. The Bobcat platform should hit the market in 2011. Despite the oft-repeated mantra that the netbook is dead, AMD appears to have decided that the low cost ultraportable computer is here to stay… for at least long enough to warrant spending some R&D money on the platform. If tablets really do take off, I suspect we’ll see AMD make a move into the tablet space in another few years.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

One reply on “AMD isn’t rushing into the tablet PC space”

  1. Hm. My HP TX2 is rocking an AMD ZM-87 and HP (real) TabletPCs have had AMD chips for years.

Comments are closed.