AMD has just launched a new line of G-Series processors for embedded applications such as smart TVs and set-top-boxes or digital signage. The company’s G-Series processors tend to be low-power x86 chips with an emphasis on graphics capabilities.

The new G-Series chips are based on AMD’s new “Jaguar” architecture and feature AMD Radeon 8000 graphics, offering a bit more than twice the CPU performance of previous G-Series chips while consuming from 9W to 25W of power.

But as Engadget noticed, hidden away in today’s news is a sign of things to come.

AMD G-Series

The new G-Series chips have a little X on the label, indicating that they’re x86 chips.

They need that signifier, because AMD is planning to start making chips using ARM-based designs in the future.

Those next-gen chips will likely combine a low-power ARM core with AMD Radeon graphics to offer support for HD video, 3D gaming, and more. We could eventually see embedded chips from ARM that use 3W of power or less.

AMD wouldn’t be the first chip maker known for graphics to get into the ARM space. NVIDA is now a major player in the smartphone and tablet chip market thanks to its line of Tegra processors, which combine low-power ARM cores with NVIDIA’s graphics technology.

While today’s news is about AMD bringing ARM technology to its embedded chips for TVs and informational kiosks, we might one day see AMD and NVIDIA going head-to-head in the mobile device space as well.

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

39 replies on “AMD acknowledges plans for ARM-based embedded chips”

  1. Hopefully they also make server chips using the 64-bit Cortex-A57 or later cores.

  2. This is Funny AMD is trying so hard to save it’s Sorry ASS its quite assuming but the end result WILL BE THE SAME!!!!

    1. So, you think ARM is great and AMD is awful.

      News that AMD will make ARM chips must have really confused you. I think this is a great move, ARM needs a respected server chip maker to raise it’s profile on the server side of things

      1. Wrong AMD sucks at making chips its just going to be a plain Armv8 that anyone with a checkbook can buy!!! Everyone else will have custom or semi-custom Arm chips that will decimate AMD’s Arm chips in speed, power usage, or even better BOTH!!! Basically AMD is in a lose-lose situation Prepare to DIE AMD!!!!

        1. Yes, AMD are going to use a plain ARM v8 core. But for AMD that is a good match.

          To start with Server chips do not have to be as power efficient as phone chips, so they do not need a custom core. Also, AMD has experience in high-frequency CPU designs, if they can apply some of that knowledge to ARM server chips they won’t be at a disadvantage.

          The other thing is that it takes a lot more than a CPU core to make a server chip. Server chips need powerful chipsets which allow multipe CPUs to talk to each other, along with powerful networking. AMD has all this server infrastructure already, unlike many of the current ARM chipmakers. Considering all this, and their good reputation in servers gives them an inherent advantage over their competitors.

          1. No you DON’T get it do you. That’s a problem because everyone else will have custom Armv8 cores that will UTTERLY trash AMD’s shitty plain Armv8 cores. AMD doesn’t know how to use to ANY degree so they are going with their usual plan and that plan is too suck ass, make money while doing as little as possible, and NEVER bring anything worthwhile to the table EVER!!!!!

          2. You don’t seem to understand how companies customize ARM cores, it’s not done to improve performance, its done to lower power consumption. This has been the case for any custom ARM core I’ve seen, including anything by Qualcom and Apple.
            On a server, improving power consumption a tiny bit is unnecessary, having the required server infrastructure is much more important.

            Also, you don’t seem to understand how public companies work! If any public company didn’t have a plan of “making money by doing as little as possible” they would likely be sued by their shareholders for wasting their money.

          3. Hint AMD is using PLAIN ARMv8 cores NOT custom ones. Yes Qualcomm and apple do custom chips and they do a remarkable job doing so but NOT AMD!!!! Hint that is what AMD IS DOING!!! Doing as little as possible because they can’t afford the time or the money to customize their chips. Wrong AMD is doing that right now with Richland. AMD did nothing to it but bump up clock speeds and then put it out to market talk about sinking low to survive.

          4. No, AMD are not making a custom ARM v8 core because the market for ARM based servers is not proven. If they take off, then I’m sure they will.

  3. AMD should not do ARM Cpu’s. They would suck at them like they do with everything else.

    1. This makes no sense. They’ve managed to survive against intel forever, and they have graphics chips that are on par with nvidia. The reality is that intel should probably also be building arm processors, but instead are trying to compete in that space with x86 processors that really aren’t appropriate.

      1. x86 is dying but Intel shouldn’t give up x86 Cpu’s. People still need them in order to run current software. AMD SUCKS AT EVERYTHING THEY DO!!!!! AMD WILL DIE SOON I can’t WAIT!!!! M$ IS DEAD AS WELL!!!!

        1. Wrong, AMD is pretty good actually. They make some powerful and reasonably priced chips

          1. Wrong they make Crappy chips!!!! Horrible from a power usage standpoint and mediocre from a performance standpoint. All-round LOSE-LOSE for AMD!!!!

          2. Intel will have one this year for tablets just like AMD will have one. AMD uses FAR more power than 5 watts more like 15 watts for the whole tablet.

          3. How would you know how much power these new chips use? They use a brand new design and are produced on a new (for AMD) 28nm process. Thus any conclusion you jump to based on the current range of chips is most likely Wrong.

            Get back to me after some reputable agency reviews one of these new chips.

          4. Two to three times the TDP value. AMD will still use above 10 watts for tablets.

          5. Nope, Wrong again, AMD have better tablet chips available now. And apparently, AMD have a 5Watt quad-core tablet chip in the works as well.

          6. Dead wrong about what?

            Sure, the Z-60 was not very popular, and it was because of the reasons you put forward. But the Z-60 was built using the 40nm process though, and the new Temash and Kabini chips will be built on the 28nm process.

            So, by your own logic, the Z-60 was not popular because it was not much more powerful than the Atom. So if the next generation of chip are much more powerful (AMDs estimates put them at more than 260% more powerful) then they will be more popular.

          7. The problem is that Temash needs to be much much more powerful than the Z-60 but that’s NOT going to happen. I hear the GPU will increase ONLY by a factor of 2 and it will use less power but NOT enough to make a difference. AMD would basically need to double its performance AND cuts its overall power usage IN half. AMD won’t be able to do that its just not possible for them.

          8. The solution is that Temash will be much more powerful than the Z-60. Apparently the IPC will be 15% higher, and it will also have twice as many cores. That all adds up to a much more powerful chip.
            As you mentioned, the GPU in Temash will also be 2x as fast, and it was already miles ahead of Atom based solutions.

          9. Wrong AMD’s GPU is ONLY 25% more powerful and uses TWICE the power to do it. Yeah AMD Temash will double GPU performance, Increase IPC by 15%, and in some versions double the core count BUT IT WON’T BE ENOUGH!!! AMD will use way too much power and Intel won’t be sitting still their 22nm Atom will use far less power and perform so much better than their current ATOM or ANYTHING AMD has out!!!!

          10. What do you mean, it’s only 25% more powerful than what?

            I know you’re afraid to give specifics because you are afraid you’ll be caught out, but give it a try.

            Sure, the AMD chips will use more power than Atom based tablets, but they will be more powerful and probably be cheaper as well. I know you’re not a fan of choice, but most people are.

            The 22nm Atom is only going to double the power of the current Atom GPU At Best. This will mean that it”s still miles behind AMD on the GPU front.

          11. Triple!!! Any evidence for that? Or are you just making things up again. In their recent release of information about the Silvermont Atom there was no mention of the GPU at all! That usually means bad news.

            What we do know is that Silvermont will have a quarter of the GPU modules as an old Ivy bridge chip, and without details on clock speeds nobody knows how bad it will be. But it is going to be bad. And if it was triple, that would still put it behind the new AMD chips.

            As for cheaper, I’m sure Intel would love to know how you have pricing details for chips that are still 6 months from release.

          12. Even if it does AMD is still too power consuming to use in tablets Temash WON’T CHANGE THAT!!!! Actually its going to double it and use less power something AMD will never be able to do!!!! AMD isn’t that friendly either they switched to $$$ mode so they pretty much are bastards NOW!!!!

          13. Nope, I doesn’t need to consume less power, it needs to be a more powerful chip. Temash will be perfect for large tablets, convertibles and small ultrabooks.

          14. Idiot AMD needs to use less power and have better performance not one or the other. Otherwise AMD will fall flat on its face just like it did with the z-60!!! Temash because of its high power consumption will be compared to Intel haswell not Atom. Intel haswell will utterly DESTROY Temash in every aspect in power usage!!!!

          15. I disagree completely. The priority for AMD should be to have much greater processing power at the same power envelope as the Z-60. And this is exactly what they are doing.
            You keep rabbiting on about Haswell and the new Atom. Is it beyond your comprehension that AMD would like to split those 2 Intel lines and fill in the considerable gap between them with the Jaguar based chips.
            In simple terms, Temash will be more powerful than the Atom, but lower power than anything Haswell can achieve. If they can pull this off then there is a large market for cheap-but-good small-laptops, convertibles and big tablets waiting for them.

          16. You kidding If AMD did that they would get owned by Haswell. AMD jaguar chips SUCK too much for that to ever happen. Wrong Intel Core I series has always been as power efficient as AMD brazos all the way completely destroying it in almost every aspect Hint AMD won’t be able to pull this off they are spread too thin.

          17. If AMD manage to pull off a 5Watt tablet chip, that will be more powerful than an Atom, and, it will be in a lower power envelope than any Haswell chip.

            Core i-series has never been as efficient as Brazos. The lowest wattage core-series chip was a 13W which ran at a slow 1.4Ghz and cost $250. So it used a lot more power than the AMD chips and cost massively more.

            And how would you know if the Jaguar based chips “suck” they haven’t even been released yet! I know you’ve got an Anti-AMD bias, but how about you wait for some reviews at least.

          18. That’s a big IF but it won’t happen. Those 5 watt chips you speak of use 15 watts AT LEAST for the whole system so that’s NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!! Intel haswell will have chips down to 7 watts but they will be pricey however AMD isn’t any cheaper when it comes to the overall product so its a moot point. Because they are only a slight improvement over the Shitty Brazos that AMD released in 2011. 15% better than utter crap is still CRAP!!!!

          19. apparently it will happen. And about the whole-system-power, you’ve got it backwards here as well, the new Temash chips are full SOCs, i.e. they require no power hogging companion chips, unlike Haswell which requires a companion chip. So you can tack on an extra 4W on to any Haswell TDP.

            And AMD based systems will be cheaper, Intel charges a premium for it’s low power chips, e.g. the cheapest low power celeron cost $86. You could get whole bobcat based chips with motherboards for a lot less

            Again you say that the jaguar chips are only a slight improvement over bobcat, 15%, try 250%, here, you’re ignoring the obvious evidence, they are built on a much more advanced manufacturing node, will have a higher IPC and will also have more cache memory, and more cores. That all adds up to a substantially faster chip.

          20. Quad cores ARE IRREVERENT!!!! For what I do IPC IS KING!!!! For what I do gaming and emulation single core performance IS KING Nothing else other than power usage matters in a CPU. Quad cores are useless in tablets and to me so to me AMD only has a 15% performance increase from Brazos which was UTTER CRAP so to me Temash is still CRAP!!!!

          21. Again, you’re completely wrong.

            Even games are starting to use quad cores these days.

            And you say that quad cores are “useless in tablets” but you are missing the whole point of an x86 tablet. You can use it as a tablet when you like, but then plug in a keyboard, mouse and screen and do some serious work on it. And most productivity software will take advantage of those 4 cores.

  4. It is about time. AMD should have been in this market for a couple of years.

Comments are closed.