AMD Enters Tablet Market

Has always been strategic focus on sales of desktop computer chips, but has always ranked behind Intel's "every oldest" AMD, finally to "transform". According to Reuters, AMD's new CEO, Rory Read, presented a passionate new plan before attending the analysts' meeting for the first time. He said that AMD will adjust its PC chip technology with the goal of rapidly growing tablets. Markets, as well as emerging markets. In addition, AMD released the latest product roadmap on Thursday and announced for the first time that it will produce ultra-low voltage processors for the tablet PC market.

AMD turns the wheel and enters the cloud computing and tablet market At a dialogue with Wall Street analysts, Lloyd's words are full of motivation. He said that AMD will face the rapidly changing computer industry. AMD can use its own chip technology to enter the fast-growing mobile computing and emerging markets, but AMD will be far from the smart phone market. Lloyd said: "We will be on both the client and mobile. I am not suggesting that we will enter the smart phone market, this area is too crowded and the profits are low. I will focus on client mobility and thinness." He said that AMD will focus on cloud computing opportunities and the demand for entry-level PCs and other equipment from developing countries such as China will grow.

AMD said that in the short term the focus will be on improving AMD's implementation, including faster time-to-market, and the long-term plan is to release what it calls "smart" chips. The meaning of this word also implies that AMD will adjust the way it develops a multifunctional product called a system-on-chip.

According to Mark Papermaster, who recently joined AMD as senior vice president and chief technology officer, this means that in addition to AMD’s two known chips, microprocessors and graphics chips, the company also Began to integrate these chips with other chips on a single silicon wafer.

In addition, AMD announced for the first time in its latest product roadmap that it will produce ultra-low voltage processors for the tablet PC market. Lisa Su, general manager of AMD's global business unit, said that AMD will enter the mainstream market including tablet computers, because that is where the market grows. For this reason, AMD will introduce a 4.5-watt "Hondo" acceleration processor. "Hondo" will be under AMD's "Brazos" low-power acceleration processor, a 40-nm technology chip that is expected to be available later this year.

Lloyd emphasized that in the future, it will develop forces in the embedded and mobile sectors, and be optimistic about the development of flat-panel and ultra-low-power thin-and-light notebooks. AMD views its future market prospects as follows: Among them, the tablet accounted for 18.6%, and the server accounted for 5.3%. Accounting for 15.1%, notebooks accounted for 8.4%, only 2.8% for poor PCs and 11.6% for graphics cards. The market and R&D center of gravity is a new look compared to previous years.

Because AMD's former CEO, Dirk Meyer, did not make AMD work on fast-growing mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In August 2011, Lorry took the lead and began steering AMD. After taking over from AMD, Lorrow demonstrated the enthusiasm of the “new government took office for three fires.” First, 10% of layoffs were announced in November 2011, saving an annual expenditure of US$200 million. Then there is AMD's "turning rudder" remarks.

AMD will abandon the concept of confrontation with Intel and expand into new markets. Rollett is promoting internal changes in the company to get rid of traditional and outdated concepts of AMD and Intel. To this end, AMD spokesman Michael Silverman (Michael Silverman) said that AMD will give up the concept of confrontation with Intel, "If a company is always focused on competitors, rather than the market's hopes and needs, it will not be conducive to long-term development of."

Charles King, Pund-IT's chief analyst, said that it was not surprising that Adelaide had made such adjustments after Lorry started to lead AMD. He said: "The new CEO has realized that traditional thinking will limit AMD to Intel's scope. I think this shows that AMD hopes to make breakthroughs in its own way while receiving external evaluations."

However, Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group, said: "Regardless of what AMD thinks, AMD and Intel are still competitors and they will be competitors in the future. The main difference is that AMD seems to have publicly acknowledged that In the traditional processor market, AMD is unlikely to beat Intel."

In-Stat analyst Jim McGregor (Jim McGregor) said that Intel does not currently regard AMD as the greatest threat. He pointed out: "Intel's main competitor is ARM. AMD does not pose much threat to Intel."

Emerging market ARM threats can not be underestimated For a long time, the PC chip market has been under the monopoly situation of Intel and AMD dual oligopoly. Lloyd thinks this situation is not healthy. What is embarrassing is that AMD did not prevail over the years of duopoly competition. In 2011, AMD’s PC processor market share dropped significantly, while Intel’s growth momentum was significant.

Lloyd talked about the dominance of Intel’s competitors in the PC chip market. He said that with the rise of tablet PCs and other devices, Intel’s still been weak in such markets, which opened up new opportunities for companies like AMD to innovate. . Lloyd stressed: "People will see the collapse of patent control points, which control the chip industry year after year. This status will be broken."

However, Lloyd’s revival plan has a long way to go. Because in addition to facing the old rival Intel, AMD must also face the strong challenges of companies such as Qualcomm, which plans to produce low-power ARM architecture low-end PC chips. On the other hand, with the slowdown of PC sales, AMD and Intel found themselves unable to establish a foothold in the smartphone and tablet market. The ARM chip is widely used here.

More seriously, ARM's sphere of influence began to extend to the PC field. Recently, after investigating about 30 PC manufacturers, Morgan Stanley found that 40% of manufacturers are interested in launching ARM processor PC products within two years. Therefore, it is expected that by 2013, the market share of ARM processor-based PC products will reach 10%. According to the prediction of International Data, about 13% of PC products in the world will be based on the ARM architecture in 2015. Of course, the premise is that they can get support from mainstream PC manufacturers.

At present, ARM processors have a large share in the smartphone and tablet market, so many people are very concerned about how ARM processors will perform on PC products. However, the disadvantages of ARM processors are also obvious. If they are not compatible with most application software developed on the Windows platform, the processor performance is not very high.

For Rollett, it is of utmost importance to refine the new strategy as soon as possible and increase implementation to capture tablet computers and emerging markets.