AMD chips target wireless notebook trend

By Michael Kanellos, CNET News, 12 March, 2003 09:36

NEWS

AMD will roll out 12 new processors for notebooks on Wednesday at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany, as part of an effort to ride the wireless wave. The new chips, which will be sold under the Athlon XP-M brand, include three based on the recently released "Barton" processor for performance desktops, and five energy-efficient models for so-called "thin and light" notebooks that use a maximum of 25 watts of energy, according to the company. Energy efficiency will help PC makers add wireless networking. AMD is not the only company releasing new notebook processors on 12 March. In New York, Intel will release the Pentium-M, an energy-efficient chip that lets notebooks run five or more hours on a single battery charge. The company will also come out with Centrino, a chip bundle that includes a Pentium-M and the silicon necessary for wireless communications. Nearly every major notebook manufacturer will release Pentium-M or Centrino notebooks tomorrow for the business or corporate market. Earlier in the week, Transmeta, another maker of notebook chips, unveiled details of its forthcoming TM8000 processor. The new AMD chips will initially land in the consumer and small business markets, but the Sunnyvale, California-based company has said it will continue to try to push its laptop chips into the corporate market in 2003. AMD currently commands 19 percent of the market for desktop and notebook chips. The Athlon XP-M family breaks down into three segments: a high performance segment based around the Barton processor; a middle segment based around the standard Athlon XP chip; and the low-power segment which relies on a standard Athlon XP that uses less electricity. The Barton chips will be sold with model numbers of 2200+, 2400+ and 2500+. (The performance number is roughly equivalent to the clock speed of Intel's Pentium 4. A 2500+ would thus perform about the same as a 2.5GHz Pentium 4.) Hewlett-Packard is likely to come out with a notebook using the chip sometime in the first half, AMD said. Barton chips differ from other Athlon XP and Athlon XP-M chips primarily in that they have a larger cache, an on-chip reservoir of memory for rapid data access. The energy efficient chips will provide lower performance, but they'll let notebooks run longer on a battery charge. These chips will initially come out with model numbers ranging from 1800+ to 1400+. Fujitsu is expected to release a notebook in the United States using these chips. Asian manufacturers such as Tsing Hua Unisplendor will subsequently introduce notebooks using the chip into China and other regional markets. AMD is also working on a chip that consumes even less power, relying on a maximum of 16 watts, according to a representative, but it isn't ready yet. Meanwhile, the chips in the middle group will come with model numbers ranging from 2000+ to 2600+, which indicates that the top chip in this group will actually outperform the Barton mobile chips. In September, AMD will come out with the delayed Athlon64 for mobile computers.

See Chips Central for the latest headlines on processors and semiconductors. To find out more about the computers and hardware that these chips are being used in, see ZDNet UK's Hardware News Section. Let the Chips Central editor know what you think by email. And sign up for the weekly Chips Central newsletter.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

22 minutes ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

25 minutes ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

2 hours ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

3 hours ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

3 hours ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

4 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

4 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

5 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

5 hours ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?

"Interesting thought ... If you installed Win7 as a dual boot on a machine that previously only had Linux, and it wrecked your Linux installation,...

5 hours ago by BugStalker on Windows 7 Declares War on GRUB

This is an excellent summary of Ubuntu and Mint and the interface differences between them. Most such articles take a very partisan position for...

5 hours ago by whs001 on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

6 hours ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

9 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

10 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

10 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

11 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

12 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

13 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

22 hours ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Replying to an old topic that I'm currently facing with my CEO (who is on a Mac). Our servers are primarily Windows Servers, office is about...

1 day ago by txtrainguy on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

AMD chips target wireless notebook trend

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Athlon 64 delayed until September

Chipmakers lower processor prices

Pentium-M laptops arrive on the scene

AMD looks to ARM itself for low-power tablets

Apple tops list of semiconductor buyers

Post your comment

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in Processors

AMD looks to ARM itself for low-power tablets

Apple tops list of semiconductor buyers

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Test Analyst - Business Intelligence /Data Warehousing

Test Analyst - Business Intelligence /Data Warehousing

Technical MI Manager - 50-60k - Leeds

Inside ZDNet UK

A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

2012 Predictions: VCE FastPath, VI SAN Probe & Hadoop

BlackBerry Bold 9790

Case study: How cloud enables growth

Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit

Toshiba Portégé Z830-10P Review

BT's archive: Pictures from the vault

News & Analysis

Reviews

Blogs

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features

ZDNet UK / News and Analysis / Workspace IT / Processors

AMD chips target wireless notebook trend

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Post your comment

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in Processors

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Inside ZDNet UK

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features