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AMD Not Looking to Wrestle ARM (Maybe Later)

by - source: Tom's Hardware US

AMD staying out of the smartphone chip war, for now.

The smartphone CPU market is one of the fastest growing in the industry, but AMD with all its processor expertise doesn't seem interested in targeting that segment just yet.

AMD CEO Dirk Meyer was asked by Fortune Magazine if the company will compete with ARM.

Meyer replied, "I don't foresee that day coming in the near term, and I'll tell you why. First of all, when we consider which areas to approach, we look at markets, we look at the technology capabilities we have, and we try to find an intersection point that really represents really big opportunities. As I've said, by far the biggest business opportunity we've got is in PCs and servers.

"The market for silicon processing content is bigger than the smartphone market and is going to grow, in revenue terms, frankly faster than the smartphone market. And the other thing we really like about our core market is that there aren't that many competitors versus the cell phone market, where you've got Qualcomm is the big guy, Broadcom getting into the business and a lot of other incumbents that are already scrambling for shares. I'd rather focus on the big market, where there's a small number of competitors."

The main competitors against AMD are Intel and Nvidia. Both Intel and Nvidia are already going after the smartphone market, with the latter pushing its Tegra technology and the former adapting its Atom for smartphone applications. In fact, Intel has already started efforts to make its x86 offering competitive on a power consumption level against the ARM CPUs.

That doesn’t mean, however, that AMD is going to ignore the smartphone market.

"Having said that, I don't think we can ignore in the long term what's going on with mobility, the fact that people's eyeballs are spending more time in front of things like tablets and smartphones," Meyer added. "And we are ensuring that we are developing the technology that will, over time, address these markets. It's not a 'not-ever,' it's just a 'not now' statement."

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Anonymous 09/13/2010 2:11 AM
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AMD can compete with ARM designs

Anonymous 09/13/2010 2:21 AM
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Makes sense they don't have the time or money to invest into this right now. Any company that diversifies too much ends up loosing. Sometimes it's not good to have a company that does "EVERYTHING." I love AMD and hope this choice works out for the best.

Parsian 09/13/2010 2:24 AM
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It would be nice for them to get into it in near future... Especially when, they can implement their CPU+GPU solution on tablet/netbook/smartphone market.

In any case, GO AMD!!!

eyefinity 09/13/2010 2:30 AM
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matt87_50 09/13/2010 2:32 AM
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lol, where the hell is the "ARM Wrestle" pun?

the main reason I look at news is for the puns!

lauxenburg 09/13/2010 2:37 AM
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greghome 09/13/2010 2:47 AM
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But I wanted to get a Bobcat Smartphone .................. T-T

kancaras 09/13/2010 2:48 AM
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amd is just hidding sth here. maybe ontario will meet smartphone spec reqs. well at least they will shake notebooks market

otacon72 09/13/2010 3:31 AM
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ares1214 09/13/2010 3:40 AM
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Kelavarus 09/13/2010 3:47 AM
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eklipz330 09/13/2010 4:02 AM
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otacon72 :
AMD needs to compete with intel first. They haven't done a good job of that in a long time. Thumb me down all you want...truth hurts.


what? they've been doling out competition for years, and where they fail at performance, they make up with pricing.

zoemayne 09/13/2010 4:52 AM
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if they cant even get into the notebook/netbook market how can they jump to the smartphone market. they need to recover from intels practices that caused them to behind in the PC market before anything.

gmarsack 09/13/2010 5:07 AM
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AMD is smart. Become a master at your own market first, then once achieved, diversify. They are simply working on perfecting their own market before they consider the challenges of another. Patience is a quality AMD is wise to use and I agree with them. :) Besides, can you imagine what 2011 will bring by way of their new lineup. You never know, if it goes well enough, as some in this thread have said, we might see bobcat or similar flavor chip end up in a smart phone, but only after it proves its worth on the battlefield.

Shin-san 09/13/2010 5:11 AM
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AMD to me is a company that does things incrementally, kinda like Intel as well. It's not the IBM model where you have giant leaps. I think it's smarter to transition to netbook and then start heading for mobile

Anonymous 09/13/2010 5:28 AM
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fball922 09/13/2010 6:07 AM
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Its all about core competencies. Kudos to AMD for not trying to over extend themselves into markets they aren't ready for *cough* NVidia *cough*

failboat 09/13/2010 6:44 AM
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When I see the word AMD; All I can think about is my 555be coming in the mail. Give me a thumbs up for luck on 4 core unlock.

gamebrigada 09/13/2010 6:50 AM
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AMD says as they are cooking up a mobile octacore 2ghz processor with eyefinity support... They always say that lol.

iboomer 09/13/2010 6:54 AM
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MarketBlaster :
AMD has worse CPUs than Intel in the server/pc market.AMD has more expensive, less energy efficient, and slower CPUs than ARM in the smart phone market...The only thing AMD is good for is to just make sure that Intel is not the only one in the market, and prevent a further price climb, other than that, their tech is useless. Their 12 cores are worse in HPC than 6 of intel's i7 cores.


Pics or it didn't happen. In other words, cite you statistics instead of spewing out that drivel.

Everything I have read says that the Opteron 12 core, is marginally faster at HPC than the Xeon. Given the fact that I can get the Opteron for less money, and add more RAM to it for approximately the same price as the Xeon, your statement, sir, is idiotic.



Give AMD props for sticking by what they do best. They say they aren't going to compete right now.

dEAne 09/13/2010 8:50 AM
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While they (AMD) are not for ARM they're up to something special.

Nintendork 09/13/2010 9:24 AM
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ARM is good at what it does. I see more a future joint-venture between AMD/ARM than a last man standing match.

HappyBB 09/13/2010 9:56 AM
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lashton 09/13/2010 11:04 AM
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MarketBlaster :
AMD has worse CPUs than Intel in the server/pc market.AMD has more expensive, less energy efficient, and slower CPUs than ARM in the smart phone market...The only thing AMD is good for is to just make sure that Intel is not the only one in the market, and prevent a further price climb, other than that, their tech is useless. Their 12 cores are worse in HPC than 6 of intel's i7 cores.


thats why for data mining companys wont even touch intel and the 6-12 core AMD CPUs are better and faster at data mining by a noticable margin

lashton 09/13/2010 11:07 AM
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2011 should see AMD take the performance crown Out of order execution if done right will rip through Intels market segmnents like wild fire, think of a 1watt idle CPU thats 2-3 times faster than an atom with a 5xxx integrated chip, finally you will be able to play games on a nettop and have longer battery power!

Stifle 09/13/2010 1:44 PM
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I would like to see AMD branch out into the PC market more, their market share is pretty low right now. . .

tu_illegalamigo 09/13/2010 2:58 PM
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Good strategy AMD, let everyone else fight now and jump in later when you`re ready. They definitely need to solidify their marketshare in the PC market, and the new bulldozer/bobcat may be the turning point for them, i await next year eagerly.

dalta centauri 09/13/2010 3:10 PM
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lashton :
2011 should see AMD take the performance crown Out of order execution if done right will rip through Intels market segmnents like wild fire, think of a 1watt idle CPU thats 2-3 times faster than an atom with a 5xxx integrated chip, finally you will be able to play games on a nettop and have longer battery power!


This cannot happen within one year, possibly 2-3 years, but not in a single year. A highly powerful cpu that idles at 1w and can beat most current cpu's...easily possible due to hardware always becoming more powerful. A series 5 Radeon chip integrated within the processor? No, not within a year, we could maybe see as graphic cards use less power itself, but time will tell.

eyemaster 09/13/2010 3:48 PM
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If they go in that market, they will end up with such a small portion that it won't be profitable, will dilute their profits and endanger their future. For now, it's the right decision.

bin1127 09/13/2010 5:09 PM
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I love the title!

Anonymous 09/13/2010 6:08 PM
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Nvidia's Tegra 2 is phenomenal. Thank you ARM, good luck everyone else.


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