AMD today hosted an innovation update for investors and members of the press to talk about how it’s realigning its strategy based on a new solution called 'ambidextrous computing.' The company has been working on this solution for two years and the end result is an ARM-based SoC that is pin compatible with AMD’s next-gen x86. Dubbed Project Skybridge, this will allow users to have a motherboard that runs ARM and x86.
This design framework is a family of products on the 20nm process and will use Puma+ on the x86 side and A57 on the ARM side. It’ll feature HSA as well as AMD GCN (Graphics Core Next) and will be Android compatible -- a first for AMD. Though AMD’s meeting today was heavy on Seattle and what it means for the server market, the company has said that Skybridge will target the client/embedded markets for 2015, with nothing for servers.
AMD also talked briefly about its plans for 2016, which will see the company debut its own custom-developed 64-bit ARM core design. The company didn’t offer much in the way of information but did tell us that this 64-bit ARMv8 CPU core will be in servers and embedded solutions along with semi-custom and ultra low power client devices. We’ll also see a matching x86 design around the same time. Again, not a whole lot of information on that right now, but we'll keep you posted.
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