AMD gears up for mobile push

New Puma platform boasts power-saving features and optimised for mobile computing

AMD has revealed details of its next-generation laptop platform that is designed to cope with increasing performance demands from users without compromising on battery life. However, with the launch some time away, the firm risks losing ground to rival Intel.

Expected to ship in mid-2008 and codenamed Puma, the new platform will feature Griffin, AMD’s first processor designed specifically for mobile PCs. It will also boast power-saving features such as the ability to switch from high-performance to integrated graphics when on battery power.

The Griffin dual-core processor has specific optimisations for mobile computing, whereas current AMD chips are basically the same architecture across laptop, desktop and server, according to the firm.

“We decided we needed a mobile-specific Northbridge [system interface], so that laptop users aren’t paying for scalability features that won’t get used,” said Maurice Steinman, AMD Fellow at its Boston design centre.

Griffin – which is likely to keep the firm’s Turion mobile brand – can run its two cores at different frequency and voltage settings depending on the workload of each core. The on-chip memory controller also operates independently, enabling the graphics to access memory even if the processor cores are halted.

Steinman said Puma has largely autonomous power management that needs minimal input from the operating system. No drivers are needed to change the clock speed of the cores, for example, and the change happens almost instantaneously.

“This is a unique feature compared with our current generation and the competition,” Steinman said, adding that it adapts better to real-life use than other architectures.

Griffin also doubles the L2 cache on each core to 1MB, and will feature the speedier version 3 of AMD’s HyperTransport interconnect technology.

In Puma, Griffin is paired with an RS780 motherboard chip that integrates ATI’s RS600 graphics adapter, which has video offload support for playing DVDs. Puma also supports Flash memory for the ReadyBoost feature of Windows Vista.

While Puma is still a year away, Intel has just launched its latest Centrino Pro laptop brand and is preparing to ship 45nm processors.