Advanced Micro Devices Inc rolled out a new package of chips for laptops yesterday, a major overhaul of its mobile lineup the chip maker hopes will help it climb out of a deep financial trough.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company, saddled with debt and hurt by product delays, is betting consumers will gravitate toward its new Turion brand processor and related chipset — part of a package that chip makers call a “platform” and sell together — because of their focus on high-definition video playback.
This new generation of Turion laptop chips will appear at launch in twice as many different computers — from Hewlett-Packard Co, Acer Inc, Toshiba Corp and others — as the previous generation, released two years ago, AMD said.
Chip makers AMD, Intel Corp and Nvidia Corp are battling harder over high-end graphics as more people watch movies and television programs on their home computers and as operating systems and Web applications require better visuals.
To that end, AMD’s new chips, which were unveiled at the Computex computer show in Taiwan, rely heavily on parts from ATI Technologies, a graphics chip supplier that AMD acquired for US$5.6 billion in 2006 to help it challenge Nvidia and much larger Intel.
Intel is the world’s No. 1 maker of microprocessors, the brains of personal computers. AMD is a distant No. 2, and with the acquisition of ATI now makes standalone graphics chips. Nvidia is the market leader in standalone graphics chips.
AMD hopes that by infusing its general-purpose chips with more advanced graphics capabilities it can boost their appeal and help the company increase its market share.
AMD has racked up more than US$4 billion in losses over the last six quarters as Intel snatched away market share with newer parts and AMD struggled to digest the pricey ATI acquisition.
AMD’s new Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core mobile processors, which come in clock speeds up to 2.4 gigahertz, are accompanied by powerful new chipsets, a separate set of chips that do most of the graphics work — absent a standalone graphics chip — and control how the processor communicates with the rest of the computer.
AMD says that its chipsets deliver three times better 3D performance and five times better high-definition image quality than competing models because of the strength of its integrated graphics. AMD also says its chips transmit high-definition videos and photos faster over wireless networks.
The company says demand for its new lineup of laptop chips has been strong.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”