Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Intel Corp's top rival in the market for personal-computer processors, introduced a lineup of new chips for laptops as it tries to get back into the mobile-PC game.
Athlon 4, based on a fresh design called Palomino and running as fast as 1 gigahertz, helps batteries last as much as 30 percent longer, Advanced Micro said. The company is shipping four versions of the chip and two variations of its Duron chip for cheap PCs.
Sales of laptop computers will rise almost 17 percent this year as consumers travel more and need to work on the go, according to IDC figures. Intel, Advanced Micro and newcomer Transmeta Corp are fighting to ship faster processors and reduce power consumption to snare more sales. Advanced Micro hasn't had a competitive offering for several months, and analysts said the new chips will help it catch up.
"It's a fantastic-looking chip," said Alan Promisel, an analyst with market researcher IDC. "It's definitely going to give Intel a run for its money."
The Sunnyvale, California-based company will sell Palomino-based chips for server computers that run Web sites this quarter and plans a desktop version for third quarter, AMD marketing manager Mark Bode said. Durons for desktops and low-end servers will use the design in the second half of this year, he said.
Compaq Computer Corp, the biggest PC maker, has laptops with Athlon 4 now, and other manufacturers will add them this quarter, Bode said.
Advanced Micro hasn't had a competitive processor for laptops since its K6-2. The chip peaked at 40 percent of the notebook units sold in January 2000, according to researcher NPD Intelect.
That share has dwindled to 1.8 percent in March 2001.
Intel's Pentium III has outperformed the aging chip, and analysts said previous versions of the Athlon needed too much power to be successful against rivals.
The Athlon 4 changes that, Bode said. Using a technique called PowerNow, Advanced Micro has cut power consumption. It constantly calculates the amount of energy needed to run an application and drops the power level until its just enough to meet that demand. That saves battery life.
The chip is also much cheaper than those from rivals. The 1GHz mobile Athlon costs US$425 each in volume quantities, compared with US$722 for Intel's recently released 1GHz mobile Pentium III.
Advanced Micro says its processors are less expensive to build because it gets more good chips per batch than other companies and then can price them lower.
The 950 megahertz mobile Athlon costs US$350, with a 900MHz version at US$270 and an 850MHz at US$240. An 850MHz mobile Duron runs US$197, with an 800MHz at US$170.
Advanced Micro shares fell US$1.02 to US$27.68 on Friday. They've doubled in 2001.
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