shocky123
05-18-2007, 04:54 PM
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32095/135/
Sunnyvale (CA) – AMD claims that it has been gaining market shares with its Turion mobile processor over the past two years, but the CPU is far from being a threat to Intel’s Core 2 Duo. In 2008, the company will introduce the “Griffin” dual-core mobile processor as part of the “Puma” platform, which promises to deliver power and performance enhancements and introduce AMD’s version of on-board flash cache.
A replacement for Turion is long overdue: Even with 65 nm versions of the processor shipping, Turion does not have the necessary feature set and performance to allow AMD to break out of the mainstream notebook segment into higher profit margins. By the end of 2007, AMD plans to be ramping “Griffin,” a redesigned mobile processor that is expected to debut in Q2 of 2008. In Q4 2007 or Q1 2008, Intel will throw its 45 nm shrink Core 2 Duo “Penryn” into the market and AMD will need to play every trump it has to stay in the game.
What is new in Griffin:
Griffin is not an entirely new processor. The design is based on the K8 core, which is used, for example, for current Opteron and Athlon X2 CPUs (with 2 x 1 MB L2 cache). AMD has applied a system-on-a-chip methodology to develop the Griffin architecture and has designed a new, more power-efficient integrated Northbridge from scratch. The encapsulated 65 nm core will receive Barcelona’s HyperTransport 3 physical interconnect.
Griffin will also share with Barcelona a new optimized DDR2 interface (see images in our slideshow) as well as a DRAM prefetcher, but the mobile processor’s memory controller will have an even greater focus on low power consumption. First, the CPU can limit the power consumption of the memory interface by limiting setting the bandwidth to x16, x4, x2 or shut-down states. Second, multiple on-die thermal processors enable Griffin to throttle memory speed. The memory controller monitors the temperature of the DDR2-800 devices and can enforce temperature limits through a memhot signal.
AMD has also improved the overall power management capability of the processor. Griffin supports a greater granularity of frequencies than its predecessor and integrates variable voltage planes for each of the two cores and the integrated Northbridge
The processor continues to use the S-socket of Turion, but will use a different pinout, AMD representatives said.
The chipset: Puma and Hyperflash
AMD describes 2008 as the year of a system level optimization for its mobile platform. The chipset that goes along with Griffin, RS780/780G, will play a major role in this strategy. It will be AMD’s first chipset that can be directly aligned and fine-tuned for its processors and promises to bring some enhancements. The 780 series will support DirectX 10, playback of high-definition media (Blu-ray, HD DVD), HyperTransport 3 and PCI Express 2.
Also supported is a new feature that AMD calls “PowerXPress”, which combines two graphics engines under one hood - discrete and integrated graphics: When the computer is connected to a power outlet, the notebook processes graphics through a discrete graphics card. When system is unplugged and the battery becomes the power source, the notebook disables the connection to the graphics card and dynamically activates the integrated graphics chipset, which does not offer as much performance as the graphics card, but consumes substantially less power.
Depending on your view, the introduction of Hyperflash with Puma can be a surprise. It essentially is AMD’s version of Intel’s “Turbo Memory”: AMD will also build NAND flash into mainboards to accelerate startup processes of software. AMD representatives remained quiet on the performance potential of Hyperflash, but we are almost certain that this technology will refuel the discussion about copying technology ideas from competitors.
And just in case you wonder, no, AMD will not offer its own wireless chipset. The company will continue to rely third party vendors such as Broadcom to complement its mobile platform. Wimax is unlikely to become a feature of Puma (from the start).
Rest of the article:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32095/135/
I'm excited especially about the ability to use onboard graphics instead of the power-hungry dedicated chips whenever the computer is unlplugged from the wall outlet :-):wavey2:
Sunnyvale (CA) – AMD claims that it has been gaining market shares with its Turion mobile processor over the past two years, but the CPU is far from being a threat to Intel’s Core 2 Duo. In 2008, the company will introduce the “Griffin” dual-core mobile processor as part of the “Puma” platform, which promises to deliver power and performance enhancements and introduce AMD’s version of on-board flash cache.
A replacement for Turion is long overdue: Even with 65 nm versions of the processor shipping, Turion does not have the necessary feature set and performance to allow AMD to break out of the mainstream notebook segment into higher profit margins. By the end of 2007, AMD plans to be ramping “Griffin,” a redesigned mobile processor that is expected to debut in Q2 of 2008. In Q4 2007 or Q1 2008, Intel will throw its 45 nm shrink Core 2 Duo “Penryn” into the market and AMD will need to play every trump it has to stay in the game.
What is new in Griffin:
Griffin is not an entirely new processor. The design is based on the K8 core, which is used, for example, for current Opteron and Athlon X2 CPUs (with 2 x 1 MB L2 cache). AMD has applied a system-on-a-chip methodology to develop the Griffin architecture and has designed a new, more power-efficient integrated Northbridge from scratch. The encapsulated 65 nm core will receive Barcelona’s HyperTransport 3 physical interconnect.
Griffin will also share with Barcelona a new optimized DDR2 interface (see images in our slideshow) as well as a DRAM prefetcher, but the mobile processor’s memory controller will have an even greater focus on low power consumption. First, the CPU can limit the power consumption of the memory interface by limiting setting the bandwidth to x16, x4, x2 or shut-down states. Second, multiple on-die thermal processors enable Griffin to throttle memory speed. The memory controller monitors the temperature of the DDR2-800 devices and can enforce temperature limits through a memhot signal.
AMD has also improved the overall power management capability of the processor. Griffin supports a greater granularity of frequencies than its predecessor and integrates variable voltage planes for each of the two cores and the integrated Northbridge
The processor continues to use the S-socket of Turion, but will use a different pinout, AMD representatives said.
The chipset: Puma and Hyperflash
AMD describes 2008 as the year of a system level optimization for its mobile platform. The chipset that goes along with Griffin, RS780/780G, will play a major role in this strategy. It will be AMD’s first chipset that can be directly aligned and fine-tuned for its processors and promises to bring some enhancements. The 780 series will support DirectX 10, playback of high-definition media (Blu-ray, HD DVD), HyperTransport 3 and PCI Express 2.
Also supported is a new feature that AMD calls “PowerXPress”, which combines two graphics engines under one hood - discrete and integrated graphics: When the computer is connected to a power outlet, the notebook processes graphics through a discrete graphics card. When system is unplugged and the battery becomes the power source, the notebook disables the connection to the graphics card and dynamically activates the integrated graphics chipset, which does not offer as much performance as the graphics card, but consumes substantially less power.
Depending on your view, the introduction of Hyperflash with Puma can be a surprise. It essentially is AMD’s version of Intel’s “Turbo Memory”: AMD will also build NAND flash into mainboards to accelerate startup processes of software. AMD representatives remained quiet on the performance potential of Hyperflash, but we are almost certain that this technology will refuel the discussion about copying technology ideas from competitors.
And just in case you wonder, no, AMD will not offer its own wireless chipset. The company will continue to rely third party vendors such as Broadcom to complement its mobile platform. Wimax is unlikely to become a feature of Puma (from the start).
Rest of the article:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32095/135/
I'm excited especially about the ability to use onboard graphics instead of the power-hungry dedicated chips whenever the computer is unlplugged from the wall outlet :-):wavey2: