Monday, September 19th 2016
AMD "ZEN" Mobile Chips En Route Q2-2017 Launch
AMD will follow up its Q1-2017 launch of socket AM4 desktop processors and APUs based on the "ZEN" microarchitecture, with single-chip mobile processors and APUs in the following quarter, according to an Expreview report. These solutions could take advantage of the fact that "ZEN" CPUs and APUs completely integrate platform core-logic (chipsets), even though on the desktop platform, AMD is launching the A320, B350, and X370 chipsets to expand connectivity given out by the SoCs.
With requirements for fewer M.2, SATA, and USB 3.0 ports on mobile platforms such as notebooks, designs that completely do away with the chipset should theoretically be possible, and the company could use this to score design wins. Intel currently offers CPU and PCH on single packages, as multi-chip modules (MCMs).
Source:
Expreview
With requirements for fewer M.2, SATA, and USB 3.0 ports on mobile platforms such as notebooks, designs that completely do away with the chipset should theoretically be possible, and the company could use this to score design wins. Intel currently offers CPU and PCH on single packages, as multi-chip modules (MCMs).
28 Comments on AMD "ZEN" Mobile Chips En Route Q2-2017 Launch
Pricing is where intel will retaliate (on desktop/server if they lose share). I doubt mobile budges.
The APU in the consoles is a custom SOC that is low-power Jaguar based. Zen is not a custom SOC, it's a scalable solution that can be applied for a variety of uses. In addition, the whole selling point of Zen is that it can be used 'as is' and contains most or all of the chipset features. Consoles don't adhere to chipsets as used in x86 PCs, they have their own custom feature sets. They don't need all those PCI lanes, they don't need all those connections like M2 and 8 SATA ports etc etc. And in the case of the X1, they communicate with other hardware too, such as EDRAM or omitting system RAM and relying fully on GDDR5.
In other words, it is completely unrealistic that the custom SOC used in consoles will be Zen based, AMD would literally have to complete redesign the CPU for that purpose, or waste loads of metal, which they aren't going to do for consoles that happen to be sold in large quantities. They will build a cheap, cost-effective and custom solution = Jaguar based.