The first Ultrabooks, the concept Intel is behind, has just started rolling out. AMD has been fairly quiet about this, and just implied that it will do something similar on two separate occasions. Two candidates for this platform are Deccan and Comal.
AMD’s market shares have been around, but most often right below 20%, while in the mobile sector it has never been much more prominent than 10%. AMD is doing better in the mobile segment, but with Ultrabooks Intel can once again offer something AMD can’t, but in 2012 it will launch two platform that could very well fit in the thin concept.
According to Digitimes AMD will launch the sucessor to Brazos; Deccan in July. The Deccan platform will bring the Krishna and Wichita APUs with two to four cores, London graphics and integrated southbridge. These will be built on 28nm and get even more integrated logic. The TDP will be somewhere between 8W and 20W. Even if performance will not be on the level with Ivy Bridge, Deccan should be cheaper and have similar TDPs.
Also the Comal platform is an Ultrabook candidate from AMD. Comal will be the successor to Llano; Trinity that will bring two to four cores, London graphics and TDPs between 35 and 45W. Thomas Seifert have said that specifically that here will be at least one versino with half of the 35W TDP that Llano consumes. This version of Trinity will be tailored for ultrathin notebooks, and Ultrabooks alikes.
AMD have two options for countering and follow the Ultrabook train. Deccan feels less likely since performance will be suffering and be far behind from Ivey Bridge. With Comal and Trinity it has an interesting alternative, and we believe this is where AMD will try to make a break for it.
While it may not be able to reach all the way in processor performance the integrated graphics circuit should make it very attractive for this formfactor – especially since more and more programs use hardware acceleration and GPGPU. No matter the performance price, more alternatives are always welcomed.
