AMD Eyes PC-on-a-Chip with ATI Buy
All of the efforts focus on packing more technology into PCs and servers that use AMD chips. The company’s Torrenza program, for one, encourages third parties to build accelerator chips that plug into its platforms.
But the ATI acquisition will put a new spin on the recent efforts by offering even tighter integration between AMD processors and their supporting chips.
Ultimately, AMD aims to roll its own processor cores and ATI’s graphics processors into one, creating new a type of PC-on-a-chip processors.
Meanwhile, through the tighter integration of its processors and supporting chips, AMD could offer price breaks and support programs, such as stability and reliability guarantees, that appeal to business PC makers such as Dell, HP and Lenovo, allowing it to compete more closely for corporate business with its larger rival, Intel. [Read on]