IDG News Service —
Around 100 laptop designs based on Advanced Micro Devices' upcoming Puma laptop chip platform are being readied ahead of the chips' scheduled launch in June, according to a company spokesman.
"That's twice as many designs as we had at the launch of our last mobile platform," said John Taylor, director of product and strategic marketing at AMD's Graphics Products Group, speaking at a news conference in Singapore.
AMD plans to launch its Puma laptop platform during the Computex trade show in June, where many of the upcoming laptops based on the chips are expected to be on display. Pairing greater power efficiency with improved graphics, Puma is based on AMD's upcoming Turion X2 Ultra processor, previously known by the code name Griffin.
Puma also includes a chipset with integrated graphics and an ATI Radeon HD3400 discrete graphics chip. Wireless connectivity is provided by a third-party chipset with support for 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n Wi-Fi networking.
It won't be the only laptop chip platform on display at Computex.
At Computex, Intel plans to release its Atom processor for low-cost laptops as well as the next version of its Centrino 2 laptop platform, called Centrino 2, and laptops based on these chips are expected to be on display. There will also likely be laptops based on Via Technologies' upcoming Isaiah processor, which is scheduled to be available during the middle of this year.
The enhanced graphics capabilities of Puma should help laptops based on these chips stand out from the crowd.
AMD's Hybrid Graphics technology allows Puma-based laptops to seamlessly switch between the integrated and discrete graphics processors, alternating between high performance and longer batter life.
In situations where no 3D graphics processing is required or users want the greatest battery life, the discrete processor is inactivated and the computer relies exclusively on the chipset's integrated graphics. The discrete graphics chip kicks in when 3D graphics are required, working alongside the integrated graphics processor in the chipset.
This combination of discrete and integrated graphics offers a significant boost in performance compared with relying on the discrete chip alone, said David Nalasco, senior technical marketing manager at AMD's Graphics Products Group.
