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AMD's 2014 embedded roadmap includes dedicated graphics, gaming-friendly CPU
AMD has long signaled that embedded chips will play a major role in its future, and it's backing up that claim by providing a glance at its 2014 roadmap. The highlight is Bald Eagle, a 35-watt x86 processor designed for demanding tasks like gaming; it should include up to four Steamroller cores, and it will optionally sport on-chip Graphics Core Next video. Devices that need even more visual power will use Adelaar, a dedicated graphics chipset that includes both GCN and 2GB of built-in memory. It's reportedly fast enough to be useful for PC video cards, not just the usual set-top boxes and smart TVs. Two system-on-chip designs are also joining AMD's lineup. Hierofalcon is built with data centers in mind, and carries up to eight ARM Cortex-A57 cores; Steppe Eagle, meanwhile, is a combination of upgraded Jaguar x86 cores and GCN that should speed up AMD's low-power G-series processors. With the exception of Hierofalcon, all of the new embedded chips should be available in the first half of next year. AMD hasn't named any early customers, but its embedded silicon tends to reach products that you'd recognize. Check out the roadmap after the break.
AMD roadmap shows Steamroller-based Opterons on track for 2013
AMD gave us a tease of its next-generation Steamroller architecture in 2012, but things weren't looking good for pro users when the initial timeline had current-generation Piledriver technology as the focus for Opterons in 2013. Thanks to a newer investor presentation, there's a glimmer of hope for the workstation and server users among us. Its roadmap shows Steamroller-equipped Opteron variants arriving this year, with an Excavator follow-up coming at an undetermined point in the future. There's nothing about specific timelines and models, as you might imagine -- AMD isn't going to spoil its plans quite so readily -- but the presentation reminds us that Steamroller will put an emphasis on the parallelism that's oh so vital to high-end computing. We're mostly glad to hear that IT backrooms will have something genuinely new to play with while we're off enjoying its Kaveri counterpart at home.
AMD teases next-gen Steamroller CPU, aims to Bulldoze the competition
AMD's Bulldozer CPUs remind us of Betamax (or MiniDisc), in that its superlative design hasn't been embraced thanks to one or two humbling limitations. However, Mark Papermaster, Sunnyvale's new CTO, took to the stage at Hot Chips to show how he's changing the situation with the third-generation Steamroller architecture. It's rowing back on the more experimental elements of the design, scrapping the single shared fetch-and-decode hardware in favor of dual-cores that should double the amount of instructions it can handle. It's hoping to make performance gains of 15 percent, clawing back some of Intel's lead, and is considering roping in the GPU to help with the heavy-hitting in future versions. The chips will be built at Globalfoundries 28-nanometer line and are hoped to be out at some point next year.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Super Shock Football
Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Adam Meyer of Steamroller Studios to learn how his passion for art lead him to the digital gridiron of Super Shock Football. How did you and your company get started? Steamroller Studios came about in February last year when we started working on our first game, Super Shock Football. I'd been wanting to get into game development for a while, having had a taste of it while doing the cover for the BioShock L.E. and the Section 8 logo. But my skills mostly end with art and I don't have the coding knowledge to make a game myself. Then one day my buddy, who's a technical director over at WETA Digital, called me with his idea to make an electric football game for the iPhone, I jumped at the opportunity to work with him on it. So the company really started out with just the two of us but we're starting to bring some really talented people in. We have a great animator named Jalil that also works at WETA and he just came on board for our new game. Plus we have some talented freelancers. [Programmer Keith Lackey]'s cousin helps out with the sound and he worked on Dead Space and BioShock 2. We're very fortunate to have some very gifted people helping us out.
