AMD unveils ‘Kaveri' APU chip for mobile PCs and notebooks

AMD unveiled its Kaveri A-series APU chip for ‘ultra thin and high-performance mobile PCs' at Computex 2014. The new mobile APUs mark the debut of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features and Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture for mobile devices, establishing them as AMD's most advanced mobile APUs to-date. Notebook and desktop systems powered by AMD's entire 2014 APU lineup, including systems from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and others also debuted at Computex Taipei 2014.

Kevin Lensing, senior director, AMD's Mobility Product Line said, "Kaveri is AMD's first mobile chip that couples the CPU and GPU together using its HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture). This means that the system can more easily offload some computing tasks from the CPU to the GPU to boost performance."

AMD spokesperson said that the mobile version of Kaveri has up to 12 "compute cores," which translates to 4 general-purpose CPU cores and 8 GPU cores. Combined, these compute cores can deliver up to 818 gigaflops of performance.

Lensing further added, "For the first time in APUs, we have GCN cores in this device but not only do we have GCN cores we have the most graphics cores we have ever put in an APU. Also, it supports Ultra HD 4K resolutions and new video post-processing enhancements that can upscale HD 1080p videos to 4K quality on UHD-enabled monitors and TVs."

Laptops using the mobile Kaveri APUs will be available this year from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and others.

The announcement of the 2014 mobile APU family features AMD's first FX-branded enthusiast-class APU for notebooks, and follows the recent introduction of AMD's 2014 Low-Power and Mainstream APUs.

Furthermore, AMD has introduced a professional line of the Performance Mobile APUs. Designed especially with business in mind, AMD PRO A-Series components offer outstanding stability and longevity, and enable open, industry-standard DASH manageability.

Along with AMD PRO A-Series announcement, HP unveiled a complete lineup of Elite commercial PC designs featuring the AMD PRO series. The HP systems include the EliteBook 725, 745 and 755 G2 notebook, the EliteOne All-in-One and the EliteDesk desktop PCs.

AMD also announced new x86 AMD Embedded G-Series system-on-chip (SoC) and central processing unit (CPU) solutions for embedded applications, including early adoption by HP for thin client deployment in healthcare, finance, education and retail, as well as Advantech for industrial applications in rugged environments.