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Conclusion

Looking at AMD’s situation objectively makes it clear that adopting ARM is exceptionally unlikely.

AMD is not in a position to enter the smart phone market, so realistically ARM would only help in tablets. However, AMD already has an x86 tablet solution that should be quite competitive in a generation or two. AMD’s CPU designs are quite reasonable and their graphics are excellent, but the most unique aspect of the company is their deep competency in x86. Given the limited potential benefits, there is no reason to sacrifice such unique expertise. Moreover, AMD’s competitive position would be weaker in the ARM ecosystem and such a shift would require an unaffordable investment and significant risk to their core business that focuses on the x86 market.

A much more realistic scenario is that AMD stays the course with x86 and puts greater emphasis on low-power SoCs for tablets. Based on recent rumors, some of AMD’s 2012 low-power SoCs have been cancelled, and the most likely explanation is that they opted to put extra resources into products originally slated for 2013, codenamed Samara. The goal is presumably a 28nm SoC that includes tablet-optimized I/O. The number of cores is likely to scale from 1-4, with graphics also scaling to address different parts of the market. The extra resources may be used to shift Samara to an earlier schedule (perhaps late 2012), to more optimize the products for lower power or to target a wider swath of the market. In all likelihood, it is a combination of the three.