• wewbull@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    Why would AMD make an ARM CPU? The power efficiency isn’t related to the instruction set.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Internally, AMD got pretty far along in making an ARM architecture called K12, but it got scrapped because they didn’t have the money to make two architectures, so they focused on Zen.

      And AMD is likely working on ARM stuff right now.

      Reportedly, they recently restarted their efforts on an ARM SoC design in order to try to get Nintendo to switch (heh) to them for the Switch 2. Nintendo stuck with Nvidia because they could guarantee 100% backwards compatibility with the Switch and AMD couldn’t.

      Again reportedly, AMD didn’t shut their new ARM group after this, seeing that Microsoft is opening up Windows to non-Qualcomm ARM SoCs (believe it or not, MS did give Qualcomm an exclusivity deal for Windows on ARM). AMD wants in on that before others take up a piece of that pie.