AMD is preparing to launch its own ARM chip, going up against the Apple M1

Apple shook the chip industry by launching its own designed M1-powered Mac computers, with great performance despite very low power consumption. But another tough competitor is on his way to challenge the current position of the Apple M1. According to a new rumor, that competitor is chip company AMD, when it is preparing to launch a chip on its ARM platform.

This rumor comes from leaker Mauri QHD who said that AMD is developing two versions of this chip – one with integrated RAM and the other not. Rumors say that the prototype of these chips is ready for release.

In the past, AMD has exploited the capabilities of ARM-based chips. In 2014, rumors said AMD was developing its own 64-bit ARMv8 CPU core, codenamed K12. And in 2016, they introduced the K12 Core core. This project was led by Jim Keller, who later became the chief architect of AMD CPUs, but then the SoC was also postponed.

However, as of May this year, leaker Komachi Ensaka has launched AMD’s chip roadmap for the period from 2017 to 2022, in which a single ARM CPU chip was referred to as “K12 FFX” . But its appearance is also very vague, between 2017 and 2022.

Interestingly, AMD CEO Lisa Su will be appearing at the CES fair on January 12, 2021. At the event we may hear about products like Ryzen 5000 chips on Zen. 3 for laptops, codenamed Cezanne, as well as the line of chips for the Epyc “Milan” server and possibly RDNA-2 mobile GPUs as well. In addition, this event is also an opportunity to testify about the presence of K12 in AMD’s chip roadmap.

All information about AMD’s ARM-based chips is still very fuzzy. But given AMD’s history for the K12 Core and how well-received Macs using the M1 chip are, it’s very likely the future of such a chip is more secure. As AMD is eroding Intel’s CPU dominance in the Steam survey, the introduction of an ARM-based SoC is likely to be AMD’s next sharp move.

Refer to Techspot