AMD produces Puma laptop chips

But how will they compete with Intel?

4 June 2008 11:50 GMT / By Katie Scott

Intel has been gaining customers, especially from the ranks of UMPC manufacturers, for its Atom chip, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets are already being used in the development of 20 products, so AMD was in desperate need of a product that could compete.

The ailing company announced its six consecutive quarterly loss last month, but the launch of a new chip line-up is hoped to change the company's fortunes.

The unveiling of the Puma processor is the company's largest-ever launch for notebook personal computers.

AMD is offering three versions of the Puma platform - all of which use AMD's Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core processor.

AMD claims that there are already 100 different laptops designed to use versions of the Puma chip including models from Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens and Hewlett-Packard.

"This is double the design wins over any previous mobile launches", Leslie Sobon, director of product marketing at AMD told Reuters.

Prices for the laptops will range from about $700 up to $2,000, and some will appear on shelves from this week, promised AMD.

"What we've heard clearly from our customers is that consumers have enough productivity power. They don't need to open Excel or Microsoft Word any faster", Sobon said.

"What people need more performance on is ripping CDs, watching high-definition movies, editing and creating home movies."