AMD Skybridge Will Bring ARM To Desktops And Servers

AMD is launching project SkyBridge next year in an effort to gain headway in the market. Skybridge’s purpose is to bring X86 and ARM to multiple platforms in a single package. SkyBridge CPUs are to be pin-compatible offerings while providing a choice between X86 and ARM Cortex A57. In 2016, AMD plans to take it one step further with their own ARM licensed Soc “K12”. K12 will represent AMD’s in-house effort in 64-bit ARM designs.

AMD’s Rory Read has expressed concern for the future of the company in competing with Intel in the desktop and server space. With the red team’s steadily dwindling market share in server components, hopes are riding on ARM-based microserver designs to put some wind in the sails. Over a year ago, AMD announced their work on the Opteron A1100, an 8-core 64-bit SoC that’s recently been revealed and benchmarked to an excellent reception. AnandTech’s Anand Lal Shimpi suggested earlier this year that consumers can expect the A1100 to weigh in at about 10% the cost with over double the compute performance of the quad-core Jaguar-based X2150.

With clear benefits in performance, price, and energy efficiency, ARM implementation seems more viable every day. End users are migrating away from desktops with the recent tech strides in high-performance low-energy mobile components, and SkyBridge could push that envelope even further than what we’ve seen out of the Cortex line. While Chromebooks/boxes haven’t exactly overtaken the market, and you still can’t currently get a stable desktop running on a Tegra chip: ChromeOS runs on ARM, Windows 8 RT runs on ARM, joining long reigning architecture champions Linux, Android, and iOS… it’s a wonder it’s taken this long for ARM support to reach mainstream server and desktop usage.

With their recent focus on low energy with a comparatively insane ratio of GPU power to CPU power, it seems that AMD’s days of trying to directly compete with Intel through brute speed and power are coming to an end. AMD has revolutionized the market before, with the breakthrough of 64-bit cores, and it just may do it again with a little help from ARM.