- Report points out that AMD has already created a prototype M1 chip in two versions: one with built-in RAM and the other without.
The world of microprocessors hadn’t changed that much in decades. After the announcement and subsequent success of the first notebooks with chip ARM of Apple, one of the two companies that have dominated the x86 market work on its own version of the M1. It is the already giant AMD.
According to what the well-known leaker Mauri QHD reveals, the firm would have a ready prototype of its ARM processor, which would compete directly with Apple’s M1 chip. According to this information, it is “almost ready”, although it is unknown when the project exists.
However, the relationship between AMD and this architecture is not new at all. Already in 2016, the company announced the famous K12 Core, a CPU based on said v8 architecture and with 64 bits. That’s how Jim Keller defined it, who was in charge of the company’s processor division at the time.
Despite the aforementioned antecedent, no such chip ever made it to the market. Even so, in May 2020, the company roadmap created by Komachi Ensaka listed a point called the K12 FFX, destined between 2017 and 2022.
The aforementioned entry could focus on low-power laptops and other mobile devices if K12 FFX were a real project. In addition, Mauri QHD mentions that the firm already has two prototypes: one with integrated RAM and the other without it.
Another factor to consider is that of hybrids. Some of the patents with designs of processors of this type for mobile and low-power equipment were seen online by AMD, but without mentioning the architecture (x86 or ARM).
In the past, there were already similar notes about possible AMD Ryzen C7 ARM with RDNA2, but these never materialized. Still, the x86 chip maker market is naturally moving toward ARM, especially because of Apple’s jump.
Even when it is not about making models similar to the M1, companies like Microsoft are already working, from the software, on the x86 emulation for these systems.
