Chip manufacturer
Advanced Micro Devices is seeking to expand its share of the
netbook computer market with its single core Athlon 64 L110
processor .
Gateway, the
Acer owned
PC manufacturer, are currently using the chip in its LT3103u netbook, which they unveiled earlier this week. It is AMD’s first chip to be used in
netbooks – the smaller alternative to
laptops designed primarily for tasks such as using the
internet and word processing.
The low voltage processor is a variant of the company’s Neo chips which are primarily designed for thin and light
notebooks . The Athlon 64 L110 chip operates at a speed of 1.2GHz, has 512KB of cache, using roughly 13 watts of power.
Intel’s Atom chips are used by the majority of netbooks, whilst Via’s low power Nano processor is the second most popular option, albeit with a marginal market share.
AMD have previously derided netbooks, claiming the cheaper
PCs didn’t provide users with full functionality. It is for this reason that AMD’s decision to launch its Athlon 64 L110 processor comes as a surprise, after numerous assertions that the company wouldn’t be entering the netbook market.