One day after AMD and ARM announced they were joining a new non-profit consortium, the HSA Foundation, the two processor makers announced a new and more direct partnership today. In an AMD press release, the company announced that future versions of its Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) will incorporate an ARM Cortex-A5 CPU with the company's TrustZone technology.
AMD says that putting in the ARM-designed chip into the x86-based APUs will allow AMD PC owners a new way to "protect against malicious access to sensitive data and operations at the hardware level." The ARM chip will begin to appear on some AMD APUs in 2013 and expand into more of AMD's processors in 2014.
AMD Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Mike Wolfe stated:
This example of AMD’s ambidextrous strategy, which leverages our history of x86 and graphics innovation while also embracing other technologies and intellectual property, will help drive a more secure computing experience for our consumer and business customers.
This new effort comes as AMD continues to lose processor market share in PC desktops and notebooks to its biggest rival Intel. By partnering with ARM, AMD is trying to show that it is wiling to look into new ideas for its chip designs, including integrating technology and hardware from another processor designer.
Source: AMD press release
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