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AMD could enter ARM market with Sound Wave APU built on TSMC 3nm process

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283 points walterbell | 3 comments | 31 Oct 25 03:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.695s | source
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stevefan1999 ◴[31 Oct 25 05:54 UTC] No.45768818[source]▶
Legendary Chip Architect, Jim Keller, Says AMD ‘Stupidly Cancelled’ K12 ARM CPU Project After He Left The Company: https://wccftech.com/legendary-chip-architect-jim-keller-say...

Could be a revival but for different purposes

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high_na_euv ◴[31 Oct 25 09:22 UTC] No.45769959[source]▶
Funny how some of his projects got cancelled like K12 at AMD or Royal Core at INTC and people always act like that was terrible decision, yet AMD is up like 100x on stock market and INTC... times gonna tell
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StopDisinfo910 ◴[31 Oct 25 12:07 UTC] No.45771119[source]▶
Seems completely uncorrelated with what is discussed especially considering Intel didn’t enter the ARM market either.

Would make much more sense to compare with Qualcomm trajectory here as they dominate the high end ARM SoC market.

Basically AMD missed the opportunity to be first mover on a market which is now huge with a project Apple proved to be viable three years after the planned AMD release. Any way you look at it, it seems like a major miss.

The fact that other good decisions in other segments were made at the same time doesn’t change that.

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lII1lIlI11ll ◴[31 Oct 25 14:14 UTC] No.45772208[source]▶
Apple and Qualcomm _have_ to use Arm ISA because they don't have x86 license. Apple would have likely stayed on x86 if they could use it in their in-house designs. Intel wouldn't issue x86 license to Qualcomm or Apple, of course.
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1. LeFantome ◴[31 Oct 25 15:25 UTC] No.45773097[source]▶
If Intel would have licensed x86 for use in Apple’s own finished computers, Intel would be in a way better position. Foolish not just to lose that customer but also to legitimize ARM as a desktop and high-end option.

I think Apple would have switched anyway though. They designed Apple Silicon for their mobile devices first (iPhone, iPad) which I doubt they would have made x86. The laptops and desktops are the same ISA as the iPhone (strategically).

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2. rangestransform ◴[31 Oct 25 17:02 UTC] No.45774223[source]▶
There was a rumour on here that aarch64 was actually designed by Apple and given to ARM to standardize
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3. klelatti ◴[31 Oct 25 17:44 UTC] No.45774659[source]▶
It’s a false rumour. Arm has decades of ISA design experience and their chief architect has talked about designing Aarch64.

Sure they Apple and Arm worked together but it wasn’t developed by Apple and given to Arm.