Bobcat is the latest x86 processor core from AMD

Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...

 aimed at low-power / low-cost market.

It was revealed during a speech from AMD executive vice-president Henri Richard in Computex 2007 and was put into production Q1 2011. One of the major supporters was executive vice-president Mario A. Rivas

Mario A. Rivas

Mario A. Rivas is former president and CEO of semiconductor company ANADIGICS,Inc . He has worked 30 years in the semiconductor business, he has spent much of his career in the wireless industry.-Education:...

 who felt it was difficult to compete in the x86 market with a single core optimized for the 10-100 Watts range and actively promoted the development of the simpler core with a target range of 1-10 Watts. In addition, it was believed that the core could migrate into the hand-held space if the power consumption can be reduced to less than 1 W.

Bobcat cores are used together with GPU cores in accelerated processing unit

Accelerated processing unit

An accelerated processing unit is a processing system that includes additional processing capability designed to accelerate one or more types of computations outside of a CPU. This may include a graphics processing unit used for general-purpose computing , a field-programmable gate array , or...

s (APUs) under the "Fusion

AMD Fusion

AMD Fusion is the marketing name for a series of APUs by AMD. There are two flavors of Fusion currently available, one with its CPU logic based on the Bobcat core and the other its CPU logic based on the 10h core. In both cases the GPU logic is HD6xxx, which itself is based on the mobile variant of...

" brand. A simplified architecture diagram was released at AMD's Analyst Day in November 2009. This is similar in concept with earlier AMD research in 2003, detailing the specifications and advantages of extending x86 "everywhere".

Design

The Bobcat x86 CPU core design has since been completed and implemented in AMD APU processor products with a TDP

Thermal Design Power

The thermal design power , sometimes called thermal design point, refers to the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. For example, a laptop's CPU cooling system may be designed for a 20 watt TDP, which means that it can dissipate up to 20 watts of heat...

 of 18 W

Watt

The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...

 or less. The core is targeted at low-power markets like netbooks/nettops, ultra-portable laptops, consumer electronics and the embedded market. Architecture specifics:

• 64-bit core
  X86-64
  x86-64 is an extension of the x86 instruction set. It supports vastly larger virtual and physical address spaces than are possible on x86, thereby allowing programmers to conveniently work with much larger data sets. x86-64 also provides 64-bit general purpose registers and numerous other...
  
  
• out-of-order execution
  Out-of-order execution
  In computer engineering, out-of-order execution is a paradigm used in most high-performance microprocessors to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted by a certain type of costly delay...
  
  
• Advanced branch predictor
  Branch predictor
  In computer architecture, a branch predictor is a digital circuit that tries to guess which way a branch will go before this is known for sure. The purpose of the branch predictor is to improve the flow in the instruction pipeline...
  
  
• Dual x86 instruction decoder
• 64-bit integer unit with two ALU
  Arithmetic logic unit
  In computing, an arithmetic logic unit is a digital circuit that performs arithmetic and logical operations.The ALU is a fundamental building block of the central processing unit of a computer, and even the simplest microprocessors contain one for purposes such as maintaining timers...
  
  s
• Floating-point unit with two 64-bit pipes
• single channel 64-bit memory controller
• 32KB instruction, 32KB data and a 512KB L2 cache
  CPU cache
  A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations...
  
  .
• MMX, SSE
  Streaming SIMD Extensions
  In computing, Streaming SIMD Extensions is a SIMD instruction set extension to the x86 architecture, designed by Intel and introduced in 1999 in their Pentium III series processors as a reply to AMD's 3DNow! . SSE contains 70 new instructions, most of which work on single precision floating point...
  
  , SSE2
  SSE2
  SSE2, Streaming SIMD Extensions 2, is one of the Intel SIMD processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2001. It extends the earlier SSE instruction set, and is intended to fully supplant MMX. Intel extended SSE2 to create SSE3...
  
  , SSE3
  SSE3
  SSE3, Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, also known by its Intel code name Prescott New Instructions , is the third iteration of the SSE instruction set for the IA-32 architecture. Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revision of their Pentium 4 CPU...
  
  , SSSE3
  SSSE3
  Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 is a SIMD instruction set created by Intel and is the fourth iteration of the SSE technology.- History :...
  
  , SSE4A

Available processors

In January 2011 AMD introduced several processors that have implemented the Bobcat core. As of April 2011, this core is in the following AMD Accelerated Processors:

Series ^	Model	CPU clock (MHz Hertz The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications.... )	CPU cores	TDP (W Watt The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:... )	L2 cache (KiB)	Radeon cores	GPU clock (MHz)	DirectX version	UVD	DDR3 speed
C-Series	C-30	1000	1	9	512	80	277	11	UVD 3	1066
C-Series	C-50	1000	2	9	1024	80	276	11	UVD 3	1066
C-Series	C-60	1000/1.333 (turbo)	2	9	1024	80	276/400 (turbo)	11	UVD 3	1066
E-Series	E-240	1500	1	18	512	80	500	11	UVD 3	1066
E-Series	E-300	1300	2	18	1024	80	500	11	UVD 3	1066
E-Series	E-350	1600	2	18	1024	80	492	11	UVD 3	1066
E-Series	E-450	1650	2	18	1024	80	508/600 (turbo)	11	UVD 3	1333
G-Series	T-24L	800	1	5	512	80	?	?	?	1066
G-Series	T-30L	1400	1	18	512	80	?	?	?	1333
G-Series	T-40N	1000	2	9	1024	80	276	11	UVD 3	1066
G-Series	T-44R	1200	1	9	512	80	276	11	UVD 3	1066
G-Series	T-48L	1400	2	18	1024	80	?	?	?	1066
G-Series	T-48N	1400	2	18	1024	80	492	11	UVD 3	1066
G-Series	T-52R	1500	1	18	512	80	492	11	UVD 3	1066
G-Series	T-56N	1600	2	18	1024	80	492	11	UVD 3	1066
Z-Series	Z-01	1000	2	5.9	1024	80	276	11	UVD 3	1066

^ E-Series & C-Series are standard parts, G-Series are embedded parts

External links

PC Watch report

• Dailytech report
• RegHardware report
• AMD Home Page