Chipmaker Advance Micro Devices Inc. will be joined by more companies in adopting the Heterogeneous Systems Architecture. The chipmakers are set to adopt the new technology to better the performance of upcoming hardware chips. HSA, the standard software platform has been adopted by AMD in some of its chip designs and is already used for several devices.
This week. ZDNet reports that the list of chipmakers to take on HSA now includes MediaTek, Imagination and ARM. It has been said that most of the devices have already shifted certain processing tasks from the CPU to other engines which can handle the tasks better. Each of the chip makers on the list is expected to have its own approach in implementing the HSA, which makes it a challenge to develop uniformity of the different cores and take advantage of them in the system-on-chip or SoC.
Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) has been defined by AMD as "an intelligent computing architecture that enables CPU, GPU and other processors to work in harmony in a single piece of silicone by seamlessly moving the right tasks to the best suited processing element." The heterogeneous design is being projected as a technological advancement which, in the future, can save the day. While CPUs are great for processing in general, designated cores are also needed for more specialized tasks, making processing faster for devices. With HSA, that can just happen.
"The idea behind heterogeneous computing is to harness the power in these cores to do other things," ZDNet said in a previous report. The new software platform has first been announced in early 2013, and has received positive responses, attracting companies such as Samsung, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments apart from the three companies which recently joined AMD.
A few weeks back, AMD has been reported to cut 500 jobs from its work force. The weak demands for its products probed the company to reduce the number of its workers to cut costs, a My Statesman report stated. The company is one of the largest chipmakers in the world, with over 1,600 employees in central Texas.
