AMD Readies Chip For Low-Cost PCs

Advanced Micro Devices plans to ship in the second half of the year a new chip for low-cost notebooks and desktops.

AMD Sempron targets notebooks that sell for less than $999 and desktops costing less than $549. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company did not release any technical details, saying more information would be released later in the year. The chip will be available in mobile and desktop versions.

In general, low-priced chips use the same basic processor but run slower than more expensive CPUs. The less-expensive chips are suited for web browsing, word processing and other common computing tasks.

AMD sells the Athlon 64 processor used in computer servers for running business applications, and the Athlon XP processor for desktops, and the Athlon XP-M processor for notebooks. The latter chips are geared toward running multimedia software and other more demanding applications.