Chih-Wei Huang, from the Android-x86 project, just released an innocuous and understated message on the Google Groups page for the project. He says,
“Hi all,
The ics-x86 branch based on Android 4.0.1 is ready.”
This is the equivalent of “Hello world” for an entirely new class of possible tablet hardware. What could this bode for 2012?
Android Ice Cream Sandwich on AMD Brazos
AMD has been angling for years to break into the mobile and low-power market, and they’ve succeeded in a small way with their Fusion initiative, which is an APU (a combined CPU + GPU on a single chip) that uses far less power than a traditional desktop processor such as Intel Core or AMD FX (read more about what an APU is here). So far, the current generation of APU (the platform is codenamed “Brazos” and includes the APU, chipset, and motherboard) has found some success in the small notebook and home theater PC space. Those under $500, small laptops you’re seeing at retail outlets like Best Buy and Micro Center by HP and others are using Brazos to provide very capable little laptops that get good battery life and deliver high-def graphics inexpensively.
Those APUs, however, use the x86 instruction set. This is an instruction set that’s been around since 1978 and underlies every single desktop PC running Windows, as well as Mac OS and many flavors of Linux as well. It is, to say the least, extremely standard.
Android, by contrast, runs traditionally on ARM architecture chips, which are used in the vast majority of smartphones and tablets. That’s why you don’t see Android running on desktop PCs or laptops, and you don’t see Windows running on smartphones.
This announcement by Huang changes the entire game by introducing the latest version of Android to the instruction set that standard computers run on—and optimizing it for AMD rather than Intel. Android 4.0.1 does run on all x86 processors, but his announcement indicates that hardware acceleration is running and optimized for AMD’s Fusion APUs, rather than ‘we’ve been working closely with Google‘ Intel.
The ghost of ATI strikes back
The key for AMD here is that their purchase of GPU company ATI in 2006 continues to pay off dividends; now Android 4.0.1 is hardware accelerated on RADEON GPUs, which makes it a no-brainer for developers to use as a reference platform for early apps and hardware. Why optimize for Intel when Intel doesn’t have an equivalent GPU/CPU hybrid, especially when the support is built in to 4.0.1 right now?
Former AMD CEO Dirk Meyer was allegedly sacked for not steering the company to a tablet and smartphone strategy. While this doesn’t necessarily mean a marketing strategy or victory on AMD’s part, Dirk’s probably laughing right now, because it just fell into their lap: Windows 8, and now Android 4, are ready to run on hardware AMD can ship in volume today.
AMD is bungling a lot of things lately, but their meal ticket may very well be their extremely strong GPU technology and its related elements, e.g. Fusion. This sort of happy accident doesn’t happen often, and it’s very likely that this wasn’t through any effort of AMD engineering or marketing. More likely is the scenario in which developers want to write for the best platform, and for now, Brazos is looking like it.
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