Named after Al Bundy’s favourite movie, starring western legend John Wayne, the new Hondo chip will be based on a revised and power optimised Bobcat core and it is aimed at Windows 8 devices. Hondo will deliver superior power efficiency and AMD claims its “app power” with FCH is about 2W and the TDP is under 4.5W. This is a significant improvement over Desna, rated at 4W in app power, with a 5.9W TDP. The new chip will stick to the 40nm process.
Hondo will be part of the new Brazos-T platform and it will feature a new Hudson M2T fusion controller hub, or chipset in Fusionese. The new Hudson M2T is a redesigned Hudson M3 with a power optimized I/O feature set and SDIO support for WiFi. It is smaller than the Hudson M1 (A50M) currently used in the Brazos platform and AMD has done away with some features deemed unnecessary for tablets, thus reducing power consumption to less than 1 watt.
However, in the performance department Hondo will not be a major improvement over Desna chips. It still packs two cores clocked at 1GHz and the same HD 6250 graphics core ticking at 276MHz. This is still more than enough for the tablet market and the new chips should sample by the end of the year, with mass availability scheduled for Q2 2012. Hondo will be replaced by Samara chips sometime in 2013.
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