Earlier this summer, AMD announced plans to deliver a 25% energy efficiency improvement for its Accelerated Processing Units by 2020. According to AMD’s Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster, the ”25 by 20” target is a substantial increase compared to the previous six years, in which AMD had only improved typical-use energy efficiency for its products by 10%.
The 25% figure is major in light of the three billion personal computers used worldwide and 30 million computer servers, whose total power consumption amounts to $14 billion and $18 billion in cost. These figures are set to increase even further with the growth in mobile devices and cloud-based video and audio content.
“Creating differentiated low-power products is a key element of our business strategy, with an attending relentless focus on energy efficiency,” said Papermaster. “Through APU architectural enhancements and intelligent power efficient techniques, our customers can expect to see us dramatically improve the energy efficiency of our processors during the next several years. Setting a goal to improve the energy efficiency of our processors 25 times by 2020 is a measure of our commitment and confidence in our approach.”
“The energy efficiency of information technology has improved at a rapid pace since the beginning of the computer age, and innovations in semiconductor technologies continue to open up new possibilities for higher efficiency,” said Dr. Jonathan Koomey, research fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University.
Koomey adds: “AMD has steadily improved the energy efficiency of its mobile processors, having achieved greater than a 10-fold improvement over the last six years in typical-use energy efficiency. AMD’s focus on improving typical power efficiency will likely yield significant consumer benefits substantially improving real-world battery life and performance for mobile devices. AMD’s technology plans show every promise of yielding about a 25-fold improvement in typical-use energy efficiency for mobile devices over the next six years, a pace that substantially exceeds historical rates of growth in peak output energy efficiency. This would be achieved through both performance gains and rapid reductions in the typical-use power of processors. In addition to the benefits of increased performance, the efficiency gains help to extend battery life, enable development of smaller and less material intensive devices, and limit the overall environmental impact of increased numbers of computing devices.”
Via AMD
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