AMD chief calls for innovation to cut PC costs

The head of global microprocessor provider Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has underlined the need for innovation to take PCs to at least half the world's population by 2015.

Dirk Meyer, president and CEO, told a technology conference in Hyderabad yesterday, that semiconductor manufacturers should come up with new business models that would help to reduce research spends that have outpaced revenue growth recently.

He said that while companies such as AMD would continue to work on increasing transistor density on a single processor (that signifies the speed they offer in computing and other functions), the industry required to innovate to bring down R&D expenditure.

He described the PC as a fundamental driver of growth in the semiconductor industry and pointed out that the transition of the machine from a mere computing instrument to a media-centric device, offered new opportunities in integrating multiple purposes and functions.

Meyer inaugurated a second AMD R&D centre in Hyderabad last week, that will focus on intellectual property creation in next generation consumer electronics, graphics and microprocessors.

The AMD boss, often called an engineer's engineer, is credited with being involved in the design of two of the most noteworthy server processors to emerge in the past two decades.