MOBILE: "We have several technologies invented by our mobile engineering teams that have become standard part of our desktop chips too."

More and more end user are turning there focus on power consumption. How is ATIs trying to strike a balance between the end users wish of more and more performance and the need to keep the power consumption low?

Very good question. It is well known fact that we deliver far more performance-per-watt than the competition. We must be doing something right, because about 3 out of every 4 new notebooks with discrete graphics are using ATI. We are really serious about power for all our products top to bottom. However, the demand for more performance is certainly pushing us into new territories on the high end. The key to balancing power and performance is to provide a detailed set of user controls so they can decide for themselves the proper mix of power savings and performance, and our Powerplay control panel does just that.

Graphic chips for Notebooks based on desktop products – why isn’t ATI developing a real mobile chip like Intel i.e. the Pentium M?

We do have long history of developing chips directly for mobile platforms. We have several technologies invented by our mobile engineering teams that have become standard part of our desktop chips too. One example is clock-gating, the ability to shut down circuits that aren’t in use – our midrange desktop chips have this capability if a customer wanted to implement it. Many of our recent mobile chips have about 40 such gates that can be shut down automatically if they aren’t needed. For instance, the 3D engine circuits can be shut off if a user is watching a DVD, and the DVD playback circuitry can be shut off if a user is typing in MS Word.

PC-WELT: Thank you for the interview Mr. Koduri.