AMD rumors: good-bye Alchemy, hello a new notebook chip

AMD holds its technology day tomorrow at corporate headquarters (the place with the larger-than-life bust of founder Jerry Sanders. Here's a crop of the rumors circulating:

AMD will announce it is snuffing out its Alchemy line of low-power processors. These chips aren't built on the x86 architecture and don't sell that well. Since AMD has already committed to an x86 strategy, it makes sense. Sources contacted said it made sense, but also admitted they haven't heard anything, partly because they haven't paid attention to Alchemy for a long time.

AMD will discuss a new line of notebook chips. This was floated by Joe Osha at Merrill Lynch. The current Turion notebook chips are server chips trimmed down. Developing an independent notebook architecture would let AMD better compete against Intel's Core (formerly Pentium M) chips. In terms of power consumption, AMD loses to Intel here. However, there's no hard evidence to support the theory, so who knows.

AMD will buy ATI Technologies. You can imagine the scene. AMD CEO Hector Ruiz complaining that the company hasn't screwed up big in a while or lost a lot of money. The notoriously difficult graphics chip market would be one way to go. ATI is a tough company--they took back the lead in graphics from Nvidia--but it's not a fun place to live. The prediction is based on recent checks in the supply chain by Wall Street analysts Apjit Walia. Others contacted said no way. The old "recent checks in the PC supply chain" has also been notoriously wrong in the past. The last time recent checks were cited as a source, the prediction was that Dell would come out with an AMD notebook earlier this year. Didn't happen. But again, who knows.