Although CES 2024 is happening next month in Las Vegas, AMD has lifted the lid on their latest Zen 4 mobile processors, the Ryzen Mobile 8040 series. Codenamed Hawk Point, the Ryzen Mobile 8040HS series is set to be the successor to this year's 'Phoenix' mobile chips. Two new families of Ryzen Mobile chips have been announced, including the mid-ranged 8040HS APUs and the lower-powered 8040U series with a lower TDP designed for thin and light notebooks.
Ranging from 8C/16T down to an entry-level 4C/8T SKU, AMD's Ryzen Mobile 8040 series has nine SKUs on offer (at the time of writing) and is a direct refresh of the previous Phoenix 7040 series rather than a complete overhaul. This means AMD's Zen 4 core manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process looks set to retake center stage in their notebook portfolio for at least the first half of next year. Another interesting element of AMD's Ryzen Mobile 8040 series is that they incorporate the Ryzen AI NPU, developed by Xilinx, into seven of the nine announced SKUs. AMD acquired Xilinix last year and looks set to use Xilinx IP again to bolster AMD's charge towards AI generation.
During last year's CES 2023 trade show in Las Vegas, AMD announced their first Zen 4-based mobile SKUs, namely the Ryzen Mobile 7040 series. While users did have to wait a considerable portion of the year before these SKUs hit retail via notebook partners, they delivered solid portable performance and efficiency, something which AMD's Zen 4 microarchitecture has delivered in desktop, mobile, server and, more recently, in the workstation space. The Ryzen 8040HS and 8040U series look to further push the adoption of AI features with more on-chip Ryzen AI-enabled NPUs than the previous generation.
