AMD Bobcat core features

AMD designed Bobcat x86 CPU core was specially for low power devices like netbooks / nettops, embedded etc. Bobcat cores are used together with GPU cores in accelerated processing units (APUs) under the "Fusion" brand. Some architecture features are -

•    64-bit core
•    out-of-order execution
•    Advanced branch predictor
•    32KB instruction, 32KB data and a 512KB L2 cache.
•    MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3 ISA, SSE4A

Out of order execution is processors design in which instructions (program) are executed in an order governed by the availability of input data, rather than by their original order in a program. So, the processor avoids being idle while an operand (data) is fetched for an instruction in a program, instead the next instructions which can be processed immediately is executed. The results are stored in a queue and they are re-ordered into the original order they came before flushing out..

When Branching instructions occur which may require operand to be fetched from memory then a technique called speculative execution is used to stop processor from stalling. To be able to process instructions ahead a branch is predicted to be the result of the branching condition. Next the instructions in this branch are executed. Later when the branching instruction generates result then :

         -  if the prediction was wrong then instruction queue is flushed.

       - otherwise (prediction right) the processing continues and there was no wastage of CPU clock cycles.

Bobcat uses advanced branch predictor to improve CPU utilization and improve performance. Bobcat cores also support SSE4a instruction set whereas the Atom (Third Generation) processors do not support SSE4a. AMD E-350 also supports latest technologies like USB 3.0, that's may be the reason why E-350 notebook sells even though they are priced more than Atom netbooks.