Hondo's success is important to AMD, which is heavily reliant on the slumping PC market. The Z-60 chip will succeed the earlier , which was released in June last year and drew around 6 watts of power. However, the chip was considered a failure as it appeared in only a handful of tablets such as MSI's WindPad.

The lack of a tablet market strategy was one of the reasons that led to the former AMD CEO in early 2011. AMD appointed former Lenovo exec Rory Read as the new CEO in August last year, and . Earlier this year, the company ripped up its old chip roadmap, and introduced a new strategy for tablet, server and PC chips. Hondo is based on the company's old chip roadmap, but the company plans next year to release , which will be based on the faster and more power-efficient .

Hondo is still not on the same playing field as tablets with Intel's Clover Trail or ARM processors, and AMD understands this, McGregor said.

"On the positive side, AMD is still delivering new products. On the negative side, the size of the market is unclear for this product," McGregor said.