"AMD provides us a lot of great price and performance in those lower price points," Sune said. The laptops will provide strong multimedia features and help the company address lower price points, which should complement the overall PC portfolio, Sune said.

Lenovo's commitment to using AMD chips in ThinkPads comes a few weeks after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, accusing the chip maker of illegally using its dominant market position to stifle competition and deprive consumers of microprocessor choice. Intel has denied the FTC's claims. Intel is the world's largest chip maker, with its processors going into more than 80 percent of PCs worldwide.

AMD late last year settled a lawsuit with Intel for $1.25 billion after accusing the chip maker of offering rebates that kept AMD from making deals with PC makers.

Convincing Lenovo to use its processors should boost AMD's laptop chip sales and expand its presence in a market dominated by Intel. AMD chips are already offered in PCs by vendors including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Toshiba.

Offering chips outside of Intel should also increase the microprocessor choice available to laptop buyers, said Leslie Sobon, AMD's vice president of worldwide product marketing.