Android 4.0.1 optimized for AMD Brazos APU and Android 4.0 source code for x86

AMD has been angling for years to break into the mobile and low-power market, and they’ve succeeded in a small way with their Fusion initiative, which is an APU (a combined CPU + GPU on a single chip) that uses far less power than a traditional desktop processor such as Intel Core or AMD FX. Take note that the release isn’t yet completely stable, there being some compatibility issues with Intel processors for sound, hardware acceleration, camera, and ethernet.

With that in mind, here is a partial list of smartphones that are expected to receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at some point during the first quarter of 2012. Pushing out Ice Cream Sandwich support right now for x86 may just encourgae more developers, and more manufacturers to turn their attention to Intel and AMD, instead of the other chipset makers that have been dominating the tablet market. The more the merrier. This is an instruction set that’s been around since 1978 and underlies every single desktop PC running Windows, as well as Mac OS and many flavors of Linux as well. It is, to say the least, extremely standard.

On the open source page, you’ll also find the ISO image for MSI’s AMD powered Brazos Tablet. So developers, launch your Android SDKs, and start building something awesome. This announcement by Huang changes the entire game by introducing the latest version of Android to the instruction set that standard computers run on and optimizing it for AMD rather than Intel. Android 4.0.1 does run on all x86 processors.