The current range of Geode LX chips may be the last AMD develops, according to spokesperson Phil Hughes, with the company deciding it is best to focus resources on more mainstream chips during these volatile economic times. The low power system-on-chip product was used in netbooks like OLPC's XO laptop and also fared well in set-top box, embedded and similar markets.
According to industry experts Geode's demise was inevitable because the chip, in its current form at least, is too old for further development and AMD is certainly not in its best shape right now for a significant R&D investment to rival Intel and ARM in the embedded market. Indeed, the chipmaker will be better off focusing its efforts on the recently announced Neo processor, which is a part of the current Yukon mobile platform for lower cost thin and light notebooks.
AMD still says it plans to make this "very successful" processor available as long as there's a market demand for it, though that shouldn't be too long, and without an updated version of the Geode the OLPC will probably turn to another vendor to build its next-generation XO-2.