Posts tagged with amd-fusion

AMD Fusion processors out next year

Posted on March 11, 2010 1:32 PM

Netbooks looks set to be here to stay for many more years, co-existing peacefully with notebooks, and this has finally caused AMD to shift gear by catering for a dedicated netbook processor under their Fusion range that ought to see action sometime next year. It seems that the Fusion chips will have power consumption in the 10-15 watt range alongside decent integrated graphics performance without the need for Ion-powered graphics, all found in a device no larger than 12" in size. What do you think - will Intel and NVIDIA be quaking in their boots?

AMD CPU+GPU fusion in 22nm in 2010?

Posted on July 24, 2009 10:15 AM

Rumor has it that AMD's CPU and GPU "fusion" won't happen until the second half of 2010 when the 22nm (nanometer) process will be ready for production. Intel has already shown its plans for a CPU+GPU integration in the form of having two separate dies (pieces of silicon) inside the same chip.

It feels like AMD has been talking about fusion "forever",  basically to justify the acquisition of ATI (in 2006). The word "fusion" has since been used for everything and anything at AMD, but we have yet to see an actual prototype that would lead to a better consumer experience. Intel's current goal in integrating the chip into the CPU package aims at improving power (by reducing the total number of chips). AMD's goal with fusion is to enable better stream computing (with homogenous multi-cores) and better graphics.

AMD Merging Its CPU and GPU Business

Posted on May 6, 2009 6:18 PM

Three years after buying ATI, AMD is reorganizing its GPU and CPU business under the same roof. The goal is to unify the company's goals, but also unify CPU and GPU in a single chip - the vision that led to the ATI acquisition in the first place. As far as we know, the plan is to get a fused CPU and GPU sometime in 2011.

People have becoming impatient and investors must have questioned the logic of getting a multi-billion debt, asking for when it will pay off. Since then, AMD has been using "Fusion" left and right, but they basically believe in heterogeneous computing, which is the usage of CPUs associated with arrays of smaller units, like those found in GPUs. NVIDIA is currently doing quite well with CUDA and Intel is working on Larrabee, its own GPU.

Intel and NVIDIA have clear long-term plans, even if both will have to fight to prevail. AMD's plans are blurry to say the least. But that could get clearer soon with this re-org.