Finding Fusion
Among the topics Intel is expected to talk about at IDF, which starts today, are its move to a 32nm manufacturing process and the consequent new CPU families, codenamed Clarkdale and Arrandale, that will be the first processors to integrate the graphics into the CPU for the desktop and notebook markets respectively.
Back when AMD first bought ATI, us tech journos were bombarded by messaging from the newly combined operation about a new concept called ‘Fusion', which encapsulated the vision behind the acquisition.
Put simply, by being the only chip company to make both the CPU and GPU, AMD reckoned it had bought itself a decisive advantage over both Intel and NVIDIA. The way this advantage would ultimately be realised would not be so much from synergies created by using separate AMD CPUs, GPUs and chipsets in a PC - the ‘platform' concept - but by integrating all this disparate silicon onto one die.
Former AMD CTO Phil Hester evangelised about his refinement of the Fusion concept at the start of 2008, calling it the APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) and describing a future which brought the system on chip (SoC) concept to mainstream computing.
A year and a half later and Hester is long gone. Meanwhile, the SoC is threatening to make an appearance in PCs, but it's the ARM ecosystem rather than AMD that's driving it. Worse, for AMD, Intel is about to introduce CPUs with the graphics integrated first.
So when sources in the Haight underground told us that AMD's internal discussions at this time are focussing on its 32nm Llano product, we weren't surprised. Llano has been on AMD's CPU roadmap as the eventual manifestation of the APU concept for some time, but it's still not expected until 2011.
It must make AMD feel pretty uncomfortable to see Intel talking about its own fusion products when it still hasn't delivered on its own three-year-old promise, so we would expect AMD to strive even harder to deliver. Having delivered Istanbul a quarter earlier than expected, AMD and Global Foundries seem to have got off to a good start. Nothing would make AMD happier, we expect, than to be able to counter Intel's announcements with its own Fusion news.
