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Somewhat lost in the shuffle of Advanced Micro Devices' major legal settlement with Intel this week was product roadmap news out of AMD's Financial Analyst Day at the company's Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters.
AMD executives, including CEO Dirk Meyer, focused firmly on the chip maker's 2011 goal of achieving Fusion -- the long-awaiting integration of CPU and GPU capabilities on a single piece of silicon. That's a road that Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is also going down and the race to a viable product line should have the industry on the edge of its seats.
In the shorter term, AMD gave a solid glimpse at what we can expect in the first half of 2010. Perhaps most exciting for the PC-bound will be a proposed six-core desktop chip codenamed Theba, while plenty of action from AMD on the server side in 2010's opening months should keep data center folks fairly busy.
Here's a breakdown of AMD's product roadmap as it currently stands:
THE PATH TO FUSION
AMD Velocity: This designation at AMD "[r]epresents a shift in the company's design methodology and product introduction cadence," and incorporates the company's push for what it calls the Accelerated Processing Unit, or APU. In other words, Velocity is AMD's long-discussed path to its future Fusion architecture, which integrates graphics processing with x86 central processing on the same silicon die.
"The AMD Fusion Design Methodology will build on AMD's already established annual GPU design cycle to achieve a faster innovation pace than AMD previously achieved with a CPU-only development focus. AMD Velocity is designed to deliver performance breakthroughs via teraFLOPS-class GPU compute power in tandem with performance and low-power x86 core options," according to AMD, which further promises to deliver a new APU to the market every calendar year.
PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES
Bulldozer: This new x86 core architecture for client and server processors is due out in 2011. Bulldozer is a multi-threaded, performance oriented x86 microprocessor core that will appear in a client chip codenamed Zambezi and in server chips codenamed Interlagos and Valencia. According to AMD, "Bulldozer will be a completely new, high performance architecture for the mainstream server, desktop and notebook PC markets that employs a new approach to multithreaded compute performance for achieving advanced efficiency and throughput." What's more, Bulldozer cores will also play a role in AMD's future APU designs.
Planned introduction: 2011
Bobcat: This is AMD's other future x86 core planned for introduction in 2011 and aimed at mobile products like mainstream and ultra-thin notebooks, as well as netbooks. Bobcat will be used in ultra-low power microprocessors and first appears in an APU codenamed Ontario that is scheduled for release in 2011. "Bobcat is designed to be an extremely small, highly flexible, single-threaded x86 core that easily can be scaled up and combined with other IP in SoC [System-on-Chip] configurations," according to the chip maker.
Planned introduction: 2011
DESKTOPS
Thuban: This new 45-nanometer processor due out in the first half of 2010 boasts six cores, a client-side first for AMD following its shipment of six-core Opteron server chips in the first half of 2009. Thuban drops into the AM3 socket and appears within an upcoming desktop hardware platform codenamed Leo.
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
Leo: This enthusiast-class desktop platform coming in the first half of 2010 succeeds the current-generation Dragon platform from AMD. A Leo platform will feature the upcoming Thuban six-core AM3 processor, a new performance chipset called AMD RD890, and DirectX 11-capable discrete graphics cards from the already available ATI Radeon HD 5000 series.
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
Dorado: This mainstream desktop platform supports socket AM3 Athlon II processors in their dual-core, triple-core and quad-core flavors, and features the RS880P + SB810 chipset. Dorado is due for release in the first half of 2010.
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
Zambezi: This processor for the enthusiast market introduces AMD's future 32-nanometer process technology and brings the core count on a desktop chip up to a whopping eight. Zambezi will also come in quad-core and six-core versions and drops into the AM3 socket. It's based on the future Bulldozer core architecture.
Planned introduction: 2011
Scorpius: The high-end hardware platform that houses 2011's Zambezi processors, Scorpius represents AMD's full transition to DDR3 memory and apparently succeeds next year's Leo enthusiast hardware platform for desktops.
Planned introduction: 2011
NOTEBOOKS
Huron: This is the former codename for AMD's Neo processor, a single-core, BGA-socket chip that was part of AMD's first-generation ultra-thin notebook platform formerly codenamed Yukon.
Introduced: 1H, 2009
Caspian: This is the former codename for AMD's 45nm, dual-core Turion II processors that are part of the recently introduced mainstream notebook platform formerly known as Tigris.
Introduced: 2H, 2009
Conesus: This is the former codename for AMD's dual-core, BGA-socket Athlon Neo processors that are featured in the chip maker's second-generation ultra-thin notebook platform.
Introduced: 2H, 2009
Champlain: AMD's very first quad-core notebook processor is part of next year's planned mainstream notebook platform codenamed Danube. Champlain supports DDR3 memory and has 2MB of cache.
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
Danube: Built around the forthcoming Champlain mobile processor, Danube is a mainstream notebook platform with onboard graphics that support DirectX 10.1 and options for discrete graphics that will take you to DirectX 11. According to AMD, Danube notebooks "offer up to 7 hours of battery life under typical usage scenarios."
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
Geneva: AMD's next processor for the ultra-thin notebook segment is a dual-core, 45nm chip for the BGA socket that has 2MB of cache and DDR3 memory support.
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
Nile: This is AMD's third-generation ultra-thin notebook platform, built around the upcoming Geneva mobile processor. Nile brings AMD's ultra-thin trajectory into the world of DDR3 and offers "more than seven hours battery life," according to the chip maker.
Planned introduction: 1H, 2010
