14 DAY TRIAL // With all the news about nebtooks, notebooks, desktops and hardware components that have come out over the past month, there was barely any time left for market watchers to scurry about the web and uncover rumors related to the more highly anticipated future releases. Nevertheless, even with their attention spread thin, the rumor mill still didn't stop completely. In fact, one very interesting piece of information has just surfaced, regarding a certain technology that AMD is working on.
As all consumers no doubt know, Advanced Micro Devices is putting the finishing touches on its Fusion technology. This architecture should spawn its first offspring either before the year is out or sometimes in 2011. The Llano is supposedly already sampling. However, it is the Ontario mobile processors that were the subject of the most recent leak.
According to a report made by Fudzilla, the Ontario processors will be quite power-efficient. Apparently, more than one iteration of this Fusion product will launch and one of them will be able to operate on a wattage of as little as 9W. This implies that Intel's Atom line of chips is the main target of these APUs (accelerated processing units).
For example, the Intel Atom N550 dual-core 1.5GHz product has a TDP (thermal design power) of 8.5W. With a 9W TDP, an Ontario would immediately become a favorite, considering the graphics capabilities it will integrate.
A 9W TDP for a next-generation processor would not exactly be such a groundbreaking asset, but it becomes more than noteworthy when it is achieved by a dual-core unit. The Ontario will supposedly do this. In addition, a single-core iteration and an embedded solution should debut around the same time. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing exactly when any of this comes to pass, with sometime during 2011 being the best guess.