AMD Plans First 'Fusion' Chips on 32nm SOI Process Technology

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Device is said to be planning to launch its first 'Fusion' chips, featuring and integrated GPU and CPU core on the same chip, which will be manufactured using a 32nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process technology. There have been many rumors about said chips, but it looks as if the world's second largest chip maker has finally made up its mind about its first “Fusion” processors. The details on said parts have been provided by the company's CEO, Dirk Meyer, during a conference call with financial analysts.

“We will have CPUs, so-called Fusion parts, on 32nm SOI in the next-generation and the bulk CMOS [fabrication process] we are evaluating for subsequent generation. […] For the generations beyond 32nm, we are evaluating our choices, as we do for every generation,” Meyer said, as quoted in a recent news-article on Xbit Labs.

According to previous details on said processors, the Llano APU (accelerated processing unit, or how AMD likes to call its GPU-CPU Fusion products) will be designed as a solution for the entry-level market, boasting up to four Shanghai/Phenom II-class cores, combined with DDR3 memory controller and a DirectX 11-capable graphics core, featuring a third-generation universal video decoder (UVD) and support for PCI-Express 2.0 external graphics cards. The processor cores will be featured with up to 4MB of L3 cache.

At this time, AMD's CPUs are made using the SOI process technology, while the company's GPU products are manufactured using bulk technology, offered by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). This means that the chip maker will be required to redesign the GPU, in order to fit a Radeon HD 5000-class graphics core on the same silicon as the CPU.