AMD's 32nm Llano Wafer Gets Pictured

In the short time that passed since their introduction Onario and Zacate proved to be a huge success for AMD, but the Sunnyvale-based company won't stop here with its Fusion strategy and it now gets ready for the launch of the Llano APU, a picture depicting a wafer full of such CPU dies just making its way onto the Web.

Compared to the Brazos platform that is targeting entry level computer users and ultra-portable laptops, Llano APUs uses a more advanced architecture that targets the mainstream and performance notebook sector.

On the desktop side, these new chips go after the market space occupied right now by the Athlon II CPUs as both processors are based on the Stars micro-architecture that AMD introduced with their Phenom CPU line.

However, unlike the Phenom of the Athlon II, Llano will also carry a on-die graphics core that is derived from the ATI Redwood-class GPUs (HD 5670) and features six SIMD engines, each with 80 stream processors.

Furthermore, Llano also integrates a dual-channel DDR3-1600 memory controller and 1MB L2 cache per core as well as an PCI Express 2.0 controller.

Although this is a new addition for AMD processors, Intel has integrated such a controller ever since th introduction of the Lynnfiled CPUs back in 2009.

The chips will be manufactured by GlobalFoundries on their 32 nm SOI process and will become available in dual, triple, and quad-core variants, the latter being depicted in the wafer image provided by SemiAccurate.

Each Llano CPU core contains about 35 million transistors and occupies just shy of 10mm² (L2 cache notwithstanding), the full chip carrying 1 billion transistors.

All Llano APUs will make part of the Sabine platform, feature Turbo Core, core power gating as well as digital on-die temperature measurements, and are compatible with AMD's Socket FM1 motherboards.