IFA 2011: We Talk with AMD's Leslie Sobon About Fusion and GPGPU Computing

During the IFA 2011 fair we had the chance to talk with Leslie Sobon, corporate vice president, Worldwide Product & Outbound Marketing at AMD, about Fusion chips, GPGPU computing software, and tablets.

Starting the talk was Fusion, a subject that is close to the heart of AMD, which envisions some great things for this technology similar to the stuff that we have seen in movies such as Star Trek or Blade Runner.

AMD thinks that the key to this sort of technology lies in the discrete graphics integrated in these chips, and is working with the software community in order to get to that place.

For this reason, the company is committed in making the SDKs and the tools required by developers to take advantage of all the compute power available inside APUs.

When talking about such tools, Leslie is quick to point out that cross-platform compatibility is an important topic for AMD, and, as such, the company will only use technologies like OpenCL, C++ AMP or the DirectCompute environment in the development of its tools.

Moving back to the consumer space, AMD thinks that video will have a huge role in the adoption of GPGPU computing and is currently working with third parties to develop solutions that will benefit from its APUs.

One such solution is a video editing program developed by vReaveal, which allows users to add image stabilization or change the contrast ration of their videos with just a few simple clicks.

We have seen a demo of this technology and were quite impressed with the results, especially when taking into consideration that fact that most of the work takes place on the integrated GPU.

Right now, AMD is talking with OEMs to preload this software on notebook computers, which is expected to happen in the first quarter of 2012.

In addition to AMD's Fusion strategy and software, another interesting discussion topic was tablets and how the Sunnyvale-based company sees this market.

Needless to say that AMD thinks that the tablet form-factor has a great future in front of it, but doesn't believe that anyone can compete with Apple at this point in time.

As far as the subject of ARM and x86 is concerned, the question for AMD is if it’s “easier to take an x86 and power it down or take an ARM and power it up.”

Leslie believes that both approaches have their pluses and minuses, and that ultimately all will go down to software as it will be hard for developers to write software for two different power envelopes and platforms.