In an Interview AMD's John Swinimer, public relations manager for the Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker, told a couple of interesting facts about some of the company's upcoming products, including the much anticipated APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) such as AMD LIANO. Thanks to the details that Mr. Swinimer provided with, we now know that AMD plans to unveil its first APUs sometime in 2011.
Also, according to a number of recently leaked slides of the company's notebook platforms, the 2011 APUs will also offer users support for Microsoft's upcoming API (Application Programming Interface), DirectX 11. According to the details that have recently been made available on the English version of Expreview, AMD's 2009, 2010 and 2011 notebook platform roadmap includes the Tigris, the Danube and the Sabine, respectively. From the three, Sabine will be the first to boast an AMD APU, codenamed “Llano”.
The AMD “Llano” APU will sport a processing unit with up to 4 cores, an integrated graphics processing unit, as well as support for DDR3-1600MHz memory, and it will be manufactured using 32nm processing technology. The APU will be coupled with AMD's new chipset SB9xxM, which will boast support for USB 3.0, 16 USB ports, 6 SATA ports, RAID and AMD's next-generation discrete notebook GPU.
One of the main features of the upcoming Sabine platform or AMD Liano is the support it will provide for Microsoft's DirectX 11 and UVD 3 technology. This will enable users to take advantage of the latest gaming applications, which will boast DirectX 11-support. In addition, the AMD Llano will be the first of AMD's CPU+GPU mobile chips. However, before we have any chance to see the new Sabine platform and AMD's first APU Liano, we have to wait for the Danube platform, due for release next year, which will use RS880M+SB8xxM chipset and will come with 4-core processors and a DDR3-1066MHz memory controller. Source: Soft Pedia
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Slated to debut sometime in 2011, according to the company's latest roadmap, the Llano chip will be part of AMD's upcoming Sabine platform, which will be based on the AMD 900-series core-logic and will be part of the chip maker's Fusion lineup.
The chip maker has showcased a die shot of the upcoming microprocessor, which was detailed by Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD's products group. According to said details, the Fusion processor will feature 4 x86 cores that resemble that of the company's current Propus processor (the Athlon II X4), combined with 6 SIMD engines, featuring 80 Stream processors per engine. The integrated graphics inside the Llano chip resemble that of the Evergreen GPU, which is at the base of the company's new line of Radeon HD 5800 series of GPUs.
Other features include an integrated PC3-12800 memory controller, 2MB of L2 cache (as opposed to previously leaked claims that the Llano would feature 4MB of L3 cache), 1 billion transistors and a 32nm silicon-on-insulator manufacturing process. The Llano is what the chip maker likes to call an APU, namely an accelerated processing unit, which will be combined with the future Sabine platform, designed to feature USB 3.0 and Serial ATA-600 on the company's future 900 series of chipsets.
AMD's Llano will have to compete with Intel's upcoming processors with integrated graphics, which will be available with the introduction of the Clarkdale and Arrandale chips. Unfortunately for AMD, Intel plans to release the said products next year, while AMD's Llano isn't scheduled for a debut until sometime in 2011.
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