But what is the microchip good for? - Unnamed IBM suit
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AMD talks up its first Fusion chip
CHIP DESIGNER AMD has been talking up some of the x86 design features for its first Fusion processor at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco this week.
The upcoming 'Llano' Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) will see the joining of a 32nm silicon-on-insulator (SoI) Phenom II quad core CPU with a DirectX 11 capable GPU on the same die. This is a more sophisticated approach than Intel's at present, in which it simply adds a GPU chip to the processor package and calls that 'integrated'.
According to AMD senior fellow Samuel Naffziger, the company has focused heavily on cutting power usage in the x86 section of the APU, allowing more juice for the GPU and keeping heat generation and power waste to a minimum.
The SoI approach enables core level power gating-to-ground, thereby allowing the use of NFET transistors rather than the bulkier and more sluggish PFET transistors for power gating while negating the need for a special thick metal layer on the die to handle gate supply redistribution.
Another major design change by AMD has been the overhaul of the clock grid design, taking the standard fully populated grid and stripping it down to the bare essentials.
Naffziger reckons this has greatly reduced the number of final clock buffers, thereby massively lowering the clock grid metal capacitance and allowing for fine-grained clock gating to reduce clock switching power when idle. He admits that this means that a new grid layout will probably have to become part of the chip design process, but says that the massive power inefficiencies and leakage caused by using a fully populated grid means they are no longer feasible in a Fusion type architecture.
Lastly Chimpzilla has created a digital power management module for keeping tabs on power usage, which it reckons tears strips off the more common analogue temperature and current metering methods used for making frequency scaling decisions, which require larger margins of error due to environmental and die-to-die variations.
The Llano chips are set to start sampling in the first half of 2010 and will only be available to OEMs from early next year, initially being offered on the 'Sabine' platform for notebooks and 'Lynx' for the desktop version. µ
Tags: Amd
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"This is a more sophisticated approach than Intel's at present, in which it simply adds a GPU chip to the processor package and calls that 'integrated'."
I would say that they added a north-bridge to the processor package.
In End Bulldozier Vs. Hazwell. Until Equiptment takesturn towards window eight, Its 2010.
March Starts BLAST of Past With Tukwilia. Pounding 2 Gb tranny Monster Sure to Please, Old & New, Delayed. 4 Core Never Had IT SO GOOD.
then ib m Power 7 CELL At 1.2 Billion Tranees' 1/4 more than old bm, yet Tukie Pushed Score of Monticitro 50% Higher,
GulfTown & X6 bring Up Flowers Into Air of Spring. Just Think of IT Basic 45nm is Flawed & X6 Turns into X5, theREADER Could Be First To Know of Such Total Darkness. maybe.
Beyond NaHalem into early 2011.Better ?Chipset, Next Graphics Comin' roundABout.
Then theBULL Pulls Sled up. Like Parcel.Man or Ice cream Truck BELLS Ringing, KIDS Look Expectantly. Could That Be MINE? Yes. From Core to Module With Liano Perfected BULLY MAX PU; Vs. Ha,ha,ha mypenisfelloff, Larrysuebee. humjobmakee' Soupah coma ruestler & giggle,gigggle, just as dark as X5 at present. Only larra got kill switch,NOT US.
So Once agin AMD Rides OFF To Take ON Further WindMills & 8 Will Seek those 100 Gb/s ibm graphenezisters to SSPU strikes up from device BIN, intel bit fuddled, yet impossible to lose from perche.
Liano Will Be BIG, If Slips Thru Lower Gates On PASS, Its' Gonnads Bee HOT For AMD.
Signed:Testee' & testette.
While AMD's approach may be more "sophisticated," is the benefit of doing this enough to outweigh using a dated core architecture? There has not been a major revamp of the core in quite some time. Granted, a lot of that is due to some very good decisions made early on in the Athlon design process, but they seem stuck playing second fiddle to Intel in a lot of respects now. If they want to regain market control, they have to out-engineer Intel...not an easy task and certainly one they won't do with current architecture.
Integrating graphics into an aging core isn't going to make a dramatic turnaround for them. With any luck they are using this as a learning experience so that it's seamlessly integrated into a new and completely redesigned core...but I won't hold my breath.
I don't want my GPU integrated with my CPU. No thanks.
Then again, I'm the guy who was happy enough with Quake 2 graphics in software rendering mode...
i think most of you above me are missing the point, even with a somewhat dated core this chip could give intel a run for its money on such divers fields as video-encoding, compression, encryption, ect at a fraction of the power use. provided that the openCL or computshader software becomes available by then of course (and with the potential increase in performance i dont think it will take all that long)
The_Countess is right. This offering is about integrating the GPU into the chip and reducing power consumption. They're showing their roadmap.
If, as I expect, the GPU becomes the main compute engine then this is the way to go: an array of simpler processors.
In later spins AMD can beef up the GPU and make the CPU lower power as it'll idle most of the time anyway.
Just to keep people pronouncing things the Texas way, 'Llano' is the name of a river near Austin, Texas. Those of you who know the Spanish languge may think you know how to pronounce the name. Those of you who are non-Texas Americans may pronounce it a different way but Texans pronounce it the Texas way. It is pronounced 'lonno with the a an 'l' as in legs, 'o' and 'n' sounds as in the name Don, and a long 'o' sound as in the name 'Joe'. Things in Texas are rarely pronounced as one would expect.
As much as I love AMD they do stupid things.
No one particular cares if its integrated or not. AMD likes to talk up how their GPU is truly integrated with their CPU as if that alone is superior to Intel's design. AMD makes a superior GPU to Intel's thats well known.
Let me point out that you can buy a CPU/GPU from Intel today but you cant buy one from AMD. AMD should have done the same as Intel and slapped the GPU and CPU on the chip and connect the two then work on integrating the two.
AMD did the same BS with their dual core chips waiting until they were really integrated together while Intel just slapped them together and worked on integrating them later.
AMD lost a possible advantage AGAIN because of moronic ignorance. Im convinced AMD likes announcing something new then being beat to the punch.
You must be a California transplant. There are some odd pronunciations of words around here, but having lived in Austin 25 years and also working on this project.........just pronounce it with a short a and long o.
Pronounce Aero as "E-I-E-I-O'
Look at this new design and compare it to cell.
Cell = One GP PPC core (PPE) plus eight stream-optimized compute cores (SPE)
Llano = Four GP amd64 cores plus lots of stream processors.
So what's new here? Scalability and cost with software compatibility.
Yes please.
Who is this guy? Someone please let this guy know the little squiggly red lines under the words he's typing means THEY ARE SPELLED WRONG!! Go get yourself hooked on phonics you dolt!
Getting Last of Great Core Race Out....
In End Bulldozier Vs. Hazwell. Until Equiptment takesturn towards window eight, Its 2010.
March Starts BLAST of Past With Tukwilia. Pounding 2 Gb tranny Monster Sure to Please, Old & New, Delayed. 4 Core Never Had IT SO GOOD.
then ib m Power 7 CELL At 1.2 Billion Tranees' 1/4 more than old bm, yet Tukie Pushed Score of Monticitro 50% Higher,
GulfTown & X6 bring Up Flowers Into Air of Spring. Just Think of IT Basic 45nm is Flawed & X6 Turns into X5, theREADER Could Be First To Know of Such Total Darkness. maybe.
Beyond NaHalem into early 2011.Better ?Chipset, Next Graphics Comin' roundABout.
Then theBULL Pulls Sled up. Like Parcel.Man or Ice cream Truck BELLS Ringing, KIDS Look Expectantly. Could That Be MINE? Yes. From Core to Module With Liano Perfected BULLY MAX PU; Vs. Ha,ha,ha mypenisfelloff, Larrysuebee. humjobmakee' Soupah coma ruestler & giggle,gigggle, just as dark as X5 at present. Only larra got kill switch,NOT US.
So Once agin AMD Rides OFF To Take ON Further WindMills & 8 Will Seek those 100 Gb/s ibm graphenezisters to SSPU strikes up from device BIN, intel bit fuddled, yet impossible to lose from perche.
Liano Will Be BIG, If Slips Thru Lower Gates On PASS, Its' Gonnads Bee HOT For AMD.
Signed:Testee' & testette.