What is AMD fusion?

[Maximilian]

AMD are calling it an APU, wiki says its a new CPU design, what is it? Is it some hazy thing like "centrino" which dosent really mean much, or is this AMD's answer to atom?

 

[Hard Ball]

AMD are calling it an APU, wiki says its a new CPU design, what is it? Is it some hazy thing like "centrino" which dosent really mean much, or is this AMD's answer to atom?

AMD fusion is assymmetric CMP design, in terms of both execution resources and ISA.
It takes various functions of a genereal purpose processer, and a parallel SPMD-encapsulated VLIW processor, and integrates them onto a single piece of IC with separate PLL domains. The communcations between two assymetric components is currently done through DMA enabled co-processor model.

In practical terms, this basically means that the end user should have most of the hardware function integrated into a single chip, that will reduce price as well as give better battery life, with smaller form factors.

Hope this helps.

 

[JimmiG]

It basically means they put the GPU on-die. But Intel beat them to it and have already released their "Fusion". Kind of ironic since it's AMD that have been talking about it for years.

 

[Rifter]

"What is AMD fusion?"

Late to the party now that SB is out.

 

[Dribble]

All it really has done is taken the integrated graphics that was previously a separate chip on the motherboard, and integrated it into the cpu. This is a money saving trick as less chips = cheaper to make.

The rest of the waffle about how it will cure cancer and so on is just that waffle - net result is a cpu with a better gpu then equivalent Intel chips currently have. Downside is AMD currently isn't competitive with Intel on the cpu front so you get better graphics but a slower, more power hungry processor.

 

[AtenRa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BihrG7DhhBM&feature=player_embedded

 

[veri745]

AMD are calling it an APU, wiki says its a new CPU design, what is it? Is it some hazy thing like "centrino" which dosent really mean much, or is this AMD's answer to atom?

"Fusion" is the integration of the CPU and GPU on a single die, called an APU.

"Ontario" is an APU targeted for the 9W netbook and notebook space, i.e. an atom competitor

"Zacate" is an APU targeted at the 18W notebook, nettop, and low-end desktop space.

"Llano" is an APU targeted at the 25W+ notebook and mainstream desktop space.

 

[Maximilian]

Ah right cool, so is sandy bridge an APU then? Or is this just AMD terminology?

 

[veri745]

Ah right cool, so is sandy bridge an APU then? Or is this just AMD terminology?

I don't know if AMD trademarked that term or not, but yes, Sandy Bridge is effectively an APU.

 

[msroadkill612]

I would suggest you do your own reading. No one here (bar one) knows what they are talking about.

 

[Idontcare]

AMD are calling it an APU, wiki says its a new CPU design, what is it? Is it some hazy thing like "centrino" which dosent really mean much, or is this AMD's answer to atom?

Neither.

See AMD's whitepaper: http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/48423B_fusion_whitepaper_WEB.pdf

What is an Accelerated Processing Unit?

At the most basic level, AMD’s new Accelerated Processing Units combine general-purpose x86 CPU cores with programmable vector processing engines on a single silicon die. AMD’s APUs also include a variety of critical system elements, including memory controllers, I/O controllers, specialized video decoders, display outputs, and bus interfaces, but real appeal of these chips stems from the inclusion of both scalar and vector hardware as full-fledged processing elements. Others have lashed a CPU and a basic graphics unit together in a single package, but none have attempted this feat with truly programmable GPUs like those in the AMD Fusion designs, let alone GPUs that can be programmed using high-level industry-standard tools like DirectCompute and OpenCL.

 

[tcsenter]

AMD are calling it an APU, wiki says its a new CPU design, what is it? Is it some hazy thing like "centrino" which dosent really mean much, or is this AMD's answer to atom?

Centrino = premium Intel CPU SKU + mobile Intel chipset + Intel WLAN

 

[Dark Shroud]

I would suggest you do your own reading. No one here (bar one) knows what they are talking about.

+1 Sometimes it's best to take the time and read the white papers. 2nd gen APUs will be Bulldozer based. There is also talk of APUs using crossfire and/or side port technology to better work with AMD discrete GPUs.

 

[Seero]

AMD are calling it an APU, wiki says its a new CPU design, what is it? Is it some hazy thing like "centrino" which dosent really mean much, or is this AMD's answer to atom?

Fusion is a name of a project, and the project's goal was to combine CPU and GPU together, that was 15 years ago i believe. Several years ago, AMD actually released a program/utility called Fusion for gaming.

APU refers to the new design of a processor, which was from the Fusion project. CPU was suppose to be a abbreviation of "Central Processing Unit", which doesn't make sense anymore as newer processors should be called something like "Multi Core Processing Unit" or "Central Processing Group". However, CPU itself as become a word referring to the chip that seats in the middle of the motherboard underneath a big heatsink. Depending on how "CPU" is defined, APU can be a CPU, or not.

The dominate differences between APU and Intel's Sandy Bridge is the vector engine doesn't go wasted when a discrete AMD graphic card is present(not sure about other brands), while SB's graphic cores are useless with any discrete graphics cards. In theory, the vector engine can offload tasks from CPU cores, which AMD calls this Acceleration, therefore the new chip is called "Accelerated Processing Unit", APU.

Last, the name Vector Processing Engine is the new name AMD use, referring to what generally understood as Graphic Processing Unit, or GPU.

 

[fire400]

amd.com

 

[JFAMD]

Fusion is more than just putting silicon together. Fusion is about creating a compute environment.

On the server side you will see GPU and CPU come together into a compute fabric with software enablement through OpenCL and Directcompute even though they remain on different pieces of silicon.

Fusion is bigger than APUs. Fusion is a strategy, APU is a tactic to get you there.

 

[Idontcare]

Fusion is more than just putting silicon together. Fusion is about creating a compute environment.

On the server side you will see GPU and CPU come together into a compute fabric with software enablement through OpenCL and Directcompute even though they remain on different pieces of silicon.

Fusion is bigger than APUs. Fusion is a strategy, APU is a tactic to get you there.

Not to sound glib or lippy, but how is this any different than every other expansion of the x86 ISA over the past 20+ yrs?

3DNow! might be a bad example, or maybe not.

With 3DNow! AMD intended to expand the "compute environment" by extending processing capabilities beyond that of the existing x86 ISA.

They "fused" 3DNow! compute capabilities into their CPU's alongside the traditional x86 ISA circuits.

And the same challenges of getting software developers to utilize 3DNow! is also present with APU/Fusion. (as is true of every ISA extension - all those SSE A.B extensions go unused until someone codes for them)

 

[drizek]

So is it also "fusion" if you get a bulldozer chip and a dedicated (AMD?) graphics card? Can that sort of system going to be used in the same way that a Llano system is used? Or is Zambezi just a transitional chip before having APUs across the board?

 

[JFAMD]

So is it also "fusion" if you get a bulldozer chip and a dedicated (AMD?) graphics card? Can that sort of system going to be used in the same way that a Llano system is used? Or is Zambezi just a transitional chip before having APUs across the board?

It is fusion if they are both being used for compute. If the CPU is compute and the GPU is display then those are two different functions.

But if the compute functions are being shared between CPU and GPU then it is fusion.