AMD is 41 years old and it is one of the few companies that can make CPU and GPU. Well, to be honest it is the only company that can make both competitive CPUs and competitive GPUs. Five years ago they acquired ATI as the company needed the graphics business as well as important IP.
Asset smart was the next step, as AMD sold of its factories due to financial issues and the new AMD can now focus more on making chips. Of course, AMD’s plan is to mate an x86 CPU and a GPU in a single chip and of course, the company wanted to call it Fusion. Of course at first the emphasis with Fusion processors will be on content driven applications and the first processors will be consumer oriented. AMD talked up the significance of increasingly demanding content, such as HD videos, and Fusion seems like the perfect product for HD and even casual gaming.
Globalfoundries CEO Doug Grouse then showed off a 32nm Llano wafer, but sadly the wafer was on the stage for only about 30 seconds, probably due the fact that AMD doesn’t want to show its competitors what it’s readying for the second part of 2011. Also, it a good way of adding a bit more drama to the event and keeping punters interested.
Sadly, this is the best and coincidentally the only picture we managed to score of that Llano wafer.
