AMD will present its first Fusion processors by the end of the year. With both CPU and GPU on the same silicon and a new processor architecture the hopes are up high and new details reveal that the first two Zacate circuits will be AMD Fusion E350 and Fusion E240.
AMD has already said that it will dump the Fusion name and instead focus on the Vision brand. Whatever will happen we don’t know for certain, but it looks certain there will be two models to enjoy.
Fusion E350 and E240 are part of the Brazos platform and while the processor core is called Zacate the chipset is named Hudson D1. The chipset houses PCI Express, SATA 3.0 Gbps, and USB 2.0 controller. Alas no Gigabit Ethernet or RAID, which wasn’t really expected either considering the gearing of the platform. With only a PCIe 2.0 x4 bus connecting the processor and chipset the bandwidth is limited to 2 GB/s, but with graphics and memory controller inside the CPU this shouldn’t be a problem.
Zacate is the flagship of AMD’s new Ontario family and consumes at most 18 watt. The circuit will be made with 40nm technology and targets the ultrathin market, but also energy efficient desktops, like nettops and mini-ITX systems. Zacate E350 will be dual-core while little brother E240 has to settle for one Bobcat-based CPU core. The circuits also has a DirectX 11 compatible GPU, single-channel DDR3-1333 memory controller and the new video processor UVD 3.0. The BGA FT1 packaging allows CPUs to be soldered to the motherboard, like the Intel Atom.
AMD is said to be launching the new Zacate models early next year. It was believed that Ontario would launch by the end of 2010, which means that that little brother may still be first to market. When they appear when can expect them to be backed up by the Vision brand. The exact product names and clock frequencies hasn’t been revealed yet.
