When AMD launched the Brazos platform containing the four first Fusion models it announced it had shipped over 1 million of these before they were even in stores. In Q1 AMD has managed to ship 3 million circuits, which is 50% of the total volume on the mobile market and it expects these shares to grow when Llano comes.
AMD has since the acquisition of ATI in 2006 been saying that The Future is Fusion. The concept is AMD’s vision of a circuit where the traditional processor works alongside the graphics processor with optimized software. Starting this year the first piece of the puzzle came along with the launch of the Brazos platform containing Ontario and Zacate; the first Fusion APUs.
In just a quarter Brazos has made a big break and makes up 50% of AMD’s total sales in the mobile segment with 3 million shipped units in Q1 AMD currently has 13.6% of the total market for notebooks, while Intel has the remainder with a small margin for error, so even if AMD has a great product in the lower segment it will need more to compete with Intel on a market AMD has had a hard time on in the past.
The launch of Llano is close now, Ontario and Zacate currently covers the lower segment with TDPs of 9W and 18W, while Llano will go up to 20-45W and hopefully remain affordable. AMD will not deliver better performance than Intel in terms of raw CPU performance, but when it comes to GPU performance AMD is aiming to crush all opposition.
That The Future is Fusion there is no question about it, at least not for AMD, but the big question is if the industry buys the concept? Intel has no intention of rolling over dead, but has plans to add OpenCL 1.1 to Ivy Bridge. Then we have ARM that miht sneak up on them both when Windows 8 arrives.
Source: Xbit Labs
