AMD ditches Fusion branding
AMD's Fusion branding is no more, to be replaced by the 'Heterogeneous Systems Architecture.'
First launched in June 2011 at the AMD Fusion11 Developer Summit, Fusion is the name given to AMD's efforts to meld its CPU and GPU know-how into a single platform offering high performance at a low power draw.
The best-known outcome of the Fusion project, AMD's Accelerated Processing Units (APUs,) offer small form factor system builders surprisingly powerful graphics and processing capabilities - with corresponding general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) capabilities - in a low-cost, low-power chip.
With AMD supporting languages including C++ AMP and OpenCL for GPGPU offload, the company clearly feels it's time to bring the technology to a new audience under a more professional brand identity.
'We have built a heterogeneous compute ecosystem that is built on industry standards,' boasted AMD corproate fellow Phil Rogers in a statement regarding the renaming exercise. 'As such, we believe it’s only fitting that the name of this evolving architecture and platform be representative of the entire, technical community that is leading the way in this very important area of technology and programming development.
'FSA will now be known as Heterogeneous Systems Architecture, or HSA. The HSA platform will continue to be rooted in industry standards and will include some of the best innovations that the technology community has to offer.'
The move isn't purely a branding exercise, however: Rogers promises to reveal recent advances in the HSA platform design at the company's Financial Analyst Day on the 2nd of February that will offer a clear improvement worthy of the platform's new name.
While AMD isn't the only company looking towards heterogeneous computing platforms, it does have a distinct advantage over its rivals: Intel is able to offer high-performance CPUs but is weak in graphics, while Nvidia offers high-performance GPUs but has no CPU presence outside its mobile-centric Tegra line and the secretive 'Project Denver.'
Does AMD's rebranding exercise smack of desperation, or do you think the newly-named Heterogeneous Systems Architecture could be just what the company needs to bring the fight to Intel? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyWell over the last few years its the only place they have been able to compete.
So makes sense to focus on it
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I hope someone with good intentions and deep pockets buys AMD. can't really think of a candidate who would give a **** about the consumer market off-hand..
Looks like AMD are trying to increase their role in servers, no idea if they are any good ATM.
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Was that Sarcasm?!
New from AMD! The ATI Athlon XP All-In-Wonder!
That's where they are currently in the roadmap, yes.
First integrating Radeon GPUs into mobo chipsets with "Sideport" GDDR3 to boost graphics performance over GMA solutions from Intel an nVidia.
Second integrating Radeon GPUs into the CPU die.
Third will be an integration of the CPU and GPU cores into a "Heterogeneous" processor which can handle the tasks of a CPU and a GPU with equal ease and efficiency.
That's the plan anyway. I don't see them making the final leap as that's a compelte architectural overhaul and I don't see how they can make it x86 compatible whilst retaining the current level of GPU power current GPUs have. A dream to far, IMHO.
And really? AMD doing an effective x86 architectural overhaul? They can't even do that right without trying to integrate other functions. How can they get it so wrong? Are their head honchos having to pay protection to Intel mob goons and keep their performance sub par to stop their family getting killed?
One would think so the amount of epic fails they've had since the glory days of Thunderbird vs Willamette.
Perhaps they go the other way now, and integrate cpu onto gpu pci-e cards... LOL.
So the new architecture sucks does it? Sure...perhaps it does! In fact, let us say it definitely does. Putting yourself in the shoes of an AMD exec would you:
a) Write off billions in R&D costs because it hasn't taken to market the way you'd hoped
or
b) Spend a minute fraction of the R&D costs on a "marketing shuffle" in an attempt to recover just some of those costs so that you CAN "get back into the lab and get us some decent processors".
...and I don't think that "Heterogeneous Systems Architecture" will mean a thing to "joe public", but then, they'll sell it has "HSA" which will mean just as much/as little to your average punter as "Hyper Threading" (HT), "Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line" (ADSL), "Serial Advanced Technology Attachment" (SATA) and so on and so on, and since the article states "the company clearly feels it's time to bring the technology to a new audience under a more professional brand identity" I think we can safely assume they're going to be marketing it at OEMs, system builders, etc and not your average sucker in PC World.
Desktop space you might count them out unless your on a budget, but mobile AMD has it going on.
Intel mobile CPUs cost a bundle and give you more then you need, where as their graphics are sub par in every way.
I don't confess to know all the power to price points for Intel and AMD in the laptop market. But I would think if someone is buying a laptop for gaming, they would opt for a independent GPU anyways.
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just making bullets here :3
What I said, I say as someone who's only used AMD for many, many years. The Llano and Brazos are pretty kick-ass, but they're based on the Phenom II arch. BD, which was supposed to crush Sandy Bridge in the consumer and server markets, will not. I dearly hope that they are 5 years ahead of everyone else and that once software catches up, I can finally have the chance to rub it in the faces of Intel fanboys.
In the meantime, the Fusion branding would have been fine. This 'heterogeneous systems architecture' sounds clumsy, and I think it may hurt them worse in that they're yanking the Fusion branding so quickly. I'd say AMD is being a bit short-sighted themselves, in that now it appears they're panicking. Or that, under pressure, they maybe pushed BD out the door before it was really ready, as it had already been delayed several times. Because they wouldn't shut up about how it would be greatest thing ever, they had to deliver, only to disappoint. They should have done a die shrink on the Stars arch and kept BD in the lab until they could at least match what their previous (8 year old) arch could do across the board. I got an AM3+ board when my old board died, figuring at least I'd be ready once BD finally dropped (it was already well late by that point.) Imagine my disappointment when I found out there was no compelling reason to replace my PII X3 - not in performance, and not enough in performance-per-watt.
I went to spec a server just the other day, and what do I find? For my use, AMD isn't the best there, either. In some highly-specialized use cases, yes. But for most average server applications, Intel still has them beat.
I know enough about business to know that what AMD is doing now could blow up in their faces. They may not be scrambling, but it doesn't matter - the appearance of scrambling is damaging enough.
Let's hope for the best! In some countries, name changing new born babies that are deathly sick is a common practice to fool death and let them live. Anthropology was a great class. Maybe it will work for AMD, too!
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I'm a massive AMD fanboy and was holding out for bulldozer, but all the top level reshuffling made me vary nervous.
On the negative side however over at Semiaccurate who are traditionally AMD centric there is an article stating that information received ;-) shows that Kepler even in the mid range GK104 version is going to beat the AMD 7000 series on "all fronts".
So AMD really have to utilize their unique position of having fair/good performance on both cpu and gpu fronts.
Trouble is they can't do that just by giving heterogeneous computing a new name....they MUST HAVE NEW SOFTWARE SUPPORT AS WELL!!
As I said, Llano APU kills anything in the even remote price range as far as a gaming notebook goes ($300-500).
Sure you can get a dedicated GPU, if you want to pay closer to $1000. Otherwise, you're only choice is integrated graphics or low end dedicated, all of which Llano completely destroys price and performance wise.