A well-informed semiconductor analyst over at financial consultants Sterne Agee has today announced that AMD will begin shipping its long awaited Llano APUs as soon as April.

These early shipments are purportedly only going to large PC vendors such as HP and Acer, though, rather than the retail channel.

This news contrasts sharply with previous stories regarding Llano’s launch date, as well as AMD's current guidelines to expect the processors in ‘summer 2011.'

According to The Wall Street Journal's Tech Trader Daily Blog, though, these suggestions were rebutted by the analyst, who said that he'd always expected the chips to ship in the second quarter of this year all along.

The same analyst also told Tech Trader Daily that AMD’s eagerly anticipated Bulldozer APUs are set for release in the third quarter of this year, rather than the second quarter. If true, this would result in Bulldozer arriving after Llano.

However, VR-Zone points out that the definition of 'summer' in the US is technically late May to early September, so shipping in time for a May release could still fit in with AMD's current official schedule.

Of course, none of this has been officially confirmed by AMD, so make sure you season the information well, but would a last minute change to AMD's current release schedule surprise you? Let us know in the forums.