* Fusion is a heterogeneous multicore microprocessor combining a general purpose processing core(s) and basic graphics core(s) into one processor package, with different clocks for the graphics core and the central processing core
* Four platforms focus on the four different aspects of usage
o General Purpose
o Data Centric
o Graphics Centric
o Media Centric
* The codenamed Bulldozer processor cores, announced in AMD Technology Analyst Day July 2007, will be incorporated with GPU cores to form the first Fusion processors, codenamed the Falcon family, focusing on desktop market with TDP of 10 to 100 Watts.
* An unnamed AMD Vice President expressed that Fusion can be implemented into mobile phones, UMPC and small multimedia devices, this has been further confirmed with the introduction of the codenamed Bobcat processor core focusing on low power consumption (1 to 10 Watts TDP) computations for handheld devices such as UMPC
* The Fusion series processor will see new modular design methodology named "M-SPACE", such that design of future multi-core processors will have a wider range of combinations, as well as gaining enhanced flexibility, thus to minimize the architectural changes for different combinations of components. Benefitted from this initiative by AMD, graphics core can be changed without much re-design of the whole core
* Fusion products will include at least 16 PCI Express (presumably version 2.0) lanes
* The implementation of UVD in silica for full hardware decoding of MPEG2, VC-1 and H.264 video streams on supported softwares
* The first Z-RAM design on a 45 nm fabrication process node was completed in 2006 together with the renewal of Z-RAM license, this is in coincidence with the process node that Fusion processors expected to be fabricated around the timeframe. This also conincide the AMD official roadmap for larger L3 caches after 2009, thus it was rumoured that AMD will likely to feature Z-RAM for larger L3 cache in Fusion products.
* A new set of instructions and development libraries for Fusion were being developed, and was revealed to be a new iteration of SSE, named SSE5, which is announced on the August 30, 2007.
* According to Dave Orton, Fusion will have 10% more pins than a "normal CPU" but he failed to further elaborate on what is a "normal CPU".
* Expected to come in 2008 to 2009 to replace the AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile processor for laptops.
Speed increase
There is to be an expected speed increase with the Fusion. Because the GPU and CPU will be on the same die, information transfer between the CPU and GPU/GPU memory will significantly increase since there will be no need for the information to travel on a bus as there is with current motherboards (resulting in the GPU able to shunt far more data than on the PCI Express bus, due to significantly larger amounts of bandwidth available).
EDIT: Found some info scarce but some at least about the intel version of the fusion, as far as it's knownt hey have not codenamed or admitted anything, though they have severely hinted at going in that direction. A few links will be listed below as sources.
Source 1: http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Intels...On_The_Horizon/
From the first source it seems pretty clear that intel is trying to keep up with AMD and ATI's merger, but everybody already has a pretty good idea that this near secretive acquisition will not be enough to compete directly and if intel doesn't do something soon AMD will come back on top with their new architecture design and innovation. It would seem only a merger of NVIDIA and Intel would truly be enough to put them both on equal playing grounds, and while NVIDIA is a big catch and very expensive piece, Intel is likely the one company that could pull it off. Considering that NVIDIA is now competing directly with Intel for chipset graphics and the like, it would seem almost as if they are telling Intel that they won't sit idly by. Smart move on NVIDIA's part because hopefully Intel will realize it's best in the long run to take over NVIDIA and that way the two companies can mutually prosper and benefit from each other, much like how AMD and ATI are. However this would likely weaken Intel much like it did to ATI and AMD while the merger went through and all the shifting around happened, but there's no doubt that both companies would greatly prosper together than they can apart. With NVIDIAs foray into muilti-core gpus Intel really could give them a boost tot heir performance and ability, and since GPUs are seeing a greater shift to generalized purposes both would prosper and benefit as well, I also have a link to a neat article about the progression of cpus and gpus and how we're currently at the many core stage for cpu, and the general purpose gpu stage for gpus. Thought they were fun reads and technology never ceases to amaze me, something new and different everyday, and I absolutely love to read about it. If anybody else has any new info lemme know i'd be more than glad to hear it.
Source 2: http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Intels...On_The_Horizon/
Source 3: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/31
Source 4: http://analysto.com/blog/2007/09/24/nvidiaintelgpu-vs-cpu/
