AMD to show fusion tomorrow

[richierich1212]

The AvP demo was powered by the Ontario

http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=8867

"Specifics were light, but I do know that the APU being shown was not the desktop variant built on 32nm technology but rather was the 40nm Ontario core built at TSMC and aimed at the Atom markets. AMD obviously feels they have a strong advantage in this market with the APU as they are putting focus on it rather than the Llano-based notebook and desktop parts that were originally billed to be the first Fusion parts available. If you were reading this hoping to get a hint of the clock speeds, die sizes or shader counts for Ontario you and I are both disappointed - AMD continues to hold that very close to the chest."

 

[Borealis7]

What if:

"AMD demonstrates world's first positive energy nuclear fusion reactor"

you could say they showed a working fusion at room temperature

 

[Idontcare]

The AvP demo was powered by the Ontario

http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=8867

"Specifics were light, but I do know that the APU being shown was not the desktop variant built on 32nm technology but rather was the 40nm Ontario core built at TSMC and aimed at the Atom markets. AMD obviously feels they have a strong advantage in this market with the APU as they are putting focus on it rather than the Llano-based notebook and desktop parts that were originally billed to be the first Fusion parts available. If you were reading this hoping to get a hint of the clock speeds, die sizes or shader counts for Ontario you and I are both disappointed - AMD continues to hold that very close to the chest."

I find this to be great news for Ontario...but I find the fact that they did not also demo Llano to be a big red flag.

 

[ViRGE]

I find this to be great news for Ontario...but I find the fact that they did not also demo Llano to be a big red flag.

Indeed. On the one hand this means they've been able to get Bobcat built on TSMC's 40nm process, but the lack of Llano implies that they don't have something (likely the graphics bits) working on GF's 32nm SOI process yet.

 

[KingstonU]

I must be missing something here, Ontario and Llano are both both new mobile products, both with integrated graphics, and they are both being released in the late 2010/early 2011 timeframe? What's with the product overlap? Something significant must set them apart?

 

[alyarb]

Ontario is a bobcat part, which I believe implies everything is leaned out as much as possible (single core, out-of-order, 40 shaders or less). They are trying to get the fastest 10-watt CPU they can with an adequate serving of shaders. I'm not sure 40LP is the process for this part though. Once again they are striding into the ultramobile space without HKMG or power gating, and they are going to be disappointed when they realize they can't put a dent in intel's mobile dominance without going toe-to-toe with them on power-related features.

Llano is neither bulldozer nor bobcat, and it certainly isn't ultramobile like Ontario. It's an athlon II with 4 out of order cores and 480 shaders. the desktop variants will approach 100-watt TDP. not sure about mobile parts but this chip will be roughly 10x larger/more powerful than Ontario. When you think carefully about "mobile," there are really three sub-segments within the mobile segment, and there is certainly no overlap between a 10-watt part and a 100-watt part. very few native quads have made it into notebooks because the necessity for four 3 GHz cores and 480 shaders just isn't there for mainstream multimedia/productivity. This makes me believe Llano isn't intended for mobile. A pair of x86 cores at 2 GHz is still plenty, and that is what people have been buying for the past 4 years.

 

[busydude]

There was also a mention of a 25W quad core CPU. That might be Llano's notebook variant.

 

[KingstonU]

Thanks for clearing that up alyarb. I remember reading that BD and Bobcat where being developed at the same time and that bobcat was for low power whereas BD was for high end desktop. I know that BD is all new design where as Lliano is modifying/glueing current designs, but is bulldozer supposed to replace Llano or is it aimed to perform above it? Because they are both scheduled for 2011.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I find this to be great news for Ontario...but I find the fact that they did not also demo Llano to be a big red flag.

I think Ontario is bigger news than Llano with bobcat being the sidekick of BD. And if they can get an IGP to play AVP in DX11 at 20-30 FPS in one I don't see why not in the other.

 

[alyarb]

Thanks for clearing that up alyarb. I remember reading that BD and Bobcat where being developed at the same time and that bobcat was for low power whereas BD was for high end desktop. I know that BD is all new design where as Lliano is modifying/glueing current designs, but is bulldozer supposed to replace Llano or is it aimed to perform above it? Because they are both scheduled for 2011.

GPUs will never totally replace CPUs. CPUs are just too flexible and GPUs are too rigid. At the very high end, there will always be a competitive market for ultrawide CPUs, and with 8, 16, or even more bulldozer modules, there simply isn't enough room for an IGP. Likewise, 8-core Sandy Bridge "B2" will not have an IGP either. At the midrange, where you have Llano and Sandy-DT, you will likely see the K10 architecture removed by the time "Llano 2.0" comes to market. Bulldozer simply fits more threads in less area and it's a natural evolutionary step to make.

I'm not sure how many people, even DIY enthusiasts, will buy Llano systems because it will be the first of its kind on a new socket, whereas bulldozer will be a high performance 32nm drop-in to a large number of existing AM3 machines.

 

[Martimus]

Ontario is a bobcat part, which I believe implies everything is leaned out as much as possible (single core, out-of-order, 40 shaders or less). They are trying to get the fastest 10-watt CPU they can with an adequate serving of shaders. I'm not sure 40LP is the process for this part though. Once again they are striding into the ultramobile space without HKMG or power gating, and they are going to be disappointed when they realize they can't put a dent in intel's mobile dominance without going toe-to-toe with them on power-related features.

Llano is neither bulldozer nor bobcat, and it certainly isn't ultramobile like Ontario. It's an athlon II with 4 out of order cores and 480 shaders. the desktop variants will approach 100-watt TDP. not sure about mobile parts but this chip will be roughly 10x larger/more powerful than Ontario. When you think carefully about "mobile," there are really three sub-segments within the mobile segment, and there is certainly no overlap between a 10-watt part and a 100-watt part. very few native quads have made it into notebooks because the necessity for four 3 GHz cores and 480 shaders just isn't there for mainstream multimedia/productivity. This makes me believe Llano isn't intended for mobile. A pair of x86 cores at 2 GHz is still plenty, and that is what people have been buying for the past 4 years.

Llano is actually designed to be a 20-59W part.The highend Desktop variant is 59W, while the mainstream variant is planned to be 30W. The 20W variant is the unltra low power version.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...lans_to_Initiate_Production_in_Late_2010.html

 

[alyarb]

59 watts for a 3 GHz quad + 480 shaders is pretty bogus unless AMD has a way of not allowing the entire chip to be powered up at the same time. I haven't seen any other news articles that corroborate xbit's data. Everything I've seen, including AMD's slides, say 2.5-25w per x86 core (xbit doesn't stipulate this as a per-core figure so I assume they are mistaken). AMD hasn't released any power-related info with regard to the IGP but you can be fairly sure that the GPU will consume at least 35-65 watts on its own. Perhaps two of the K10 cores are disabled while the GPU is rendering.

 

[Martimus]

59 watts for a 3 GHz quad + 480 shaders is pretty bogus unless AMD has a way of not allowing the entire chip to be powered up at the same time. I haven't seen any other news articles that corroborate xbit's data. Everything I've seen, including AMD's slides, say 2.5-25w per x86 core (xbit doesn't stipulate this as a per-core figure so I assume they are mistaken). AMD hasn't released any power-related info with regard to the IGP but you can be fairly sure that the GPU will consume at least 35-65 watts on its own. Perhaps two of the K10 cores are disabled while the GPU is rendering.

Llano will also incorporate power gating, and I have seen the 20-59W power consumption on an AMD slide. I'll take a look tonight and try to find it.

Plus it is on 32nm SOI instead of the current 45nm SOI.

 

[cbn]

What type of products can we expect to see Ontario being used in?

 

[busydude]

What type of products can we expect to see Ontario being used in?

Ontario is for netbooks and CULV notebooks.

 

[Idontcare]

I think Ontario is bigger news than Llano with bobcat being the sidekick of BD. And if they can get an IGP to play AVP in DX11 at 20-30 FPS in one I don't see why not in the other.

The point is that when you are have the media's attention and opportunity to showcase your company's latest and greatest it is seldom the time to hold back and play a weaker hand.

If Fusion is the future then AMD needs as much momentum and wind blowing at their back as possible to gain every last bit of software developer attention so their APU's can begin to carve out a footprint (marketshare begins with mindshare).

No one is ignorant to this, it would be like a Mac expo where Steve decides "eh...they all know the next Mac is going just be a faster and better version of the current Mac so let's just skip the intro and product demo altogether".

The fact they found 20s to showcase Ontario but could not find 20s to showcase Llano amidst their otherwise lengthy lengthy media opportunity is the flag here.

I absolutely expected public Llano demo's if Llano was going to ship 6 months from now. The lack of presence or honorable mention/demo says we are closer to 9-12months for whatever reason.

Plus it is on 32nm SOI instead of the current 45nm SOI.

That's HKMG 32nm SOI to boot! It is ok to have bigger than usual expectations regarding performance/watt with this next node.

 

[GaiaHunter]

The point is that when you are have the media's attention and opportunity to showcase your company's latest and greatest it is seldom the time to hold back and play a weaker hand.

If Fusion is the future then AMD needs as much momentum and wind blowing at their back as possible to gain every last bit of software developer attention so their APU's can begin to carve out a footprint (marketshare begins with mindshare).

No one is ignorant to this, it would be like a Mac expo where Steve decides "eh...they all know the next Mac is going just be a faster and better version of the current Mac so let's just skip the intro and product demo altogether".

The fact they found 20s to showcase Ontario but could not find 20s to showcase Llano amidst their otherwise lengthy lengthy media opportunity is the flag here.

I absolutely expected public Llano demo's if Llano was going to ship 6 months from now. The lack of presence or honorable mention/demo says we are closer to 9-12months for whatever reason.

A netbook that can play AVP DX11 isn't something more exciting than a quad core Athlon II equipped with a powerful IGP but that is still weaker than discrete GPUs like a 5670?

And Ontario is an APU like Llano. And if Llano is delayed (and the 2 most obvious reasons are GF messing or AMD not being able to feed the GPU of Llano properly) Ontario certainly seem to be ahead of schedule.

Maybe you are right, but they did demoed an APU and it seems to be working fine.

 

[lopri]

The point is that when you are have the media's attention and opportunity to showcase your company's latest and greatest it is seldom the time to hold back and play a weaker hand.

Like the way NVIDIA introduced Fermi? Hah. Or the way AMD introduced Barcelona.

 

[Soleron]

The fact they found 20s to showcase Ontario but could not find 20s to showcase Llano amidst their otherwise lengthy lengthy media opportunity is the flag here.

I absolutely expected public Llano demo's if Llano was going to ship 6 months from now. The lack of presence or honorable mention/demo says we are closer to 9-12months for whatever reason.

Completely agree.

The difference between Llano and Ontario is process node. We know Ontario isn't 32nm SOI - I think the most likely is 40nm bulk from GF or TSMC or maybe both.

So maybe 32nm SOI isn't going well?

 

[Voo]

A netbook that can play AVP DX11 isn't something more exciting than a quad core Athlon II equipped with a powerful IGP but that is still weaker than discrete GPUs like a 5670?

If they can stuff a IGP into a netbook that's able to play AvP at 20-30 fps, how would that correlate to a IGP for a desktop that's worse than a 5670? Does the 5670 even handle that?

 

[Idontcare]

So maybe 32nm SOI isn't going well?

I know they've been fighting terrible packaging issues with low-k cracking and so on (really a glo-fo issue however it impacts customer timeline as well naturally). But that is more of a TDDB issue than a time-zero non-functional issue...meaning even with that problem (which prevents wide-scale production) they'd still be able to cherry-pick samples that survived packaging to run a demo or two with.

So probably this means major layout bug was uncovered after first silicon and they are busy taping out and debugging new steppings. Nothing unusual about that, but it does push out the timeline for production date by ~3 months or more every time it happens.

When tapeout rumors first swirled around the expectation then was for a Q4/2010 release...if they can't/won't do a demo at this time then I'd say they are running on a schedule that makes Q1/2011 a best-case scenario and Q2 more likely.

 

[GaiaHunter]

If they can stuff a IGP into a netbook that's able to play AvP at 20-30 fps, how would that correlate to a IGP for a desktop that's worse than a 5670? Does the 5670 even handle that?

At 12x10 or at 12x9 it should - 5750 can do 40 at 16x10 (unfortunately [H] that generally benchs AVP didn't do so with the 5570 and 5670). I dunno what were the settings of the AVP demo but the info out was that it was playing AVP DX11.

So they would also show an AVP demo in DX11 with Llano - ok another 20s of the same demo with similar IQ and probably faster if not for the CPU speed.

But my point was that they just had to demonstrate a working APU and they did so. It isn't a big stretch to believe that AMD can also make Llano. Actually sources say that they were sampling both Ontario and Llano to partners.

That doesn't mean GF 32nm process is working perfectly, though.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I know they've been fighting terrible packaging issues with low-k cracking and so on (really a glo-fo issue however it impacts customer timeline as well naturally). But that is more of a TDDB issue than a time-zero non-functional issue...meaning even with that problem (which prevents wide-scale production) they'd still be able to cherry-pick samples that survived packaging to run a demo or two with.

So probably this means major layout bug was uncovered after first silicon and they are busy taping out and debugging new steppings. Nothing unusual about that, but it does push out the timeline for production date by ~3 months or more every time it happens.

When tapeout rumors first swirled around the expectation then was for a Q4/2010 release...if they can't/won't do a demo at this time then I'd say they are running on a schedule that makes Q1/2011 a best-case scenario and Q2 more likely.

From
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...ors_Targets_Launch_in_First_Half_of_2011.html

“Ontario is a part of Brazos platform. Just like Llano, we are sampling it to customers today. We are demoing it at Computex [behind the closed doors]. Expect this product to launch in the first half of 2011,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD products group, during AMD’s press conference at the trade-show.

And that Q4 2010 schedule for Llano was never present in AMD roadmaps (if I recall correctly) - always been H1 2011.

EDIT: http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/FAD_2009_Platform_and_Processor_Roadmaps.pdf slides 8 and 9.

 

[Martimus]

And that Q4 2010 schedule for Llano was never present in AMD roadmaps (if I recall correctly) - always been H1 2011.

EDIT: http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/FAD_2009_Platform_and_Processor_Roadmaps.pdf slides 8 and 9.

The Q4 2010 came from Dirk stating that Fusion would be available this year. I don't remember if he said Llano or just Fusion though.

 

[Triskain]

The Q4 2010 came from Dirk stating that Fusion would be available this year. I don't remember if he said Llano or just Fusion though.

He said it would be available for OEM's not for consumers. He also explicitely said that Fusion for consumers is a H1 2011 product.

According to w0mbat, a known insider, who visited AMD's packaging plant in Singapore a month ago, Llano is in production in three-figure numbers. The same insider said that AMD recently shipped 20 Llano samples to Apple.

Three-figure numbers certainly aren't mass production numbers, which lends credence to IDC's post about there being packaging issues.

w0mbat also said that Bulldozer packaging is being prepared for Q3 at that plant.