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“Without doubt, AMD Fusion is a game changer”
While Byrne was not able to comment on specific market share data, he did say “The flexibility of the AMD Fusion APU certainly enables us to play outside of our core markets, moving into the netbook and tablet market, which will undoubtedly provide exciting opportunities for AMD”.
That draws a natural comparison to the way the EeePC changed hearts and minds for Asus. We put this to Byrne, “The beauty of AMD's Fusion APU is that it will enable the creation of new PCs in various form factors. We’ve specifically designed the APU to deliver high levels of performance at low and very low power levels. The integration of CPU and GPU enables an improved user experience”.
“Without a doubt, AMD Fusion is our game-changer, not just for AMD but for the industry as a whole”, said Byrne. “AMD Fusion is changing the game for our ODM partners as well for the system builders”.
When it comes to playing games full-speed on a huge screen, the graphics engine on a PC comes into its own. That said, in low-power applications it's also important to have as much graphics-grunt as possible under the bonnet. When it comes to applications like HD video, a graphics processor can deliver better performance with a lower power draw.
How useful does Byrne think the Fusion APU will be for ultra-portable solutions?
“As we know, tablets are a great innovation for accessing and viewing digital content. AMD Fusion clearly possesses all the core technology to power an unrivalled tablet or slate experience”, said Byrne.
So how close are these solutions?
He replied, “Some OEMs already have announced plans to offer tablet designs based on our low power APUs giving AMD an early presence in this market. In parallel to the growth of the market for tablet-type devices, AMD will drive its APU roadmap to offer designs increasingly better suited to these form factors, while still delivering that big AMD Fusion experience starting in 2012.
The message here seems to be ‘some vendors already have early designs under way, but expect to see some serious changes next year'. Given how many top ATI people ended up at Apple, KitGuru has to wonder about the possibility of an iPad 3 driven by an AMD Fusion chip in the future.
Quite a lot to read. not the usual interview.
He seems quite clued in on the industry. They seem to be doing well.
100 platform design wins? whoever would have known that.
I am really looking forward to the bulldozer designs, they need something more powerful than their high end CPU’s at the minute.
The biggest benefit could be their mobile sector targeting. Intel really struggle with mobile chips.
I dont think fusion is late to the party, its just its sitting in the corner and no one is playing with it, as no one knows its even out.
@Tech Head: We agree. For some reason, the overall launch has not propagated to the person-in-the-street yet. But reviews only started 4 weeks ago, so we guess it will take a little longer
Seems like a smart bloke. I still think they are lagging way behind intel in the CPU arena, no matter how they spin it. those 6 core chips are still slower than intels 4 cores.
Love AMD processors. those 6 core black editions are great value for money. Look forward to seeing bulldozer too. I hope they kick intels ass.
A lot of reading in this interview. I cant help but feel he is hiding a little about some of the facts. Still thanks for the time.
good reading thanks for the interview.
Ive spoken to John personally. He used to be my neighbor. This man is rediculously smart, but he just never says anything out the company’s projects. I couldn’t even get him to admit to that AMD was working on a 6000 series before it came out!
@Mitch: Surely there must be some dodgy photos you can share !