AMD Showcases Fusion APU Technology

AMD has demonstrated earlier today a working version of its Accelerated Processing Unit or APU technology codenamed Fusion, during an event at Computex in Taipei.

Fusion will bring together an x86 processor combined with a DirectX 11 GPU, video decoders, memory controller and system I/O interfaces. AMD will have two versions running aimed primarily at the mobile segment.

Elano will target the ultra portable market and compete with Intel's CULV/i3 products while the Ontario range will square up with Intel's mainstream product family.
Intel has already started to work on a similar concept with its current generation Arrandale Core i3 and i5 processors which bring a CPU and a GPU die on the same package. The next generation, Sandy Bridge, will actually merge both together the same way as Fusion.
This will leave Nvidia as the only one without a similar product yet. It did purchase a company back in 2006 called Stexar which was apparently going to bring in some smart x86 related technology with it but 44 months down the road and still nothing in sight.

The only other potential x86 competitor could be VIA and we might see a partnership between the two given that they both have much to lose otherwise.
AMD's Fusion demo also included a 30-seconds walk through of the graphics intensive Alien vs. Predator game which showcased the capabilities of the platform. It was not as flawless as one might expect, but then, Intel's integrated graphics unit would have come up worse.

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Intel Previews Next Generation Of Atom CPUs

Intel has announced, at Computex 2010, a new range of Atom processors codenamed Oak Trail that could bring on a new generation of laptops which will make the Mac Book Air look positively obese.

The new range of laptops and tablets, known as "Oak Trail", will come to market in early 2011 and be the based on the Moorestown architecture which was only launched back at the beginning of last month and is specifically targeted smartphones.

It will not only sport a thermal design power that's 40 per cent lower, 40 per cent smaller and 35 per cent thinner than the current generation but it will also support Google Chrome OS, Meego, Android as well as Windows 7 (Embedded Compact we suppose rather than the bloated edition)

Oak Trail Devices built around the Lincroft" System-on-Chip will support HDMI, full 1080p content as well as promises of much longer battery life.

Intel also demoed a new form factor, Canoe Lake, which comes with a dual-core processor and at 14mm, is thinner than the Mac Book air (which is up to 19.4mm thick).

Another device that will almost certainly be ported to Oak Trail at some point in the future is the just-announced Google TV which currently uses the rather long-in-the-tooth Atom CE4100 platform.

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Google To launch Chrome OS By Year's End

Google may launch Chrome OS, its second consumer operating system, by the end of the year according to a senior executive who is managing the project.

Sundar Pichai, Google's head of Chrome, told reporters at Computex 2010 (as reported by Reuters) that the operating system would be available by "late fall".
Google Chrome OS will be based on the eponymous open source browser and may actually be a combination of both entities, something that brought a shedload of trouble for Microsoft back in 1998 with the whole Windows & Internet Explorer saga.
Pichai says that the OS will initially target laptops and is likely to integrate seamlessly with Google's expanding array of cloud-based services, ranging from email to photo-editing services.
The announcement come only 24 hours after the Financial Times reported that the search giant had started a company ban on Windows operating system and encouraged its staff to move to Linux, Google's own OSes or Mac.

It also throws out the question of where will Android OS fit in. The mobile platform has been used in the past to power tablets and netbooks and the recent Froyo version gave us a glimpse of what was possible.

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