AMD is taking the wraps off its Fusion A-Series processors. Whereas the Fusion chips that launched earlier this year were designed to compete with Intel's Atom CPU in netbooks and very-low-cost ultraportable PCs, the A-Series targets midsize mainstream laptops. The CPU cores aren't likely to stand up to Intel's "Sandy Bridge" second-generation Core processors, but the new chips promise superior graphics performance and battery life in laptops priced at between $500 and $1000.
In early January 2011, AMD shipped the first of its Fusion line of processors: the E-Series and the C-Series. Based on the same chip design, those products have been popular and highly acclaimed in premium netbooks and low-end ultraportable laptops, providing CPU and graphics performance that eats Intel's Atom for lunch at competitive costs. AMD calls these processors APUs, or Accelerated Processing Units, to call attention to their ability to offload some parallel processing tasks to the DirectX 11-capable graphics portion of the chip.
Well-received though they have been, the E- and C-Series chips aren't the Fusion processors to get excited about. The real deal is the chip code-named Llano, which has now launched as the A-Series APU. These new chips are meant for midpriced and midsize laptops. Delays in GlobalFoundries' 32-nanometer manufacturing held up the launch of Llano, but now it's finally ready to see the light of day. The chips use a smaller manufacturing process than the 40nm process (produced by TSMC) used by the E- and C-Series, and they include more-powerful hardware and a handful of unique new features.
We don't yet have laptops equipped with A-Series APUs to test, but the new chips look impressive on paper. For impatient statistics fans, here's a rundown of the different laptop model numbers and their specs. (Though it designed the A-Series chips primarily for laptops, AMD will also produce desktop A-Series models that use more power and run slightly faster.
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