AMD Fusion Details Leak – 40nm CPU, 32nm GPU

According to sources close to TG Daily, AMD’s Fusion might become a reality sooner than we thought. This is impressive, given the rough time AMD has had as a company since the acquisition of ATI, but it’s good to see that the first piece of joint technology the company boasted about after the acquisition didn’t go the way of the dodo.

Sources say that AMD engineers have been regularly going to the TSMC headquarters to discuss plans of the CPU+GPU hybrid chip, and also go on to state that the first version of the processor, codenamed Shrike, will consist of a 40nm Dual-Core Phenom CPU and a 32nm ATI RV800 GPU… not the least bit shabby, that’s for sure.

It’s still far too early to even begin to think of overall performance, especially from the GPU part of the chip, but the fact that it will support DX10.1 leads us to believe it shouldn’t be that bad of an offering, especially if it’s able to handle 1080p content. I’m getting ahead of myself, but it’s hard not to. Fusion, if done right, is going to be very exciting.

While Shrike will debut as a 40 nm chip, the processor is scheduled to transition to 32 nm at the beginning of 2010 – not much later than Intel will introduce 32 nm – and serve as a stop-gap before the next-gen CPU core, code-named “Bulldozer” arrives. The Bulldozer-based chip, code-named “Falcon”, will debut with TSMC’s 32nm SOI process, instead of the originally planned 45 nm.