AMD has given details of its Llano, the next carrying a CPU and GPU designed to compete with Intel in the field of processors for laptops.

The APU will cores independent

The manufacturer calls this an APU for Application Processing Unit, although it is basically an x86 processor with four cores out-of-order and a DirectX 11 GPU on one die engraved in 32nm. We know that these two entities are independent. The unused sections may well be completely extinct. The restart is the extinction cores is so fast that it is possible to turn on and off between two keystrokes on a keyboard, by AMD.

The CPU is essentially a die shrink

The green giant has mainly dwelt on the CPU aspect of its product to explain that the x86 part of the Llano is mainly a die shrink of the Core STARS found in the 45 nm processors in the firm. The optimizations are based on new listings and a dynamic management of consumption.

Management interest in consumption

This last point is also one of the most interesting on this architecture. Traditionally, a processor adjusts its consumption based on information collected by temperature sensors placed around the die. The problem is that these diodes do not differentiate between a design load and a significant rise in temperature.

However, for the Llano, AMD uses a digital system that analyzes the signals through the various parts of the processor. Hidden defects, bad branch predictions are classic examples of the 95 signals that AMD and monitors that allow mapping the consumption of the chip. Father of Athlon says the TDP obtained is accurate to plus or minus two percent.

Each core x86 has 35 million transistors, not including the L2 cache of 1MB The firm speaks to an operating frequency below 3 GHz and a thermal envelope from 2.5 W to 25 W.

The first copies of the Llano test should emerge during the second half of this year for marketing in 2011.