AMD has officially unveiled its new family of APUs with the code name Carrizo. With the passage of the Steamroller architecture to the new core x86 Excavator, it is supposed this new generation will increase the CPU performance while significantly reducing consumption. The GPU will also evolve by using the new generation of graphics architecture from the company.
Naturally the famous HSA heterogeneous architecture is maintained in Carrizo to maximize the power of the GPU and CPU working together and sharing the same memory space. In fact, Carrizo is the logical evolution from the current APUs Kaveri, the first to introduce HSA architecture on the market. Carrizo will implement HSA 1.0 completely, while Kaveri just had some of its features for the integration into these new chips to be complete.
On the other hand, the Carrizo-L family will use cores from CPU Puma + joint with R-Series graphics cards for devices of lowest consumption, with TFP between 10 and 25 W (Carrizo will have a TDP of 15-35 W). Remember that the APU of ultra low-power will continue to be represented by the Mullins family.
Both families arrive in SoC format bearing in mind devices like tablets, convertibles, compact equipment and All-In-One as well as portable and Ultrathins. It also integrates a small ARM processor for implementing the so called ARM TrustZone that we can already see in the new Opteron.
In principle these chip will come manufactured at 28 nanometers, delaying the 20 nanometers Carrizo had hoped for. We can see them on the market during the first half of 2015, arriving in notebooks and AiO coming mid-year.
