INTRODUCTION
Computer processing has reached a crossroads where the relationship between hardware and software must change to support the increased processing needs of modern computing workloads, including virtualized environments and media-rich applications. Accelerated computing uses specialized hardware to increase the speed of certain processing tasks, offering commercial and consumer users simultaneous energy efficiency, high performance, and low cost. From a hardware perspective, accelerated computing provides a general platform that supports the addition of specialized processing units, or accelerators, to a multicore computer. These accelerators may take the form of off-core chips such as media or network packet accelerators, or they may be additional cores designed for specific types of processing tasks. From a software perspective, the accelerated computing framework will simplify writing parallel applications: developers will have high-level tools that support parallel programming, and applications will
not have to specify which hardware should be used for a given processing task.
THE FUTURE IS FUSION:
AMD Fusion is the codename for a future next-generation microprocessor design. Combining general processor execution as well as 3D geometry processing and other functions of modern GPUs into a single package. It is the convergence of the CPU and graphics processing,
Fusion is how AMD and its partners enable next-generation technologies that change our lives. It is the catalyst for AMD’s accelerated computing model, harnessing the power of specialized hardware to help boost performance and enhance energy and cost efficiencies.
An heterogeneous multicore microprocessor architecture, combining a general purpose processing core(s) and basic graphics core(s) into one processor package, with different clocks for the graphics core and the central processing core.
Four platforms focus on the four different aspects of usage:
1) General Purpose
2)...