AMD desktop roadmap shows plans up to 2011

Earlier this week, a Finnish website released an updated roadmap of AMD's mainstream and high-end platforms, providing more information on the chip manufacturer's plans for the coming two years. Apart from the current platforms, the roadmap mentions the earlier-announced hexacore Thuban chip, which will form the Leo platform with the RD890 borthbridge and SD850 southbridge. There are also three unannounced platforms: the mainstream counterpart of Leo, codenamed Dorado, as well as Scorpius and Lynx.

Roadmap source: Plaza.fi

It's clear that AMD's upcoming processors will exclusively support DDR3-memory, leaving behind the DDR2 era. The SB850 southbridge is to feature support for SATA 6.0 Gbit/s and USB 3.0, making it unrequired for manufacturers to integrate third-party chips on their motherboards. The RS880P chipset is to replace the current 785G (codename RS880G) in the mainstream segment. This chipset will once again feature an integrated graphics core. Whether it'll have DirectX 11 features or remain at DirectX 10.1 is still unclear.

2011 will bring us the high-end Scorpius and mainstream Lynx platforms. The Scorpius will be combined with a processor featuring the Zambezi codename. The chip will sport at least four physical cores and a DDR3-memory controller. The term AM3r2 suggests that the processor will be launched for a new revision of the AM3-socket. The Lynx platform is based around the Llano processor, AMD's first Accelerated Processing Unit  (APU). AMD has claimed this name to indicate processors equipped with an integrated graphics core, making it likely to become the competitor to Intel's 32 nm Clarkdale chip. Llano will be produced at 32 nm and will also be used in notebooks.

Tags: ddr2 ddr3 sata socket-am3 usb usb3 directx directx11 32nm

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