Fusion: AMD plans to integrate CPU and GPU now that they own ATI

Advanced Micro Devices has completed their takeover of the graphic card company ATI. The company added that they now plan to make chips integrating its x86 with a graphics processor on a single piece of silicon by early 2009.

This project has been codenamed Fusion and would result in products suitable for a range of appliances like laptops and servers.

Most hardware manufacturers already sell motherboards with built-in GPUs, which help reduce the cost of the final product. However, packaging the main processor and graphics processor on one chip will take this integration further.

AMD claims that this would help in reducing the power consumption while improving the efficiency of the final machine. However, they would continue development of coprocessors such as physics accelerators or high-end graphics chips for gamers.