Ever since AMD acquired ATI we wondered for how long they would keep the brand around considering their ultimate goal was to use ATI's GPU know-how to merge their microprocessor technology and Radeon core graphics on a single chip. Four years later and numerous ups and downs for both AMD processors and ATI graphics offerings, the company is finally ready to unveil their first Fusion processor by the end of this year.
AMD feels this is also a good time to kill off the ATI branding considering their chipset business has been successfully migrated, and the Radeon and FireGL brands stand strong on their own. The company claims that through recent surveys they found that the AMD brand is favored when compared to its graphics competitors, namely Nvidia. The switch is not expected until the next generation of graphics products arrive, so all current Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs will be left untouched. Later this year it's expected that the new AMD Radeon HD 6000 series will make an appearance, likely carrying a logo similar to this:
AMD's first hybrid processor code-named Ontario is expected to become available before the end of the year, with the more powerful Llano APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) meant to follow sometime during 1H/2011.
Ontario will pack two low-power Bobcat cores and Radeon graphics on the same package, meant to be a system-on-chip solution aimed at netbooks, tablets and other low-power devices. Llano will use a derived core from the Phenom II family, but hope is that it will eventually incorporate a more powerful core based on Bulldozer.