Leaked AMD 2016 Roadmap Reveals Desktop and Mobile Plans

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A recent roadmap leak shows what AMD has in store for 2016, and it looks like desktop and mobile parts will get some Zen and K12 love. The remainder of 2015 will bring the second generation FX CPUs based on up to eight Piledriver cores, the Godavari APUs with up to four Steamroller cores, and Beema APUs with up to four Puma core. Both APUs will be built on the 28nm process, with the Beema APUs also in an SoC form. Pretty familiar stuff, just with some tweaks here and there. Once the calendar turns to 2016, however, we get some new toys, starting with the Summit Ridge performance CPU. It will use up to eight Zen cores, DDR4 support, and be on the FM3 socket instead of AM3+, like the current FX processors. Performance of this CPU should be far better than the current ones, and maybe even the current 16 core Opteron CPUs, if the Zen core block diagram is anything to go by.

Moving on to the APU side, there's the Bristol Ridge APU with up to four Zen cores, DDR4 support, and the next generation GCN core. It has full HSA 1.0 support and could have the first APU with stacked HBM, although right now that remains to be seen. There are also the Basilisk APUs, essentially a lower-powered Bristol Ridge, which have up to two Zen cores, DDR4 support, and a less powerful next generation GCN core. Both APUs are built on the 14nm process, but while the Bristol Ridge APUs use the FM3 socket, just like the high-end Summit Ridge CPUs, the Basilisk APUs use the FT4 BGA socket. There is even an SoC model for both with an integrated southbridge.

On the mobile line, which covers both laptops and tablets/smartphones, the 2015 lineup has the Carrizo and Carrizo-L APUs, as well as the Amur APUs. The Carrizo APUs feature up to four Excavator cores, the Carrizo-L APUs have up to four Puma+ cores, with both on the 28nm process. The Amur APUs have up to four ARM Cortex-A57 cores and are built on the 20nm process. Heading into 2016 brings the Bristol Ridge and Basilisk APUs, like the desktop side, but also the ultra-low power Styx APUs. The Bristol Ridge and Basilisk APUs are just like their desktop counterparts, but the Styx APUs change things up. These use up to two K12 cores, which are the company's custom made ARM cores.

2016 should be an interesting year for AMD CPUs and APUs, and later years also look quite good. Pair up AMD's upcoming plans with Intel's, and we should have a ton of advances in CPUs.

Source: WCCFtech

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