A little more than four years since Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) acquired graphics and chipset specialist ATI Technologies, AMD (NYSE: AMD) has confirmed that it will no longer use the ATI name.
AMD acquired ATI for $5.4 billion in cash and stock in 2006. In the four years since the acquisition, AMD clung to the “ATI Radeon” and “ATI FirePro” branding for its desktop and workstation graphics processors — a nod, at least in part, to the credibility that the name has won with enthusiasts over the years since ATI was founded in 1985.
But as the launch of AMD’s new “Fusion” line of products — which combine graphics processing units (GPU) and central processing units (CPU) on a single chip — approaches, the company has decided to finally consolidate its brands.
As a result, AMD plans to begin discontinuing the ATI brand in the fourth quarter of this year. The Radeon and FirePro products will be rebranded as AMD Radeon and AMD FirePro, with product and case badges and labels now reading “AMD Radeon Graphics, “AMD FirePro Graphics,” “Radeon Graphics Premium” or “FirePro Graphics Premium”.
Moving into 2011, “AMD Vision” will become the overarching brand for the company’s client CPU business, picking up from AMD brands like Phenom, Turion, Athlon and Sempron.
Vision will also incorporate the upcoming Fusion, which AMD calls an APU, or accelerated processor unit. Fusion combines two CPU cores and two GPU cores onto a single die that acts like a quad-core processor.
AMD told analysts in July that it expects to ship its first Fusion silicon this year. Now, according to the company, AMD will kick off the Fusion line with “Ontario,” a 40-nanometer-process design aimed at netbooks and low-power laptops. It will be followed by “Llano,” a 32-nanometer design targeting mainstream desktops and notebooks, in 2011.
While most of the company’s GPUs and processors are being rebranded as either AMD Radeon, AMD FirePro or AMD Vision models, the company’s server processors will continue to be marketed under AMD’s Opteron brand.
Thor Olavsrud is a contributor to InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.