"Fusion" is AMD's New Future

AMD today rolled out “Fusion,” which isn’t what you may think. Everything that we’ve heard about AMD Fusion up to this point has been something to do with the melding of CPU and GPU and a single die, but that’s not what AMD has to show today.

Rather, Fusion is a new brand campaign that AMD hopes to promote a combination of technologies, both with CPU, GPU and software tools.

“Fusion is AMD’s way to express how we blend our customers‘ needs, dreams and desires with our unique passion for enabling innovation,“ said Nigel Dessau, AMD senior VP and chief marketing officer. “While this unique approach has always been our practice, ‘Fusion’ is the most focused articulation yet of how AMD marries innovation with collaboration in ways that can yield benefits to the marketplace greater than the sum of its parts.“

The new marketing line is “The Future is Fusion,” and could soon replace the current “Smarter Choice” tagline before the next buying season. Dessau explains that the new words encompass an entire company philosophy across the product line : “At work, Fusion means delivering leading server performance against real-world workloads with best-in-class performance-per-Watt and powerful virtualization capabilities.”

“At home, Fusion means enabling people to share the full range of digital content on any screen they choose,” Dessau continued. “At play, Fusion builds on the AMD and ATI record of leadership in providing the first 3-D graphics processing unit and driving the graphics for both the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii game systems.“

Essentially, AMD is hoping with its new ad campaign to convey the company’s technical prowess and the advantages it has over the competition by being able to integrate its CPU and GPU technologies in one box.

AMD’s new marketing strategy could be reflective of the changing times that the company is currently going through. AMD’s seen far better days and a new, fresh company image could be the first step in the company’s return to previous glory.

Unfortunately for those eager for new silicon, Fusion has nothing to do with a new chip design, though AMD did tell Tom’s Hardware specifically that an initiative to marry the CPU and GPU is still underway. Such chip will likely appear first as an APU (Accelerated Processing Unit).

See AMD’s newly launched Fusion website here.