COMPUTER-CHINA

The Fusion chips will be made using SOI, Bergman said.

Much speculation has surrounded Advanced Micro Devices' manufacturing plans for its upcoming Fusion family of processors and whether these chips could be produced under contract. But a senior executive said on Tuesday that AMD plans to manufacture the first chips itself.

The first Fusion processors will be made at AMD's chip plant in Dresden, Germany, said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD's Graphics Products Group, during an interview.

"There are some lower-end models that we're considering that we might use the fabless model for," Bergman said, indicating the production of these chips would be outsourced.

Due in late 2009, Fusion chips will combine processor cores, a memory controller and graphics cores on a single piece of silicon. Current AMD processors have the processor cores and memory controller on the same chip. Adding a graphics core to these chips is technically challenging, in part because AMD's existing microprocessors and graphics chips are made using different technology.

AMD's graphics chips are made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. using a bulk CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) process, while the processors are made by AMD and Chartered Semiconductor using SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology.

These systems should start appearing in the second half of 2008 and will be priced between approximately $300 and $400, matching the cost of most lower-priced micro laptop computers. Whether any such systems will be available in the US is unknown, as most major PC makers including Acer, ASUS, Dell, and HP are all using either Intel or VIA processors.

AMD is working with PC builders to offer its own answer to a slew of micro laptop computers based on Intel chips, visitors to AMD's booth at Computex have found today. While specifications are unclear, a number of companies are building systems using low-power Turion 64 processors as well as AMD's integrated ATI Radeon for graphics. Systems will follow a similar pattern and use Linux with lower-end systems and Windows on some higher-end models. One company, Malata, has been identified as making one system and will include an unknown AMD chip as well as 1GB of memory, an 8.9-inch screen and Linux. A high-end system from an unspecified manufacturer shrinks the screen to seven inches but boosts the resolution to 1024x600 (incorrectly identified as 1280x600), uses a 60GB or 80GB hard drive, and runs Windows XP.