Lenovo announced today the ThinkPad X130e laptop, specially ruggedized for education and with the features needed to help students in grades K-12 and their schools get the most out of their PC technology. Equipped with the advanced technology expected for an educational laptop, the ThinkPad X130e comes with choices of the latest Intel or AMD processors and fast, integrated graphics as well as wireless connectivity and multimedia tools for today's digital learning. Designed to be handled by kids, the ThinkPad X130e has a reinforced and extra durable top cover, keyboard and hinges. Schools will also like its performance, reliability and customizable options including asset tags, BIOS modifications, custom imaging and a broad selection of custom colors.

At SC11, Intel Corporation revealed details about the company's next-generation Intel Xeon processor-based and Intel Many Integrated Core (Intel MIC)-based platforms designed for high-performance computing (HPC). The company also outlined new investments in research and development that will lead the industry to Exascale performance by 2018.

During his briefing at the conference, Rajeeb Hazra, general manager of Technical Computing, Intel Datacenter and Connected Systems Group, said that the Intel Xeon processor E5 family is the world's first server processor to support full integration of the PCI Express 3.0 specification**. PCIe 3.0 is estimated** to double the interconnect bandwidth over the PCIe* 2.0 specification** while enabling lower power and higher density server implementations. New fabric controllers taking advantage of the PCI Express 3.0 specification will allow more efficient scaling of performance and data transfer with the growing number of nodes in HPC supercomputers.

The Khronos Group today announced the ratification and public release of the OpenCL 1.2 specification, the latest update to the open, royalty-free standard for cross-platform, parallel programming of modern processors. Released eighteen months after OpenCL 1.1, this new version provides enhanced performance and functionality for parallel programming in a backwards compatible specification that is the result of cooperation by over thirty industry-leading companies. Khronos has updated and expanded its comprehensive OpenCL conformance test suite to ensure that implementations of the new specification provide a complete and reliable platform for cross-platform application development. The OpenCL 1.2 specifications, online reference pages and reference cards are available here.

"The OpenCL working group is listening carefully to feedback from the developer and middleware community to provide significant and timely functionality for heterogeneous computing in this cross vendor open standard," said Neil Trevett, chair of the OpenCL working group, president of the Khronos Group and vice president of mobile content at NVIDIA. "The OpenCL working group is also broadening its membership and has growing representation from the mobile and embedded industries and is enabling innovative devices such as FPGAs to be driven through OpenCL."

Here is the first picture of AMD accelerated processing units in the existing FM1 package and future FM2 package on which the next-generation Trinity APU will be based on. Both packages are very similar, follow AMD's favourite yet archaic PGA design. The pins are physically arranged in a mostly similar fashion, though we don't have a pin map at hand. The difference comes with some of the blanked pins in the sub-central portion of the pin array. The FM2 package has 904 pins, compared to 905 on FM1. One pin is blanked, while a pair of blanked pins are arranged further away from the central cutout.

This makes FM1 and FM2 clearly incompatible. Neither will you be able to use today's A-Series APUs in the FM1 package on future socket FM2 motherboards, nor will you be able to run future FM2 APUs on today's FM1 motherboards. Yet, AMD will port the A75 FCH chipset to the next-generation "Virgo" platform. The FCH or Fusion Controller Hub, like Intel's PCH (Platform Controller Hub), is not much more than a glorified southbridge, and is portable between Fusion platforms as it's essentially a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 device. In the picture below, "Llano" FM1 APU is on the left, and "Trinity" FM2 on the right.

AMD today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2011 of $1.69 billion, net income of $97 million, or $0.13 per share, and operating income of $138 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $110 million, or $0.15 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $146 million.

"Strong adoption of AMD APUs drove a 35 percent sequential revenue increase in our mobile business," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "Despite supply constraints, we saw double digit revenue and unit shipment growth in emerging markets like China and India as well as overall notebook share gains in retail at mainstream price points. Through disciplined execution and continued innovation we will look to accelerate our growth and refine our focus on lower power, emerging markets, and the cloud."

AMD detailed its upcoming "Virgo" PC platform that consists of next-generation "Trinity" APU (accelerated processing unit), and current-generation AMD A75 "Hudson-D" chipset. A notable revelation here is that the next-gen APUs will be compatible with AMD A75, although it will be designed for a new socket called FM2. It remains to be seen if FM1 and FM2 are pin-compatible.

"Trinity" packs four x86-64 cores based on the next-generation "Piledriver" architecture, arranged in two Piledriver modules. A module is a closely-knit group of two cores, with certain shared and dedicated resources. Each Piledriver module has 2 MB of L2 cache shared between the two cores. In all, Trinity, with its two modules, has 4 MB of L2 cache without any L3 cache.

AMD today announced an investment in BlueStacks, a venture-backed firm developing innovative software. BlueStacks has introduced a solution to enable Android applications to run fast and full-screen on Windows-based devices.

AMD and BlueStacks are collaborating to optimize the BlueStacks App Player for Windows software for use with tablet and notebook PCs powered by AMD APUs with AMD VISION technology. With this combination of BlueStacks software and AMD technology, consumers will be able to access their favorite Android apps on virtually any AMD-powered Windows-based device, including more than 200,000 apps currently available in the Android Market.

The latest AMD 2012 market outlook slides disclosed by DonanimHaber reveal that AMD will have a brand new lineup of processors and APUs by the third quarter of 2012. In the second quarter, AMD will begin with new accelerated processing units (APUs) that succeed the current A-Series "Llano" APUs, codenamed "Trinity". Trinity APUs will make use of next-generation "Piledriver" architecture x86-64 cores, as well, as next-generation Radeon HD 7000 series graphics.

Then in the third quarter, AMD will release its next-generation "Vishera" processors that succeed "Zambezi" AMD FX processors. Vishera will make use of next-generation "Piledriver" modules, and increase IPC (instructions per clock) beyond its predecessor "Bulldozer" architecture. In the interim, AMD will update its A-Series and AMD FX processor lines with new models. These include a new high-end processor, the AMD FX-8170, and two new A-Series APUs, the A8-3870K, and A6-3670K, both of which are unlocked for overclocking.

SAPPHIRE Technology, a leading manufacturer and global supplier of graphics, mainboard and multimedia solutions has just introduced a new mainboard developed to support the latest A-series Fusion APU family from AMD.

AMD's A-series APUs combine - on a single chip - a Quad core CPU, interface circuitry equivalent to a Northbridge and a DX11 graphics core equivalent to a desktop level graphics card, and also incorporating a 3rd-generation UVD (universal video decoder) for the accelerated decoding of HD and Blu-ray content, including stereoscopic 3D support. This APU series together with the A75 chipset, which has native support for the latest interface standards, such as SATA 6G and USB 3.0 as well as USB 2.0 and PCI-Express Gen2, makes a powerful combination that delivers all the features required in a state-of-the-art PC.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched its latest series of motherboards supporting the new AMD A75 series chipsets, and the latest AMD A-Series APUs (codenamed Llano) that are set to take the world by storm with the best graphics performance ever seen on an onboard graphicsprocessor. GIGABYTE A75 based motherboards offer DIY PC builders and integrators a new world of 3D and multimedia performance with the most scalable, and best value upgrade path imaginable.

"At GIGABYTE, we are delighted to bring to market this new and exciting motherboard range, delivering our renowned durability and exceptional feature support to AMD's ground breaking APU technology," commented Henry Kao, VP of Worldwide Service and Marketing at GIGABYTE. "As well as bringing AMD A-Series technology to DIY users who demand excellent gaming and multimedia performance on a budget, these motherboards also offer a compelling upgrade path that includes Dual Graphics configurations."

ASUS today announced the launch of their new AMD A75 chipset-based F1A75 Series motherboards. Designed specially to optimize performance for the AMD Llano APUs, the F1A75 Series motherboards have exceptional overclocking capability for the versatile APU with a variety of integrated graphics built directly on the same die. This new series is also equipped with the latest ASUS-exclusive technologies and features, including the Dual Intelligent Processors 2 (DIP2) with DIGI+ VRM for precise power control, a graphical and mouse-controlled UEFI BIOS and the easy-to-use auto tuning for better performance.

AMD's officially launched the new Llano APU platform for market availability in July worldwide, and BIOSTAR is releasing three mainboards that support this new platform at the same time; the "TA75A+", "TA75M+" and "TA75M". The advantages of the new AMD A75 chipset based motherboard include native support of USB3.0, DX11 graphic core for greater 3D performance, and BIOSTAR exclusive features (BIO-Remote2, Charger Booster, and etc.).

The new AMD A75 chipset series mainboards, "TA75A+", "TA75M+", "TA75M", all using AMD Hudson-D3 A75 single-chip design, "TA75A+" with ATX form factor and the other two are with micro-ATX form factor. With a brand new heat sink design that also gives a better outlook and better thermal efficiency.

The future of AMD's GPU architecture looks more open, broken from the shackles of a fixed-function, DirectX-driven evolution model, and that which increases the role of GPU in the PC's central processing a lot more than merely accelerating GPGPU applications. At the Fusion Developer Summit, AMD detailed its future GPU architecture, revealing that in the future, AMD's GPUs will have full support for C, C++, and other high-level languages. Integrated with Fusion APUs, these new number-crunching components will be called "scalar co-processors".

Scalar co-processors will combine elements of MIMD (multiple-instruction multiple-data,) SIMD (single-instruction multiple data), and SMT (simultaneous multithreading). AMD will ditch the VLIW (very long instruction word) model that has been in use for several of AMD's past GPU architectures. While AMD's GPU model will break from the shackles of development that is pegged to that of DirectX, it doesn't believe that APIs such as DirectX and OpenGL will be discarded. Game developers can continue to develop for these APIs, and C++ support is more for general purpose compute applications. That does, however, create a window for game developers to venture out of the API-based development model (specifically DirectX). With its next Fusion processors, the GPU and CPU components will make use of a truly common memory address space. Among other things, this eliminate the "glitching" players might sometimes experience when games load textures as they go over the crest of a hill.

Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced its latest line of smartly equipped yet affordable Satellite L700 and Satellite C600 Series laptops. Designed for style, versatility and affordability in mind, these laptops deliver the performance needed for everyday computing with prices starting as low as $379.99 MSRP.

Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced a new family of premium laptops, the Satellite P700 Series. Available with Toshiba's textured Fusion X2 finish in Platinum, the Satellite P745, P755/P755 3D and P775 laptops feature 14-, 15.6- and 17.3-inch diagonal HD TruBrite LED backlit screens, respectively. These laptops incorporate essential features for multitasking and multimedia, including latest generation of multi-core processor and technology options, plus premium entertainment and convenience features.

HP today expanded its consumer and business notebook portfolios with 11 new models utilizing AMD's latest VISION Technology for exceptional performance at an affordable price. Powered by AMD's A-series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) that combine leading-edge CPU cores and powerful discrete-graphics onto a single die of silicon, HP's new notebooks offer solutions for consumers, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and large corporations.

The HP Pavilion dv-series (Pavilion dv4, dv6 and dv7) provides the ultimate entertainment notebook experience and is equipped with innovative features such as HP CoolSense, HP True Vision HD webcam and HP Beats Audio (Pavilion metal dv6 and dv7). The dv-series also offers more than two times the graphics performance compared with previous-generation integrated graphics.

Acer has just placed an order for 80,000 pieces of AMD Z-series accelerated processing units. Based on essentially the same design as Fusion "Zacate", Z-series APUs are designed to have lower TDP and to be of higher quality, so they could be deployed in enterprise and IPC (industrial PC) environments. The AMD Z-01 is Acer's choice, this chip combines two x86-64 cores clocked at 1.00 GHz with AMD Radeon HD 6250 DirectX 11 compliant graphics, and a DDR3 memory controller. The TDP of the entire chip stands at 5.9W, it is built on the 40 nm process at TSMC.

Acer's first tablets based on AMD Z-01 will run Windows 7, since Android 3.0 (codenamed "Ice Cream Sandwich") is not going to be out any time before the end of 2011. Acer isn't the only big tablet-maker opting for AMD Z-series over Intel's Atom Pine Trail platform, MSI is also reported to be working on x86 tablets running AMD Z-series. Manufacturers are opting for Z-series over Pine Trail, because the latter has both higher price and TDP. With its relatively faster iGPU, Z-series should be able to drive graphics-intensive custom user-interfaces on tables sized up to 10.1-inches. Industry sources expect AMD to ship up to 500,000 units of the chip in the second half of 2011.

AMD today launched its 9-Series chipset line-up today, helping PC builders to develop next generation high performance desktop platforms. The company also unveiled its 2011 HD Tablet Platform, based on the AMD Z-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), enabling vivid media display and content creation capabilities for the fast-growing market of Microsoft Windows-based tablets. These new AMD products are designed to enable more immersive digital experiences for the PC and tablet markets.

"As consumer appetites for more compelling, lifelike visual experiences increase, there is greater need for high performance, smooth, vibrant graphics as well as unparalleled computing power," said John Taylor, product marketing director, AMD. "From tablets to desktops, AMD is making powerful computing accessible to everyone."

Here you are, the MSI A75MA-G55, the kind of motherboard that's dressed for both office and living rooms, or even a sweet family desktop. This micro-ATX motherboard runs AMD Fusion A-series APUs in the socket FM1 package. It uses a 4-phase Military Class II VRM that balances solid-state chokes with regular solid capacitors, instead of expensive high-C ones. The VRM area is cooled by a chunky heatsink of a design we're used to seeing on high-end MSI motherboards, lately.

Expansion slots include one each of PCI-Express 2.0 x16, PCI-E x16 running at x4 speed, PCI-E x1, and legacy PCI. All six of its SATA 6 Gb/s ports are internal. The board features four USB 3.0 including two ports provided via internal header. The rear panel is a crowded place with 8-channel HD audio, USB 3.0, display connectivity including DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI, gigabit Ethernet, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board features UEFI with ClickBIOS GUI setup program. Expect mid-range pricing.

AMD today announced immediate availability of two new AMD Embedded G-Series APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) with thermal design power (TDP) ratings of 5.5 and 6.4 watts, up to a 39 percent power savings compared to earlier versions1. The very low power consumption and small 361mm² package is ideal for compact, fanless embedded systems like digital signage, kiosks, mobile industrial devices and many of the new emerging industry-standard small form factors such as Qseven. This is an unprecedented low-power offering for the embedded market that features one or two low-power x86 "Bobcat" CPU cores and a discreet class DirectX 11-capable GPU on a single die.

"We have seen many of our embedded customers deploy fanless systems even with our 15W TDP processors in the past. Today we take the ground-breaking AMD Fusion APU well below 7W TDP and shatter the accepted traditional threshold for across-the-board fanless enablement," said Buddy Broeker, director, Embedded Solutions, AMD. "System designers can now unleash their creativity without being constrained by heat or size issues."

Like most others, Gigabyte is ready with some of its first motherboards to launch with AMD's new Fusion Llano A-Series APU platform, based the new FM1 socket and AMD A75 chipset. Gigabyte's top socket FM1 motherboard is called GA-A75-UD4H. It's a return to the company's signature blue Ultra Durable 3 PCB. The FM1 socket is powered by a 10-phase VRM, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), supporting AMD CrossFireX and NVIDIA 2-way SLI; three PCI-Express x1, and two PCI.

The A75 single-chip chipset handles all the storage connectivity on this board, with five SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports, and one eSATA 6 Gb/s. Display connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Other connectivity includes eight USB 3.0 ports driven by three controllers, including four ports by header, gigabit Ethernet, 8+2 channel HD audio driven by Realtek ALC889 CODEC, and FireWire. Expect this board to be out in mid-June.

ASRock just couldn't hold its rocks. The third-largest motherboard company released the first picture of its upcoming socket FM1 motherboard that supports AMD's upcoming performance A-series accelerated processing units. The ASRock A75 Extreme6 as it's called, is based on AMD's Hudson-D3 A75 single-chip chipset. With the northbridge component completely relocated to the APU die, what's left of the chipset is a little more than a southbridge. The 905-pin socket is significantly different from the 940-odd pin sockets from AMD in recent times, though its cooler retention brackets haven't essentially changed. So most AM3-supportive coolers should fit on FM1.

The FM1 socket is powered by a 10-phase VRM, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory support; and to two of the three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots. The first two PCI-E x16 slots switch to electrical x8 when both are populated. The third slot is electrical x4, and wired to the chipset. Expect a big chop in CPU to discrete GPU latencies. Other slots include one PCI-E x1, and three PCI.

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) introduces the latest AMD based motherboard series - ECS Black Deluxe A75F-A, and ECS mainstream series A75F-M and A75F-M2 motherboards. ECS A75 series motherboards powered by AMD Hudson D3 chipset support the latest AMD A series APU.

As one of the ECS Black Deluxe series, ECS A75F-A has passed 50°C burn test, presenting high quality and unbelievable durability. ECS Black Deluxe A75F-A also equips with complete expansion slots from PCI Express 2nd generation x16, x4 to PCI 1st generation for users to enlarge the power of yours computers with every possibility. To match the amazing graphics power of APU, ECS A75F-A has full video output options: HDMI/DVI/D-Sub with optical audio output for you to enjoy the ultimate entertainment moment.

One of AMD's design goals for its Fusion architecture must have been its application in mobile processors, where AMD isn't the brightest in terms of energy efficiency. The company's fastest product for the notebook platform is based on the Llano silicon, will release in 2011, and is a quad-core APU. Enter the AMD A8-3530MX.

Built on the 32 nm process with FS1 package, the A8-3530MX is an accelerated processing unit (APU), it combines a quad-core processor with a powerful GPU and northbridge component. With a default clock speed of 1.90 GHz and TurboCore speed of 2.60 GHz, the A8-3530MX packs 4 MB of L2 cache, and a dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory controller, that also supports DDR3L-1333 MHz.

The GPU component is the DirectX 11 compliant AMD Radeon HD 6620G, with 400 stream processors, and engine clock speed of 444 MHz. To drive it, the northbridge component is entirely integrated into the APU, which packs a PCI-Express 2.0 hub to support discrete graphics. Despite so much machinery, the top-of-the-line chip maintains a TDP of 45W (common for notebook quad-core chips).

Today at Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley 2011, AMD introduced the AMD Radeon E6760 embedded discrete graphics processor. Available now, the AMD Radeon E6760 GPU is the first of its kind to offer embedded system designers the combination of OpenCL support along with support for six independent displays.

"The AMD Radeon E6760 GPU provides customers with superior business economics through long lifecycle management and product stability," said Richard Jaenicke, director of Embedded Client Business for AMD. "Embedded system designers faced with power and density constraints now have a solution that delivers the advanced 3D graphics and multimedia features they require in this performance-driven market."