The most anticipated piece of hardware, AMD Zen, has now been detailed even further. According to WCCFtech, Mike Mantor, AMD’s veteran graphics designer, has contributed in producing a research paper on APU – Accelerated Processing Unit – architectures. What’s interesting is the fact that the Zen APU will feature HBM – High-Bandwith Memory – technology. It seems like 2016 is going to be one interesting year for AMD and its fans.
For those that are not aware, the Zen APU is an upcoming processor by AMD which will replace the Carrizo APU, which was introduced back in 2015. It is rumoured that along with the Zen, AMD is planning to abandon the CMT – Cluster-based Multithreading – to a more common SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) microarchitecture. Interestingly, the Zen APU, coupled with HBM technology, is predicted to have a memory bandwidth of around 128GB/s.
In addition to that, the Zen APU will also feature a larger onboard GPU for better performance in gaming. Interestingly, the Zen APU isn’t the first product that AMD has released with HBM technology. In fact, AMD initially implemented HBM technology with its R9 series GPUs. However, it is rumoured that AMD’s Zen APU will feature the first generation of HBM technology instead.
HBM is an important step forward in terms of CPU and GPU manufacturing today because it allows companies to introduce a higher memory bandwidth (via die stacking) into their products without the need for a larger form factor. HBM technology will be under everyone’s radar this year since Nvidia’s Pascal and AMD’s Arctic Islands GPUs will hopefully be released sometime in 2016 along with the second generation HBM technology.
Unfortunately, we cannot confirm when the AMD Zen APU will be released, but according to rumours, it should be unveiled by AMD sometime in the fourth quarter of 2016. A long wait for AMD fans, but it isn’t the only product that AMD is introducing this year. Remember the Dual-Fiji XT GPU (Gemini) that is yet to be released?
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