AMD Trinity APU Confirmed For 2012; Z-Series For Tablets Imminent

AMD has officially unveiled its next-gen Fusion chip, Trinity, which will replace the current APU, Llano, in 2012. Presented at Computex 2011 earlier today, Trinity uses the Bulldozer APU and will drop next year; until then, of course, there's Llano's official launch as the VISION A-Series of chips next month, broken down into three tiers: A4, A6 and A8.

The chip company hasn't detailed what makes those three levels different, though clock speed and cache seem likely factors. Meanwhile, the Z-Series for tablets – codenamed Desna – will target Windows based slates and have a sub-6W TDP, as per the leaked slides we saw last week. The first model to use the platform will be MSI's WindPad 110W, launched earlier this week,

We won't have to wait until 2012 and Trinity for the first Bulldozer products, however; AMD confirmed that the first mainstream chips – including Zambezi for desktops and Orochi for servers - will arrive in Q3 2011. The new 9-Series chipset that will support them is already available, the company said, and will be showing up in products from next month.

AMD also brought BlueStacks on stage for a demonstration of the company's Android virtualization software for Windows-based devices. That will allow Z-Series based slates to run Android apps alongside Windows software.