We presented our system roadmap at the Tech Briefing event in June.　 We would like to repeat the key info here for a wider dissemination and to add a couple of new developments that are taking place in July.　 The situation is not a tsunami, but it is not plain sailing either.　　For example a non-event in June has become a disturbing event in July. 　

The system roadmap is largely guided by releases of new platforms by Intel and AMD.　 Sandy Bridge is so far the biggest release this year, and we have since evolved Superhawk (P67), Diamond Plus (H61) and Onyx Multimedia (H61) to Sandy Bridge.　 Intel will complete the release cycle later this year with X79 and C600 for top end desktop (Superhawk Plus) and dual Xeon (Platinum) systems respectively.　

We　have assessed Z68 which was a new member of the Sandy Bridge platform family released by Intel in June.　 We came to the opinion that it was a platform with no obvious market position to take.　 Z68 supports integrated GPU as well as discrete GPU but users can use either one only　and not both.　 Customers would be better off with　Superhawk (P67) for discrete graphics　or Diamond Plus (H61) for integrated graphics.　　We rated Z68 a non-event.　　Our stance could have been heard.　 The big players　will make Z68 an event in the very near future.　 We are still talking to the big boys about this matter at the time of this newsletter publication.

AMD will release APU anytime now, and it promises to bring integrated graphics to a new height.　 Furthermore, this new platform is capable of combining the strength of integrated graphics and discrete graphics card.　 It will make a splash on the market. APU has a different socket to Phenom, Athlon and Sempron.　 When Thunderbird has evolved to APU, Jasper will be the only platform for AMD legacy CPU versions.

The most recent Compucon system update came from Onyx surprisingly.　 We have upgraded Onyx Basic from Atom D510 (single core) to Atom D525 (dual cores).　 Onyx is our small form factor system with 17litres of volume. It has a wall or frame or desk mounting bracket option.　

We attempt to go beyond Onyx as another project ambition.　 It would be similar to E-PC in size but it will use standard components and it will be suitable for 8x7operations　as the design conditions. This is still a task in progress without a defined completion date.　

Staying on the small form factor agenda, we have Short 1U systems that are actually smaller than the drawers of our office desk.　 They are powered by Atoms and Celeron respectively.　

Feel free to email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it of your agreement or disagreement with the above plan, or if the plan has any omission etc.