For years, AMD is pushing the idea of treating CPU and GPU equally when comes to computing power through the concept called ?heterogenous computing?. After all, why would you waste all of the power and space in a PC if certain workload can be better suited for the GPU as oppose to CPU. Even better would be to have both CPU and GPU working concurrently in parallel to finish a task faster. AMD started talking about such concept with the Fusion platform in 2006 which leads to the company's acquisition of ATI.

While the concept of heterogenous computing sounded good, getting there is not an easy task. To achieve such goal, it requires a fundamental redesigning of the processor. A lot of work and engineering is needed not just in the hardware but also software. AMD started moving toward true heterogenous computing slowly with the Brazo platform that put the CPU and GPU on the same chip. Then with the Llano, AMD integrated the Northbridge to the same chip and created the Radeon Memory Bus. Trinity/Richland, AMD fine-tuned the architecture and brings us Turbo Core, and allows the GPU to address the system memory.