Notebook, Desktop and AES variants
All upcoming AMD Fusion APUs will have one thing in common, they will share the Hudson Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) and the Hudson will be available in seven distinct variants aimed at three market segments.
Three versions are reserved for AMD's new notebook platforms. All feature support for up to six SATA 6Gbps devices and four second generation PCIe x1 GPPs. Hudson M1 is will take care of Brazos/Ontario. It's won't be as feature packed as the rest of the series, so there is no Gigabit Ethernet MAC on board, no RAID support, no VGA DAC and it also lacks USB 3 support. It does, however, pack 14 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 1.1 ports. Hudson M2 and M3 are part of the Sabine platform, based on Llano processors. They pack Gigabit Ethernet, RAID 0 and 1 support and the only major distinction is the inclusion of USB 3.0 support on the M3 variant.
In the desktop segment, AMD will offer three Hudsons primarily aimed at the Lynx platform, but also a limited number of Brazos products. Hudson D1 is reserved for the Value Lynx platform and Brazos ECSD. It lacks SATA 6Gbps support, on board Gigabit Ethernet, RAID, VGA DAC and USB 3.0, which really isn't that surprising as it is a cost effective solution for the low end. Hudson D2 and D3 are aimed at proper Lynx platforms with Llano APUs. They feature practically everything missing from the D1, including RAID 0,1 and 10 modes and apparently DisplayPort support. However, D2 does not have USB 3.0 support and it packs 14 UBS 2.0 ports instead. The D3 has 4 USB 3.0 ports and 10 USB 2.0 ports.
The Hudson E1 is probably the most interesting of the lot, as it's aimed at the power efficient Brazos AES platform. Sadly, it appears that some aspects of its spec are not finalized yet, but it will feature ethernet, SATA 6Gbps, RAID, but it won't have VGA or USB 3.0.
As we said earlier, Hudson FCH will be used with all upcoming AMD FM1 parts, as well as FT1 BGA APUs. It will be an integral part of all upcoming mainstream AMD platforms in 2011 and probably beyond, so get used to it.
