AMD to release details of Vega, Navi and Zen+ next week?

More details to be spilled on AMD's flagship technologies at event on 16 May, suggest rumours

AMD has promised to launch its next-generation Vega GPU micro-architecture and graphics cards in the current quarter - and CEO Lisa Su is set to release more details about both Vega and its successor Navi in a major briefing next week, in which the company will also reveal details on Zen+, part of its roadmap for its latest microprocessors.

That's according to hardware site WCCFTech, citing sources at the company who claim that the company is planning an event - but most emphatically not a product launch - next week on the 16 May.

The event will be presented by Su, alongside chief technology officer Mark Papermaster, Radeon Technologies Group chief architect Raja Koduri, and Jim Anderson, general manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group at AMD.

Further information about Navi is expected to be presented by Koduri, who AMD lured back from Apple in 2013. Koduri has 20 years of experience in everything from software to GPU design, and Navi will be the first GPU Koduri will be entirely responsible for taking from conception to manufacturing since his return to AMD.

Navi will be built on GlobalFoundries' 7nm FinFET process, and had been parked on AMD's roadmap for 2018, although that may slip, especially as it is dependent on GlobalFoundries' own technical development.

AMD has teased out details about Vega over the past six months or so. AMD's anticipated roadmap for Polaris and Vega slipped by around six months last year. Polaris had been expected around March or April, with Vega out in the fourth quarter.

However, Polaris only appeared at the end of June in the Radeon RX 460, 470 and 480 series of AMD graphics cards, while details have only been fitfully released on Vega. It is now expected to be released in the current quarter. Part of the reason for the delays on Vega has been attributed to delays in volume availability of HBM2 memory, which Vega will utilise over GDDR5.

Vega-based devices are still expected to be launched and available before the end of June - at least according to a leak at the end of April.

The Zen+ details, meanwhile, are consistent with AMD CEO Lisa Su's strategy that the company should work on multiple generations of CPUs roadmapped over a three-to-five year period, according to WCCFTech.