amdAdvanced Micro Devices released new details of its long-awaited Fusion chips, which combine graphics and microprocessor functions into a single chip in a computing platform that will launch in 2011.

Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD products (right), said at the company’s analyst meeting today that AMD is preparing a whole series of Fusion chips that will use the 32-nanometer manufacturing process that will be ready for full-scale production in 2011.

The new chips will hit new targets in power efficiency, performance, and size. They will be able to be used in both powerful desktop computers as well as the smallest netbooks, which are smaller than laptops and are meant for surfing the web.

These chips will have more than a billion transistors on them, Bergman said, but will likely be smaller and less powerful than separate, stand-alone microprocessor or graphics that launch in the same time frame.

The point is that they eliminate a chip in the PC system, cutting out costs and processing bottlenecks. It also puts pressure on Intel and Nvidia, which make separate chips.

Samples of these chips will be sent to customers in the first half of 2010. That puts them on schedule for production in late 2010 and a launch into the market in customer PCs in 2011, Bergman said. That’s a closer schedule than ever before. AMD has long promised Fusion chips since it acquired ATI Technologies for $5.4 billion in 2006. But it has delayed the launch, due to the difficulty of design combination chips.

One of the chips under design is code-named Llano. It will have four microprocessor cores, or computing brains, as well as a powerful graphics core which can handle the latest Microsoft DX11 graphics technology. AMD calls this chip an APU, for accelerated processing unit, compared to central processing unit (CPU, or microprocessor) or graphics processing unit (GPU).