Advanced Micro Devices has announced that it had entered a memorandum of understanding under which its Canadian subsidiary would be awarded by a five-year grant of $52.8 million to fund research and development activities in the development of the code-named Fusion accelerated processing units (APUs) that combine x86 and graphics processing cores onto the same chips.

Canadian Ontario state expects to make its initial investment of $11.2 million CAD to AMD upon signing the formal agreement, with periodic payments occurring thereafter throughout the grant period. In turn, AMD will commit to substantially invest in AMD Fusion processor-related R&D activities in Markham, and retain and create hundreds of high-value R&D jobs during the grant time frame. AMD also plans to increase collaborative activities with local universities.

AMD’s subsidiary in Canada was obtained back in 2006, when AMD acquired ATI Technologies, the company that specialized on development of graphics processing units (GPUs) as well as core-logic sets. As AMD’s largest R&D center outside the United States, AMD Canada employs more than 1600 people, including an average of 100 engineering student participants in its internship and co-op programs.

“With this partnership, Ontario will be at the forefront of helping to bring this game-changing technology to market, and will deepen the province’s reputation as a seat of technology innovation. AMD Fusion technology is set to enable significant breakthroughs in personal computing and our R&D facility in Markham, Ontario is playing an instrumental role in creating this technology.” said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief exec.

Tags: ATI, Radeon, AMD, Fusion, Llano, 32nm