We got word from our sources that the first Fusion, which Rick Bergman just demonstrated in Taiwan, is the real deal. Well, there's no reason to doubt this as senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s products group has showed it to all in Taiwan.

Our sources have confirmed that there is a prototype and that the chip has been taped out some time ago. In the CPU world, it takes roughly a year from the first successful tape out to a real product which indicates that the silicon is more than a few weeks old.

The launch date remains a mystery, as many do believe that AMD will have a chip ready to launch by the end of the year, but it will be all up to partners to launch. There is some indication that the first systems might wait for early 2011 and to be on the safe side, AMD said that it should arrive in first half of 2011 but, as is often the case, these are lawyers talking.

By the time Fusion comes out, Westmere based Sandy Bridge competition should already be here. Intel has already demonstrated it at the last IDF back in September of 2009. The game is on and we don’t know who has the wining cards.