AMD Sound Wave rumored to be next-gen Zen6 APU

AMD said to be working on a new APU series based on 3nm node.

Gamm0burst is a site specializing in data mining, with particular focus on LinkedIn profiles of people working for major semiconductor companies. In the latest update, it is revealed that one of such profiles shows a list of five AMD codenames that were not released or some even named yet.

Enthusiasts should be aware of the upcoming update to the AMD APU segment featuring Zen5 microarchitecture, expected to hit the shelves by the end of this year as Strix Point and next year as Sarlak. There is still some confusion surrounding the alleged Strix Halo, which could be either the listed B0 stepping as shown below or it may actually be codenamed Sarlak as shown below. One thing is sure, the Strix APUs are expected to be a major update to AMD portfolio by introducing Zen5/Zen5c cores and up to 40 Compute Units based on RDNA3.5 graphics architecture.

• Strix A0 (7nm)
• Strix B0 (7nm)
• Sarlak (7nm)
• Kraken (5nm)
• Sound Wave (3nm)

AMD Sound Wave, Source: Gamma0burst

Kraken was a subject of recent rumors that hypothesize this codename is associated with an 8 core processor featuring 4 Zen5 and 4 Zen5c cores. This APU would also feature 8 RDNA3.5 architecture. Core count wise, those specs would be similar to Steam Deck Van Gogh, but upgraded to much newer architectures.

What’s new is the codename of Sound Wave. The data mining does not provide any information except for the 3nm node. Thus far, only Zen5 Nirvana core is said to be using a combination of 4nm and 3nm nodes, as well as Zen6 core codenamed Morpheus, is using 3nm and 2nm nodes respectively. As noted by the source, the nodes listed by AMD engineer here might be inaccurate and one should only focus on the codename.

What’s interesting is that the source also discovered entries suggesting that Strix, Sarlak and Kraken would all utilize chiplet design, as mention of the separate I/O dies were discovered specifically for these APUs.

Currently, the company is in a process of launching its Hawk Point processors this month. While AMD has busy months ahead, enthusiasts are now wondering if the next-gen Strix series will be named Ryzen 8000 or rather the Ryzen 9000 series. According to AMD’s own naming, schema, the latter suggest the Strix Point is rather a 2025 product. Theoretically, Sound Wave would be a Ryzen 10000 product if that was the case.

Source: Gamma0burst via Wccftech