ATI, graphics products group of Advanced Micro Devices, said at Ceatec trade-show in Japan that its expects DirectX 11-compatible graphics processing units (GPUs) in 2009, which may be considered as intention to release a new breed of chips that support new application programming interface. In addition, the company predicts prosperity of general purpose computing on GPU (GPGPU).

AMD’s ATI unit outlined several expectations for the consumer 3D graphics industry in 2009. Among the highlights are GPU manufacturing transition to 40nm process technology and widespread usage of GDDR5 memory standard, which will drive performance of graphics chips considerably up, something, which will allow game developers to create video games with more sophisticated effects.

ATI also predicts the rise of GPGPU with help of computing shaders of DirectX 11 and OpenCL. In fact, the company expects consumer applications that take advantage of GPGPU, which will emphasize importance of graphics processors among end-users. In addition, the arrival of DirectX 11 and Windows 7 will also play a role in boosting significance of GPUs.

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