Sandy Bridge is Intel's next microarchitecture, or redesign, of its processors. A chip revamp is the single biggest undertaking for Intel. And it happens every two years. The current design, Nehalem, was introduced in November of 2008 and it pervades all Core i3, i5, and i7 processors (the latter two finally made it into Apple laptops on recently). Its successor, Sandy Bridge, is scheduled to go into production in the fourth quarter.
Few points
• More efficient: the central processing unit, or CPU, delivers a "significant improvement in instructions per clock,” meaning that it is more efficient at executing tasks.
• Faster on-chip communication: different parts of the chip will talk to each other faster-- "improved inter-buses."
• Shared memory: on-chip memory called cache is shared between the CPU and graphics processing unit, or GPU.
• GPU now part of CPU: Intel combines the CPU and GPU on the same piece of silicon.
• New instructions: Sandy Bridge will be the first chip to support Intel's Advanced Vector Extension (Intel AVX) instructions. AVX accelerates a host of multimedia tasks, including video and audio processing.
• More intelligent over clocking: and, finally, improved Turbo Boost--which speeds up

AMD Fusion APU
According to AMD, an APU is not just a CPU grafted onto a GPU, but a next-generation processor combining programmable CPU and GPU cores, along with memory, I/O and video controllers. The architecture of the Fusion APU includes the x86 cores and a SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) Engine Array -- traditionally called the GPU -- along with an integrated memory controller and bus joining the two together
The Fusion will ship in two flavors, "Llano" for desktops and "Ontario" for notebook platforms. The Llano platform will sport dual- and quad-core models with some form of ATI Radeon HD 5000 graphics, while Ontario will be a dual-core processor with an extremely low TDP, reportedly able to scale down as low as 1 watt. By incorporating a single integrated die with all of the functionality, AMD's Fusion could be faster, smaller, more energy-efficient, and cheaper to produce.