Intel made headlines last year when it announced that it would fab 22nm products for FPGA designer Achronix. This week, the company has unveiled an additional 22nm partner. Santa Clara will also be building parts for Tabula and will build that company's new Spacetime microprocessors. Tabula claims that its new chip...Read more...
At yesterday's Common Platform technology day, IBM and the other members of the Common Platform Initiative made a major announcement. While plans to use gate-first technology at the 32nm/28nm node remain unchanged, the coalition will move to gate-last technology when it makes the jump to 20nm production. As...Read more...
Heard the latest? The stock world is abuzz over the rumor that Apple might purchase ARM Semiconductor. The rumor apparently began in London and was fueled by the combination of Apple's recent spectacular quarter and the fact that English accents sound so darn sophisticated. The train of logic goes something like this:Apple has built its own...Read more...
AMD revealed more information on its first Fusion-class product at ISSCC this week. The new chip will combine both a CPU and GPU on a single package, but don't use either nickname—AMD is calling the new chip an "APU" or Application Processor Unit as part of its bid to shift product focus from the core components...Read more...
At its earnings call last week, Intel detailed its strong 2009 finish after the decidedly uncertain start of the year. The company also gave general forecast information for what it expects in the first quarter of the year and for 2010 in general, and discussed the continuing growth of Atom and its 32nm product ramp. When Intel announced its...Read more...
Today we've got a look at Intel's new line of Core i5 Mobile processors, code named Arrandale. Like Pinetrail for netbooks, Intel's new Arrandale processor combines both an integrated memory controller (DDR3) and GPU (graphics processor) on the same package as the main processor. Though it's not a monolithic device but is built upon multi-chip...Read more...
Looking back at silicon innovation over the past decade, you'll notice three primary design targets that tend to dominate industry motivation and trends - power consumption, price and performance. As processor technologies evolve and new technologies are invented, there are rare moments in time when an innovation can hit upon all three...Read more...
The far-reaching effects of the global economic downturn could make it easy to blame the IC industry's problems on short-term market effects, but Doug Grose, CEO of GlobalFoundries, believes the fundamental problem confronting the industry is economic, not technical. According to Grose, "Only a handful of providers...Read more...
There's cheerful news from Sunnyvale today; AMD is claiming to now lead the discrete mobile GPU market with a 36.5 percent market share gain and a whopping 87.2 percent more units sold in the first six months of 2009 compared to the first six months of 2008. At this point, AMD claims to hold 53 percent of the discrete mobile market, and credits...Read more...
T-RAM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES enter into Joint Development Agreement for application of T-RAM’s Thyristor-RAM embedded memory to advanced technology nodes MILPITAS, Calif. - T-RAM Semiconductor Inc. (T-RAM) and GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced today that they have entered into a joint development agreement targeted toward the application of T-RAM’s Thyristor-RAM...Read more...
In response to Intel’s recent price cut on select quad-core and dual-core processors, AMD has slashed prices on its new AMD Phenom II processors, which have only been available for two weeks. Apparently the price drop isn’t solely as a result of Intel, however. It appears that the price reduction was also a reaction to the low demand of high...Read more...
Although the lion's share of news these past couple of days pertains to Intel's Core i7 unveiling, information about AMD's next salvo of desktop processors has slowly been leaking as well. According to a story posted today on the Digitimes website, AMD will be launching a pair of new 45nm quad-core Phenom processors sometime this month..."AMD...Read more...
Preliminary news regarding AMD's upcoming 45nm Phenom processors has been trickling out for the last few months, but other than some basic information about the manufacturing process, code names, and socket, concrete details about the processors themselves has been scarce. Just the other day, however, a post in a Chinese discussion forum--itocp.com--shed...Read more...
According to Digitimes, who always seem to know someone inside everywhere, VIA will roll out their own dual core processors by the end of next year, and will manufacture their processors using 45 nanometer scale architecture.VIA has also revealed more details of its initial-launch Isaiah-based processor, which will feature a core frequency...Read more...
AMD Demos 45nm Native Quad-Core Processors for Server, Desktop — Customer Testing of Product Samples Underway — HANNOVER, Germany. -- March 4, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) demonstrated at the CeBit electronics exhibition its first 45nm quad-core chips running multiple operating systems and a range of processing intensive applications. The processors...Read more...
“At an ISSCC session yesterday afternoon, IBM announced details of a smaller, lower-power version of the Cell BE processor that powers Sony's PlayStation 3. The Cell BE is currently fabricated on IBM's 65nm SOI process, but IBM will soon move the console chip onto the company's much-ballyhooed, next-generation 45nm high-k process.”The move...Read more...
As with all rumors, please take the following news item with a grain of salt until we can receive official confirmation or denial from AMD.For those of you who've been hoping for a more competitive high-end CPU landscape, it seems that your wishes might be met as early as the end of this year:“...the inputs from trusted Far Eastern friends...Read more...
“IBM has licensed its next-generation technology for manufacturing processors to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., the largest Chinese chipmaker, the companies said Wednesday. The partnership spotlights the growing technical abilities in China, a country that's already a manufacturing powerhouse for lower-tech products. Terms...Read more...
We've gotten more than a few inquiries from readers, since we launched our Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (aka Yorkfield) article, about whether or not the new 45nm quad-core chip from Intel will play nice in legacy motherboards. The party line from Intel is that while technically, Yorkfield quad-core processors are not supported by...Read more...
Over the course of the past few months, we've brought you detailed analysis on Intel's forward-looking products based on their 45nm Penryn core architecture. At the time, these products were not officially launched in the various sales channels. Today Intel has announced official...Read more...
INTEL’S FUNDAMENTAL ADVANCE IN TRANSISTOR DESIGN EXTENDS MOORE’S LAW, COMPUTING PERFORMANCE Sixteen Eco-Friendly, Faster and ‘Cooler’ Chips Incorporate 45nm Hafnium-Based High-k Metal Gate Transistors SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 11, 2007 – Built using an entirely new transistor formula that alleviates the wasteful electricity leaks that threaten...Read more...
According to a story published on DigiTimes, 45nm notebook processors derived from the upcoming 'Penryn' core will account for 50% of Intel's total shipments by the second quarter of next year. We've known for quite some time that Intel's 45nm parts were slated to arrive this year with production ramping up in '08, but information claiming that...Read more...