Friday, November 7, 2008

AMD employee charged with stealing Intel secrets

A former Intel Corp. engineer has been charged with stealing trade secrets worth $1 billion from the chip maker while he worked for its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts alleged this week in a five-count indictment that Biswamohan Pani, 33, illegally downloaded more than a dozen confidential documents from Intel's computer system in California during a four-day stretch in June. He had already resigned from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, but remained on the payroll and still had access to the company's computers while he burned unused vacation days.

What Pani's supervisors didn't know then is that instead of taking the time to transition to the hedge fund job Pani claimed he had landed, he had actually started working for AMD and for a brief period was on both companies' payrolls.

Prosecutors say AMD had no knowledge of Pani's actions and did not benefit. But they say the information Pani downloaded was worth more than $1 billion in research and development costs, and included details about methods for designing microprocessors.

The indictment alleges that Pani "planned to use this information to advance his career at AMD or elsewhere by drawing on it when the opportunity arose, whether with his employer's knowledge or not."

Pani told investigators he had no intention of harming Intel, and was going to give the information to his wife, who also worked for Intel. Pani's lawyer has declined to comment.

AMD said it is cooperating with investigators.

"AMD has not been accused of wrongdoing, and the FBI has stated that there is no evidence that AMD had any involvement in or awareness of Mr. Pani's alleged actions," the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said in a statement.

Intel owns 80 percent of the worldwide market for microprocessors, the electronic brains of personal computers. AMD has the rest. Chip designs are among the companies' most closely guarded secrets.

Pani, who worked at an Intel facility in Hudson, Mass., had been charged with one count of theft of trade secrets in a criminal complaint filed in August in U.S. District Court in Boston. An indictment handed up to the court on Wednesday adds four new counts of wire fraud.

Pani faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted for theft of trade secrets, and up to 20 years on each wire fraud charge.

GIGABYTE India Unveils Latest Intel Core i7-Powered X58 Series Mobos

GIGABYTE has introduced in India its latest high performance X58 Series motherboards, the GA-EX58-EXTREME and GA-EX58-UD5, designed from the ground up to unleash the power of Intel's new Core i7 processors.

The GIGABYTE X58 Series is equipped with a host of new features including the new QPI interface, 3 channel DDR3 support, 3 Way SLI and CrossFireX support, Ultra Durable 3 technology and an extensive range of overclocking features.

GIGABYTE said the X58 Series was designed specifically to take advantage of the raw power of the next generation Intel Core i7 processors and the Intel X58 Express chipset, whose new evolution in computing architecture is able to deliver an amazing performance breakthrough from past processor generations. Replacing the Front Side Bus is the new Quick Path Interconnect, or QPI, whose 25.6 GBps transfer rate (double the bandwidth of the 1600 MHz FSB) eliminates the communication bottleneck between the processor and chipset.

The Intel Core i7 processors also feature an integrated memory controller inside the processor die and support 192-bit 3-channel DDR3 memory that delivers a 50% memory bandwidth enhancement and lower memory latency for fast memory access. The GIGABYTE X58 Series also features Intel Turbo Boost Technology, which is able to power down idle processor cores and dynamically reroute the power to the active cores for significant performance boosts, and at the same time, maintain greater energy efficiency.

The GIGABYTE X58 Series delivers 3 PCIe x16 Gen2.0 slots, supporting both ATI CrossFireX and 3 Way Nvidia SLI. Whether enabling the most powerful graphics configurations for extreme multi-GPU gaming, or multiple display support for up to six monitors, the GIGABYTE X58 Series has your 3 way graphics action covered.

The GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 3 design features two ounces of copper for both the Power and Ground layers, which dramatically lowers system temperature by delivering a more efficient spreading of heat from critical areas of the motherboard such as the CPU power zone throughout the entire PCB. GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable 3 also lowers the PCB impedance by 50%, which helps to reduce electrical waste and further lowers component temperatures. A two ounce Copper layer design also provides improved signal quality and lower EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), providing better system stability and allowing for greater margins for overclocking.

In addition to the "cool blue" new look and feel of the GIGABTYE X58 Series, the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-EXTREME motherboard now features the new GIGABYTE Hybrid Silent-Pipe 2, a fusion thermal solution that combines the company's screen cooling technology, external heat sink and liquid cooling with chipset water block to deliver maximum thermal performance. The GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 features specially designed chipset heat sinks and high performance copper heat pipe with sintered process to provide ultra efficient thermal conductivity making sure your system runs ultra cool and ultra stable.

GIGABYTE said the X58 Series motherboards offer friendly overclocking features such as Precision OV (Hardware Overvoltage Control IC), Debug LED, onboard Power and back panel clear CMOS switches. The series also features comprehensive BIOS options for reaching higher limits with more detailed settings, including CPU frequency stepping, Over Voltage increments, memory multipliers and advanced memory timing controls, making it easy to tweak the highest levels of extreme overclocking performance from your system.

Additional GIGABYTE X58 Series Features:
- GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) Advanced: GIGABYTE's DES Advanced features improved algorithms that provide a more accurate power saving calculation, enabling it to deliver better energy saving capabilities and enhanced system performance. This motherboard energy saving technology also features hardware-based Dynamic 4-Gear Switching. With support for VRD 11.1, GIGABYTE's DES Advanced allows the motherboard to switch to 1 Gear phase switching during idle, allowing for a dramatic increase in power savings.

- Advanced Multi-Phase VRM: GIGABYTE X58 Series motherboards are equipped with 2-Phase power for the North Bridge and memory, allowing users to reach higher memory frequencies and enjoy better performance. Compared with only one phase solutions, this ensures longer power component lifespan and higher overclockability due to cooler working temperatures and better efficiency.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition runs up against the peak performance of the x86

 The first three processors in Intel's new Nehalem generation shouldn't really have come out until mid-November, but Intel obviously wanted to forestall AMD's first 45-nanometre server processors, which are already being listed by online dealers. The market leader in semiconductors has at any rate allowed the world's press to start reporting today on the test kits that were distributed a few weeks ago. These contain the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition – 3.2 GHz – and Core i7 920 – 2.66 GHz – 45-nm four-core processors developed under the codename Bloomfield, the DX58SO motherboard – codenamed "Smackover" – with the X58 – Tylersburg 36S/I10R – chipset, the LGA1366 processor socket and three DDR3-1066/PC3-8500 memory channels, two processor coolers, and one of the X25-M solid-state disks (SSDs) presented some time ago – DX58SO Smackover X25-M.

As with the Atom, Intel has again reactivated hyper-threading (HT, Intel's implementation of simultaneous multi-threading, SMT) in the Nehalem generation processors. HT was introduced with the Pentium 4 and later abandoned. Each of the four Core i7 cores thus reports a second "logical" or virtual core to the operating system, so that in certain situations better use is made of the available arithmetic and logical units. Hyper-threading is just one of many Nehalem innovations, however. Another is that Intel has now definitively turned away from the front side bus architecture. The memory controller is now in the processor itself, no longer in the Northbridge of the chipset. This is intended to shorten latency times appreciably when accessing RAM. As in the K10 generation of the AMD64 processors, all four cores of the Core i7 – each of which has 256 kilobytes of L2 cache – now have a memory controller – with three DDR3 channels, an – 8 MB – L3 cache shared jointly by all cores, as well as a QuickPath Interconnect (QPI, up to 25.6[ gigabyte/s]) housed on a chip, with 731 million transistors jostling each other in an area of 263 square millimetres. For comparison, in its Phenoms and quad-core Opterons fabricated in 65-nm technology in Dresden, AMD currently squeezes 450 million transistors on to an SOI die with an area of 285 square millimetres.

Although we are talking here about Intel's handpicked test specimens of its new processors, the first benchmark results do nevertheless show their enormous potential. In the SPEC CPU2006, and with high optimized code thanks to Intel's latest C/C++ and Fortran compilers in version 11 beta, which already use SSE4.2 commands, a Core i7 965 Extreme Edition scored 110 points in integer throughput – int_rate_base_2006 – and 85.1 points in floating-point operations – fp_rate_base_2006, measured under 32-bit Windows Vista in each case. This first representative of Nehalem thus overtakes not only all previous x86 and x64 processors, but also most of the tandems made from two quad-core Opterons – 2360 SE: 92.7/84.7 points – and, in floating-point throughput, approaches two 3.2-GHz Xeons. Unusually, we had to carry out the CPU2006 tests under 32-bit Windows instead of 64-bit Linux, because the 64-bit code of the benchmark suite requires 2 gigabytes of RAM per core, thus a total of 16 gigabytes for eight cores, but the Core i7 processors with 2-gigabyte DIMMs on boards with six slots can only drive a maximum of 12 gigabytes of RAM. Unbuffered DDR3 SDRAM DIMMs with a capacity of 4 gigabytes cannot yet be supplied.

In more practical benchmarks, the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition can't so clearly outdo its predecessor, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, which also has a clock frequency of 3.2 GHz, particularly in applications that compute with a single thread or with only a few threads in parallel. The Core i7 965 was in any case just 8 per cent faster than the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 on an X48 motherboard with PC3 12800 memory – DDR3-1600 – in the BAPCo SYSmark 2007 benchmark, and in 3D games the Nehalem's lead was negligible most of the time – BAPCo SYSmark 2007 X48-Mainboard. Only World in Conflict, which obviously exploits several cores, ran somewhat faster on the Core i7 965. With some other games, even a Core 2 Duo E8600 – 3.33 GHz – held the lead.

Multi-threading applications, such as compiling a Linux kernel, ran 26 per cent faster, and the Cinebench R10 rendering benchmark ran 34 per cent faster. Hyper-threading yielded marked advantages in compiling – 22 per cent – and rendering – 11 per cent, and HT only minimally slowed down the BAPCo SYSmark 2007.

For our benchmarks, we had activated the new Turbo Mode, in which the processor over clocks itself unless all cores are working to full capacity. Depending on the CPU's version, Turbo Boost raises the clock frequency by one or more steps, each step being 133 MHz. That is the basic frequency of the processor, which governs the higher clock frequencies of its arithmetic and logical units, the L3 cache, the memory controller, the memory modules, and the QPI. In our measurements, both Core i7 965 and Core i7 920 could be over clocked by one step in each case, which gave a performance boost of at best 5 per cent – but this makes the computer's power consumption rise markedly under full load. At 194 watts with the CPU under full load and 82 watts in no-load operation, the system with the Core i7 965 was nevertheless still somewhat thriftier than the comparison system with the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and with the same fittings as far as possible – the graphics card being a Radeon HD 4550 in each case. By the way, we used a standard, but quite lively SATA hard disk instead of the Intel SSD for our measurements.

With a very powerful cooler and on motherboards with overclocking functions, you can set a higher thermal design power (TDP) for the Core i7 than it nominally has – 130 watts. If you then enable even higher Turbo Boost multipliers, automatic overclocking will reach the 4-GHz mark with the expensive Core i7 965 Extreme Edition.

Besides the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition – list price $999 – and the Core i7 920 – $284, Intel also intends to release a Core i7 940 – 2.83 GHz – $562. The Lynnfield – quad-core, possibly without HT – and Havendale – dual-core plus graphics – versions of Nehalem that are intended for medium-range boards with an LGA1160 socket won't come out until the third or fourth quarter of 2009. Besides Intel itself, at least Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, Foxconn, and MSI intend to release LGA1366 boards with an X58 chipset, some with the SLI function. Any such board will cost more than 200 euros. Of course, Intel must now prove it can deliver the Core i7 and the X58 chipset as planned. Data sheets for the new products are not expected until mid-November.s

Intel abandons UWB design effort

Intel Corp. ended its five-year research effort in ultrawideband. The news is another blow for the emerging technology for which support is tightening in the face of an expected recession.

UWB start-up WiQuest Communications closed its doors on Friday. On Monday (Nov. 3), start-up Alereon Inc. bought the UWB assets of Stonestreet One, a software developer, adding less than ten people to Alereon's 60-person staff.

To date, ultrawideband technology has been plagued by problems seemingly on every front—performance, power, price and global regulations—with significant market penetration still at least a year away, according to some observers. In the meantime, analysts and participants alike said they expect more closures and consolidation moves.

Intel launched an internal UWB design effort about five years ago under its new business initiatives group. About a month ago, Intel decided to scrap the effort after a regularly scheduled review by the company's product groups failed to find a sponsor for the design team.

"It was a typical make-versus-buy decision," said Stephen Wood, a technology strategist in Intel's corporate technology group who also serves as president of the WiMedia Alliance that promotes and sets compliance standards for UWB products.

Intel business groups determined they could source UWB technology from outside company if they need it. Intel has investments that give it access to intellectual property in two UWB start-ups including Staccato Communications, which recently rolled out a second-generation device.

One source who asked not to be named said Staccato could be one of the next UWB start-ups to fold because it has as little as two months of financing left. Staccato's chief executive said in early September the company was funded at least through the end of the year and a new round of funding was in the works with existing investors.

Staccato has absorbed three rounds of funding totalling about Rs.225.16 crore ($45 million) to date. The last round closed in January 2006.

Artimi Corp. is another UWB start-up rumoured to be a likely casualty of the shakeout. The company closed it last funding, a Rs.157.61 crore ($31.5 )series B round, in March 2007.

Calls to the company were not immediately returned, and a visit to its office found no one home, although the office management company said Artimi has not informed it of any plans to shut down.

Several sources suggested companies who need funding in the next year or so are the most at risk. Venture capitalists are tightening their belts in anticipation of a recession, a fact highlighted in a presentation from one top VC firm that said start-ups must make cuts and become cash flow positive.

"Overwhelming the issue [with the UWB shakeout] is one of dealing with an ungodly bad economy," said Wood. "The VC community is being very conservative in funding these programs," he added.

Intel scales down VMware investment

Intel plans to sell half of its stake in virtualisation firm VMware, according to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The chip maker is to get rid of 4.75 million of the 9.5 million shares it purchased in July 2007 for $219m (£137m).

Intel has already offloaded 500,000 shares apiece to Cisco and EMC, the parent companies of VMware, for around $26 a share, and said it will sell the remaining 3.75 million "approximately" on Tuesday.

The firm originally paid $23 per share for the stock, which peaked at $125.25 last October.

For its part, Cisco looks set to forge even closer ties to VMware after a number of joint announcements at this year's VMworld show. The networking giant will end up with about eight per cent of VMware's stock.

Intel phases out first 45 nm processors

 Intel Corporation announced the immediate phasing out of the first 45nm processors, along with several 65nm models. These include Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Duo Mobile and one Core 2 Quad CPU. In addition, due to migration to the Santa Rosa platform and NAND flash technology, Intel has also discounted its 1GB Turbo Memory used in ReadyBoost.


Three 45nm products discontinued

According to Intel, "Market demand ... has shifted to higher performance Intel processors." When discontinuing a product, Intel typically gives its vendors several months to determine future needs and to place orders. Intel will be taking orders for CPUs this round until January 9, 2009, and will continue manufacturing and shipping products as late as May 7, 2010. Turbo memory orders will be taken until March 27, 2009 and shipped until June 26, 2009.

Intel first released 45nm products earlier this year in January. Already they are phasing out both PGA and BGA versions of three 45nm products including:

Q9450 (2.66 GHz 1333 MT/s, quad-core, 95 watt, LGA775, Yorkfield 45nm)
E8200 (2.66 GHz 1333 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Wolfdale 45nm)
E8190 (2.66 GHz 1333 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Wolfdale 45nm)


Mobile and desktop 65nm products being discontinued include:

E6850 (3.00 GHz 1333 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Conroe 65nm)
E6750 (2.66 GHz 1333 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Conroe 65nm)
E6550 (2.33 GHz 1333 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Conroe 65nm)
E6540 (2.33 GHz 1333 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Conroe 65nm)
E4600 (2.40 GHz 800 MT/s, dual-core, 65 watt, LGA775, Allendale 65nm)

T7400 (2.16 GHz 667 MT/s, mobile dual-core, 34 watt, Socket-M, Merom 65nm)
Celeron-M 530 (1.73 GHz mobile, 533 MT/s, single-core, 30 watt, Socket-M, Merom-1024 65nm)


1GB Turbo Memory and solid state drives

Intel first introduced Turbo Memory as a way to help PCs boot faster. During a demonstrating at Fall IDF 2005, a notebook was shown to be nearly instant-on with the technology. It was also rolled into OS technologies like Microsoft's ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost for Vista.

Products first arrived in May, 2007. Intel later extended this technology with version 2.0 in July, 2008. Yesterday, Intel announced it will discontinue all 1GB modules. Intel originally introduced 512MB and 1GB modules.

Intel also announced it is canceling 1GB, 2GB and 4GB Z-U130 solid state drives in favor of the migration to NAND-based flash products.

Intel Sees Gold in Solid-State Storage

Intel has quietly become more of a force in storage over the last couple of years. Just visit its Web site and you'll see a range of storage systems and RAID (define) controllers, for example.

The company also supplies plenty of chips to storage OEMs for disk arrays, switches and other subsystems. In fact, the company is developing quite a side business in what is known as Systems on a Chip, or SOCs (define), which are proving quite popular with storage suppliers.

But the big news is all about solid state drives (SSDs). In fact, it's big enough to get Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) co-founder Gordon Moore personally involved -- the same Moore who coined a well-known law about microprocessor growth.

"There have been a few times in the history of computing when a new technology becomes completely pivotal to changing the PC platform and the user experience," Moore said in a recent video presentation. "Solid-state drives have this capability."

An SSD is a storage device that continuously stores data on solid-state flash memory. There are no moving parts in a solid-state drive, which gives them some advantages over traditional hard drives. They draw far less power, for example. SSDs also provide fast data access because the drive doesn't have to spin up or move to the appropriate drive sector. That translates into faster boot times, too. And the absence of moving parts means heightened reliability.

"For the enterprise space, SSDs enable more performance from the storage system at a better total cost of ownership compared to HDDs," said Kishore Rao, product line manager of high performance for SSD at Intel. "They have higher performance while saving power and increasing reliability at the same time."

On the downside, SSDs are far more expensive than a hard drive. Intel is currently selling these products at bulk discounts (per 1,000) that work out to $595 each. The price to the consumer, then, will likely be more than double that.

However, Intel appears to be betting a whole lot of research dollars on the fact that flash memory prices are dropping and will continue to drop significantly. International Data Corp. (IDC) agrees with that optimism.

"The rapid decline in the cost of flash memory will translate into lower price points for SSD," said Jeff Janukowicz, IDC's research manager for solid-state drives. "These lower price points, coupled with increased SSD capacities, will make them competitive with HDDs in certain market segments, especially where capacity requirements are minimal."

Intel's SSD offerings

Intel has released a few SSDs, which it is selling to OEMs. These are known as the X18-M and X25-M and use multi-level cell (MLC) flash technology. They are aimed mainly at laptop and desktop computers. Validated for Intel-based computers, the X18-M is a 1.8-inch drive, while the X25-M a 2.5-inch drive.

"With no moving parts, SSDs run cooler and quieter and are a more reliable option than hard drives," Rao said. "In addition, SSDs remove input/output performance bottlenecks associated with hard disk drives and this helps to maximize the efficiency of Intel processors. Lab tests show that the Intel X18-M and X25M increase storage system performance nine times over traditional hard disk drive performance."

These devices, though, don't set any capacity records. The X18-M and X25-M are available only in 80GB capacities. Rao notes that 160GB versions will be available later this year or early next year.

Despite their lack of size, however, these 80GB drives have notched up some decent numbers. They achieve up to 250MB per second read speeds, up to 70MB per second write speeds and have an 85-microsecond read latency for fast performance. This is an order of magnitude or more ahead of hard drive latencies.

Of more interest to storage professionals, Intel is also coming out with a line of single-level cell (SLC) SSDs for the server, storage and enterprise environments. Called the Intel X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive, these products are designed to maximize IOPS (define) and come in 32GB and 64GB capacities.

"Since SSDs lower energy consumption, maintenance, cooling and space costs, an SSD-based data center will reduce overall infrastructure costs while increasing performance-per-square-foot by as much as 50X," Rao said.

But storage is a conservative world. Perhaps there will be a flood of shops testing SSDs in the coming months. But don't expect anything much in production environments for another year or two. Things might be different on the PC/laptop front, though. The probability is that popularity in the consumer market will eventually drive the technology into the enterprise.

"Going forward, the PC market presents the greatest opportunity for SSD demand," Janukowicz said. "The PC market is transitioning from one dominated by desktop PC shipments to notebook PC shipments. This transition increases the importance of mobility and durability requirements, dynamics that align very well with the benefits of SSD."

Greg Schulz, senior analyst and founder of StorageIO Group, agrees with this view, at least initially.

"The Intel Flash SSD drives are a step in the right direction for broader adoption in PCs, desktops, laptops and workstations, as well as in some storage appliance and entry-level based storage systems," Schulz said. "The Intel name and its OEM and channel presence will certainly make a difference. When this is coupled with improvements in power, capacity, write performance, price and operating system/platform integration, we should start to see more SSD devices appearing and being adopted over the next 12-18 months."

He tempers that argument, though, by citing that the economics of flash drives have to come down rapidly or adoption will suffer badly in the current economic climate. Otherwise flash-based SSD will continue to be seen as a nice to have or discretionary item.

The future's so bright

But Moore remains upbeat. He feels there is more than enough in the research pipeline to propel this technology rapidly into the mainstream.

"Two new generations of technology are already in development which will increase density and performance, and decrease cost per bit of SSD," Moore said. "This is unmatched by any other technology I can identify."

With an endorsement like that, solid-state storage seems more a matter of "when" than "if."

Soitec Has Record Jump on Speculation of Takeover Bid by Intel

 Soitec SA, whose silicon is used in the chips that power Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. game consoles, had a record gain in Paris trading on speculation that Intel Corp. may make a takeover bid.

Soitec jumped 1.54 euros, or 55 percent, to 4.34 euros at the close of trading in the French capital. That's the steepest increase since the company's initial public offering in February 1999. Soitec, based in Bernin in the French Alps, has a market value of 369 million euros ($479 million).

Speculation of a linkup with Santa Clara-based Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, was posted on the investment-news Web site Boursorama.com in late trading hours in Paris. Steve Babureck, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas in Paris, said the notion isn't new and a takeover of Soitec isn't likely.

Soitec is a developer of so-called silicon-on-insulator technology, which is used for tasks such as cutting atom-thin layers of substrates. The patents related to its technology belong to Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, a state-owned researcher, in an arrangement designed to prevent a takeover of the French company, said Babureck.

The patent ownership issue is ``a poison pill on Soitec,'' he said. Babureck rates the shares ``outperform.''

Soitec spokesman Olivier Brice said he wasn't aware of a reason for the share price move today.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the company wouldn't comment on speculation.

Intel Set to Launch Nehalem Nov. 17

Intel will launch the next-generation Nehalem processor on Nov. 17, the company revealed Wednesday.

In an event invitation, Intel said it will unveil Core i7, the first processor of the Nehalem family, which is targeted at high-end desktops.

Test units of the Core i7 chips have already been shipped, with Web sites such as Tom's Hardware and PC Perspective praising its speedy performance. The Core i7 chip speeds range from 2.66GHz to 3.20GHz, according to retail Web sites.

Chips based on the Nehalem microarchitecture will go into some systems priced at under US$1,000 at launch, said a source familiar with Intel's plans.

The Core i7 920 quad-core chip running at 2.66GHz is priced at $329.99 at Isorm, an online retailer. The Core i7 940 running at 2.93GHz is selling for $639.99, while the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition running at 3.2GHz is priced at $1,149.99. The 940 and 965 also are quad-core chips.

Nehalem chips are an upgrade from Intel's Core 2 chips, which are currently used in laptops and desktops. The chip technology cuts bottlenecks of Intel's earlier Core microarchitecture to improve system speed and performance-per-watt. The chips will later be scaled down for consumer desktops and laptops, and should be released in 2009.

Nehalem chips, with two to eight cores, will include QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology, which integrates a memory controller and provides a faster pipe for the CPU to communicate with system components, Intel has said. Each core can execute two software threads simultaneously, so a desktop with four processor cores could run applications quicker by running eight threads simultaneously.

Down the line, Intel will be integrating graphics capabilities in Nehalem CPUs, which could cut down the need for an external graphics card and bring more power efficiency to desktops and laptops. High-end users, like gamers, might need a separate graphics card to meet their graphics needs.

Nehalem chips are manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, which is also used to make the company's latest chips.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Atom Could Challenge Intel's Higher-end Processors

The use of Intel's Atom chip in sub-notebooks could undercut sales of its higher-end chips, analysts said on Tuesday.

Atom chips are low-cost and low-power processors that mostly are being used in netbooks designed for Web surfing and e-mail. With Fujitsu's new LifeBook U820 tablet PC, introduced on Tuesday, Atom chips are now being used in laptops with small screens, packed with networking and multimedia features.

Tablet PCs usually feature Intel's more expensive Celeron and other dual-core chips, but using Atom chips in such systems could undercut sales of those higher-end chips, analysts said.

Other than the screen size, the U820 mini-notebook offers capabilities similar to those of traditional laptops. It weighs 1.32 pounds (598 grams), includes Bluetooth and 802.11n wireless capabilities, and has a built-in webcam and high-definition video decoding. It also has a built-in Garmin GPS (global positioning system) receiver for navigation. It can be configured with as much as 1G byte of RAM and includes a hard disk drive as big as 120G bytes, as well as solid-state drive options.

The U820 comes with a 5.6-inch swivel touch screen and runs the Windows Vista OS. A four-cell battery runs the tablet for up to seven-and-a-half hours, according to Fujitsu. Prices start at US$999.

The U820 is a mini-notebook targeted at consumers and mobile users looking for touch technology, said Kevin Wrenn, senior vice president of PC business and operations at Fujitsu. Atom's low-cost and low-power features were a consideration in adopting the processor for the laptop, Wrenn said. Upcoming laptops from the company with screens up to 12 inches will incorporate Atom, he said.

This laptop is the first of its kind running an Atom processor with this kind of advanced functionality, said David Daoud, an analyst at IDC. It is a sign that Atom-based devices are coming of age, and users looking for more functionality than what a netbook offers could adopt this ultramobile PC.

In an economic downturn, a PC with a low-cost Atom chip also could be more attractive over expensive alternatives, he said.

"That processor provides opportunity for reduced cost and cost avoidance during tough economic times," Daoud said.

Atom shipments are expected to witness healthy growth through the economic slowdown, IDC said in a study released on Monday. Atom shipments were good in the third quarter, totaling around 5 million units, IDC said.

For a tablet PC, the LifeBook U820 has an interesting price point, though the Atom processor's real appeal lies in its power savings over Intel's higher-end Celeron and Core processors, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.

"Atom's low-powered consumption ... is like 10 watts. The lowest you'd ever get with Celeron or Centrino is 15-20 watts," Brookwood said. For a tablet PC, that is very impressive, and if it allows for a smaller battery, that's important, he said.

"I don't think you could build a tablet PC in that form factor with even a low-powered Centrino," Brookwood said. Laptops like Fujitsu products, with Atom, could cut into shipments of the lower-end processors, but the laptop is new and results have yet to be seen, Brookwood said.

Atom might bite into sales of Celerons first, followed by Pentium dual-core chips, which are on the lower end, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. With expenditure in check, people may instead opt for Atom-based systems.

"So far, there is not a lot of evidence that has happened, but it is certainly an area of concern," McCarron said.

The use of the Atom processor is evolving, said Bill Calder, an Intel spokesman.

"What you're seeing is an evolution of the category. We've seen some areas where [PC makers] have expanded and broadened the feature set," Calder said.

Intel Sheds Part of VMware Stake

Intel Capital, which owned 9.5 million VMware shares, intends to sell 3.75 million shares on the open market beginning Tuesday, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

At the same time, Intel disclosed it had sold another portion of the stake to both Cisco and EMC last week.

Taken together, the sales comprise half of Intel's stake in VMware. Intel bought the shares for $218.5 million, or $23 a share, in July 2007.

"I don't think there's any strategic aspect" to the decision, said American Technology Research analyst Doug Freedman. The portfolio's managers "possibly want to offset some profits and losses."

On Oct. 30, Cisco bought 500,000 VMware shares, or 5% of Intel's stake, at $26.52 a share, for a total of $13.26 million. At the same time, Intel sold an identical block back to EMC for the same price. Just prior to VMware's partial spinoff from EMC in August 2007, both Cisco and Intel acquired holdings in the software company, entitling each company to appoint a director to VMW's board.

When the virtualization developer went public in 2007, EMC retained 89% of the company it bought in 2004 for $625 million. EMC is unlikely to sell the remainder of its stake in 2009, when tax provisions expire.

VMware quickly became a darling of tech traders last year, shooting to $125 within three months of its initial public offering. Since then, the stock has fallen to $31.81, as investors fretted about impending competition for virtualization software makers, namely from Microsoft.

Intel and Asus launch WePC

We do get custom PCs today, but yet, there is not much you can do when it comes to laptops and it isn't seldom that many of us have felt that we could have designed something a thousand times better. An article on Theinquirer.net says that Intel and Asus think just that way and have called upon the consumers to design their own PC.

These two giants have teamed up for a project named WePC, which is something like a collaborative computer design site, where anyone can submit their ideas and design their own dream laptops. "You Dream It. ASUS Builds It. Intel Inside It." is the motto of this site.


If you want it to be completely water/dust/fire proof, wind or solar powered, have WiMax, GPS, 3G, antitheft tracking, full-touchscreen or even have an inbuilt stereo system that really sounds good, then WePC is the way to go and let your creative juices flow. It goes without saying that you should also be ready to part with a large chunk of your bank balance.

Suggestions and designs uploaded to www.wepc.com can be voted for by site visitors. If your design gains popularity, it can be used by Intel and Asus designers in their next laptop models without them worrying about any copyright issues, though.

As a consolation, the best designs will receive a mystery prize, but what this mystery prize is, remains a mystery until it is revealed at some later date, or may be they will come up with another site to come up with ideas with what that gift should be?

This is not really about whether they want creative ideas for free or not, but it is about fame and glory that you can achieve. All you need to do is post your ideas there and then post them on your social networking site. So when your ideas are adopted, you still have something to brag about.

Intel Atom sales boost global chip market

The report, released on Monday, follows a mid-October IDC study, which found netbooks — the mini-laptops for which the Atom chip is designed — helped the overall EMEA PC market grow 27 percent in the third quarter of 2008 over the same quarter last year, largely fuelled by consumer demand.

Netbooks are small, relatively inexpensive laptops that are often purchased as a supplement to an existing desktop or laptop. Mature markets such as the US and Europe account for some of the highest netbook sales, according to IDC.

Worldwide shipments of processors for PCs and servers grew 15.8 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago, with revenue increasing four percent to a total of $8.3bn (£5.25bn), IDC said. By the end of the year, netbook shipments are expected to exceed 10 million units.

Recent netbook releases include late-October models from HP and Dell.

Without counting the Atom processor, the increase in shipments would only be about eight percent. However, this figure is still respectable, said IDC analyst Shane Rau.

"Not considering the effects of Atom, the overall market still grew at a decent pace," Rau said in a statement. "Intel's and AMD's shipments grew at a rate only slightly slower than typical for a third quarter; seasonal demand appeared reasonable up until September. By segment, while the mobile-processor segment grew aggressively, the server segment was soft."

Since September, however, the international financial crisis has grown more serious, and this is likely to have an impact on fourth-quarter figures, IDC said.

On Friday, Intel warned the credit crisis could hurt demand for its chips and lead to the insolvency of key suppliers, potentially resulting in product delays. Intel has forecast its fourth-quarter revenues at between $10.1bn and $10.9bn, weaker than typically seen in the period running up to Christmas. The company is to publish a mid-quarter update on 4 December.

In the overall x86 market, Intel's share was about 80 percent, up 1.1 percent from the same quarter a year ago, while principal competitor AMD lost 1.2 percent for a total of 18.5 percent. Via Technologies, which concentrates on mobile chips, controlled less than one percent of the total market.

In mobile chips, Intel accounted for about 87 percent of the market, AMD 11.5 percent and Via 1.2 percent. Intel shipped about 73.5 percent of all desktop chips, with 26.4 percent for AMD.

AMD gained share over Intel in the server and workstation market, rising less than one percent from the previous year to stand at about 14 percent. Intel lost about one percent, falling to 85 percent of the segment.

IDC said it would raise its chip forecast through 2008 to 18 percent growth, but said it is expecting to lower its estimates for next year.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Intel Core i7 arrives this month


At long last, Intel is set to roll out its latest update to the Core line of CPUs, and it's a big one. Called Core i7, it officially arrives this month, but a final, official date has still not been set. (Most have speculated that November 17 is the arrival date, but I've seen reports that it will officially be out before next weekend.) You will, however start seeing official reviews of i7-based systems starting tomorrow, so the time is nigh.

Here's the essential scoop on Core i7.

Formerly known by the code-name Nehalem (often misspelled Nahalem), this is a major upgrade to the Core 2 family of CPUs which have been the performance leader and standard-issue components on desktops and laptops since 2006. i7 will initially be available only on desktop PCs, though. Server and laptop versions are still in the works.

Architecturally, the new chip is said to mark the biggest single-cycle change since 1995's Pentium Pro. It's easy to see why: It's packed with loads of new features and looks to dust anything else on the market in performance. For example: The frontside bus (long a bottleneck in CPU design) no longer exists; it's replaced by Intel QuickPath, which now connects the CPU to I/O processing functions. I/O performance under this design should be improved by up to a whopping 10 times.

The first models are all quad-core designs, but i7 allows for up to eight cores on a chip. Those designs are likely to come in 2009. With all designs, all the cores and controllers are on a single die, unlike some earlier multicore CPUs.

Memory controller features are expanded, with support for DIMM slots in sets of three instead of two: Expect 3GB and 6GB RAM options to be the common alternatives.

Hyper-threading, a technology innovated back in the Pentium 4 era, is back. Theoretically it allows for more effective multitasking, though with such gargantuan power on the die, it will be hard to quantify what difference the return of Hyper-threading makes without some fancy benchmarkin'.

While I rarely review desktop PCs, I'm definitely looking forward to getting the first i7-based laptop on my desk. No ETA on those bad boys, alas. Stay tuned.

Intel’s Moorestown will make the iPhone less secure, says security analyst

It’s been speculated a while back that upcoming models of the iPhone might be using Intel’s upcoming Moorestown processor.

However that might be a bad move, at least according to independent security analyst Dino Dai Zovi, who gave an interview at Hack In The Box security conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Mr Dai Zovi said “That will make the iPhone x86, and that will make a lot of attacks easier.” According to him “The iPhone uses the Arm processor, and most people are not familiar with it. If you’re doing exploits and vulnerability research, you need to know the specifics of the processor that’s running.”

Intel refused to comment on this, stating that as of now everything relating to Moorestown being used in the iPhone is just a speculation.In other news, Mr Dai Zovi also noted that the redux version of Mac OS X that powers the iPhone is less secure than its desktop countepart: “The iPhone is significantly less secure than the desktop version of OS X,” he said, noting that it’s missing a lot of security features that the full version of OS X includes.

Intel Chief: Next President Better Get Ready For Vast Potential Of International Conflict

As if the next president didn’t have enough to worry about, the nation’s intelligence chief has laid out a fairly daunting picture of the world over the next 25 years. The potential for international conflict, he said in a speech Friday, is huge.

In the short term, said Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, President McCain or President Obama still will encounter risks from Al Qaeda. The first months of the new presidency are a particular risk. But even if Al Qaeda fades, because of conditions in the Middle East, successor groups are likely to emerge. And no matter who wants to attack the United States, McConnell said, the risks of -- in particular -- biological attacks that could surpass 9/11 will rise, given the spread of technology. America should expect the threat of terrorism to stick around for the next 20 years or so.

But, McConnell said, the risk of international conflict elsewhere will rise between nations as China, India and Russia – in about that order – amass wealth and/or population, creating competition for resources as basic as food, water and energy. “In terms of size, speed, and directional flow, the transfer of global wealth and economic power, now underway, as noted from West to East is without precedent in modern history,” he said. Brazil isn’t part of that West to East shift, but its rise factors into things. Russia’s growth depends on diversifying its economy, he said. An estimated 1.4 billion people across 36 countries will lack basic necessities like access to agriculture, prompting intense competition for resources. Technology will help countries get ahead, he said, but won’t replace the need for traditional resources. And climate change and “global economic upheaval,” per the Washington Post’s paraphrasing of McConnell, will exacerbate all of the problems.