| Exclusive Deal | While supplies last, save 40% off over 40 iPhone 5 and iPhone 4/4S cases and chargers as well as Samsung S III cases at Kensington.com. Use coupon code 'SAVE40%' at checkout to receive this exclusive discount. |
AMD has deployed a pair of new processors to the component channel. The new AMD FX 4350 and 6350 chips have been added to the line. Both processors are fully AM3+ compatible, fit in a 900-series motherboard and bring up to 10 percent more performance than the processors they replace.
Qualcomm is preparing to put the Snapdragon 800 processor into mass production, starting in late May. The system-on-chip follows on from the highly sought-after Snapdragon 600, which has been used in such devices as the LG Optimus G Pro and reportedly had "strong traction" in recent quarterly results, and promises to provide a significant speed boost compared to its 1.7GHz predecessor.
ARM is seeing favorable results again in its quarterly results, continuing on from the rising revenues of the last quarter. The financials for the first quarter of 2013 show revenues rising year-on-year by 26 percent to £170.3 million ($263.9 million), while pre-tax profits earned the company £89.4 million ($136 million), a 44-percent increase compared to Q1 2012.
Touch-based devices running Windows 8 and using the upcoming Bay Trail processor could cost as little as $200 each, according to Intel 's CEO, Paul Otellini. The upcoming Atom Micro architecture due to be released by the end of 2013 will help bring device prices lower, as well as allowing for improved device designs and features.
The Chief Executive Officer of ARM will be stepping down from his position in the company on the first of July, in order to enter retirement. Warren East will relinquish his role after 19 years at the company, nearly twelve of those as CEO, and is set to be replaced by the current President of ARM, Simon Segars.
Processor designer ARM has revealed pre-tax profits have risen 16-percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to the same period the year before. The rise sees the company earning £80 million ($126 million) from revenues of £164.2 million ($262.8 million), itself up by 21-percent from the £137.8 million ($217 million) in Q4 2011.
Intel's Atom processor is being used in an Android smartphone in Africa for the first time, courtesy of Safaricom. The Yolo, based on Intel's smartphone reference design shown at CES this year, appears to be a mid-range offering that has been designed for the "cost-conscious and first-time buyers" in the Kenyan emerging market.
After the announcement in September that Texas Instruments (TI) would be laying off up to 250 engineering jobs (out of a planned cut of more than 1,700 employees), Apple may be using the opportunity to recruit "dozens" of engineers and specialists for its research centers in Hertezliya and Haifa in Israel, according to reports. Many of the engineers came for TI's own Israel-based OMAP and other smartphone and mobile chips. TI is said to be shutting down all Israeli operations, creating a pool of available processor talent.
Researchers from Intel are working on processors for mobile devices which will use high numbers of cores. The lab hopes to put a 48-core chip into a smartphone or tablet, dwarfing the dual and quad-core processors currently used, and suggest such a technology could hit the market within the next five to ten years.
Opening the 15th Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel Chief Product Officer Dadi Perlmutter unveiled the new "Haswell" processor family. The keynote speech demonstrated test systems running the fourth-generation Core processor, based on the same 22nm process used in the third-generation Ivy Bridge family of processors.
Intel has reportedly delayed its launch schedule for Cedar Trail-M chips, which were initially expected to arrive as early as September. Unnamed sources associated with notebook makers have told DigiTimes the platform is now scheduled to arrive in November due to graphics driver issues that needed resolved before passing Windows 7 certification.
Intel is reportedly planning an aggressive pricing strategy for its Cedar Trail CPU lineup. Unnamed sources from netbook makers have told DigiTimes the chips will sell for as low as $42 to $47, which would effectively undercut the current entry price for Atom processors by 30 to 50 percent. Companies are said to be paying between $64 and $86 for the N400- and N500-series offerings.
Intel continues to reign as the dominant player in the general microprocessor market, accounting for 80 percent of global revenue for the silicon chips that drive early every electronic gadget today -- but is unable to steal significant market share from rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Likewise, AMD cannot break out and "steal" any market share from Intel, figures from an iSuppli study show.
AMD on Tuesday introduced its 2010 lineup of components for mainstream desktop PCs, including a 3.0GHz Athlon II X4 offering. The X4 640 is said to be the company's first quad-core desktop CPU in the Athlon II family to run at 3.0GHz, a modest increase over the current X4 635 model that offers 2.9GHz performance.
AMD has confirmed that it is readying a six-core processor, codenamed Thuban, that is geared for consumer desktops. The component is based on the company's six-core Opteron series that was recently announced for server configurations.
Today at DealNN there is a variety of discounted products from iPods to GPS units. First off is the Mac Mini from MacMall. It is regularly priced at $499.99, but until 3/31/09 save $25 with a mail in rebate offer that drops the price down to $474.99. The Mac Mini has a 1.83GHz processor 1GB of memory and a 80GB hard drive.
Korean OEM manufacturer Ripple has introduced an updated version of its Mac Mini clone using a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor in the Mini-ITX form factor. The Ripple Mini Chocolate uses the 45nm i945GC-Northbridge and ICH7Ssouthbridge chipsets, and supports up to 2GB of RAM. Intel specs show the low-cost motherboard with 2 USB ports, a pair of 3.0GBs SATA conntectors and single IDE socket.
Intel will go back to the old days of pricing its flagship chips at $999 apiece when ordered in bulk, thousand-piece quantities, says a Friday report that cites mainboard manufacturers as its sources. The move is believed to have been made in order to speed up the adoption of quad-core CPUs, and pertains specifically to the chipmaker's upcoming 3.2GHz Extreme-series desktop Nehalem processors nicknamed Bloomfield.
Yesterday's entry on Intel's Research@Intel blog by the company's Microprocessor Technology Lab Principal Engineer, Anwar Ghuloum, suggests the chipmaker will eventually offer chips with cores that count in the thousands, and tens and hundreds before that. In the blog, Ghuloum writes about working with external developers to take advantage of multi-core and terascale chips his company is developing.
RedleX has released Mellel 2.5, a significant update to the leading word processor for Mac OS X. The new release adds robust cross referencing capabilities, allowing users to refer from one point in the text to another (e.g., "see page 15"). Mellel's reference entry dialogue allows, accordingly, to create reference formats, composed of different elements such as reference to the page number, position in the text (above, next page, below, etc.), page range, and so on. Users can also save and re-use such formats again and again, making the necessary modifications as they go along.
Mobile processor manufacturer VIA on Thursday announced it would commence shipments of 45nm processor fabrications in 2009, as well as the company's first dual-core chips. DigiTimes writes that insiders have brought to light some of the specs, with the Isaiah-based dual-core processor allegedly featuring a 2GHz core frequency. The chip will sit on an 800 to 1333MHz bus, and will feature two pairs of 64KB L1 cache, and 1MB L2 cache.
AMD on Wednesday unveiled definitive plans for 6- and 12-core Opteron processors, made with a 45nm fabrication process, which will be available most likely during 2009. TG Daily writes that the company will continue to support the Socket F (1207) platform through to its 6-core, single-die Istanbul, but will make a departure from the standard in 2010, when AMD unveils its Maranello platform. Production samples of the 45nm chips have already been made available to vendors.
Apple's recent acquisition of PA Semiconductor appears to revolve around the latter company's intellectual properties and expertise, not its current products as was initially believed. AppleInsider reveals that Apple is more concerned with PA's technologies and engineers, since the semiconductor manufacturer has in the past created a dual-core 64-bit chip which only uses 15 watts of power to operate. This could allow for integration of low-consumption processors like the Intel Atom.
The next iteration of the iPhone is likely to use the Infineon S-Gold3H processor in its 3G incarnation, an examination of the latest SDK beta suggests. According to ZiPhone.org, code in the SDK beta implies that the next generation iPhone will see "3.5G" HSDPA functionality, with a connection speed of 7.2 Megabits per second, as well as several other advanced features. No official word has been given on the status of a "3.5G" iPhone.
