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To kick off the new year, Intel plans to start shipping its Atom N450 processor clocked at 1.66GHz, which is slightly faster than the 1.60GHz Atom N270. At $64, it’s also slightly more expensive by a couple of Hamiltons.
But if you’re holding out for a faster Atom chip, you may consider waiting until March when Intel starts selling its Atom N470 chip for $75. The upcoming part will kick things up a notch with a 1.86GHz clockspeed, or 200MHz faster than the N270. That’s a pretty significant boost in the Atom world, even if the amount of cache (512KB) remains unchanged.
Both new chips will fit in the same FCBGA8 socket that current netbooks use. That means you can also expect some new desktop Atom chips in the pipeline, though details are scarce at the moment.
Earlier this week Intel reported better than expected numbers and said it was confident about the future ahead, which seems to be the theme for the quarter. No. 2 chip maker AMD said today that it lost money in the third quarter — $128 million to be exact , or 18 cents per share — which is less than the $134 million the company lost one year ago.
AMD’s revenue took a backward slide to the tune of 22 percent, settling in at $1.4 billion. The silver lining is that analysts had expected AMD’s loss to be in the neighborhood of 30 percent, so by that token, AMD is actually doing pretty well when graded on a curve.
Like every other company in the tech industry, AMD took a hit to its bottom line because of weak computer sales in the first half of the year. However, the chip maker’s shipments actually rose from the previous quarter, driven in large part by strong demand for mobile processors.
It’s been 8 months since AMD finalized its manufacturing spinoff deal, but a weak economy and slumping tech sector have made it difficult to discern what effect the deal has had on AMD’s numbers.
In a turbulent tech industry in an even shakier economy, Intel’s bottom line remains remarkably steadfast. The No. 1 chip maker today reported net income of $1.9 billion on shares of $9.4 billion. That breaks down to 33 cents per share, besting Wall Street’s projection of 28 cents on revenue of $9.06 billion.
"This momentum in the current economic climate, plus our product leadership, gives us confidence about our business prospects going forward," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini.
Otellini added that his company’s success is the result of having "the right products at the right costs at the right times for a recovering global economy." He specifically pointed out strong notebook growth, an area Intel has performed particularly well. And it doesn’t hurt that the chip maker has virtually no competition in the fast growing netbook and nettop sectors.
Looking ahead, Intel projects fourth quarter revenue to hit $10.1 billion, putting it on pace with last year’s numbers. It would also once again best Wall Street’s projection of $9.52 billion for Q4.
Image Credit: Intel
A newly announced partnership between ARM and GlobalFoundries could mean the next generation of mobile devices will be faster than anyone expected. The project will focus on the ARM Cortex-A9 chip. The current Cortex-A8 powers the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. The new chip will be based on a 28nm process.
According to GlobalFoundries, the 28nm parts will take advantage of the manufacturer’s High-K Metal Gate semiconductor. The HKMG technology is known as “Gate First”, meaning that it should allow high performance with minimal leakage.
ARM CEO, Warren East, said of the collaboration, “This announcement reflects our business value and strategy of providing best in class processor implementation by marrying our own processor and physical IP with world class manufacturing semiconductor technology.” So get ready, the next round of ARM chips could blow your socks off.
Proving that a mini tower can pack a punch, Dell this week released a new Vostro desktop for small businesses that makes use of Intel’s latest processors.
Released yesterday, Dell’s Vostro 430 desktop comes standard with an Intel Core i5 750 processor (2.66GHz, 8MB L3 cache), 1GB of DDR3-1333 memory, an 80GB hard drive spinning at 7200RPM, an ATI Radeon HD 4350 videocard with 512MB of onboard memory, and Windows Vista Home Basic. From there, virtual system builders can opt to add more muscle in the form of an Intel Core i7 870 processor (2.93Ghz, 8MB L3 cache), up to 4GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, and an Nvidia GeForce GTS240 videocard with 1GB of memory.
At $700 and up, the new Vostro is a little more than what small business owners are accustomed to paying for Dell’s Vostro line, which typically run between $300 and $400, but the 430 is the only one to be built around Intel’s latest architecture.
Image Credit: Dell
Now here’s something we never expected to see: a dual-processor netbook! A dual-core netbook, sure, but two physical processors? That concept hasn’t even caught on with power users on the desktop segment, so how can Haleron, maker of the two-chip Swordfish Net 102 Dual Netbook, expect it to be a hit with mainstream users who value battery life above all else?
Price, for one. At $450, the 10.2-inch netbook manages to stay within netbook pricing territory, even if it does rock out with two Atom chips. The rest of the specs are about what you’d imagine from an upper-tier netbook, including 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB hard drive, WiFi, built-in 3G module,1.3MP webcam, and Windows XP.
Haleron doesn’t make any claims towards battery, and with just a 3-cell battery, we don’t expect a whole lot. Even still, color us intrigued, if not mystified.
Image Credit: Haleron
The rumors are true – AMD spin off Global Foundries and ARM are in talks about joining forces to build chips together. According to Kevin Smith, ARM’s vice president, his company plans to add manufacturing partners as it expands its business beyond mobile phones.
ARM also hopes to capture 15 percent of the mini-notebook market by the end of 2010, Smith added. The company is already working with Freescale Semiconductor, Sharp Corp., and Pegatron Technology, and adding Global Foundries to the mix would be a major boost.
It would also be a major win for Global Foundries, who is now reported to have over 150 customers, after starting off with just two (AMD and ST Microelectronics).
Before now, if you wanted a Core i7-based laptop, you could have one, but it had to be of the desktop variety, which meant contending with higher temps, lower battery life, and bulky form factors.
Then came this year’s IDF, in which Intel introduced its Nehalem architecture in mobile form. It didn’t take long for Dell to announce refreshed Studio 15 and Studio 17 laptops outfitted with the new chips, and now Asus and Sager are joining in on the fun.
Asus just introduced its M60J, a 16-inch notebook that comes configurable with either Intel’s 1.6GHz Core i7 720QM or 1.73GHz Core i7 820QM. It also comes with a 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT240M GPU, up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 1TB of hard drive storage, optional Blu-ray, and more.
Sager, on the other hand, unveiled a 15.6-inch model (NP8690) built around the same processors, but ups the ante with a 1GB GeForce GTX 280M GPU, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, a 500GB hard drive, and a 1080p display.
No word yet on how much Asus’ M60J will cost or when it will start shipping. Sager, meanwhile, will start shipping its NP8690 in October starting at $1,800.
Asus, best known for its motherboards and Eee PC lineup, doesn’t often tout its rack-mount server products, but perhaps it should. The multifaceted manufacturer on Friday added the new RS300-E6 series to its rack-mount family, pairing Intel’s Lynnfield platform in the process.
The new servers utilize Intel’s 3420 PCH chipset with the chip maker’s socket 1156-based Xeon 3400 series of CPUs. Support for both dual- and quad-core processors comes standard, and Asus says the ES300-E6 series can scale up performance immediately to support high-volume workloads.
Other notables include dual-channel DDR3-1333 memory support, 2+1 I/O expansion feature in the slim 1U form factor, PCI-E x16 and x8 slots, and support for the optional Asus Pike card, which allows for a seamless upgrade to SAS storage.
Image Credit: Asus
It’s been kind of quiet over at Samsung lately, and we now know why. The eggheads behind the scenes have been readying a slew of mobile technologies, not the least of which is a pair of 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processors, the S5PC110 and S5PV210, which the company announced at the sixth annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum held at the Westin Taipei Hotel.
"More and more, user generated content currently accessed via the PC will be spread to mobile devices," said Dr. Kwang Hyun Kim, senior VP, strategic marketing team, Samsung. "PC-level performance with lower power consumption will become mainstream requirements for advanced mobile devices. Samsung developed S5PC110 and S5PV210 application processors to satisfy these conflicting requirements to enable a new level of user experience not previously possible."
Built around a 45nm Low Power fabrication processor, Samsung says both new chips will pave the way for longer battery life for mobile devices running on standard size batteries. On the performance side, the two CPUs will also come equipped with 32KB data and 32KB instruction caches, as well as 512KB L2 cache. All this in addition to a built-in 3D graphics engine and an integrated 1080p full HD codec engine – phew!
Samsung also announced a 5-megapixel system-on-chip (SoC) image sensor for high-end mobile phones, the world’s first mobile display driver IC with embedded touch screen control, ramped up production of the company’s proprietary OneDRAM fusion memory for handsets, and production of a new non-volatile memory technology called PRAM (phase change random access memory) that promises high-performance and low power consumption.
Image Credit: Flickr faithmonsoon
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