Mobile and Server Microprocessors Drive Intel's Sales to Record Levels - X-bit labs

Mobile and Server Microprocessors Drive Intel's Sales to Record Levels - X-bit labs:
Despite of softening demands towards personal computers in the second half of 2011 on some markets, Intel Corp., the world's largest maker of microprocessors, managed to set another revenue record of $54 billion last year and also set a new profit record. Analysts believe that the results were primarily driven by rapid growth in sales of mobile and server chips as well as strong demand in various Asian countries

'via Blog this'

Meet Intel’s Crazy 50-Core ‘Knights Corner’, World’s First 1 TFLOPS Processor | Techland | TIME.com

For all the ballyhoo about supercomputers and their feats of CPU derring-do, the actual cabinet space necessary to put them together tends to be ginormous—row upon row of racked out silicon toiling in tandem like something out of the mainframe-like room at The Matrix‘s “Source.” Some of these setups make even WarGames‘ WOPR (remember that?) look like a toy box.

Intel may be about to change all that, with a processor built on an architecture it’s dubbed “Many Integrated Core” or MIC.

In scientific notation, we’d call 1 petaflop equivalent to 1 x 10 to the 15th power floating point operations per second. So over 10 of those add up to what the K supercomputer can do. But it takes the K supercomputer 864 computer racks and 88,128 parallel-linked, eight-core CPUs to pull that off. That’s a whole lot of CPUs.

Enter Intel’s “Knights Corner,” a commercial co-processor based on the company’s MIC architecture and capable of 1 TFLOPS (teraflops) double precision performance. Granted, that’s running software that may have been optimized for Intel microprocessors, notes the company, but okay, 1 teraflops, equivalent to 1 x 10 to the power of 12, or 1 trillion calculations per second.

By comparison, a single Intel i7 processor with six cores can do about 158 GFLOPS or 158 billion calculations per second. Knights Corner—sounds like a chess move, right?—is thus over six times faster than some of the fastest consumer-grade processors available right now.

Knights Corner will be built on Intel’s three-dimensional tri-gate tech, which runs on microscopically small 22 nanometer silicon (or one-billionth of a meter). That’s an astonishing 10 nanometers smaller than the company’s current 32 nm “Sandy Bridge” chip family.

Intel describes the Knights Corner co-processor as “very unique” because “unlike traditional accelerators, it is fully accessible and programmable,” which means it’ll be visible to applications “as though it was a computer that runs its own Linux-based operating system independent of the host OS.”

Another upside of the MIC architecture, claims Intel, is that it can run existing apps without ports, which means—yep, it’ll work with existing x86 applications.

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/11/17/meet-intels-crazy-50-core-knights-corner-worlds-first-1-tflops-processor/#ixzz1dzuK63c2
'via Blog this'

Intel Core i7-3960X Review: Sandy Bridge-E And X79 Express : Say Hello To The PC Hardware Trophy Wife

Intel's Sandy Bridge design impressed us nearly a year ago, but it was intended for mainstream customers. The company took its time readying the enthusiast version, Sandy Bridge-E. Now, the LGA 2011-based platform and its accompanying CPUs are ready.

According to Mick Jagger, it’s lonely at the top. Intel might agree. After all, for the past five years, the company has put an increasingly large gap between its fastest desktop processors and AMD’s own best efforts. Enthusiasts tend to lament the fact that a lack of intense competition means they pay more for high-end hardware. But, if you’ve been around long enough, you know that Intel’s Extreme Edition CPUs were always thousand-dollar affairs and, once upon a time, AMD’s vaunted FX-series chips used to be worth their $700+ asking prices.

The fact that the $1000 price point persists today, eight years later, means Intel recognizes the extremely limited market for these flagship desktop processors and isn’t about to push one of its crown jewels even further out of reach.

The prior generation of flagship parts based on Gulftown came armed with six physical cores and up to 12 MB of shared L3 cache. They boasted LGA 1366 compatibility, extending the useful lives of pricey X58 Express motherboards, helping soften the blow of $500+ processor upgrades. No such luck this time; you’re facing a pricier investment.

Sandy Bridge-E, Gulftown’s successor, employs an LGA 2011 interface, requiring new motherboards based on Intel’s X79 Express Platform Controller Hub. It also comes armed with an integrated quad-channel memory controller, necessitating four-module memory kits. Oh, and then there’s the fact that Intel isn’t planning to bundle its new chips with coolers, requiring a separate purchase there, too.

More: @Tom's Hardware

AMD to Launch Next-Generation Opteron “Bulldozer” Microprocessors in Late September – Report - X-bit labs

AMD to Launch Next-Generation Opteron “Bulldozer” Microprocessors in Late September – Report - X-bit labs

Advanced Micro Devices plans to formally introduce its next-generation Opteron central processing units (CPUs) code-named Interlagos and Valencia on Monday, September 26, 2011. The highly-anticipated introduction is expected to mark a new beginning in AMD’s history as the new chips feature the company’s first new micro-architecture in eight years.

AMD is eyeing the September 26 release date for its new “Valencia” Opteron 4200-series chips with six or eight cores as well as “Interlagos” Opteron 6200-series microprocessors with eight, twelve or sixteen cores, according to a report from PCMag, which cites a source familiar with the company's product roadmap. AMD expects new chips to offer 35% higher performance compared to existing AMD Opteron chips with up to twelve cores.

AMD needs the new Bulldozer-based microprocessors badly as its share on the server market declined in Q2 2011 to 5.5% down from 25.9% in Q2 2006, according to IDC. At present Intel outsells AMD in terms of servers 19 to 1. It is obvious that the release of even ground-breaking chips will not allow AMD to quickly fight back the share from Intel, it will take several quarters at least. Nonentheless, the company’s shipments of Opteron central processing units will either stabilize or will even grow a bit provided that they are competitive enough.

More at: X-bit Labs

AMD Posts Q2 Profit, But Slips in GPUs, Server Chips | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

AMD Posts Q2 Profit, But Slips in GPUs, Server Chips | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: "Advanced Micro Devices posted second-quarter profits of $61 million on revenue of $1.57 billion while shipping a record number of microprocessors over the three-month period, the company announced Thursday.
That was the good news for AMD. But the chip maker, which competes primarily with Intel and Nvidia, saw its sales decrease by 2 percent as compared with the first quarter of 2011 and by 5 percent versus the second quarter of 2010."

More: @PCmag

Apple now No. 1 in flash memory consumption - Computerworld

Computerworld - Apple has surpassed HP and all other equipment manufacturers to become the world's largest consumer of semiconductor technology, largely because of the popularity of its mobile devices.

According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, in 2010, Apple bought $17.5 billion worth of semiconductors, an increase of 79.6% from the $9.7 billion it spent in 2009.

"Apple's surge to leadership in semiconductor spending in 2010 was driven by the overwhelming success of its wireless products, namely the iPhone and theiPad," said iSuppli analyst Wenlie Ye. "These products consume enormous quantities of NAND flash memory, which is also found in the Apple iPod. Because of this, Apple in 2010 was the world's No. 1 purchaser of NAND flash."

While Apple is also in the top five manufacturers that purchase microprocessors, it was NAND flash that propelled it into the top spot overall, Ye said. "For Apple, which right now spends 60% of its semiconductor purchasing budget on wireless products, processors take the passenger seat when compared to NAND flash. "

In 2010, HP lead the market in microprocessor purchases with $5.3 billion spent, followed by Dell with $4.2 billion and Apple with $2.5 billion.

for more: Apple now No. 1 in flash memory consumption - Computerworld

Gamasutra - News - Wii U Will Have AMD Radeon HD, IBM Power Microprocessors, And 25 GB Discs

Gamasutra - News - Wii U Will Have AMD Radeon HD, IBM Power Microprocessors, And 25 GB Discs

Along with its 6.2" touchscreen controller, the Wii U will feature a custom HD graphics processor from AMD, Power-based microprocessors from IBM, and 25 GB game discs. Wii U's discs, which are a proprietary format and not Blu-Ray as was rumored prior to yesterday's system reveal, is significantly larger than the original Wii's 4.7/8.54 GB discs, according toNintendo designer Katsuya Eguchi in an interview with Kotaku. IBM says its will produce millions of its microprocessors for Wii U. The custom-designed chips feature its IBM Silicon on Insulator technology at 45 nanometer and are based on the company's open, scalable Power Architecture base.

Intel's new Atom processor to lower netbook prices - Computerworld

Intel's new Atom processor to lower netbook prices - Computerworld: "IDG News Service - Intel on Wednesday said it has introduced a new Atom processor to bring down the price of netbooks in emerging markets to under $200, but the lower price may come at a performance penalty.


The single-core Atom N435 runs at 1.33GHz and includes 512KB of cache, making it the slowest of second-generation N-series processors that go into most netbooks today. The next fastest chips are the Atom N450 and N455 chips, which run at 1.66GHz.


Asus is using the new Atom N435 in its latest Eee PC X101, which is priced starting at $199. The laptop is being shown at the Computex trade show being held in Taipei."

Qualcomm to Support Windows 8 - Zacks.com

Qualcomm to Support Windows 8 - Zacks.com

Qualcomm Inc.(QCOM - Analyst Report), the largest global manufacturer of mobile phone chipsets, is set to develop chipsets, which will support the upcoming Windows 8 platform. Earlier, in January this year, the company had planned to collaborate with other chipset makers to develop Microsoft Corporation’s (MSFT -Analyst Report) Windows 8 operating system.
Microsoft’s new version of the popular Windows platform will be supported by touch screen applications. The new feature is expected to counter the growing popularity of tablets, which are considered to be a real threat to the PC market. Microsoft also has a partnership with Qualcomm, under which Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is powered by Qualcomm’s chipsets. Moreover, Microsoft intends to extend its partnership with Qualcomm as most Android-based tablets typically use Qualcomm’s microprocessors.
Qualcomm’s microprocessors, popularly known as Snapdragon, are becoming more and more popular as demand for smartphones and tablets are increasing. These chipsets allow proper functioning of software on mobile handsets. Currently, 125 devices are using Qualcomm’s chipsets and another 250 devices are in the pipeline. Recently Nokia Corp. (NOK - Analyst Report) announced that it will be using Qualcomm’s chipsets in their upcoming Windows Phone 7-based smartphones.
Qualcomm also launched its next-generation Snapdragon processors supported by Krait architecture, which is generally used in Android-powered 3G smartphones. The new processor provides speed up to 2.5GHz per core coupled with lower power consumption, better graphics and video streaming facilities.

Intel to steer its center of gravity into low-power microprocessors (exclusive) | VentureBeat

Intel to steer its center of gravity into low-power microprocessors (exclusive) | VentureBeat

Sean Maloney, Intel’s newly appointed president of Intel China, plans to deliver a keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taiwan next week where he will unveil a heavy-duty effort to steer Intel into the production of low-power microprocessors.

Most of Intel’s mainstream desktop chips target power consumption of about 40 watts or so. That allows for very fast microprocessor performance, but such a chip generates enough heat that it can’t be so easily used in a laptop and has no chance of making it into a tablet or smartphone. Now, Intel plans to target mainstream chips that consume about 15 watts.

The company has already been moving in this direction for a number of years. Intel recently announced a new manufacturing innovation dubbed Tri-Gate transistors that will allow it to use lower power and smaller circuits in its 22 nanometer microprocessors. (Intel’s current Sandy Bridge chips use 32-nanometer manufacturing; the smaller the number, the faster, lower power, and lower cost.) At its recent annual investor meeting, Intel showed a working 22-nanometer microprocessor code-named Ivy Bridge that is one of the flagship chips for this new low-power strategy. The Tri-Gate transistors take advantage of three dimensions and allow for a 50 percent power reduction at a given level of performance with only a 2 to 3 percent increase in costs. Ivy Bridge will be followed by a chip code-named Haswell that will represent the fruition of Intel’s efforts to reduce the average wattage of its mainstream chips.

Intel desktop Sandy Bridge CPUs to launch on May 22

Intel desktop Sandy Bridge CPUs to launch on May 22

By CPU world

Less than two weeks remains before introduction of the next wave of Sandy Bridge microprocessors for desktop market. The processor lineup, that will be released on Sunday, May 22, consists of 7 new Pentium, Core i3 and Core i5 SKUs. Pentium models will be the first budget CPUs, built on Sandy Bridge micro-architecture. Core i3s and i5s, on the other hand, are updated versions of previously released chips with slightly better CPU or graphics performance. Specifications, release date and prices for most of these chips were disclosed by hardware news sites well in advance of this launch. Some information, like the price of Core i5-2405S, and confirmed launch date for i5-2405S and Pentium G20T CPUs, is new.

for More: Click Here

Intel Challenges ARM With Micro Server Processors -- Processors -- InformationWeek

Intel Challenges ARM With Micro Server Processors -- Processors -- InformationWeek: "Xeon and Atom processors introduced for the low-power servers gaining traction in Internet companies' data centers.

By Antone Gonsalves InformationWeek
March 16, 2011 11:26 AM
Intel has introduced Xeon and Atom microprocessors targeted at low-power servers that are becoming the next battleground between Intel and makers of ARM processors.
Intel told reporters Tuesday at a San Francisco news conference that it is currently in production with Xeon E3 45-watt and 20-watt processors, and plans to provide in the second half of the year a 15-watt chip based on its recently released 32-nanometer Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. Intel declined to say whether the chip would be under the Xeon or some other brand. In 2012, Intel promised to release a sub-10-watt Atom server processor."

Intel discontinues Xeon, Celeron and Core i7 CPUs

Intel discontinues Xeon, Celeron and Core i7 CPUs: "Today Intel published Product Discontinuance Notifications (PDN) for these microprocessors. In addition to Xeon models, Intel is going to retire several mobile Celerons and Core i7s, as well as Core i7-980X. Full list of discontinued SKUs is provided below:
Celeron T3000 and T3100.
Core i7-980X.
Core i7-720QM, i7-820QM, i7-920XM
Xeon E7220, E7310, L7345, E7420, E7430, E7440, E7450, L7445, L7455, and X7460."

Intel launches dual-core Sandy-Bridge processors

Intel launches dual-core Sandy-Bridge processors: "With the introduction of Sandy Bridge micro-architecture last month, Intel launched quite a number of quad-core desktop and mobile models, marketed as second-generation Core CPUs. Today, Intel followed up with the release of more than 10 new dual-core Sandy Bridge processors for desktop and mobile markets. A list of newly released models is available in updated price list. Like in January, today's launch includes a mix of mainstream SKUs, and low and ultra-low voltage parts.
Several desktop models, added to Core i3 and Core i5 families, include two standard-power (65W), and two low power 35W microprocessors"

For details on the microprocessors click here: CPU world

Intel’s new Itanium is the Moby Dick of microprocessors | VentureBeat

Intel’s new Itanium is the Moby Dick of microprocessors | VentureBeat: "It’s a whale of a chip. Intel is announcing today the 10th generation of its Itanium chip, which is a 64-bit microprocessor aimed at the very high end of the corporate computer market.

The chip is a modern miracle in many respects, with more than 3 billion basic components known as transistors. It is one of the highest achievements in technological design, but it’s also a relic of an age when power consumption didn’t matter. As such, the chip is confined to a small, high-end segment of the computing market at the high end."

More on: Venture Beat

Intel launches Xeon 5600 series and Core i7-990X CPUs

Intel launches Xeon 5600 series and Core i7-990X CPUs: "The only consumer CPU, launched today, is Intel Core i7-990X. This six-core part is clocked at 3.46 GHz, which is one bin higher than the previous top Extreme i7-980X model. Besides unlocked multiplier, this microprocessor is almost identical to Xeon W3690. Official price for both Core i7-990X and W3690 processors is the same - $999."

AMD May Axe Microprocessor Brand-Names - Document - X-bit labs

Advanced Micro Devices may can specific brand-names of its microprocessors in order to emphasize its corporate AMD Vision trademark and attract attention to its corporate brand. As a result of the move, Athlon, Phenom and Sempron will vanish into oblivion.

When AMD completes its consumer desktop processor lineup with code-named Llano and Zambezi microprocessors later this year, it will not introduce any new brand-names for them, but will divide then into different classes of its Vision platforms, according to a document seen by X-bit labs. Instead of traditional Phenom, Athlon and Sempron, AMD's product family will include FX-series, A-series and E-series microprocessors.

For More: X-bit Labs

New Semiconductor Slides In To Offer Power Savings

Molybdenite is throwing up lower-energy chip possibilities, according to Swiss researchers

Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2), commonly called molybdenite and mainly used as a lubricant in industrial applications, can be used as a substitute for silicon-based substrates in electronic components such as transistors, microprocessors, light-emitting diodes and solar cells. It also looks promisingly likely to use 100,000 times less energy.

The discovery could have an important effect on current developments in photonic chip research which is always on the lookout for innovative improvements in chip design elements.

If research at Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) continues successfully, the fairly commonplace compound could replace the current heir to silicon’s throne, graphene. The advantage of molybdenite is that it works well when spread thinly, a third of the thickness of silicon.

More at: Eweek Europe

Nanolasers for faster microprocessors

WASHINGTON: Engineers have found a way to grow nanolasers - lasers able to produce beams at nanoscale - directly onto a silicon surface, potentially opening the way to a new class of faster and more efficient microprocessors.

"Our results impact a broad spectrum of scientific fields, including materials science, transistor technology, laser science, optoelectronics and optical physics," said Connie Chang-Hasnain, the study's principal investigator and computer sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read more: Nanolasers for faster microprocessors - The Times of India 

Intel’s Next-Gen Ivy Bridge to Offer 20% - 30% Performance Boost Over Sandy Bridge – Report.

Intel’s 22nm Processors to Further Improve Performance of Microprocessors

[02/03/2011 03:09 PM]
by Anton Shilov at Xbitlabs.com

Performance of Intel Corp.’s latest Core i-series “Sandy Bridge” and improvements it brings over predecessors is rather impressive, which is why the company managed to sell over eight million of appropriate microprocessors in just several months of revenue shipments. The next-generation central processing units (CPUs) will bring further 20% - 30% of speed boost, according to a media report.

In general-purpose applications Ivy Bridge micro-architecture-based chips will boost performance by around 20% compared to Core i-series “Sandy Bridge” products; performance of integrated graphics core of Ivy Bridge will get 30% higher compared to the graphics engine of the latest microprocessors by Intel, according to VR-Zone web-site, which claims that it had seen documents with Intel’s internal performance estimates. 

The Intel HD Graphics core of Ivy Bridge will not only feature higher performance (according to some sources, it will have 16 stream processing elements (up from 12 of SNB), some claim that it will have 24 stream processors), but will also support DirectX 11, HDMI 1.4 output and probably some other improvements.

For More Click here