MWC 12: Intel branded, Atom-powered smartphone to be sold by Orange

Subject: Mobile | February 26, 2012 - 08:06 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: z2460, SoC, smartphone, orange, MWC 12, MWC, Intel, atom z2460

Reuters is reporting that European cell phone carrier Orange will be selling a reference design Medfield smartphone under the Intel brand name.  The Atom Z2460 SoC will find its first major distributor to be one of the world's largest service providers - this could potentially be a big opening for Intel in a market it desperately wants to compete for.

I find it very interesting that not only has Intel developed a processor that has finally garnered attention for the mobile market but the team at Intel has built a reference design that was fine tuned enough to direct sell to consumers.  Will the company avoid becoming a typical, low margin SoC company by focusing on vertical implementations like this one?  It is an interesting thought and no other vendor has really done it, with possibly the exception of Samsung that owns the entire device process already.

Anandtech has the major specifications of the phone, codenamed "Santa Clara":

These are basically identical to the reference design we saw at CES with only some minor changes to the form factor.  Ice Cream Sandwich isn't included out the gate but we are hoping the upgrade will get pushed soon since Intel showed ICS on the Atom SoC in January.

I haven't been able to find anything about availability or pricing yet but I'll be sure to report it when I find it.  The mobile market continues to intrigue...

Podcast #190 - PCAudioLabs system giveaway, the future of NAND Memory, potential Ivy Bridge delays and more!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | February 23, 2012 - 04:10 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: Thinkpad, podcast, piledriver, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, gpu, cpu, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #190 - 02/23/2012

Join us this week as we talk about a PCAudioLabs system giveaway, the future of NAND Memory, potential Ivy Bridge delays and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:24:53

Program Schedule: 

1. 0:00:31 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:01:45 Intel, PCAudioLabs and PC Perspective Rok Box System Sweepstakes!!
6. 0:03:45 How We Review Laptops At PC Perspective
7. 0:05:30 MSI Graphics Card Division Interview: Alex Chang Takes our Q's
8. 0:09:10 Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review: Kickin' It Old School
9. 0:12:00 NAND Flash Memory - A Future Not So Bleak After All
10. 0:27:15 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
    
11. 0:28:30 Mass Effect 3 is Coming, Pre-Order Now and Get Battlefield 3 (PC) Free
12. 0:31:00 Intel may delay shipments of Ivy Bridge processors
13. 0:35:10 VIA teams with Tensilica to roll their own SSD controller
14. 0:40:53 HP dates NVIDIA on Valentine's Day. We get Z1 workstation.
15. 0:46:30 Wi-Fi on Rosepoint SoC die. Intel flexes before ARM wrestle.
16. 0:51:15 Of Near Threshold Voltage and Atomic Transistors
17. 0:55:15 AMD and Cyclos reduces clock power usage with Piledriver
18. 1:04:00 Intel becomes a 22nm foundry -- yes, for other people.
19. 1:11:35 Contest Reminder - http://pcper.com/contest
20. 1:11:55 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: IKEA DIODER + HOLY AWESOME https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LmEQUm1PUXU/T0W8e-KQz0I/AAAAAAAAYNA/XB64fVxgLvo/w402/engagement.jpg
    2. Ken: SUPAboy
    3. Jeremy: Hardware Leaderboard
    1. Josh: Get it while you still can!
    2. Allyn: Nintendo 1982 Game & Watch Donkey Kong (counter to Ken's pick)
21. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
22. http://pcper.com/podcast   
23. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
24. Closing

Intel becomes a 22nm foundry -- yes, for other people.

Subject: General Tech | February 22, 2012 - 08:51 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, foundry

It is news like this which leads to Apocalypse theories. Intel has announced that they will become a foundry for customers looking to manufacture chips using Intel’s 22nm process with trigate transistors. Current competitors in this industry include TSMC, UMC, IBM, Samsung, and GlobalFoundries each with varying degrees of commitment.

Well this just happened…

Only two customers of Intel’s manufacturing process have since gone public with their foundry choice. Achronix Semiconductor manufactures field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for users to install in their products to give them relatively basic logic functions compared to a full CPU. Tabula also designs FPGAs, but has specifically announced that they will be using Intel’s 22nm process with 3D trigate transistors.

It is not clear at this point how deeply Intel will jump into the business of developing chips for other companies. Both of the current customers of Intel’s manufacturing process do not really compete with Intel’s own products at all.

Now if we ever, for instance, see NVIDIA announce partnership with Intel foundries for a GPU launch… then John Cusack might have a concern on his hands.

Wi-Fi on Rosepoint SoC die. Intel flexes before ARM wrestle.

Subject: General Tech, Processors, Systems, Mobile, Shows and Expos | February 20, 2012 - 01:50 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Rosepoint, ISSCC 2012, ISSCC, Intel

If there is one thing that Intel is good at, it is writing a really big check to go in a new direction right when absolutely needed. Intel has released press information on what should be expected from their presence at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference which is currently in progress until the 23rd. The headliner for Intel at this event is their Rosepoint System on a Chip (SoC) which looks to lower power consumption by rethinking the RF transceiver and including it on the die itself. While the research has been underway for over a decade at this point, pressure from ARM has pushed Intel to, once again, throw money at R&D until their problems go away.

Intel could have easily trolled us all and have named this SoC "Centrino".

Almost ten years ago, AMD had Intel in a very difficult position. Intel fought to keep clock-rates high until AMD changed their numbering scheme to give proper credit to their higher performance-per-clock components. Intel dominated, legally or otherwise, the lower end market with their Celeron line of processors.

AMD responded with series of well-timed attacks against Intel. AMD jabbed Intel in the face and punched them in the gut with the release of the Sempron processor line nearby filing for anti-trust against Intel to allow them to more easily sell their processors in mainstream PCs.

At around this time, Intel decided to entirely pivot their product direction and made plans to take their Netburst architecture behind the shed. AMD has yet to recover from the tidal wave which the Core architectures crashed upon them.

Intel wishes to stop assaulting your battery indicator.

With the surge of ARM processors that have been fundamentally designed for lower power consumption than Intel’s x86-based competition, things look bleak for the expanding mobile market. Leave it to Intel to, once again, simply cut a gigantic check.

Intel is in the process of cutting power wherever possible in their mobile offerings. To remain competitive with ARM, Intel is not above outside-the-box solutions including the integration of more power-hungry components directly into the main processor. Similar to NVIDIA’s recent integration of touchscreen hardware into their Tegra 3 SoC, Intel will push the traditionally very power-hungry Wi-Fi transceivers into the SoC and supposedly eliminate all analog portions of the component in the process.

I am not too knowledgeable about Wi-Fi transceivers so I am not entirely sure how big of a jump Intel has made in their development, but it appears to be very significant. Intel is said to discuss this technology more closely during their talk on Tuesday morning titled, “A 20dBm 2.4GHz Digital Outphasing Transmitter for WLAN Application in 32nm CMOS.”

This paper is about a WiFi-compliant (802.11g/n) transmitter using Intel’s 32nm process and techniques leveraging Intel transistors to achieve record performance (power consumption per transmitted data better than state-of-the art). These techniques are expected to yield even better results when moved to Intel’s 22nm process and beyond.

What we do know is that the Rosepoint SoC will be manufactured at 32nm and is allegedly quite easy to scale down to smaller processes when necessary. Intel has also stated that while only Wi-Fi is currently supported, other frequencies including cellular bands could be developed in the future.

We will need to wait until later to see how this will affect the real world products, but either way -- this certainly is a testament to how much change a dollar can be broken into.

Intel urges you to program better now, not the same -- later.

Subject: General Tech, Processors, Mobile | February 18, 2012 - 09:06 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, mobile, developer

Clay Breshears over at Intel posted about lazy software optimization over on the Intel Software Blog. His post is a spiritual resurrection of the over seven year’s old article by Herb Sutter, “The Free Lunch is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software.” The content is very similar, but the problem is quite different.

The original 2004 article urged developers to heed the calls for the multi-core choo choo express and not hang around on the single core platform (train or computing) waiting for performance to get better. The current article takes that same mentality and applies it to power efficiency. Rather than waiting for hardware that has appropriate power efficiency for your application, learn techniques to bring your application into your desired power requirements.

"I believe your program is a little... processor heavy."

The meat of the article focuses on the development of mobile applications and the concerns that developers should have with battery conservation. Of course there is something to be said about Intel promoting mobile power efficiency. While developers could definitely increase the efficiency of their code, there is still a whole buffet of potential on the hardware side.

If you are a developer, particularly of mobile or laptop applications, Intel has an education portal for best power efficiency practices on their website. Be sure to check it out and pick up the tab once in a while, okay?

Podcast #189 - AMD Radeon HD 7750 and 7770, Mechanical Keyboards from Rosewill, Windows on ARM and more!

Subject: Editorial | February 16, 2012 - 03:49 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: WOA, rosewill, podcast, nvidia, Intel, gpu, cpu, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #189 - 02/16/2012

Join us this week as we talk about AMD Radeon HD 7750 and 7770, Mechanical Keyboards from Rosewill, Windows on ARM and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:18:31

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:29 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:01:45 AMD Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 Cape Verde GPU Review
6. 0:20:15 Rosewill Second Generation Mechanical Keyboard Review: RK-9000, RK-9000BR, RK-9000BL, RK-9000RE
7. 0:23:20 ASUS Transformer Prime TF201 Keyboard Dock Review
8. 0:25:45 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
9. 0:27:45 WOA! We wanted Windows 8 on ARM details. We got them.
10. 0:31:00 Intel Haswell Processors To Launch In First Half of 2013
11. 0:37:25 CTO Eric Demers to Leave AMD
12. 0:41:15 OCZ Launches Z-Drive R4 CloudServ 16TB Solid State Storage System
13. 0:46:00 Asustek? Your Ultrabook orders are ah pulled.
14. 0:48:25 Take that Moore! Electron beam etching set to take us to the 10nm process
15. 1:00:55 Email from James
16. 1:02:45 Email from Dave
17. 1:05:45 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: HINGES!!!  YouTube video 
    2. Jeremy: SilverSands Active Directories Migration tool
    1. Josh: Apparently quite fun.
    2. Allyn: NewerTech Power2U
18. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
19. http://pcper.com/podcast   
20. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
21. Closing

Intel may delay shipments of Ivy Bridge processors

Subject: Processors | February 16, 2012 - 03:47 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Intel, Ivy Bridge, delay

Some unfortunate news is making the rounds today surrounding a potential delay of the upcoming Intel Ivy Bridge processor.  A story over at Digitimes is reporting that due to an abundance of inventory on current generation Sandy Bridge parts, Intel will start to trickle out Ivy Bridge in early April but will hold off on the full shipments until after June.

If Intel is indeed delaying shipping Ivy Bridge it likely isn't due to pressure from AMD and with the announcement by top brass there it seems likely Intel will retain the performance lead on the CPU side of things from here on out.  With the release of Windows 8 coming in the fall of 2012 Intel's partners (and Intel internally) are likely going to be using that as the primary jumping off point for the architecture transition. 

If ever there was a reason to support AMD and competition in general, this is exactly that.  Without pressure from a strong offering from the opposition Intel is free to adjust their product schedule based on internal financial reasons rather than external consumer forces.  While we will still see some Ivy Bridge availability in April (according to Digitimes at least) in order to avoid a marketing disaster, it seems that the wide scale availability of the Intel design with processor graphics performance expected to be double that of Sandy Bridge won't be until the summer.

Intel Haswell Processors To Launch In First Half of 2013

Subject: Processors | February 12, 2012 - 06:57 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: shark bay, Intel, haswell, cpu

Intel's Ivy Bridge processor, the upcoming "tick" in Intel's clock-esque world domination strategy, has yet to be released and we are already getting rumors and leaked information coming in about the "tock" that will be Ivy Bridge's successor in the 22nm Haswell processors (as part of the Shark Bay platform). Ivy Bridge processors will bring incremental performance improvements and lower power usage on the same 1155 socket that Sandy Bridge employs.

Haswell; however, will move to (yet another) socket LGA 1150 on the desktop, and will bring incremental improvements over Ivy Bridge. Improvements include much faster integrated processor graphics and the AVX2 instruction set. Unfortunately, Intel will be returning to an increased TDP (thermal design power) with Haswell compared to the lower TDP from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.

According to Domain Haber, who claims to have gotten their hands on a leaked road map, Intel will be launching Ivy Bridge through the end of this year, and then will debut their Haswell processors in the first half of 2013. The alleged road map can be seen below.

What I found interesting about the road map is that there is no mention of an Ivy Bridge-E or Haswell-E processor. Instead, the current Sandy Bridge-E chips are shown occupying the high end and enthusiast segment through at least the first half of 2013 and the launch of Haswell. Whether enthusiasts will continue to choose the Sandy Bridge-E processors for that long will remain to be seen, however. Also strange is that, according to VR-Zone, Intel will have three tiers of integrated graphics performance with GT1, GT2, and GT3. They will then place the fastest graphics core in the mobile chips and leave the slower graphics cores in the desktop chips. Discrete cards are not dead yet, it seems (unless you're rocking an AMD APU of course).

Have you invested in a Sandy Bridge-E setup, or are you still holding onto an older chip to wait for the best performance upgrade for your money?  If you have bought into SB-E, do you think it'll last you into 2013?