AMD details 3 new server chips, including its first ARM design
AMD has released its new server roadmap, which includes its first ARM-based chip aimed at the data center. This is big for AMD and an evolution of the data center. Read more »
The next era of computing is coming, and ARM’s Simon Segars is ready to profit from it
photo: Stacey Higginbotham
ARM’s future is tied to more devices with computing and connectivity trying to share data on a variety of networks. Call it the internet of things or just the obvious direction we’re heading as society. Read more »
Sorry Microsoft: AMD cheats on Windows, plans a fling with Chrome and Android
AMD is following Intel into Chrome OS devices and Android tablets, breaking away from its Windows exclusivity. With another Microsoft hardware partner playing the field, the trend is clear: The times are a-changing! Read more »
Can chip companies profit off the maker movement? TI is betting on it
photo: Texas Instruments
Chipmakers are eying the maker community as a possible development community for the internet of things. Texas Instruments has two new offerings for this crowd. Read more »
Serious question: Is it too late for HP Project Moonshot to disrupt anything?
If you want an HP Project Moonshot server, you can get one today. The question is many of the big, webscale companies HP is targeting are already building their own servers. Read more »
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How the mega data center is changing the hardware and data center markets
photo: Facebook
Mega data centers’ innovations in serviceability, automatically detecting and recovering from failures, procurement practices, and so forth will become standard practice in all modern data centers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The new land grab for chip makers: The internet of things
While they may be selling the “picks and shovels” associated with the internet of things gold rush, the world of connected devices is a rich opportunity for semiconductor companies. Read more »
Report: Microserver market will keep rising. Who will be the market leaders?
photo: Intel
A new report from IHS says microserver shipments will triple this year. The question is, Who will emerge as the leading microserver providers? Read more »
The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech
The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
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The role of converged infrastructure in the data center
Cloud computing’s increased performance cannot be sustained if the corresponding cost to the service provider (SP) for delivering this performance also increases. What service providers need is a way of delivering low latency, fast response, and increasing performance while minimizing the cost of the network. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Cleantech and investment in 2013
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Intel’s new microserver chips and how it is beating its innovator’s dilemma
Intel has released its first Atom system on a chip aimed at the data center. The new SoC consumes 6 watts and has many enterprise-class features. But with ARM taking aim at the same market Intel has a totally different type of competition to worry about. Read more »
Chip sales are down, but Qualcomm is up. Waaaay up!
Sales of semiconductors are expected to fall this year. The only sector that didn’t see a decline year-over-year is the wireless business, and in that sector Qualcomm has seen sales grow by 27.2 percent. More proof of the upheaval occurring in the chip biz. Read more »
10 things to be thankful for this year in cleantech
photo: Flickr/ VincciWincci
Despite the difficult year in cleantech, there’s quite a few things that excited me this year. Here’s 10 things to be thankful for in cleantech. Read more »
End of an era: Intel CEO Paul Otellini to retire in May
photo: Flickr user huangjiahui
Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini will step down in May. So far no successor has been named, but the transition in leadership will occur as the entire chip industry deals with a transition from high performance general purpose computing to more special-purpose, efficient chips. Read more »
Guess who else wants to build ARM-based servers? Texas Instruments
photo: Shutterstock / Oleksiy Mark
Texas Instruments will join the slew of chipmakers using cell-phone cores in servers. But it has two twists with its KeyStone architecture — integrated 10 gigabit Ethernet networking and TI’s digital signal processing cores to aid in performing complex math. Read more »
Meet ARM’s two newest cores for faster phones and greener servers
ARM has introduced two next-generation processor cores aimed at spanning the continuum of compute needs today — from mobile clients to the racks of servers supporting our web services. The new A-50 family of cores will appear in devices in 2014 and 2015. Read more »
AMD will challenge Intel with ARM-based server chips. In 2014.
photo: AMD
AMD, which has fallen behind its chief rival Intel in the x86 processor business, announced on Monday plans to make new 64-bit chips based on ARM’s chip technology that will target data center and cloud computing companies. AMD will continue to make x86 processors as well. Read more »
Why AMD must embrace ARM to stay alive
photo: AMD
AMD said last week it would lay off 15 percent of its workers, but we hope next week it will announce an ARM license for use in servers. Such a move looks like AMD’s last chance for relevance as the chip world experiences a huge upheaval. Read more »
Take a peek at the secret upheaval in the chip world
There has been a lot of bad news from the chip giants this quarter, but it’s not the decline of the PC or even merely economic worries pressing on the sector. No, there’s a systemic change in the market and the industry giants are reacting. Read more »
Apple snags top chip designer from Samsung
Apple is Samsung’s biggest chip buyer, but that didn’t stop Apple from hiring away a high-profile industry veteran from Samsung to come work for them. Such a move is bound to increase the growing tension between the two companies. Read more »
AMD computers run 500,000 Android apps with BlueStacks
Got an AMD chip in your Windows PC? Then you just gained access to more than half a million Google Android apps thanks to an AMD partnership with Bluestacks. A virtualization app and website filled with Android titles can help bridge your mobile and desktop world. Read more »
AMD introduces its new SeaMicro server for a big data world
In the first announcement since SeaMicro was acquired by AMD, AMD has detailed its new server tech, which is optimized for big data and cloud computing. The new platform improves performance by moving storage closer to the computing center. Read more »
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Cloud computing’s impact on chip and hardware design
Cloud computing is changing the world of microprocessor-chip design. Soon we will see a division between the traditional players (typified by Intel and AMD) and a group of new incumbents (Tilera and others) that offer fresh solutions to make the world’s microprocessor chips as efficient as possible. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Wimpy cores are coming to Facebook. But which cores?
photo: Pinar Ozger
Facebook has made waves by detailing its plans to use what an executive calls chips that have a cell-phone architecture in its future data centers. The social network plans to test such chips now and next year and will likely have them in production in 2014. Read more »
Can Intel reposition itself for the low power server?
Will hyperscale data centers like those at Facebook, Google and Amazon be willing to adopt low power ARM or even Linux based multi core processors in their data centers? Read more »
The data center has blown up
As we move into the age of webscale and cloud computing the traditional data center architecture is blowing apart, according to execs of startups that have built new kinds of disruptive data center gear and software at the Structure conference on Wednesday in San Francisco. Read more »
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Cloud computing infrastructure: 2012 and beyond
Discussions about the cloud now involve more than just the IT department. New developments in hardware architectures, more-energy-efficient data centers, regulatory concerns and simplifying analytics are all discussions currently circling through the industry. Here’s what to consider when thinking about your business in the cloud. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
IBM supercomputer claims the lead on Top 500 list
We’re number 1! An IBM supercomputer topped the semi-annual list of the 500 top supercomputers for the first time in three years. Sequoia, an IBM BlueGene/Q System using 1,572,864 processor cores scored 16.32 petaflop/s on the Linpack Benchmark used to rate such things. Read more »
ARM inside: AMD cozies up to Intel’s design rival
AMD has taken an ARM license, a huge step for the company. But in taking an ARM license, which gives AMD the ability to design ARM-based chips, AMD is targeting security — not phones or even servers. Read more »
AMD, ARM, others team up to take on Intel everywhere
AMD, ARM, Texas Instruments and two smaller chip firms have teamed up to create a nonprofit that will try to unseat Intel’s x86 dominance in computing. But this group isn’t just after Intel; it’s taking the CPU — the beating heart of computers today — down a peg. Read more »
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Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
See what cloud can do! Dell unveils ARM servers
Dell showed off a box that contains 48 ARM-based servers, joining others making boxes with processors that uses the same architecture as the chips inside your cell phone. The server consumes less power and could find a home in web servers and Hadoop clusters. Read more »
Open Compute one year later. Bigger, badder and less disruptive than we thought.
At its third summit, the Open Compute Project is adding new partners, showing off cool use cases and adding new technologies. And surprisingly, it’s being done in a way that will enable hardware vendors to hold onto some of their margins and still deliver innovations. Read more »
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Ups and downs for cleantech in Q1
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Server catfight! Intel disses AMD’s SeaMicro buy
Intel and AMD are at it again. Intel could have bought SeaMicro, the energy efficient server vendor that recently got snapped up by AMD, but it decided to pass, said Diane Bryant, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Datacenter and Connected Systems Group. Read more »
Low power is the new black for data centers
AMD acquired low-power server maker SeaMicro in a move that says a lot about how low power is the new black and how the relationships and market dynamics between chip makers and server OEMs is transforming. Read more »
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AMD acquires SeaMicro and differentiates itself
The ongoing imperative to lower power consumption in the data center drove another key acquisition last week. AMD, a company that has fought a decades-long losing war with Intel over building the best CPU, acquired low-power server maker SeaMicro in a move that says a lot ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After SeaMicro, why AMD’s next step will be an ARM license
Now that AMD has confirmed its purchase of low-power server maker SeaMicro, I bet its next move will be an announcement around licensing the ARM architecture. That’s right: AMD will do a deal with the company that provides the architecture for chips inside your cell phone. Read more »
With SeaMicro buy, AMD to double down on servers
GigaOM has learned that AMD is planning to announce its acquisition of low-power server maker SeaMicro according to industry sources. This would be a huge move for AMD, which has to double down in the server market since it has failed in the mobile market. Read more »
