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 »
Is this the future of memory? A Hybrid Memory Cube spec makes its debut.
A highly dense memory technology introduced in 2011 takes another step closer to reality with the launch of new interconnection specifications. At this rate, we’ll see the new tech in devices in 2014. Read more »
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The growth and promise of the LED market
LED production has grown tremendously, accompanied by a significant fall in prices that will further propel the sale of this energy-efficient digital-lighting technology. But challenges remain on the road to widespread adoption. Figuring out ways to use power efficiently for lighting will be crucial for a future when the world’s population will likely be much larger. 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 »
Samsung zooms past Apple in semiconductor buying in 2012
Spending on chips actually shrank 3 percent in 2012, but was helped out by Samsung and Apple’s seemingly insatiable appetite for semiconductors. Read more »
Faster networks anyone? IBM pops optics on conventional silicon chips.
photo: IBM
Figuring out how to bring the speed of light to communications on chips, between chips and everywhere has been an overarching goal of semiconductor research. IBM says it is ready to bring a technology that puts optics and electronics on a chip using conventional manufacturing methods. 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 »
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 »
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 »
IBM’s new imaging technique could lead to new and better chips
IBM has developed a microscopy technique that lets it see the bonds between molecules. While that’s pretty esoteric for most of us, the tool could help develop graphene-based semiconductors that would result in better batteries, faster chips, nicer displays and more efficient solar panels. Read more »
Startup hopes plasma will save Moore’s Law
Zplasma, startup spun out of the University of Washington hopes that its ability to harness super hot, stable plasma to to make light will help the semiconductor industry continue its march to cram more transistors on a chip. Read more »
Want a terabyte iPad? Then you’ll want to read this
In the latter half of the 19th century, the introduction of elevators and steel trusses enabled us to put up taller buildings with denser cores. It changed urban landscapes forever–packing more people into small spaces. Now, chips are set to benefit from a similar design leap. 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 »
Intel’s 3-D transistors are now in production!
Intel has introduced its latest generation of processor cores at 22 nanometers. The new chips are up to 20 percent faster and consume 20 percent less energy, but the biggest news is that these chips are the first that will use Intel’s new 3-D transistors. Read more »
Top Chips! Intel hits a high as our gadgets multiply
photo: Flickr user huangjiahui
Intel has taken the top spot when it comes to semiconductor market share, making 15.6 percent of the overall chips sold in the world, according to IHS iSuppli. This year it made more money on more products — achieving a market share it hasn’t seen since 2001. Read more »
Meet Cyclos, a startup that cuts chip power-consumption
When building chips, designers have to trade energy efficiency for performance. But Cyclos can help designers boost clock speeds while shaving 10 to 30 percent off the power required by the chip. As mobile devices need more gigahertz, this will be a big deal. Read more »
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 »
Apple takes the semiconductor spending crown as mobiles trump PCs
Apple spent the most on semiconductors in 2011, beating out Samsung and HP to take the crown. HP dropped from the top spot, thanks to overall weakness in the PC market, while Apple soared upward on the rising tide of smartphones, tablets and the MacBook Air. Read more »
IBM’s 3 big chip breakthroughs explained
IBM has made three breakthroughs that could help chips continue following Moore’s Law, resulting in more performance or memory at lower prices. These breakthroughs may also allow us to take advantage of new spectrum for mobile broadband and make better batteries. Read more »
Make way for more brain-based chips
What happens when you place the equivalent of 1024 neurons in parallel on a chip? Well, you get a new form of computing for cloud computing and sensor networks as well as toys that can recognize cue cards, better artificial intelligence and pattern recognition. Read more »
Notable: LSI buys SandForce for $400M
Venture capitalists have generally given semiconductor startups the cold shoulder for years now in favor of the web and software spaces. But LSI Corporation’s $400 acquisition of VC-backed chip startup Sandforce could encourage more VCs to warm up to chip technology once again. Read more »
Must be Halloween. Sevin Rosen trying to rise from the dead
Sevin Rosen is trying to raise a tenth fund, according to Al Schuele, a partner with the Texas-based venture capital firm. Sevin Rosen hasn’t been big since about 2006, when it stopped raising money on a proposed fund and returned money back to investors. Read more »
New printed chip could spark cheaper sensor networks
Thin Film Electronics ASA, a maker of disposable memory used in toys, has developed a way to add computing to its chips. This means it can offer thin, disposable tracking tags for a few cents apiece, providing a valuable component for the Internet of things. Read more »
Samsung and Micron’s new Hybrid Cube Memory tech is greener and faster
The chip industry is really good at making faster CPUs, but it’s lagged when it comes to giving the calculating cores enough information in time. So Samsung and Micron have created a new type of chip that boosts the amount of information memory chips can send. Read more »
How long until clouds adopt extreme computing chips?
Both mobile and high performance computing are placing huge power efficiency and performance demands on chips, but the real $64,000 question is how long until such extreme computing use cases hit the server mainstream. Asked another way, how long till Amazon adopts ARM-based servers? Read more »
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The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
As our demand for data increases, so too do the number of mobile devices and services. Add to that the infrastructure needed to support such connectivity, and a wide, complex picture of the mobile industry emerges. This report examines the various sectors of the mobile landscape and what the future holds for each. Hardware, cloud services, mobile search, advertising, location-based services and the growing ubiquity of the Internet of Things will all play an important role in the concept of mobility as it shifts and evolves over the next several years. With the help of more than a dozen contributors, GigaOM Pro presents a comprehensive analysis of the companies and trends that will lead us into the next era of mobile. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Life in the fast lane, making the terabit age possible
We want information, and we want it now, so technologists are racing to keep up. From a stealthy startup in New Mexico getting funded to Infinera providing gear that could download Netflix’s entire library in 5 seconds, the secret for our need for speed is light. Read more »
For our sensor heavy future, IBM cooks up a new silicon brain
After a century of making tabulation machines IBM has come up with a new chip that marries our brain’s architecture with silicon guts. The goal is to create a new style of computing aimed at making sense of big data without consuming a lot of power. Read more »
Facebook sides with Tilera in the server architecture debate
Facebook engineers have tested a 64-core chip from Tilera and found it ideal for grabbing data quickly from key value stores. This may galvanize the creation of new benchmarks as the debate of which architecture works best for webscale and cloud computing rages. Read more »
Servers are like money, you’ll always need more
We give Intel a lot of flack here at GigaOM for not being mobile enough or low power enough for scale out computing, but the chipmaker is doing all right in the server category. We discussed how well and the future for servers in this video. Read more »
HTC buys graphics IP from VIA. Here’s why
Mobile phone manufacturer HTC has purchased VIA Semiconductor’s graphics business. The deal is indicative of the need for compelling graphics on mobiles as well as an admission that mobile device makers may get an edge if they can bring some silicon capabilities in house. Read more »
Aided by Apple, Bluetooth ready for health monitoring
Apple is joining the board of the Bluetooth standards organization as the group focuses the latest iteration of Bluetooth on the market for fitness and health sensor data from mobile devices. But can Bluetooth beat out a variety of other standards hoping win in bioinformatics? Read more »
HP Pairs With Nvidia for New GPU Servers
Compute giant Hewlett-Packard has teamed up with Nvidia to make a server containing up to eight graphics processors designed for the high performance computing market. The two have built the world’s “Greenest Production Supercomputer” together, and the machine using Nvidia’s latest GPUs offers more performance. Read more »
Question Everything: A New Processor For Big Data
We are moving from the Information Age to the Insight Age, and as part of that shift we need a compute architecture that will handle the storage and processing required all without requiring a power plant hooked up to every data center. What architecture will win? Read more »
With 3-D Transistors, Intel Keeps Moore’s Law Ticking
Intel has managed to keep pushing Moore’s Law by developing a 3-D transistor that allows the chipmaker to deliver ever smaller chips that will be more powerful, yet consume less energy. The new chip moves Intel ahead of the industry and positions it competitively against ARM. Read more »
LG Joins the Mobile Chip Game
LG, the South Korean makers of phones televisions, household appliances and a variety of other consumer devices has licensed the ARM-based chip cores that can be found in devices from handsets to set-top-boxes. Once again, a vendor has forgotten to invite Intel to the party. Read more »
Freescale, Fuji Join Forces for Green Car Tech
Freescale Semiconductor and Fuji Electric Systems are forming a new partnership focused on hybrid and electric vehicle tech. The two companies announced plans to collaborate on a type of power semiconductor for electronic powertrains, as well as other products for green cars down the road. Read more »
It’s No Joke. IPOs Are Back, Baby
Fourteen venture-backed companies went public in the first quarter of 2011 raising 1.4 billion, the highest number to go public since 2007, according to the NVCA. And many companies that did make it to the public markets are trading at or above their original offering prices. Read more »
