chips

It seems that Intel will soon find themselves displaced by new, low power, high-function chips pioneered by cell phone chip makers. The new generation of chips are lower cost and use half the power of Intel's own "low power" equivalents. How did ... this happen? For almost 30 years, Intel has focused on improving speed, ignoring the power consumption issue. Improving performance was everything. But in the same time period, the cell phone emerged and evolved. Cell phone chips were created using completely different design constraints. Battery life and cost were the driving requirements. Using less ... (view more)

The competition between microprocessing developers has reached new heights, as each attempt to cram the most power into the tiniest possible space. IBM is looking to cool down their vertically-stacked chips by using one of the most abundant and ... natural sources on earth: water. The company is certain that water would be a much more efficient source than air at absorbing heat, even if the amount of water being used is minute. One potential danger associated with downsizing chips is that the circuits in these processors, although miniature in size, still generate a considerable amount of heat. ... (view more)

Intel surpassed their own world record by managing to store 2 billion transistors onto a single "quad-core" chip. The former record was set at 1.7 billion transistors crammed onto a "super" Itanium chip. This means that one new "super-duper" chip ... would double the processing power of the chips used in most supercomputers. (Source: yehey.com ) The new chips are expected to be the crown jewel in an impressive line of other Itanium processors. The quad-core chips made their first public appearance at the recent International Solid State Circuits Conference held in San Francisco. Intel made ... (view more)

Intel will soon release a new line of microprocessor chips that many believe will raise the number of high-definition videos available over the Internet. The increased computing power of the chips is expected to transform the current fragmented and ... often blurry clips found on most video streaming sites into high-resolution, full-screen quality movies. Analysts have called the new chips a "major breakthrough" and "the biggest thing to happen to high-definition videos". Some even claim that PC Hi-Def will rival HDTV in the very near future. (Source: iht.com ) As the demand for Internet video ... (view more)

Samsung, the world's top maker of memory chips, has recently taken a backseat to its competitors. The company was bumped from its first place spot after being forced to shut down six of its chip production lines due to a power outage at a Seoul ... plant. Are your favourite electronic devices at risk? Likely, since the plant in question produces dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, NAND flash chips, and non-memory chips. Many of the gadgets and appliances that we use on a regular basis, such as personal computers, digital cameras, and music players, rely on these chips. (Source: today. ... (view more)

It's rumored that server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. is in the process of finalizing a partnership with popular computer chip manufacturer Intel Corp. The conditions of the deal will have Sun using chips produced solely by Intel, while ... Intel will agree to endorse Sun's Solaris operating systems. The individual that released the details of the partnership to the media has requested anonymity because of the refusal for comment by both Sun and Intel CEO's. However, the two companies have scheduled an upcoming joint conference in San Francisco that many believe will signal the public ... (view more)

Just when you thought Dual Core was all the rage -- leading chip producer, Intel Corporation, has recently launched a new series of chips that boasts four computing engines inside a single microprocessor. Labelled the "quad-core" processors, Intel ... promises that this innovative line of processors will undoubtedly be able to handle much more complex jobs at once over models that have only one or two ("dual") processing cores. This is great news for Intel, who is currently on the losing end of an ongoing battle with smaller, but (recently) much more effective competitor Advanced Micro Devices ... (view more)

Amidst rumors that Microsoft may cut the price of its Xbox 360 in anticipation of the release of the Sony Playstation 3, similar tactics are being employed in the world of PC processing chips. As a tactic to distract consumers from the long-awaited ... release of Intel's Core 2 chip, AMD is drastically slashing prices of its own products, by as much as 46%. (Source: reghardware.co.uk ) Interest in Intel's next-gen chips has been growing in anticipation of the Core 2 release in the next few months, leading AMD to "pipe up" in order that PC users remember their immensely popular Athlon line of ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Robert G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've been a fan of your newsletter for quite some time. Thanks for that! Question: at the end of the day, is it best to log off and keep the computer running and ready for the next time it is used, ... or should I shut it down completely and power off? I've heard different variations on the answer to this age-old question. If I leave it running, the fans are always spinning, which causes wear and tear. What do you think? " My response: Good question! I personally always leave my laptop running 24 hours a day because I'm always using it (I'm ... (view more)

My computer sound system is about 10 years old. I remember when I first got my sound system. It was the first of its kind: the Labtec SB-8 came equipped with two satellite speakers and a separate subwoofer. A beautiful sound system, indeed. The ... Labtec woofer sits on the floor and has an adjustment knob for bass intensity. It sure does produce some loud thumps! The two satellite speakers sit near by monitor and allow me to further adjust bass and treble at a push of a button. I can even plug in a headset for quiet listening. All of these options are pretty standard these days on sound systems ... (view more)