Gizmodo
food
Posts Tagged “
Chips
”
food
apple
Apple Buys Itself a Little Chip Company Known for Super Efficient Processors
Apple's bought itself a chip company, P.A. Semi, that could make chips for future iPods and iPhones. The company was founded by Dan Dobberpuhl, lead designer of Alpha chips, who last year announced a 64-bit dual core processor that is said to be about 300% more efficient than the nearest competition, using only 5 to 13 watts at 2GHz. More »
12:32 AM on Wed Apr 23 2008
By Brian Lam
22,772 views,
45 comments
phenom
AMD X3 Tri-Core Processor Reviewed (Verdict: Get a Quad-Core Chip)
Maximum PC has reviewed AMD's tri-core 2.4GHz Phenom X3 8750 CPU. It performs like you'd expect—in between quad and dual cores. Fine, but it's $195. You can pick up AMD's top quad core, the X4 9850 for only $235, or Intel's Q6600 (which mercilessly beat down the X4 9850 in benchmarks) for $224 now, or hell, $200 in a few weeks. So just get a quad core. Maximum PC also hints that a Core 2 Duo might keep pace with the tri-cores, but they're keeping that under wraps for now, bastards. [Maximum PC]
cpus
AMD's "Shanghai" Chips Revealed
The rat race continues: Shanghai will be 45nm, have up to 12 cores, include the long awaited Hypertransport 3.0 for socket-to-socket and southbridge communication, and can emulate quad channel memory. For more: [DailyTech]
digital cameras
Your Digital Camera Is Obsolete: Japanese Image Sensor 100x More Sensitive Than Current Chips
Right now, your camera either has a CCD (most point and shoots) or a CMOS image sensor (lots of DSLRs) inside, which converts pretty pictures into an electrical signal. Japan's Research Center for Photovoltaics has developed a CIGS image sensor that's 100 times more light-sensitive than the silicon chip inside your cam. It's able to shoot in environments as dark as 0.001 lux, or about as dark as a "moonless clear night." Obviously, it'll be great for night vision gear, but it also picks up infrared, giving this some serious Sam Fisher applications. Check out the comparison shot between a CMOS and CIGS below, it's insane. Chen won't need that invisible coat, just a good zoom lens. More »
supercomputer
IBM Mixes Water, Chips to Make Supercomputer And Cook Dinner Too
It might sound like a risky idea, but IBM's new Power 575 supercomputer uses a new system of chip-level water-cooling to keep its processors chilled. Nicknamed "Hydro Cluster", the machine actually uses 448 of the new 5GHz POWER6 processors. They must kick out a hefty heat load because IBM thinks there're eco-friendly uses for the spare hot water. Much like the Swiss town pool mentioned the other day, the suggestion is that it could be used for heating people's homes or even for cooking. Check out the video to see how IBM plans to take water even closer to the chip surface in the future. More »
chips
If our computers are ever going to hit speeds that'll allow us to do things like simulate the big bang, create artificial intelligence or create giant, building-sized robots to fight for our amusement, we need to move beyond wires. After all, their physical makeup is going to hit a wall at some point, so rather than just continuing to work at making faster wires, we need to look at what's going to come after wires, and that something is lasers.
More »
Sun Working on Replacing Wires with Lasers to Drastically Increase Chip Speeds
If our computers are ever going to hit speeds that'll allow us to do things like simulate the big bang, create artificial intelligence or create giant, building-sized robots to fight for our amusement, we need to move beyond wires. After all, their physical makeup is going to hit a wall at some point, so rather than just continuing to work at making faster wires, we need to look at what's going to come after wires, and that something is lasers.
More »
science
Sour Milk Detector Saves Your Olfactory Receptors
Boffins have developed a smart chip that indicates whether milk has turned sour at the checkout, saving you the potentially unpleasant task of deciphering the health of the white stuff when you get home. The device will be sensitive to the thickness of the container's contents, and when it passes by the cashier's scanner it will begin to vibrate. If the contents is too thick, the vibration will be slower than expected and visa versa. Any detection of irregular speed vibrations will lead to an alarm being set off at the checkout, saving you cash and hassle. More »
rumor
Intel Planning 6-Core "Dunnington" Microprocessor
According to the chaps at the Eclipse Developer's Journal (EDJ), Intel is planning a six-core microprocessor, which will go by the Dunnington moniker. More »
chips
Intel Tukwila Is World's First 2 Billion Transistor Chip, Can Fight Godzilla Blindfolded
Tukwila is Intel's new server-oriented Itanium-family processor, the first in the world to pack two billion transistors. Most of these are used for cache memory, needed to keep its four 2GHz 65-nanometer cores fed at all times with data, instructions and probably giant radioactive lizard meat. I don't know about what kind of power is hidden into thy fearful symmetry, Tukwila, but I have to admit you look so makey-outy for being a CPU. [BBC]
rumor
Intel's MacBook Air Processor Going to PCs?
It looks like that custom MacBook Air processor—you know, the Core 2 Duo processor that Intel shrunk to tiny levels without miniaturizing their 65nm manufacturing process—may soon be making its way into PCs. According to PC Advisor, two non-Apple manufacturers (including Intel itself?) will be implementing the new Intel chip in Windows-based systems that will be on the market shortly. Because, face it, more people buy PCs than Apples and Intel's gotta pay the bills. [PCAdvisor]
malt transistor
Did you ever think that Gordon Moore's famous law was just a clever way to impress PC buyers every two years? Watch here as young Gordy Moore cuts right to the chase and invents the 45nm Penryn chip at his kitchen table by mixing a pinch of chips, a dash of metal gates, a dollop of hafnium, and the sweet, malty deliciousness of Core 45. If this footage is real, why was I forced to grow up with a 486 chip?
Moore's Law is a Farce, Says Intel Video
Did you ever think that Gordon Moore's famous law was just a clever way to impress PC buyers every two years? Watch here as young Gordy Moore cuts right to the chase and invents the 45nm Penryn chip at his kitchen table by mixing a pinch of chips, a dash of metal gates, a dollop of hafnium, and the sweet, malty deliciousness of Core 45. If this footage is real, why was I forced to grow up with a 486 chip?
pcs
As promised, here are stats for 20 different Intel chips from the past 35 years, most of which I included briefly in the Moore's Law video I made earlier, along with bonus factual tidbits I came across while looking over some Intel stuff today. Here you can enjoy it at your own pace (and without the music that some of you found not to your liking), but sadly the pics are not in any particular order, thanks to the way we serve up Flickr galleries. Enjoy it, but remember, it's only Intel's side of the story. Perhaps AMD would be kind enough to shoot over a similar dossier of fun facts. After the chip gallery is a timeline of transistor-related happenings from 1947 up to today.
More »
Intel Chips 1971 to 2007, Plus a Timeline of the Transistor's 60 Years
As promised, here are stats for 20 different Intel chips from the past 35 years, most of which I included briefly in the Moore's Law video I made earlier, along with bonus factual tidbits I came across while looking over some Intel stuff today. Here you can enjoy it at your own pace (and without the music that some of you found not to your liking), but sadly the pics are not in any particular order, thanks to the way we serve up Flickr galleries. Enjoy it, but remember, it's only Intel's side of the story. Perhaps AMD would be kind enough to shoot over a similar dossier of fun facts. After the chip gallery is a timeline of transistor-related happenings from 1947 up to today.
More »
3d processors
Had Fujio Masuoka not invented flash memory for Toshiba in the 80s, this would be a very different blog. Forget your massive SSDs, your infinite digicam memory cards, and yes, forget even your Virgin Mary beating-heart thumbdrives. Masuoka-san isn't finished with us yet, though, and the next-level tech he has his sights on next could keep us busy posting for many years to come.
More »
Inventor of Flash Memory Has Big Plans For Super-Fast 3D Processors
Had Fujio Masuoka not invented flash memory for Toshiba in the 80s, this would be a very different blog. Forget your massive SSDs, your infinite digicam memory cards, and yes, forget even your Virgin Mary beating-heart thumbdrives. Masuoka-san isn't finished with us yet, though, and the next-level tech he has his sights on next could keep us busy posting for many years to come.
More »
semiconductors
IBM Unleashes Photonic Supercomputer... On a Chip
Modern supercomputers are still at least 100 times faster than the crappy laptop you bought a week ago, and electrons are to blame. Today, IBM introduced a way to speed up the action on regular silicon chips by replacing the wiring with pulses of light, a technology called—what else?—silicon photonics. This method works for longer stretches requiring communication between cores, but it doesn't have a major impact in very tight spaces, so copper can still be used. This all may sound familiar, as it's essentially a teeny tiny version of today's fiberoptic networks. Now that you're kicking yourself about that laptop purchase, here's the good news: photonics won't be marketable on chips for another decade. [InfoWorld]
sony
Sony Pulls Out of 32nm Chip Development
Developing 32nm processors with IBM and Toshiba has proved too rich for Sony's blood—they're pulling out of the joint R&D, right on the heels of selling their chip-making business to Toshiba a couple of weeks ago. [Reuters]
pcs
Intel to Enter High-End GPU Market with Larrabee in 2008
Intel's Larabee GPU will be out next year, and due to a highly parallelized architecture, it's not only going to be good for video and math processing, but discreet graphics processing, too. The chips should have manufacturing advantages over those from AMD and NVidia, too, with half of the new chips to be made in the 45nm range, ahead of the competition. Interesting. [Infoweek]
Today, Symantec and Intel announced Project Hood, which would result into security systems built natively into processors. No other info was given. [Reuters]
