chips

Smaller, faster gadgets may be cool, but keeping them from getting too hot poses challenges.

Consumer electronics, of course, contain many sources of heat, including interconnecting wiring and millions of transistors. In the past, bigger and bigger fans have been employed to keep chips from overheating, thus expanding a gadget's lifespan. But as electronics continue to shrink, so does the space where fans can be placed.

Enter graphene, a sheet of densely arranged carbon that's just a single atom thick and boasts strong heat-conducting properties. Researchers at UC Riverside's Nano-Device Laboratory have discovered a way to layer … Read more

ARM is running one of its Web sites on a cluster of ARM-based chips, part of a handful of experiments to test out the viability of using its chip architecture in servers.

The Cambridge, England-based company does not market designs for server processors, concentrating its efforts instead on chips for the mobile phone market--where it dominates--and on early forays into smartbooks and tablets. However, ARM is working on low-powered server chips in response to customer demand, marketing chief Ian Drew told ZDNet UK.

"We've been doing some testing over the past year or so," Drew said on … Read more

Smartbooks have failed to materialize due to delays in Flash optimization, a lower-than-expected uptake of Linux on Netbooks, and the sudden emergence of tablets, ARM's marketing chief has said.

ARM dominates the mobile phone chip design market and has since 2008 been trying to get into the subnotebook market as well. The plan was to do so through Linux-based, ARM-powered "smartbooks" that would provide an instant-on, longer-life alternative to x86-based Netbooks but, according to ARM's marketing vice president, Ian Drew, events have conspired to stall this plan.

"We thought [smartbooks] would be launched by now, … Read more

Global shipments of microprocessors for the first quarter of the year grew by 39 percent over the same quarter in 2009, paving the way for a market recovery, according to findings from IDC released Thursday.

Though first-quarter shipments actually declined 5.6 percent from the previous quarter, a drop from the fourth to the first quarter is typical of seasonal trends in this industry, said IDC. And the 5.6 percent fall was smaller than usual.

"PC processor shipments typically decline around 7 to 8 percent going from fourth quarter to first quarter," Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors … Read more

A month after the rumors first started flying, Apple finally confirmed that it has indeed purchased Intrinsity, a Texas-based chipmaker.

Apple confirmed the acquisition on Tuesday to The New York Times, though it did not disclose the purchase price or what Apple's plans for Intrinsity are. One guess has the value at $121 million.

It's the second chipmaker purchased by Apple in two years starting with P.A. Semi, which it bought for $278 million. It's also the fourth acquisition Apple has made since last fall; it bought map API maker PlaceBase in October, social music site LaLa … Read more

As recently as February, Sony was still losing around $18 per every PlayStation 3 sold. A whole three and a half years after the console's November 2006 launch, it appears a new component will finally allow for a profit to be made on each system.

Thank a cheaper, cooler, 40-nanometer RSX graphics chip for the reduced production cost. Even better, the chip will require less overall power to run (about 15 percent), which is ultimately good for your wallet. These consoles with updated chipsets will be available in stores as they are manufactured.

Microsoft has gone through a similar … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices delivered a first-quarter profit in the latest sign that the PC and server upgrade cycle is gaining momentum.

AMD delivered net income of $257 million, or 35 cents a share, on revenue of $1.57 billion, up from $1.18 billion a year ago (statement). AMD's revenue was down a bit from the $1.65 billion delivered in the fourth quarter. On a non-GAAP basis the chipmaker reported a profit of 9 cents a share.

Wall Street was expecting AMD to report a loss of 5 cents a share. In a statement, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer … Read more

Intel has said its next chip platform, code-named Sandy Bridge, will go into production by the end of 2010.

The architecture will be the first to incorporate Intel Advanced Vector Extension (AVX) instructions, Intel architecture group co-general manager David Perlmutter told the Intel Developer Forum conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

"Intel architecture delivers the right combination of performance and power that provides the foundation across all computing devices creating a virtual continuum of computing," said Perlmutter in a statement.

Read more of Intel sets production date for Sandy Bridge" at ZDNet UK.

Researchers at Rice University have found that a simple swipe of a diagnostic biochip is 93 percent "specific" in detecting which of 52 patients being studied had malignant, as well as premalignant, lesions--results they say compare well with traditional (but more invasive) screening.

"One of the key discoveries in this paper is to show that the miniaturized, noninvasive approach produces about the same result as the pathologists do," says John McDevitt, the Brown-Wiess Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering at Rice, in a news release this week.

McDevitt's lab developed the novel nano-biochip technology at the … Read more