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At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Anand Chandrasekher, general manager for the chipmaker’s Ultra Mobility Group, shows a wafer with ‘Lincroft’ В— the main processor for Moorestown.
The new, integrated chip, designed for the smartphone market, is expected before the 2009-10, according to Chandrasekher.
Intel has announced the first of its new range of System on Chip (SoC) devices, which will combine most of an x86-based computer on a single chip.
Based around the Pentium M core, the EP80579 also contains a memory controller, gigabit Ethernet, Sata, USB and other standard PC interfaces. Optionally, it can also include a Security Services Unit with trusted platform and encryption functions.
Available in eight variants with speeds between 600MHz and 1.2 GHZ and power consumption between 11.5 and 21 watts, the chip is intended for use in embedded, internet-connected systems such as cars, robotic devices and set-top boxes.
Intel claims the chip uses 34 percent less power and takes up 45 percent less space than designs based on existing individual processor, interface and controller chips.
The company says it has 15 further SoC projects in the pipeline, many of which will centre on the recently unveiled, very low-power Atom core.
(Full article ‘Intel chip launch targets robots, cars and TV’)
AMD on Wednesday unveiled new microprocessors for the desktop PC market, in a move that could sharpen its competitive edge against rival Intel.
Among the chips in AMD’s Phenom family of processors is one that has three cores, compared with the two or four most generally available. AMD said that its Phenom X3 has as much as a 30 percent performance improvement in some instances over a dual-core chip operating at the same frequency.
AMD first disclosed plans to make the Phenom X3 in 2007, saying then that it was able to build a three-core chip because the cores are on the same piece of silicon, rather than two or four cores on different pieces of silicon joined together.
The company had a difficult 2007 as its full-year loss swelled to $3.38bn (1.68bn) from a net loss of $166m in 2006.
Broadcom said on Monday it had developed an integrated 3G high-speed wireless mobile-phone chip ahead of bigger rivals Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, sending Broadcom shares up as much as three percent.
Shares of Texas Instruments and Qualcomm both fell about two percent after Broadcom said it developed a single chip with a baseband the mobile phone’s main processor and a radio receiver, as well as FM radio and Bluetooth.
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Cody Acree raised his price target for Broadcom stock to $48 (24) from $40, saying the new chip helped legitimise efforts by Broadcom, a small wireless player, to increase its share of the mobile-phone chip market.
“This solution is the first of its kind at the 3G level” and appears to put it “at least several months” ahead of rivals such as Texas Instruments, Acree said in a note to clients.
Broadcom said the chip, which could put it up to two years ahead of rivals, was now available for customer testing.
(Full article ‘Broadcom claims lead over rivals with 3G chip’)
Intel Corp. will update its Centrino laptop package in January with a new processor and better graphics.
The update, called Santa Rosa Refresh, will replace Centrino’s current processors with chips made using a 45-nanometer production process — part of Intel’s Penryn chip family — instead of the 65-nm process now in use. The number refers to the average feature size that can be created on a chip, and smaller is generally better.
The planned release of Santa Rosa Refresh is set to be announced Wednesday by Dadi Perlmutter, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobility Group, during a scheduled speech at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco.
Moving to a more advanced manufacturing process typically results in faster chips that consume less power.
(Full article ‘IDF: Intel will release updated Centrino in January’)