We have seen the introduction dual core processors, first Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Opteron, then come Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840.

Intel’s vision of a future chip design which are moves that are necessary to improve overall system performance as the chipmaker packs more cores onto a single chip.

The new head of Intel’s Corporate Technology Group, Justin Rattner, described Intel’s evolving vision of what its chips might look like around 2015 in an interview at Intel headquarters Thursday. Intel, like much of the chip industry, has decided that multicore designs are the way to go to improve performance in the future.

Some the early fruits of Intel’s project are evident in Intel’s I/O Acceleration Technology, announced earlier this year at the Spring Intel Developer Forum, Rattner said. This technology essentially improves the I/O performance of Intel chips by dedicating excess processing resources to I/O functions. It will be available next year with Intel’s first dual-core Xeon server chip, code-named Dempsey.

However, Intel is urged to move away from its frontside bus design by analysts and customers due to the advent of multicore processors. This is because in Intel’s current chips, the interaction between the processor and a system’s memory bank is handled by a memory controller on the chip set that feeds data to the processor at various speeds ranging from 400 MHz to 1066 MHz, depending on the chip. This design has served the company well for many years, but as chips start to take advantage of multiple processing units, they require increased amounts of memory bandwidth to perform to their true potential.

Some aspects of moving away from its frontside bus designs will start to become possible as Intel introduces its 45-nanometer and 32-nanometer processing technologies, which will be capable of producing smaller transistors than Intel’s current 90-nanometer processing technology, Rattner said. At the moment, those introductions are scheduled for 2007 and 2009.

45nm & 32nm ?? :-O

April 11, 2005, Intel posted a search in eBay for a 1965 copy of Electronics Magazine that featured Intel co-founder Gordon Moore’s thoughts on how silicon technology would evolve. Whoever is willing to sell that magazine to Intel will be awarded USD$10,000.

The issue contained an article by Moore that described how the number of components on integrated circuits was doubling every year. The article became the foundation for Moore’s famed dictum, which has been a favorite maxim of the IT industry for decades. Electronics Magazine went out of business several years ago, though, and copies are scarce.

One day after Intel posting that offer on eBay, David Clark, an engineer in Surrey, England, quickly sent a photo of the well-preserved copy of that issue and response off to eBay. So as promised by Intel, Clark has reaped the chip giant’s $10,000 by selling the magazine to Intel.

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We have seen mobile phone with flashlight, but have you seen USB thumbdrive with flashlight?

ION Technologies came out a thumbdrive model built-in with a LED flashlight, named FlashLite^TM. Nowadays, thumbdrive is more like a key chain for some of us, so, it would be quite useful to have a LED light bulb on a thumbdrive. Who knows you might need that feature one day? :)

Intel just announced they will begin shipping WiMax chipsets to major equipment manufacturers, including Siemens AG of Germany and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. of China, on 18 April , 2005. Products built on Intel WiMax chipset are expected to be launched by this autumn.

For you information, WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access and provides data links at distances of up to 30 miles at a maximum speed of 70mbps (megabits per second). WiMax is based on IEEE802.16-2004 standard and is designed to provide wireless broadband Internet access to end-users beyond Wi-Fi range and speed.

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Setting up a wireless LAN at the North Pole?
Yup, you are correct !

Two employees at Intel Russia recently erected what may have been the world’s most northerly Wi-Fi hotspot–just about 80 miles from the North Pole.

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According to Intel, the air temperature of the surrounding is rarely above -30 Celsius. This environment is never an ideal one to computer devices. Besides, there is temparature difference between indoor and outdoor temparatures, in turn, causes condensation to form on the laptop. Furthurmore, batteries power dries up fast in low temperatures.

Intel also points to the experiment as an example of how mobile technology allows users to work anywhere, which I agree with no doubt. :)

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) leaded the desktop processors to 64-bit technology last year and now they are going to lead the laptop processors industry to 64-bit with their new Turion64 mobile processor.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will take a headstart and a chance for the lead in the 64-bit mobile CPU market with its forthcoming Turion 64, as Intel will not launch its 64-bit mobile CPU until the second quarter of 2006……

In addition, Microsoft will release its Windows XP 64-bit edition this quarter (due in April) AMD Turion 64 should be the only standard to support the version before the availability of Intel’s 64-bit mobile CPU.

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