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As a former AMD fanboy, this is kind of sad news. AMD will be splitting up into two companies—one that designs chips, and another that makes 'em. The constant need to build expensive new chip plants was a big drag on AMD, which lags behind Intel on multiple fronts. Intel is now the only company left that designs and makes its own chips, a fact that will likely increase its advantage over AMD.
BusinessWeek reports that counterfeit hardware has been found to be the cause of several malfunctions in high-level military machinery. The phony infiltration has a distinct possibility of leading to espionage or sabotage. In other words, move over, Meizu M8: you're not the biggest faker in town anymore.
AMD has confirmed rumours that it is working on DirectX 11, announcing at CEATEC that it plans to release its first DirectX 11-compatible GPUs in 2009. The company also predicted an increase in general purpose computing on GPUs (GPGPU) and a transition to a 40nm fabricating standard, which ought to give graphics chip performance rates a considerable boost. In layman terms: Things are about to get a lot bigger and a lot prettier. [Xbit Labs via Tweaktown]
Sony and Toshiba announced that they had successfully shrunk the 65nm cell down to 45nm earlier this year, and now thanks to Japan's Nikkan Kogyo, we now have a date for mass production: 2009. At a 40% reduction in power consumption, the shrunken Cell will generate less heat, which would help the PS3 to lose some of its piano-black bulk in a slim version. Cheaper production costs also means more $$ for Sony (or price drops for us). This could also lead to wider adoption of Cell technology in HD upscaling, which Toshiba is already doing in their SRT-enabled TVs and DVD players (but with their own custom chip). [Nikkan Kogyo (Translated)]
Stacked-up chip technology isn't new, but scientists at the University of Rochester have built the first properly-3D chip recently. Unlike previous attempts, with layered standard 2D chip-circuitry on top of similar layers, the new chip actually has components built into a 3D-matrix, with interconnects between layers.
We all owe a lot to this place. The birth of the world's first silicon chip happened here, and now, it's a nice place to pick up some fresh produce. Bits has a great history of the site--now known as the Fiesta Super Market at 391 San Antonio Road in Mountain View (home also to the big G). It used to be the world's first semiconductor lab, established by the American physicist William Shockley and where the founders of Fairchild and Intel got their chops. But now? Just a couple of marks on the sidewalk indicate its past, among all the fine fruits and veggies.
Biswahoman Pani worked for Intel. Claiming to miss his wife, he requested a transfer from California to Intel's Hudson facility where she worked. That same day, when the request was granted, Pani turned in his resignation and announced that he'd be taking vacation for his last two weeks at the company. His new job would be with a hedge fund.
Like the infamous Canburger before it, this snack food seems totally unnatural. I mean, chips made from "edible" paper? The creators claim that it is a zero calorie alternative to regular chips that offers a dining experience akin to "eating tasty air." First of all, what kind of paper is it? Rice paper has calories, so that should be ruled out. Does A4 have calories? Did anyone bust out a calorimeter? Will eating this stuff result in death or Olestra-esque "anal leakage?" All good questions, but it probably won't matter unless Slim Chips actually make it to the grocery store. [Slim Chips via Book of Joe via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Here's a challenge to hackers everywhere if I've ever heard one--a company named Verayo claims to have created an RFID chip that's completely unclonable thanks to a type of electronic DNA technology called Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). Unlike basic passive RFID chips, where data can be easily copied from one chip to another, Verayo's PUF-fy RFID chips use a series of challenge-and-response pairs to make counterfeiting nigh impossible (or so they say.)
Yesterday it was AMD, and today PC Watch has got hold of Intel's Atom roadmap: looks like the next-generation of chips, dubbed "Pineview," will hit in Q3 of next year. The 45nm processors will follow the route taken by the current gen, using hyperthreading to double up single and dual processor cores so that the OS sees them as dual-core and quad-cores. The microarchitecture is an update on the current Silverthorne system: like the bigger Nehalem chips, it ditches the idea of a frontside bus, instead using a Direct Media Interface to connect to I-O chips. It'll also integrate graphics core and memory manager right into the chip packaging. Wonder what AMD will come up with to counter that? [PCWatch via RegHardware]
