Processor

A team of researchers at Yale University has managed to create a rudimentary all-electronic quantum processor that can perform simple algorithms, in what many see as an important step towards making quantum computing a reality. The processor can perform a few simple tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms and even photons, but this is the first time that such tasks have been performed in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much like a regular microprocessor. Read More

When Sony entered into a partnership with Toshiba and IBM to design the Cell processor for their PlayStation 3, they agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other companies. What they didn't know was that parts of the Cell would be sold to their major competitor Microsoft for use in the Xbox 360 processor - before the Cell was completed. Read More

Samsung Electronics has announced a new series of media processors aimed at delivering a functionality boost to the popular digital photo frame market. Slated for mass production in Q1 2009, the new processors offer fast decoding - tested at one second for a 57 megapixel JPEG image - and integrate media rich capabilities such as touch screen control. Read More

Intel has launched what it is touting as the fastest desktop processor on the planet. The Intel Core i7 processor is Intel’s most advanced desktop processor ever and is the first member of their new Nehalem family of processor designs. The Core i7 holds a new world record of 117 for the SPECint_base_rate2006 benchmark test – the first time any single processor has exceeded 100 points. It incorporates new technologies that boost performance on demand and maximize data throughput to speed video editing, resource hungry 3D games and other Internet and computer activities by up to 40 per cent without increasing power consumption. Read More

CSR has announced MusiCore1, the first fully featured single-chip for mobile phones that includes both a stereo audio processor and Bluetooth capabilities – saving 75% of the cost of an audio processor, and 36mm squared of space. MusiCore1 allows 100 hours of music playback, and can decode MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA and SBC files. Read More

March 3, 2008 Recognizing that personal computing is increasingly going mobile and that the computer industry is rapidly developing new classes of products to connect the next billion people to the Internet, Intel has announced the Intel Atom processor - a new family of low-power processors designed specifically for mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and a new class of simple and affordable Internet-centric computers arriving later this year. The company also announced the Intel Centrino Atom processor technology for MID platforms, consisting of multiple chips that enable the best Internet experience in a pocketable device. Read More

March 4, 2007 Just how much computing power are we going to have at our fingertips a decade? Given the inevitable continuation of Moore’s Law, on the surface, quite clearly we’ll have almost supercomputer power available, and the latest news from Intel suggests the path forward. Intel has developed the world’s first programmable processor that delivers supercomputer-like performance from a single, 80-core chip not much larger than the size of a finger nail while using less electricity than most of today’s home appliances. This is the result of the company’s “Tera-scale computing” research aimed at delivering Teraflops -- or trillions of calculations per second -- performance for future PCs and servers. Technical details of the Teraflops research chip were presented at the annual Integrated Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. Be sure to catch the flash demo of the Architectural vision on the bottom right hand side of this page. Read More

February 28, 2007 Study after study shows the efficiency of using two monitors on the desktop, so Estari’s announcement that it has upgraded its 2-VU dual-screen mobile computer is worth looking into as it offers the same efficiencies in a mobile environment. Estari’s 2-VU dual-screen computers are two touch screen, full-page, full-color, multimedia electronic computing devices and the latest Model DC15 uses the Intel Core Duo Processor and the base model will sell for US$4350. The dual-screen mobile computers combine aspects of a laptop, desktop, tablet PC and e-Book reader into a solution that provides increased functionality, productivity and mobility with an unprecedented visual workspace. When in transport mode, the DC15 looks just like a briefcase. Read More

February 13, 2007 - NVIDIA have unveiled their latest product geared for the mobile market, and contrary to what you might expect, it's not a new 3D card for laptops. The NVIDIA GoForce 6100 is the first in a coming family of processors that offer an integrated multimedia solution to power the myriad new handheld devices that will influence our lives in 2007 - and it uses less than half the power of anything on the market today. Read More