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NEC and Renesas looking to join forces against semiconductor evil
We're always up for a good semiconductor merger, and it looks like NEC Electronics and Renesas are prepping the biggest one we've seen this week. The two companies have agreed to team up, creating a combined force of $13 billion in yearly sales, and the largest chip company in Japan -- Renesas was already the product of a chip merger between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric. They'll still be behind Intel and Samsung in the overall game, but we won't hold that against them. Tokyo analysts believe this might lead to other "defensive" mergers by other Japanese chipmakers, but we'll have to wait and see. NEC and Renesas hope to finish talks by July and become a single company by April of next year.[Via Electronista]
AMD announces GLOBALFOUNDRIES spin-off, forgets to name it something awesome
AMD's finally dumped its fabrication facilities and technology onto a new spin-off brand, as expected. ATIC (Advanced Technology Investment Company) is on board as well, and the newly-formed GLOBALFOUNDRIES has $6 billion in investments to start out with, along with 2,800 employees. GLOBALFOUNDRIES will be primarily be building chips for AMD, just like usual, but will also be open to other gigs as a 3rd party chip builder -- its main rival TSMC just scored a deal with Intel to produce Atom chips on the cheap, a first for Intel who usually keeps production and processes in-house. First up for the new company? Churning out a 32nm process. We like the sound of that.
Bonus cellphone found in bag of Aldi potato chips, charger unfortunately absent
When we were kids, a box of cereal wasn't worth eating if there wasn't a free toy buried in the bottom somewhere. Emma Schweiger of Janesville Township, Wisconsin has sadly forgotten those days, reacting in horror not joy when she found an unexpected free prize in her bag of potato chips purchased at Aldi. While rummaging through the greasy fragments she uncovered an aged Nokia handset, bereft of charge, covered in cholesterol, and sporting a T-Mobile SIM card. No address book has yet been retrieved to identify the phone's owner, but the discolored disc on the back where an adhesive belt clip had been applied is a pretty strong clue to how it came to its carb-laden cocoon. As for Schweiger, she's pledged to always pour her bag of chips into a bowl prior to eating -- which happens to also be the easiest way to get the toy out of a particularly unappealing box of cereal.[Via Engadget Spanish]
Nvidia and Intel at odds over chipset license agreement
We don't wish to bore you with our extensive knowledge of integrated memory controllers or graphicular renderpipe cashays, so we'll simply leap to the core of this computer matter. Nvidia has responded to an Intel court filing, which alleges that a 2004 chipset licensing agreement between the two companies does not extend to Intel's future generation CPUs -- you know, the ones with integrated memory controllers. Nvidia has deemed this movement counter to the prior agreement, with president and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang saying, "We are confident that our license, as negotiated, applies." He sees it as a brewing power struggle, labeling his own company as the major innovator and Intel as attempting to "stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business." Nvidia claims that it has been attempting to settle matters outside of the court for over a year. Good luck to whatever judge has to decide which hardware giant has the bigger chip on its solder, eh? EH?[Via Big Download]
New fabrication technique uses amorphous metals for building computer chips and killing machines
Sure, the march toward the ridiculous in the nanometer scale has continued unabated, but silicon can (probably) take us only so far. Some scientist types at Yale have developed a new fabrication process using bulk metallic glasses (BMGs), which are "amorphous metals" that can avoid crystalizing when cooled in a specific way. The upshot is that the metal -- while seeming solid -- acts as a slow-flowing liquid, with no structure beyond the atomic level. The BMGs can therefore replace several steps in the chip-stamping process, since they're more durable than silicon, but are more pliable than normal metals. Right now the folks at Yale are making patterns as small as 13nm, with better processes to come.[Via Physorg]
Samsung growing its own 4G chipsets
You know those annoying little stickers you get on new handsets proudly boasting that they're packing 3G technology from Qualcomm? Yeah, well, those have already started to go away as manufacturers have turned to competing chipsets -- but Samsung buyers definitely won't need to peel those off anymore in a year or two when the Korean giant starts rolling out its WiMAX- and LTE-based phones. Its own homegrown WiMAX silicon is already available in sample quantities to both its own phone guys and other companies, and LTE versions are on the way (though it's not clear whether the LTE stuff will be ready in time for their very first phone models to use the technology). Ultimately, Samsung hopes to shave costs and avoid a few pesky royalty payments by doing things in-house, and seeing how every single phone in a few years is going to need one of these two technologies on board, we'd say this is a good place to start.[Via GigaOM]
New MacBook Pro benchmarked within Boot Camp
Finally, someone with more money that I have (I want a new MacBook Pro, but haven't yet convinced myself to shell out the dough to replace my old yet trusty G4 12" Powerbook) has put the new MBP and those shiny graphics chips to the test, and drummed up some real benchmarking numbers in Boot Camp. It turns out to be PC World, strangely enough. And the verdict? Well, it's not quite so great.The good news is that the MacBook Pro is faster than ever, and graphics have significantly improved. And trust us, any improvement over the old chips is a step in the right direction. The bad news is that in a practical situation (like playing the Crysis demo, which is actually about a year old at this point), a MacBook Pro in Boot Camp at the highest settings isn't actually playable, and the 15 fps you might squeeze out of it on a good day still can't compare to the 50 fps you can get out of even average video cards in a Windows PC. If the graphics are turned down, it's a different story -- we've seen a new MBP run games well in Boot Camp already, so it'll play, but Apple still has a ways to go to be competitive with brand new games.But let's keep this all in perspective -- it's very good news when you compare the new MacBook Pros to the old ones. Apple is at least realizing that 3D performance needs an upgrade in their units. Maybe next time around they can bring some software updates into the mix as well, and we can start to see some real competition in high-end performance.
More details leak on AMD's Fusion platform, Fusion now officially the Palm OS II of CPUs
In yet more news about the perpetually forthcoming Fusion CPU / GPU combos from AMD, new details have been leaked regarding the chips' sizes, configurations, and other bits of insufferably tedious details that only Professor Frink could truly love. According to this latest report, the "first" Fusion processor will be called "Shrike," sport a dual-core Phenom CPU, an ATI RV800 GPU, and a footprint of just 40nm. Another chip, codenamed "Falcon," will debut in 2010 at a 32nm size, based around a platform known as "Bulldozer," and will be launched to combat Intel's 32nm offering. Of course, we've been hearing about these chips since 2006, so we're not exactly on the edge of our seats hearing new details of what essentially amounts to vaporware.
New Shiren 2 screens are all that and a bag of Shiren chips
We couldn't decide which was more awesome -- these new screenshots for Shiren the Wanderer DS 2: Demon Castle in the Desert, or the fact that Chunsoft went out of its way in 2001 to promote the original Game Boy Color title, Shiren the Wanderer GB2, with bags of steak-flavored chips (In case you're late to the party, STW DS 2 is a roguelike remake of STW GB2).So, we went ahead and featured both the crisps and an image of Shiren's long-lost and perpetually hungry brother, Pekeji, in our article image. Hopefuly, publisher Sega will have a similar potato chip promotion with STW DS 2! Even better, maybe they'll eventually localize the chips along with the game? See also: Shiren GB2, Shiren DS 2 compared%Gallery-26136%[via Inside Games]
Intel patents cosmic ray detectors on-a-chip. What a relief.
That great perpetrator of worldly ills, the cosmic ray, has at last met its match. Intel has patented the concept of an on-chip detector of cosmic rays which would auto-correct for soft errors caused by the cosmic ray's interference. Apparently Intel is concerned that cosmic rays -- those perky particles from space that blast through the Earth's atmosphere and tamper with your precious bodily fluids -- are going to become "a major limiter of computer reliability in the next decade" as chips get smaller and smaller. The rays have already been proved to interfere with electronics in small ways, so while Intel doesn't have method for building an actual cosmic ray detector yet, they're certainly getting a jump on the problem with this patent. We know we'll certainly be sleeping better at night.[Via Slashdot]
Chip makers rise and fall with format war conclusion
Though the clear winner and loser in the format war was Sony and Toshiba, respectively, quite a few behind the scenes supporters are now facing similar celebrations / dilemmas in dealing with the fallout. A new report takes an in-depth look at how chip makers are faring, and while not surprising, we are told that both NEC and Broadcom are reeling after HD DVD went under, and will have to "absorb software R&D costs that can't be recouped." On the flip side, parties such as Sigma Designs and IBM have their lucky stars to thank, as the former even attempted to ally with Toshiba but were spurned in favor of Broadcom. Interestingly, the article also notes that many fencesitters are now looking to jump in, which could hopefully lead to increased competition and lower overall prices for those anxious to snap up a Blu-ray player in short order.[Thanks, Daniel H.]
Sony selling Cell chip facilities to Toshiba for $835 million
We're pretty sure there's a load of irony here somewhere, but we just can't put our finger on it. Sony is selling its chip manufacturing facilities -- including ones that build the Cell and RSX chips that go into the PS3 -- to Toshiba, and the $835 million deal goes down April 1. (No, this is not some April fool's joke, just really awkward timing.) Toshiba's also in a $16 billion partnership with SanDisk to produce flash memory, so it's looking like with the inclusion of Sony's chip capacity we're looking at quite the chip giant. We had wind of this Sony deal last year, but it looks like things finally got official just as all this "HD DVD losing the format war" stuff went down. No hard feelings, right Toshiba?
Fujitsu will spin off chip division, say reports (now official)
Fujitsu Limited, which is known for many fine products from laptops to degaussers, is allegedly poised to spin off one business it is not so well known for, its semiconductor division. Both NHK and the Asahi Shimbun are reporting that the Japanese firm will cut loose the organization "in a few months and form a new company by consolidating its chip production bases in Japan." According to Japan Today, while accounting for 10% of the multinational conglomerate's sales, the division continues to see heavy losses due to steep development costs, and may eventually have to merge with one of its rivals in order to survive.Update: It's official. Fujitsu says it will form a new subsidiary in March. The consolidation efforts will be complete in September to a tune of ¥10 billion (about $93 million).
Hackers get into Wii, hunt for Angelina Jolie begins
It would seem that the hacking community has finally cracked the Wii, as they've figured out a way to get code up and running on the console. It's a feat that hasn't been performed before and was accomplished after many Bothans people sacrificed time and energy to complete this task. See, inside of the Wii, the Hollywood chip doesn't just handle graphics, it's got a whole lot to do with authentication (you know, to make sure you've got a valid Wii or GC game disc in there). Well, these hackers have found out that upon booting up a GameCube game, this chip will turn off all of the cool Wii functionality (bluetooth, USB, etc.) and restricts the area of memory you're allowed to access. But, there isn't any kind of encryption dealing with the memory, so this is where the folks knew they should focus.Now, the next part gets too technical for us, but just know that they found a way to get these authentication codes from the memory and trick the Wii into believing it was loading a Wii game (in this case, Lego Star Wars). This then allowed them to load their own code into the Wii. Judging by the clapping in the video, it's a pretty big deal and means that homebrew on the Wii is that much closer to being a reality.Oh, and if you don't get the Angelina Jolie reference, head past the break.
Eight-year-old tests chips for Actel, owns an oscilloscope
Sure, you had a paper route when you were a kid; heck, we bet you were even good at it. Well listen up buddy, your fond memories of childhood success are about to be completely disintegrated by Carson Page, an eight-year-old from Austin, Texas who really works for a living... evaluating chips for Actel. The boy, who's been working with the company since he was seven, apparently has a knack for the technical side of things, so much so that the chipmaker has been using him on a regular basis to suss out bugs, test software, and generally act like a super-genius at the drop of a hat. Apparently, the interest in technology comes from his father, a tinkerer who owns an electronic design company. Mark Nagel, a field applications engineer for Actel says about the kid's work, "We would ask what he liked and didn't like about it and he could explain it on a very high-end level," adding, "It's amazing; when you talk to him it's like you're talking to a regular guy doing design." A regular guy, indeed. [Warning: read link requires subscription][Via CNET]
Is AMD readying three-core processors?
According to reports that have been slowly making their way through the chip manufacturing community, everyone's favorite underdog, AMD, is planning on launching a new line of three-core processors sometime in the near future. Sure, it sounds weird, but apparently the technique for creating a triple-core CPU is akin to "switching off" one core in a four-sided chip, and the process can yield significant speed enhancements while keeping costs reasonable. Reports speculate that the three-core model could happen partially due to the need to salvage bad four-core chips, but also because the triple-core concept is easy to market, and resistance from Intel will be low. Word on the street is that the new chips will appear on the consumer side to begin with, and might migrate over to the enterprise / server domain if there's sufficient movement on sales. Browse on over to the read link and feast your eyes on a succulent sea of technical mumbo-jumbo.[Via Techmeme]
NASA develops extreme-heat-resistant CPUs
Finally, you can wave goodbye to your heat-sinks, mods, and water-cooled contraptions, because NASA is on the scene with a new CPU that can rock 1,700 hours of uninterrupted processing at the low, low temperature of 500 degrees... Celsius. According to reports, scientists at the space agency have developed a chip which they call the "silicon carbide differential amplifier integrated circuit," taking the approach of using more heat-resistant materials, rather than external and extraneous cooling technology. "This new capability can eliminate the additional plumbing, wires, weight and other performance penalties required to liquid-cool traditional sensors and electronics," says Phil Neudeck, a NASA electrical engineer, adding, "It's really a significant step toward mission-enabling harsh environment electronics." The agency believes that the new technology will lead to improvements in safety and fuel efficiency, as well as reduced jet engine emissions, though team leaders say they're mainly hoping to, "...seriously jack up our WoW rigs."
Tilera debuts its sixty-four core processor, melts faces
Chipmaker Tilera, clearly bored with the peasant-like core counts of two or four as offered by such pedestrian competition like Intel and AMD, has decided to turn the game up a notch with their latest diabolical creation: the 64-core processor. That's right folks, Tilera's TILE64 is a new RISC CPU aimed at integrated systems like routers, switches, video conferencing, and set-top boxes that can best Intel's finest by a factor of 30, and casually rocks a bandwidth of something like 32TB per second. The new chip circumvents bottleneck problems that can plague CPUs like Intel's multi-core processors by utilizing a unique "mesh" architecture which allows each core to be decentralized and thus able to communicate more freely with any partner in the grid. Tilera believes the technology might open the door to hundreds or even thousands of cores using the new system. Of course, this is a RISC CPU, so clearly the applications in which it will be used differ somewhat from Intel's offerings, but nevertheless, it remains a tantalizing development in the world of multi-core R&D.[Via TG Daily]
HDMI-equipped Xbox 360 Premiums still carry 90nm chips
Well it appears that despite all of our wishing, hoping, and positive-thinking exercises, Microsoft has failed to deliver on a small dream of ours, namely, 65nm chips for the new HDMI-rocking Xbox 360 Premiums. Despite signs pointing otherwise, new photos show that this batch of systems continue to carry the Zephyr motherboard layout, which uses the older, hotter 90nm chips, though the boys in Redmond have addressed the heat issue a little bit with the addition of a second "daughter" heatsink attached to the CPU by heatpipe. The new 65nm "Falcon" boards -- which chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) confirmed are in production -- are still on their way according to the rumor mill, slated for release sometime this Fall. Interestingly, Microsoft and TSMC have just laid plans to produce the Xbox's graphics-memory subsystem using the chip manufacturer's 90nm embedded DRAM spec. We won't speculate on when we'll start seeing that addition appear, however.
Clock ticking for ITC to justify Qualcomm chip ban
It seems the feds agree with us that a broad, sweeping ban on little morsels of 3G goodness is just flat-out uncool. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has turned the proverbial hourglass upside down, giving the US International Trade Commission two weeks to justify its partial halt on the import of devices equipped with 3G chipsets manufactured by Qualcomm. The spat originates over a Broadcom claim that Qualcomm's silicon infringes on its patents, and the court system is interested in hearing why the USITC thinks the ban should remain in place while Qualcomm appeals. Intellectual property issues aside, the ITC's cold-turkey ban stands to have a significant impact on carriers, handset manufacturers, and customers (that's us, by the way) as the selection suddenly dries up -- so at the very least, we're hoping everyone affected has a little more time to get their ducks in a row while the patent suit navigates the legal system (please?).
