intel unveils new chip technology

      Intel has launched a new generation of chips that it hopes will boost its lead over rival Advanced Micro Devices heading into 2008.

  The line of chips, code-named Penryn, uses a new manufacturing method that allows Intel (INTC) to make the chips both smaller and more efficient. Penryn chips should help companies like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Apple (AAPL) to design more energy-efficient servers, more powerful of desktops and more portable laptops.

  In the near term, Penryn’s value to Intel could be more about reputation than the bottom line. Earlier in the decade, competitor AMD (AMD) took advantage of the chip giant’s missteps and offered products that many in the industry judged to be technologically superior to Intel’s. But now Intel is back with a vengeance, and has AMD on the ropes. And because the Penryn chips are based on an advanced 45-nanometer manufacturing process, they give the company valuable bragging rights.

The special ingredient in Intel’s new 45-nanometer Penryn is hafnium, an element that allows it to shrink the size of its chips while improving their efficiency.

    “Historically, silicon dioxide has been the main insulator and the base of these transistors,” said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. “In 2003 we identified a new structure that was different, but we didn’t say exactly what it was. So in January we announced that we had found a new material to replace silicon dioxide.”

   Despite the advantages from the new manufacturing process, Intel isn’t likely to realize the full advantage from Penryn until the second half of 2008, when its chip-producing factories in Arizona, New Mexico and Israel will be able to churn them out at full tilt. At that point, Intel should be able to supply them to computer makers in the largest volumes at mass-market prices while, presumably, raking in major profits.

So far, Calder said, Penryn manufacturing at Intel’s Oregon and Arizona facilities is going well.

“Yields are good, we are in volume manufacturing now, and we are ramping pretty much in accordance with all the previous processes,” Calder said. “Moore’s Law lives.”

     That still leaves AMD a window to answer Intel’s challenge. In September, AMD announced a new chip for servers, code-named Barcelona, that sports an advanced design with four processing cores. AMD has also promised to offer a desktop version of the chip before the end of the year.

  While AMD is touting Barcelona’s design advantages, it’s not a sure thing that it will translate into market success. Early versions of the Barcelona chip are slower than AMD had hoped, and it’s not clear whether the company has been delivering large volumes of the chips to customers.

      AMD’s best chance of competing with Intel might lie in the graphics technology it acquired when it purchased graphics chipmaker ATI. AMD has said that the multimedia processing technology in graphics chips is now so important that it will become a core part of the way mainstream computer systems are designed.

First Tests of Intel's New Dual-Core Mobile Processors

       Intel increased the multitasking power of notebooks this week with its introduction of dual-core technology into its mobile processor line. Our exclusive tests show the new Intel Core Duo chips can boost a system's ability to perform more than one task at a time, but they don't seem to have much performance impact on single, standard applications.

     We evaluated two preproduction notebooks--one from Dell, the other from HP--each featuring the new 2-GHz Core Duo T2500 chip. The chips, formerly code-named Yonah, also come with a new platform (formerly code-named Napa) that boasts a faster frontside bus (now at 667 MHz, up from 533 MHz), support for faster memory that matches the frontside bus speed, a new chip set (the 945 GM/PM), and Intel's new wireless 802.11 a/b/g technology.

       The processors come in two main lines: the T line for mainstream notebooks, and the L line of low-voltage models intended for ultralight laptops. The T line will range from the 1.66-GHz T2300 to the 2.16-GHz T2600; the L line will initially have two variants, the 1.5-GHz L2300 and the 1.66-GHz L2400.

     Like the Pentium M line, Intel's previous generation of mobile processors, all of the new chips also offer a 2MB cache. In addition, the systems feature Intel power-management technology that can shut down one of the processor cores if the application workload is light, thereby improving notebook battery life.

Intel says notebooks with the new processors should be available from most major vendors at launch or in the coming weeks.

Multitasking Might

   PC World tested two 2-GHz Core Duo T2500-based systems, a $1923 HP Pavilion dv1000 and a $2307 Dell Inspiron E1705. We found average speed for the processor class in everyday applications, and par-for-the-course battery life. But the pair rocked in our multitasking tests.

   The two systems each had 1GB of memory, though the E1705 came with the slightly faster DDR2-667 SDRAM as opposed to the dv1000's DDR2-533 SDRAM. Both notebooks earned a WorldBench 5 score of 97.

       That score makes them among the fastest notebooks we've ever tested, but not any speedier overall than Pentium M notebooks at an equivalent gigahertz level. For example, a recent Best Buy, the Acer TravelMate 8100, equipped with a 2-GHz Pentium M 760 chip and 1GB of DDR2-533 SDRAM, earned a mark of 94, a statistically insignificant difference of 3 percent behind the new systems' score.

     We saw little difference in battery life, too. Equipped with an extended-life nine-cell battery ($99 more than the standard six-cell battery), the Inspiron E1705 ran out of gas after 2 hours, 32 minutes, fairly typical for a notebook with a 17-inch wide screen. The Pavilion dv1000, a 14-inch wide-screen model, did better at 3 hours, 51 minutes, nearly matching the 4-hour battery life we got with a single-processor version of the notebook last year.

  But the dual processors showed their stuff when juggling multiple jobs. The two notebooks shone in PC World's multitasking test (in which we browse the Web while converting a video file from one format to another), completing the test almost 30 percent faster than the Acer TravelMate 8100 did. The dv1000 was speediest, finishing the job in 470 seconds (or a little under 8 minutes), while the Dell took 498 seconds (or 8 minutes, 18 seconds); the Acer TravelMate needed 682 seconds (over 11 minutes) to finish.

In video games, the speed of game play varied, but overall we did not notice much difference in visual quality or smoothness. Both of our test systems ran fairly cool and quiet. Thermal design power for the new T line is 31 watts, while the L line is rated at 15 watts--up slightly over the last generation, which had ratings of 27 watts for mainstream Pentium M CPUs and 10 watts for the low-voltage versions.

Good Desktop Replacements

      Strong multitasking will come in handy on notebooks like the Dell Inspiron E1705, whose Windows Media Center Edition operating system allows multiple media applications to run at once. A large but stylish-looking 8.2-pound (not including power adapter) silver desktop replacement unit with white trim, the E1705 offers a bright 1920-by-1200-resolution 17-inch wide screen, an 80GB hard drive, a good keyboard, and better-than-average notebook sound, including a subwoofer. Front media buttons let you pop in a DVD or CD, or even manage the digital photos on your hard drive, without booting. The unit replaces the Inspiron 9300 series, which will gradually disappear this quarter.

      The 5.6-pound dv1000, a dual-core refresh of HP's popular consumer notebook, now boasts a basic Webcam built into the top of the 14-inch 1280-by-768-resolution screen, a 100GB hard drive, a handy touchpad lock, and dual headphones ports located on the front. The dv1000 also has a quick-play option that lets you turn the notebook into a stand-alone DVD and CD player. It should make a good entertainment notebook for students and mainstream consumers.

      Both units offer built-in rewritable DVD drives and include media card reader slots, along with the usual complement of ports.

Additional Improvements

     Intel expects speed boosts even greater than the ones we saw in our tests. On some tests, the company says, it saw a performance boost of 68 percent or more.

     Keith Kressin, director of marketing for Intel's mobile products group, says that games should look better on Core Duo notebooks but that multitasking would benefit the most, as our tests show. "The more demanding the task--ripping a CD while watching a movie, for instance--the better the performance improvement," he says.

     Gerry Purdy, an analyst with MobileTrax, expects improvements on simultaneous tasks but not on tasks you merely switch between, such as working in a word processing document and then in a spreadsheet. "But when you do two things simultaneously and at least one of them involves media management, such as music or video, that's where dual core will really make a difference. For example, playing a live CNN video while you answer e-mails," he says.

    Leslie Fiering of Gartner agrees, offering the example of antivirus software's annoying tendency to stall other applications. "You can do real work while your virus checker is running in the background," she says.

   The new notebooks should also benefit from new mini-card Wi-Fi boards based on the PCI Express design, which is half the size of older Wi-Fi cards. That leaves an open slot for manufacturers to add a WWAN card without increasing the size of the notebook, says Intel's Kressin.

    Bahr Mahony, director of AMD's Mobile Division, says AMD plans to release a dual-core version of its Turion 64 processor some time in the first half of 2006 that will be optimized for longer battery life and for notebooks 6.5 pounds and lighter. Currently AMD's Athlon64 X2 Dual-Core Processor for desktop PCs is being used in a handful of desktop replacement notebooks.

Modify Your CD-ROM to Watch DVD Movies

There are two types of CD-ROM drives we can mod:

24x to 40x,

40x or higher

Drives slower than 24x are too old to be modded.

24x to 40x CD ROMs

Laser Head Adjustments:

The track pitch of Cd's is 1.6 microns, and the track pitch of DVDs is only 0.8 microns. The minimum length of track pits of Cd's is 0.843mm, and the minimum length of track pits of DVDs is 0.293mm. That's why DVD discs can store much more data in the size of a CD.

      Pinpointing this situation, we need to adjust the laser head so it can read discs with smaller track pitch and shorter track pits. Open up the CD-ROM drive, do you see a lens on the rail? That's the laser head. On the side of the laser head, there's a screw you can adjust.

  This is the key of this mod.

This screw can adjust the size of the laser beam that lands on the disc.

     Referring to the above, after adjusting, the laser beam should be less than 0.293mm, to suit the needs of DVD discs. So turn that screw 2-3 times. I got this number through trial and error. Mark with a pencil, in case you forget how many times you turned that screw.

Speed adjustments:

DVD-ROM drives can play DVD movies smoothly at 4x speed. If we're modding a 32x CD-ROM drive, the rotation speed is obviously too high, increasing heat,and shortening the life of the drive.So we need to decrease the speed of it.

Most people know that power supplies can provide 5V (red wire) and 12V (yellow wire) electricity output for Molex connectors. Find the Molex connector you'll plug into the modded CD-ROM drive, cut the yellow wire or insulate it with tape, so only 5V of electricity is transferred to the CD-ROM drive.

The speed of the drive is now 32 * 5/17 = 9.41x and can now fulfill our requirements.

40x or higher CD ROMs

When 40x CD-ROM drives are released, most manufacturers are already producing DVD-ROM drives. To lower cost, they use the same core as DVD-ROM drives with DVD functions disabled. What we need to do here is to re-enable the DVD function.

Open up the CD-ROM, behind the circuit board, look for a jumper that says DVD JUMP. Find a jumper to connect this jumper. Thin metal wire also works fine. OK, so the DVD function is unlocked, but we still need to decrease the speed. Use the instructions above on how to decrease the speed of the drive.

WIRELESS LAN

INTRODUCTION:

    Wireless LAN (WLAN) is a flexible data communication system implemented as an extension to a wired LAN within a building or campus. WLANs transmit and receive data over the air by electrical signals, minimizing the need for wired connections. The advent of WLAN opened up a whole new definition of what a network infrastructure can be. No longer does an infrastructure need to be solid and fixed, difficult to move and expensive to change. Instead it can move with the user and change as fast as the organization does.

     Thus WLANs combine data connectivity with user mobility. Today it provides wireless access to vital network resources such as large, multi location enterprises, small and medium enterprises as well as hotels and hospitals, airports and homes. They are being widely recognized as viable, cost effective general purpose solution in providing real-time access to information and are reshaping the local area network landscape. 

    Wireless LANs are based on a set of technologies known by the IEEE specification number, 802.11 or by its synonymous trademarked name, Wi-Fi™ and is gaining popularity due to fact that it operates in the unlicensed ISM(Industrial Scientific & Medical) band (2.40 GHz to 2.484 GHz, 5.725 GHz to 5.850 GHz).

CHOICE OF WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY:

     The widespread reliance on networking in business and the meteoric growth of the Internet and online services are strong testimonials to the benefits of shared data and shared resources. With wireless LANs, users can access shared information without looking for a place to plug-in. Wireless LAN offers the following productivity and convenience over Wired Networks:

► Mobility

► Installation Speed and Simplicity

► Installation Flexibility

► Reduced Cost of Ownership

        ► Scalability

THE TECHNOLOGY:

    Wireless LANs are based on a set of technologies known by the IEEE specification number, 802.11 which was finalized in June 1997.The figure indicates the model developed by the 802.11 working group.

  Wireless LANs use electromagnetic airwaves (radio or infrared) to communicate information from one point to another without relying on any physical connection. Radio waves are responsible for delivering energy to a remote receiver. The data being transmitted is superimposed on the radio carrier so that they can be easily extracted at the receiving end. Once data is superimposed (modulated) onto the radio carrier, the radio signal occupies more than a single frequency, since the frequency or bit rate of the modulating information adds to the carrier.

  Multiple radio carriers can exist in the same space at the same time without inferring with each other if the radio waves are transmitted on different radio frequencies. To extract data a radio receiver tunes in one radio frequency while rejecting all other frequencies.

     The smallest building block of a wireless LAN is a Basic Service Set (BSS), which consists of some number of stations executing the same MAC protocol and competing for the access to the same shared medium. A BSS may be isolated or it may connect to a backbone distribution system through an Access Point (AP) which in a typical LAN configuration, is a transmitter/receiver (transceiver) device. The Access Point functions as a bridge. It receives buffers and transmits data between the wireless LAN and the wired network infrastructure. A single Access Point can support a small group of users and can function within a range of less than one hundred to several hundred feet. The Access Point (or the antenna attached to the AP) is usually mounted high but may be mounted essentially anywhere as long as radio coverage is obtained. End user access the Wireless LAN through Wireless-LAN adapters, which are implemented as PC cards.

   An Extended Service Set (ESS) consists of two or more basic service sets interconnected by a distribution system. The ESS appears as a single logical LAN to the Logical Link Control (LLC) level.

The standard defines three types of stations based on mobility:

► No Transition                     

► BSS Transition

► ESS Transition

AMD introduces new AMD Turion ML-40

AMD Turion 64 mobile technology is designed to bring award-winning AMD64 performance to thinner and lighter notebook PCs with extended system battery life, enhanced security, and compatibility with the latest graphics and wireless solutions. Offering outstanding performance in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments, AMD64 technology is a smart investment today that will not be obsolete tomorrow.
AMD Turion 64 mobile technology ML-40 is priced at $525 in 1,000-unit quantities.
The first notebook PC based on the latest AMD Turion 64 mobile technology model is being introduced today by HP. The HP Compaq nx6125 notebook PC, which is expected to be available worldwide starting this month, offers mobility, advanced security features, ease of use and real business value to the small to mid-size business professional.
As a leading worldwide supplier of mobile business solutions, HP enables businesses to use technology for a competitive edge,� said Dan Forlenza, vice president, worldwide commercial notebooks, Personal Systems Group, HP.
We have chosen to incorporate the latest AMD Turion 64 mobile technology in our new business notebook PC in order to offer our customers a true choice in high-performance mobile computing that delivers an outstanding business value without sacrificing security, reliability and ease of use.

intel puts solar technology into new technology

Intel plans to establish a new company called SpectraWatt to develop solar energy technology and produce solar cells, the chip giant said Monday.

Intel will transfer all technology related to converting sunlight to energy into the new company and lead its first round of investment. The chip maker will join several other companies, including a subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group, Solon AG and the PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund (CETF) to invest US$50 million in the new solar venture.

The investment will take place by the end of June.

SpectraWatt will break ground on a manufacturing and technology development center in Oregon later this year, and its first product shipments are expected by the middle of next year. The new company will focus on advanced solar cell technologies as well as improving manufacturing technology to lower the cost of photovoltaic energy.

Currently, the cost of solar energy is twice that of retail electricity, Intel said. Reducing the cost of solar energy should ensure continued industry growth of 30 percent to 40 percent annually, according to the chip maker.

The new CEO of SpectraWatt will be Andrew Wilson, former general manager of Intel's New Business Initiatives group. The statement quotes Wilson as saying the goal of SpectraWatt is to move toward long-term national energy independence.

New Intel Technology Sends Wireless Signal Up to 60 Miles

Intel is announcing a new wireless technology, called the Rural Connectivity Platform (RCP), that can send a data signal up to sixty miles at speeds up to 6.5 mbps. The sixty mile limit is imposed by the curvature of the Earth, not necessarily any limitations on the wi-fi radios involved. The setup requires two radios, or nodes. The first is positioned on the outskirts of an urban center and possesses a wired connection to the area's network infrastructure. This node then relies upon directional antennae that push the signal up to sixty miles to the receiving node, located in a remote village.

Earlier attempts to make wi-fi technology go farther than a few kilometers met with limited success. The problem lies in the way standard wi-fi radios communicate. The transmitting radio will send its data then wait a specified period of time for an acknowledgment that the data arrived successfully. When it doesn't get the acknowledgment that it requires, it retransmits its request for acknowledgment and the cycle continues. This effectively consumed the bandwidth available with acknowledgment requests. Intel's RCP technology has redefined how wi-fi radios talk to each other over long distances better defining periods where its each radio's responsibility to transmit its data.

Intel has tested the technology in India, Vietnam, Panama, and South Africa, connecting small remote villages with larger urban centers. The radios require little power, perhaps only five or six watts. This means the technology could be solar powered, an important element in potential implementation in remote areas. Connectivity to the internet with actual usable bandwidth could ignite significant leaps forward in areas such as education, science, and medicine for remote villages in many poorer countries that would otherwise go without internet.

Intel aims to make the entire system available for under $1,000

QUAD-CORE AND DUAL-CORE SERVER PROCESSORS

Intel® quad-core and dual-core processors are designed to bring powerful performance to servers by using multiple threads that provide additional headroom for running multiple applications simultaneously. At the same time, they are designed to provide the energy efficiency required to meet today's density, cooling, and operational cost challenges without compromise to performance.
BETTER IMPLEMENTATION:
Quad-core processing provides the maximum in performance and performance per watt. Servers featuring Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 3000, 5100, and 7100 series and now the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series have brought speed, versatility, and efficiency to the data center for more than 20 years—and will continue to set the pace in the future.
COMPLETE SOLUTION VALUE:
Intel is working with thousands of hardware and software vendors to deliver the broadest choice of business solutions optimized for Intel quad-core and dual-core processor-based servers. Optimized software is particularly critical, and Intel has more than a decade of experience in optimizing code for multithreaded throughput. During this time, Intel has established the tools, resources, expertise, and relationships needed to drive increasing thread-optimization across the full range of business applications.
EXTENSIVE MIGRATION SUPPORT:
Intel offers a wide range of information, tools, and resources that can help smooth your transition to quad-core and dual-core processor-based servers, so you can deliver better value to your business.

Pre-production servers—Intel is offering broad access to quad-core and dual-core processor-based servers for development, testing, and validation via the Intel® Software Partner Program. Contact your Intel representative to learn how you can take advantage of this essential resource.

Software optimization—The Intel® Software Network provides independent software vendors (ISVs) and corporate developers with world-class tools for threaded software development and optimization; as well as information, training and professional support.

Transition guidance—Intel® Solution Services provides expert guidance that can help you get the most from quad-core and dual-core processors and other new server capabilities within the context of your unique business and IT environment.

POWER CONSUMPTION AND EFFICIENCY

The intel pentium4 and D processor series were notorious for consuming a lot of power, and consequently running quite hot. The architecture Intel based the core2duo processors on is much better in this regard. While Pentium 4 architecture was at one time headed towards 150W TDP (Typical Design power), many of its current processors are now pushing 85W or less. One generation before, Intel Pentium D CPUs hovered around the 125W TDP range, late model Core 2 Duo processors have a 65W TDP!

It's true enough that the power values AMD and Intel specify are not entirely comparable with each other, but total system power measurements give a good basis for comparison. I've conducted some power draw measurements recently, and those tests showed that Intel is genuinely kicking high power habit. An average intel core2 duo E6750based computer system draws about 7W more power than a budget AMD Sempron 3600+ based PC system with its single CPU core running at idle. You'd think the lower power budget AMD chip would be significantly easier on the juice than the fairly high end E6750 Core 2 Duo, but the difference is pretty small.

With an Intel Core 2 Duo system under load, total power draw results are impressive. For instance, a Core 2 Duo E6750 system consumes 163W of power (total PC power draw) when running with both CPU cores under load.

A comparable Intel pentium d 940 system consumes 253W of power with both processing CPU cores stressed, and an AMD athlon FX-62 power system consumes upwards of 235W! It's clear you can save a lot on the utility bills by switching to a CPU that sips electricity. Intel offers this, with great performance. (Please keep in mind that these are total system power draw values, not just the processor.)

I've often thought that Intel is the more innovative of the two companies when it comes to designing heatsinks for its processors. The current Core 2 Duo bifurcated radial fin heatsinks are remarkably good, and very quiet.

Gone are the days of throwing out the stock heatsink for an after market cooler the second the box is opened... For good all around CPU cooling, it's tough to beat Intel in terms of noise level. The stock heatsinks are just so quiet, thanks in large part to 90mm fans and Pulse Width Modulation which allows the rotational speed to vary based on moment to moment thermal output.

INTEL CLIMBS BACK TO TOP

For its efforts, Intel has undergone more than a few self-evaluations. It had to deal with a "Prescott" pentium4 voltage leak issue, it stopped pushing GHz as the singular processor metric and adopted the same kind of rating system AMD had been using for years. Then, Intel abandoned Netburst and modernized the P6 core into what we now know as the Core Solo and Core 2 Duo processor.

The Core Solo was nice, but Intel's Core 2 Duo is the real beauty. The CPU was an immediate hit among gamers from the time of its release, and it continues to out pace comparable Athlon64 processors.

Intel's previous NetBurst architecture had de-emphasized FPU power in favor of special instructions (SSE, 2, 3). This is partly the reason so many gamers ditched their pentium 4/d processors in favor of AMD Athlon64 processors and it's more powerful FPU.

With the Intel Core processor architecture, the company finally addressed the FPU issue. Intel's "Conroe" CPU core has a very powerful FPU, and that has guaranteed a very welcome reception by gamers ever since.

As it stands in the fall of 2007, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor is generally more powerful than AMD's Athlon64 X2/FX series in games, and all around.