Processors

Intel loses key TV business engineer

Intel's fledgling TV business has lost one of its lead engineers, the company confirmed, potentially dealing a blow to its efforts to get the business off the ground.

Jim Baldwin, who served as vice president and general manager of engineering for Intel Media, has left the company to pursue other opportunities, an Intel spokesman said. Baldwin's LinkedIn profile, meanwhile, said he has retired from the company.

Baldwin couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The Intel spokesman said that the company has "a deep engineering leadership bench" and has taken steps internally to address the transition. &… Read more

AMD nabs Apple graphics chip designer

Advanced Micro Devices will soon announce it has hired a former Apple graphics chip designer to bolster its engineering leadership bench as it turns itself around, CNET has learned.

Raja Koduri, who most recently served as director of graphics architecture for Apple, will be rejoining AMD four years after leaving that company, people familiar with the hire told CNET. He will be taking on a role in AMD's graphics business, though it wasn't immediately clear to CNET what his title would be. AMD is expected to make the announcement next week.

The move is the latest in a … Read more

Intel's CEO coy about hinting at Apple deal

Intel's CEO seemed to throw cold water on a chip deal with Apple in Tuesday's earnings conference call -- though it really depends on how you read his comments.

When asked about making processors based on the ARM design -- such as Apple's A series chips -- Paul Otellini was quick to dismiss the idea.

"No," was the short answer from Otellini. The longer answer stipulated "ground rules" where Intel "would not enable a chip competitor."

But Otellini did seem to leave an opening for his successor, depending how you choose … Read more

Touch devices to drop to $200, says Intel CEO

Touch laptop prices are headed south. Way south, according to Intel executives.

The price of Intel-based touch devices, including laptops, will sink to price points that penetrate inexpensive tablet territory. These new "innovative" designs will be based on Intel's Atom chip, Intel executives said today during the company's first-quarter earnings conference call.

"If you look at touch-enabled Intel-based notebooks that are ultrathin using [Atom] processors. Those prices are going to be down to as low as $200," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

Though neither Otellini or Smith mentioned screen size specifically, those price points … Read more

Intel profit drops 25 percent as it grapples with weak PCs

Intel managed to eke out quarterly results and guidance largely in line with expectations, despite dismal conditions in the PC market. Still, its net income dropped 25 percent as its key computing market struggles.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company, which makes chips that power the majority of the world's computers and servers, said its revenue for the first quarter totaled $12.58 billion, down 2.5 percent from the previous year. This number was in line with its forecast in January of $12.2 billion to $13.2 billion in sales. With earnings that match about what analysts had … Read more

Haswell chip notebooks won't save PC sales, says analyst

PC sales are in the dumps, and not even a promising new chip from Intel may be enough to revive them, believes J.P Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz.

The computer industry took it on the chin yesterday after both IDC and Gartner revealed that first-quarter shipments reached their lowest point in years. IDC fingered Windows 8 for failing to pump up PC sales but also blamed the weak economy and consumer demand for smartphones and tablets.

PC makers have been awaiting the arrival of Intel's new Haswell chip, which promises higher performance and lower power consumption. As such, the … Read more

PCs hit by an ugly quarterly drop as Windows 8 flops

It's really ugly in the PC market right now. How ugly? About the worst it has ever been, according to new reports from a couple of tech research firms.

First-quarter global computer shipments dropped 14 percent from the previous year, said International Data Corp., much worse than its forecast for a 7.7 percent decline. The pullback marked the worst-ever quarter since IDC began tracking quarterly PC shipments in 1994, and it's the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year shipment declines.

Rival tech research firm Gartner, meanwhile, said its data showed an 11 percent decline in first-quarter global PC … Read more

Windows 8 tablets to go quad-core? Intel talks next chip

Intel discussed the next-generation "Bay Trail" tablet processor today at its annual conference in Beijing. Expect to see a new crop of faster yet still power-efficient Windows 8 -- and likely Windows 8.1 -- tablets later this year.

An "entirely new Atom microarchitecture...will [enable] the most powerful Atom processor to-date, doubling the computing performance of Intel's current-generation tablet offering," Tan Weng Kuan, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Communications Group, Intel China, said today at IDF Beijing.

Bay Trail will allow designs "as thin as 8mm (0.3 inches) that … Read more

Chiplets: The future of circuitry?

Xerox has a different view on the future than most.

The company recently gave The New York Times the opportunity to see a new technology it's working on at its Palo Alto, Calif., research center. Referred to as Xerographic microassembly, the technology is based on the idea of laser printing and could one day become the most efficient way to bring circuitry to electronics products, Xerox claims.

According to the Times, Xerographic microassembly breaks traditional silicon wafers into thousands of "chiplets" and then bottles them up as a physical "ink." Once that ink is produced … Read more