chip

I'm blogging today from Hot Chips 19, the annual chip technology conference hosted by Stanford University. I'm planning to summarize each session as it happens.

Before the sessions began, there were some announcements--expected attendance, for example, is about 600 people.

Famed computer architect John Mashey spoke on behalf of the Computer History Museum, giving an update on museum exhibits and inviting Hot Chips attendees to visit while they're in town. The museum will have one of the two working copies of Charles Babbage… Read more

Could Commodore's rise out of vintage computer obscurity also mean that we should expect a line of portable media players? I certainly hope so. Apparently Commodore is developing a Wi-Fi equipped PVP called the Gravel In Pocket and a more basic MP3 player called the Gravel C200. The photos are a bit blurry, however, and the Web site doesn't create much trust--but the concept alone holds enough retro '80s gadget magic that I wouldn't be surprised if Steve Guttenberg and Johnny 5 walked up behind me and plopped one on my desk. Let's hope there's … Read more

IBM's chip federation has grown again.

Switerland's STMicroelectronics will collaborate with IBM to develop manufacturing processes for the 32-nanometer and 22-nanometer generations of chips. 32-nanometer chips should start coming out in 2009 or 2010. (the number refers to the size of the average feature on the chip. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.)

A whole cavalcade of companies--Advanced Micro Devices, Chartered, Infineon, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, Freescale-- already have existing semiconductor alliances with IBM and all of these alliances overlap and leverage each other in various ways. Under the ST-IBM alliance, researchers from each company will be … Read more

Earlier this year, JVC released the Everio GZ-HD7, an ambitious high-definition hard drive camcorder. Apparently it wasn't quite enough, because JVC just announced a smaller, less expensive follow-up to the HD7, the Everio GZ-HD3.

Strikingly similar to the HD7, the HD3 uses the same 3-chip sensor configuration and the same 60GB hard drive as its bigger brother. Unlike the HD7's 10x Fujinon lens, though, the HD3 uses a new 10x Konica Minolta-branded lens. The HD3 crams all of these neat features into a smaller, lighter body, measuring over an inch shorter and weighing a fifth of a pound … Read more

Rodney Smith, the former chairman and chief executive officer of chipmaker Altera, died Friday after a bicycle accident. He was 67.

Smith died about 25 minutes after a car struck him while he rode his bicycle in Menlo Park, Calif., according to the Associated Press. Smith, of Portola Valley, Calif., was riding eastbound along Sand Hill Road when he was struck by an automobile, the California Highway Patrol said.

Smith served as CEO from 1983 to 2000 and spent 20 years as the company's chairman before retiring in 2003. The San Jose, Calif.-based company makes chips that can … Read more

Buying a PC is always confusing, and chip companies aren't doing as good a job with some important customers as they might like, according to a new survey from In-Stat.

Even early adopters of technology are having trouble associating the right brand with the right company, said Ian Lao, an analyst with In-Stat and author of the report. Some brands, like Via's Eden, are only recognized by half of early adopters, he said. (I'd actually say that's pretty good for a company as tiny as Via).

The most well-recognized brand is still Intel's Pentium brand, … Read more

As if its new 3D graphics card announcement wasn't enough for one morning, AMD also made public the name of its forthcoming quad-core desktop processors, dubbed "Phenom," as reported on News.com. You can also read the official AMD press release.

We already outlined what we little we knew about Phenom, formerly called "Barcelona," a few months ago. Anandtech got its hands on a few PowerPoint slides that give some more details about Phenom, but there's really not whole lot of technical info here. From the look of it, we'll see, similar to … Read more

The University of Texas next week will show off TRIPS, a chip that can perform far more tasks simultaneously than other chips, although the prototype is slightly less glamorous than promised.

TRIPS, which stands for Tera-op Reliable Intelligently adaptive Processing System, is a chip architecture developed in collaboration with IBM's Austin Research Lab. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is helping fund the effort with an $11.1 million grant.

The TRIPS prototype processor, which will be shown off and detailed on April 30, contains two processing cores. Each core can issue 16 operations per cycle. In all, the … Read more

With USB storage keys ranging from the ridiculous to the obnoxious, we were beginning to think that it was impossible to find one that we'd even consider buying. But leave it to a game of chance to restore what little faith we had in product marketing.

Memorex's "Poker Chip Flash Drive" is a bit late to the poker party that's become a national craze, but it makes up for much of that with an admirable design that conceals its 1GB key in what looks like a stack of three clay chips. In keeping with the … Read more