isscc

Intel moves up rollout of new chips

Despite being slammed by the financial crisis, Intel is not slowing down. It made this crystal clear in a chip technology briefing on Tuesday, putting rivals on notice that the competition will only get more intense.

The world's largest chipmaker is accelerating introduction of new chips, particularly silicon targeted at laptop computers. Intel is achieving this by moving quickly to processors based on next-generation 32-nanometer manufacturing process technology and investing heavily to keep its most advanced chip factories humming, as CEO Paul Otellini pointed out in a speech in Washington, D.C., earlier today.

In a nutshell, this means … Read more

Intel at chip conference: More wireless, less GHz

At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, Intel will present 15 papers, with a renewed emphasis on integrating more functions into one chip--and less focus on gigahertz. Intel is especially focusing on squeezing more sophisticated wireless silicon into small devices.

"The trend of using smaller transistors to build larger microprocessor cores with higher operating frequency is coming to an end," Mark Bohr, an Intel senior fellow, said Wednesday.

The chipmaker will highlight research on what it is proclaiming as the "new system-on-a-chip (SoC) era," which it describes as requiring "a fundamental shift in the way semiconductor … Read more

Intel at chip conference: More cores, less power

Intel will have a lot to say at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, spanning the spectrum of silicon from mobile to server processors. Here are a few of the highlights from abstracts of Intel sessions at the ISSCC, which kicks off Sunday in San Francisco.

Nehalem, currently marketed as the Core i7, will scale down to sub-10-watt chips--that's ultraportable notebook (think MacBook Air) territory:

"A family of next-generation IA processors...The family has a coherent point-to-point link and integrates memory controller, power-management microcontroller and power-gate transistors and scales from sub-10 to 130W in mobile, desktop and server applications.&… Read more

Intel sheds a little more light on Silverthorne

Intel filled in some of the missing details on its Silverthorne mobile processor Tuesday, helping explain how it managed to get the power consumption of this chip down under a couple of watts.

Gianfranco Gerosa of Intel presented the company's paper on Silverthorne, its low-power mobile processor destined for the next generation of mobile Internet devices later this quarter, during the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner had already discussed Silverthorne in some detail last week, but the wonky details were laid bare for a roomful of people who are way, … Read more

Intel doubles data density on possible flash successor

Intel and ST Microelectronics have come up with a way to put multiple bits of data in a single memory cell in phase change memory, a breakthrough that effectively doubles the technology's density.

Now if they could only get the stuff to market.

Phase change memory is a type of memory made out of materials similar to those used to make CDs and DVDs. A tiny laser rapidly heats up a small bit, and in the process transforms the structure of the bit from crystalline to amorphous. Reversing the process can change the bit from having an amorphous character … Read more

Panasonic sensor tackles key photo problem--dynamic range

SAN FRANCISCO-- Panasonic showed technology on Monday that could shift the digital photography trend of high-dynamic range photos off the computer and directly into a camera image sensor.

And it works through a variation of a familiar photographic technique called exposure bracketing. For years, photographers challenged by tough lighting conditions have taken multiple pictures of the same scene at different brightness levels--bracketing--to help ensure one photo has a good balance shadow and highlight details.

More recently, with the advent of computers, these bracketed exposures can be combined into a single high-dynamic range (HDR) image that captures both bright and dark … Read more

Kodak aims for 5-megapixel phone cameras

Eastman Kodak hopes turning one aspect of chip design on its head will help improve cell phone cameras--or at least help their image quality catch up with their megapixel increases.

"We believe we've created a new camera sensor product that rivals that of real cameras, but it's small enough to be used in a camera phone," said Fas Mosleh, manager of CMOS market work for Kodak's professional and applied imaging group.

There have been nice cameras in high-end mobile phones such as Nokia's N95, but Kodak believes its technology, built into a 5-megapixel sensor … Read more

Intel pitching Silverthorne, Itanium at ISSCC

Intel is expected to shed light on its processor of the future this week as it plugs along with another design that was once supposed to be its processor of the future.

The chip industry's finest minds will be descending on San Francisco this week for the International Solid State Circuits Conference, and Intel plans to present 14 papers highlighting some of its recent work, said Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer and head of Intel Labs. Chief among them will be its low-power Silverthorne processor, Intel's latest plan to infiltrate the world of handheld devices.

"… Read more

Eye-tracker lets you get location information by staring

Someday soon, you might be able to figure out where you are in the world by staring.

Researchers from South Korea's Yonsei University will present a paper at the International Solid State Circuits Conference next week on a system that spits out two-dimensional coordinates for the object or place that a person is focusing on. The same group has worked on several eye interfaces in the past, mostly for people with disabilities. By integrating eye interfaces with GPS information, users can apparently get geographic information. The group presents its paper on Monday, February 3.

ISSCC is one of the … Read more