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Intel and Microsoft will hold an event next week to discuss collaboration on improvements to Windows 7.

The event, on September 1 in San Francisco, will "share how the two companies collaborated on key enhancements during the development of Windows 7," according to Intel. Steve Smith, vice president and director, Intel's Digital Enterprise Group Operations, and Michael Angiulo, general manager of Windows Planning and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft, will talk at the event. Microsoft plans to launch Windows 7 on October 22.

Windows 7 collaboration will be demonstrated by engineers from both companies, according to Intel. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7.

In a blog posted in July, Intel described how Microsoft and Intel "saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology" in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.

The blog discusses improvements to multitasking based on "SMT Parking," which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores (i.e., a dual-core chip becomes a virtual quad-core processor), thus potentially improving multitasking--or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.

In addition, improvements over Vista for boot and shutdown times have been implemented during the Windows 7 development cycle, according to the blog.

And on Intel's Web site, the chipmaker lists desktop motherboards and associated drivers that have passed logo certification for Windows 7.

Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: Intel solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers. SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. Trim will allow blocks of data to be freed up for reuse to better maintain the performance of the SSD.

Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics via DirectX 11. Advanced Micro Devices has described DirectX 11-related technology that enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games. And, beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a central processing unit, or CPU. Specifically, "the compute shader" can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.

Memory chip makers will offer more sophisticated flash drives for smartphones--technology that will be comparable to the solid-state drives found in laptops today.

The Palm Pre comes with an 8GB flash memory drive: flash drive makers like Micron Technology will market more sophisticated flash drives for future phones.

(Credit: Palm)

Today's flash drives, which typically range up to 32GB in capacity in products like Apple's iPhone, often use relatively unsophisticated techniques for reading and writing data. In general, the technology is not very different from that used in basic cell phones or digital cameras, according to Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's memory group.

But as smartphones--and possible future tablet devices--become more like personal computing devices and less like basic MP3 players, memory chip makers will begin offering more sophisticated flash memory, said Shirley, in a phone interview.

"In nearly all MP3 players today it's almost exclusively 'raw' NAND. And at some point we anticipate moving more to a managed NAND," Shirley said. NAND is the type of flash memory chip used in all flash cards and solid-state drives.

Managed NAND falls somewhere between very basic flash drives--such as Secure Digital, or SD, cards--and pricey solid-state drives (SSDs) used in laptops and servers. "It's something in between the raw NAND that we've been talking about for cell phones and MP3 players and the full-blown SSD space," Shirley said.

"We believe this will be fairly busy (market) space in 2010," he added.

Solid-state drives used in laptops like the Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo get their performance from highly-developed, sophisticated controller chips and firmware, which manage how the data is read and recorded. Though managed NAND wouldn't necessarily reach this level of sophistication, it would begin to approach it.

The iPhone uses raw NAND with a separate controller, according to Gregory Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights, which does research on flash memory technology.

"They like to have control over the flash and the controller so they can boost performance," he said. "They're very cognizant of differentiating their products. The user experience is what is important to them. Whether it means you can download your music or video very quickly, whether it means you can find the data very quickly--that ties in to how they manage the NAND," he said.

But even Apple is looking for better performance as it looks to continue its very successful strategy of making its products different, according to Wong.

And future Netbooks may also use this kind of flash memory. Netbooks today using Intel Atom processors and the Windows operating system use, almost exclusively, hard disk drives. But a new category of Netbooks dubbed smartbooks--devices that are always on, always connected, and boast all-day battery life--are expected to come to market in 2010 packing flash drives. These small laptops may be candidates for managed NAND.

Updated at 9:10 a.m. PDT: adding analyst comments.

On Tuesday, Intel and Micron Technology announced the development of high-data-capacity flash memory technology for flash cards and USB drives.

Intel-Micron chip will enable high-capacity USB drives

(Credit: Lexar)

And in a related announcement, Intel said Monday that it has validated a fix for its new 34-nanometer X25-M solid-state drive, which is based on similar flash memory technology. The bug affects users who set a BIOS drive password. That update is available here.

The two chipmakers, which partner in the manufacture of flash memory chips, said Tuesday that they have developed NAND flash memory capable of 3 bits per cell based on 34-nanometer technology. This allows greater data density than the standard 2-bits-per-cell technology and will result in high-capacity USB flash drives, according to Micron.

While packing more bits into a cell provides greater data densities, it is not as reliable as flash memory based on more standard technology, according to Kevin Kilbuck, director of NAND marketing at Micron. Therefore, the 3-bits-per-cell chips will be limited initially to flash drives, which don't require the data storage reliability of a solid-state drive, which is used as the primary storage device in laptops and servers.

"The chip is not for all markets," according to Jim Handy of semiconductor market researcher Objective Analysis, writing in a research note published Tuesday about the technology. "The companies explained that they need more experience in production volumes before they will be confident to position it as a chip suitable for the high-write environment of the SSD," he said. Handy is referring to the fact that users of solid-state drives typically record data at a much greater frequency than consumers who, for example, buy flash drives for digital cameras.

But Handy added that he expects the Intel-Micron chip by 2010 to "cause snags for the other vendors in the market: Samsung, and Hynix/Numonyx" and potentially be more profitable than the competition.

Micron is currently sampling the chips and will be in mass production in the fourth quarter.

SanDisk and Toshiba disclosed in February that they had developed 4-bit-per-cell technology, which the two companies said was the highest-capacity flash memory technology in the industry.

Toshiba has begun volume shipments of solid-state drives ranging up to 512GB in size, as these hyper-fast storage options bulk up on capacity.

Drives are also offered in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities and are built on a 43-nanometer manufacturing process using multi-level cell (MLC) technology. MLC technology allows drive makers to increase capacity while keeping production costs under control.

All drives come in either a 1.8-inch enclosure, typically used in ultraportable laptops, or a 2.5-inch housing, the standard size for mainstream laptops.

Toshiba said in December that it would begin shipments of a 512GB drive this year. And this drive became available exclusively on Toshiba laptops in May.

SSDs typically offer higher performance--often much higher performance--than hard-disk drives and are more durable since they have no moving parts.

But SSDs are still hobbled by a distinct price disadvantage. Toshiba's own Web site offers vivid proof. A Toshiba Portege R600 laptop is priced at $2,099 with a 160GB hard disk drive. Adding a lower-capacity 128GB SSD hikes the price to $2,499. Add the 512GB option and this goes to $3,499.

Back in December of last year, Toshiba said sample quantities ranged from $220 for the 64GB drive to $1,652 for the 512GB drive--though these prices have likely come down, as the drives are now shipping commercially.

For businesses up-front pricing may be less important. Over the lifespan of an SSD total cost of ownership may be lower, according to Gregory Wong, president, Forward Insights. Potential savings are particularly relevant to business laptop users, said Wong. And Intel recently did some in-house testing that showed that failure rates of SSDs are lower than hard disk drives.

On the performance front, Toshiba said it is using an advanced controller chip that enables a maximum sequential read speed of 230 megabytes per second and maximum sequential write speed of 180 megabytes per second. These read-write speeds are typically many times that of a hard disk drive. Toshiba did not specify random read and write speeds, which are also critical benchmarks for everyday data access.

Intel has recently begun shipping a 160GB solid-state drive that offers improved random write performance. The chipmaker was able to get up to a 2.5X improvement over previous versions of its SSDs.

Toshiba is not alone in announcing commercial shipments of large-capacity SSDs. Micron Technology's Crucial Technology unit has begun selling 256GB drives listed at $599, which beats Toshiba pricing at that capacity.

Note: Intel has found a bug in the new SSDs cited above that affects users who set a BIOS drive password. When disabling or changing the password followed by powering off/on the computer, the SSD becomes inoperable. The root cause has been identified and a fix is under validation. Intel expects to post an end-user firmware update to fix this bug in the coming weeks.

Intel is introducing new solid-state drives with increased performance as these devices find a more welcome home in Windows 7.

Intel said Tuesday it is moving to a more advanced 34-nanometer manufacturing process for its X series of solid-state drives (SSDs). To date, Intel has built drives on a 50-nanometer process. The more advanced process allows for higher data densities, enabling Intel to pack more data onto the same number of flash chips and reduce cost.

Solid-state drives typically offer better performance--in some cases, dramatically better performance--than hard disk drives. But SSDs cost more per gigabyte than hard drives, limiting their use to performance-sensitive applications such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers.

(Credit: Intel)

The new price for the 80GB version of the X25-M drive is $225 for quantities up to 1,000 units, a 60 percent reduction from the introduction price of $595 a year ago, Intel said. The 160GB version of the Intel X25-M drive is now $440, down from $945 at introduction.

However, the actual price drop in the market will be lower, Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, said in a phone interview. Intel had already announced an interim price reduction in January, below the original $595 and $945 price tags, he said.

"In the marketplace it will be around a $100 drop on the 80GB drive and almost a $200 drop on the 160GB drive," he said. The X25-M comes in a standard 2.5-inch form factor, which is the size of most hard drives used in laptops.

Winslow also addressed rumors circulating on Monday about higher-capacity drives. Intel will not introduce a 320GB SSD this year, he said. "What we decided to do is split 34-nanometer into a two-step process," he said. The first step will be to cost-reduce existing 80GB and 160GB drives. "And what we'll do later--and it's not even going to be this year but first half of next year--we will introduce, also on 34 nanometer, a performance enhancement and a doubling of the capacity," Winslow said, meaning that larger capacity drives, such as those over 300GB, won't appear until next year.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Much more than most companies, Intel's success depends on the technology that will arrive in its field years hence. As a result, the company has more than 1,000 researchers beavering away to gauge and develop that technology.

And the company wants everyone to know it.

Intel CTO Justin Rattner

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

At its Intel Research Day at the Computer History Museum here Thursday, the company touted a wide range of projects that extend beyond the company's core business of making computer processors. On display were projects to improve the WiMax regional wireless network technology, improve mobile devices' processing power while reducing their energy consumption, refine software to make larger-scale data storage faster, and transmit electrical power wirelessly within a modestly size room.

Intel also gave the work a higher-profile name Thursday, with Chief Technology Officer announcing that the Corporate Technology Group now is called Intel Labs. The group's role is to evaluate not just what works, but to find out what doesn't before Intel invests a lot of money in that area, Rattner said.

Power-efficient Atom systems
Intel rules the roost for PC processors, but it's an also-ran when it comes to cell phones and other mobile devices, in part because its x86 processors consume more power than rivals, including those of the ARM lineage. Intel's Atom chips are the company's current attempt to crack the market, and the next-generation "Moorestown" processor boasts lower energy consumption requirements.

"I've been doing this about 15 years now. We've had advancements, but never the magic doubling of battery life," said Paul Diefenbaugh, principal engineer

At the research day, Intel showed off technology that lets a Moorestown system use less power by using a more aggressive version of existing power-saving idea, sending a computer into somnolent states as deeply and frequently as possible. "We realized the problem was really about the platform," Diefenbaugh said, because saving small amounts of power in the processor was futile when something like a USB controller chip was consuming more power and keeping the system from entering a low-power idle mode.

Intel researcher Paul Diefenbaugh

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Platform-level engineering is easier with Moorestown, which combines many computer system elements onto a single processor, integrating graphics, a memory controller, and more in a technology generally called system-on-a-chip. That means it's relatively easy for one part of a chip to signal when it's idle and doesn't need power and when it's about to get busy and need more power, Diefenbaugh said.

Intel showed a running Moorestown system that cut power consumption by 50 percent to 90 percent compared with the current "Menlow" model by using research versions of this power-saving technology. Rattner said that production versions would see power savings of "up to" a factor of 50 with Moorestown compared to Menlow.

Silicon Photonics
Although Intel showed a wide range of technologies, some are closer to the company's core business than others. Rattner and Mike Mayberry, vice president of Intel's technology and manufacturing group, described one: silicon photonics, in which light rather than electricity transmits data from one chip to another.

Today photons carry data across long distances with fiber optics, but Intel is among those who believe it will eventually travel directly from one chip to another, with transceivers built into the silicon chips to send and receive light pulses.

"We're hard at work to demonstrate a complete silicon photonics transceiver this year," Rattner said. "We won't tell you exactly our bandwidth goals, but they're very impressive."

In the nearer term, light will be used to transmit data among servers in a data center and then within a computer chassis, Mayberry said, but photonics embedded completely in silicon should arrive afterward. "We're talking about potentially the middle of the next decade," Mayberry said.

Mayberry also said Intel is working on bringing new technology for creating silicon chip circuit patterns from research to manufacturing stage. That next technology uses extreme ultraviolet light, which has a shorter wavelength and therefore can be used to help etch smaller features to help keep up with Moore's Law predictions for ever-more processing electronics in a given amount of chip area.

And Intel wants a place in next-generation memory technology, too. On the agenda today are "floating body" cells, phase-change memory, and seek-and-scan probes, each of which hold promise but have drawbacks, he said.

Faster storage
Intel manufactures and promotes solid-state disks (SSDs), which replace spinning platters of conventional hard drives with packages of unmoving, fast-responding flash memory. The biggest hurdle with SSDs today is their higher cost.

Intel manufacturing vice president Mike Mayberry

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Intel is working on benefiting more from SSDs without going whole hog, though. The company's approach goes beyond the idea of using an SSD as a high-speed cache for a storage system that relies more on conventional hard drives.

Instead, Intel has created a variation of the ext3 file system Linux uses to store data. The Intel version checks the hard drive command requests and prioritizes the ones it judges to be high-priority data so the single SSD in a 12-drive storage system handles that data, said Matthew Eszenyi, a technology strategist.

Adding the SSD cache doubles the overall system speed, he said, and using the prioritized data system doubles it again, Eszenyi said.

Wireless power transmission
Electric toothbrushes and other devices can be charged without wired connections, but Intel has been working on technology that works over much longer distances. At the research event, the company showed off a new variation of the idea that transmits power through the air to run a speaker without any other power source.

Two flat copper coils are used in the technology, each tuned to resonate at a particular frequency. That means when electromagnetic energy is released from one, the other picks it up in much the same way an opera singer can shatter a wine glass by singing at just the right pitch, said researcher Emily Cooper.

Ultimately, Intel sees the idea as useful for delivering power to a laptop computer inside a room, but it could be used over shorter ranges, too--for example to replace the fallible wires that connect laptop screens through a hinge, Cooper said.

The wireless transmission shows efficiency of 90 percent at distances of up to a meter, she said, and Intel has shown it powering a 60-watt light bulb, too.

Multicore data dealings
Intel's tera-scale processing project--which Rattner said is expanding by a factor of 1,000 to become the exa-scale project--is designed to tackle the challenges of serious multicore processing. Today's chips typically have eight or fewer processing engines called cores, and communications among them are relatively straightforward along a bus--a linear data pathway that links the cores together.

Wireless power transmission researcher Emily Cooper

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

But with more cores, things get more complicated. Aniruddha Vaidya showed a mesh of 36 cores--a 6-by-6 grid made of programmable chips rather than an actual single slice of silicon as eventually will be the case.

The cores on the periphery can connect to resources such as memory or graphics, but the cores in the interior connect only to other cores. To transfer data, each core must often transmit data from one to another in multiple hops.

In the 36-core mesh, data takes an average of 4 hops to get where it needs to go, Vaidya said.

Part of the reason for the research is to develop necessary higher-level features. The mesh can be partitioned into multiple independent patches to support virtualization or security needs, he said, and the data-routing technology can adjust when individual nodes fail.

Boosting WiMax capacity
Intel has long touted WiMax technology for bathing an area in broadband wireless, though it's had less success fostering adoption. Intel showed two WiMax technologies at the event.

First was a method squeezing 40 percent more capacity out of a WiMax networking station when handling voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls. The system groups calls with similar characteristics so call-control data can be shared across each group rather than sent individually, said Vijay Kesavan.

Second was a peer-to-peer networking idea that ends up giving each device on a wireless network more network capacity. The technique helps smooth out areas with weak wireless network coverage and could let a person use a WiMax-enabled PC shoulder the battery burden instead of a nearby WiMax-enabled phone, said Intel researcher Ozgur Oyman, but it doesn't work as well when many of the devices on the network are moving instead of stationary.

In the midst of a tight market for flash memory, SanDisk and Samsung Electronics have renewed two key agreements that both companies expect will strengthen their positions.

(Credit: Business Wire)

In the first of the two deals, SanDisk and Samsung announced on Wednesday an agreement to renew the cross-licensing of certain semiconductor patents. The agreement means that each company has the right to use each other's patents in producing cell flash memory and flash storage systems, such as solid-state drives. It does not include patents related to 3-D memory, a new technology that could eventually replace traditional flash memory in portable devices.

Both companies also signed a flash memory agreement that guarantees a specific portion of Samsung's flash memory chip output to SanDisk.

The deals will "enable both parties to focus on the growth markets at hand," Eli Harari, chairman and chief executive officer of SanDisk, said in a statement. "We are excited about our opportunities in mobile, computing and consumer flash storage markets. Furthermore, continued access to Samsung's flash capacity under competitive terms gives us greater flexibility in managing our future capital expenditures for captive capacity."

Samsung also expressed faith in the agreement. "The renewal agreements enable Samsung and SanDisk to each focus their energies on restoring flash market growth," Oh-Hyun Kwon, president of the semiconductor business at Samsung, said in a statement. "It is clear that these renewal agreements are aimed at strengthening the on-going business relationship between Samsung and SanDisk, and we are pleased that the two companies have worked hard to achieve a significantly improved balance on the patent license."

The new agreements go into effect when the current cross-license and supply agreements expire on August 14 and will run for seven years from that date.

SanDisk and Samsung have a checkered history together. Last year, Samsung had pursued a buyout of SanDisk but eventually withdrew the offer when the two companies couldn't agree on terms. Both companies are battling for a slice of the growing market for solid-state drives. SanDisk is pursuing the consumer Netbook segment, while Samsung is focused on the server arena. SSDs use flash memory for storage to provide greater speed and efficiency over mechanical hard disks.

SanDisk has been under intense pressure because of slower consumer spending and a dour market for flash memory. In February, the company reported a loss of $1.86 billion for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter. But Samsung's latest results have been strong, thanks to cost cutting and its hot mobile phone business. In April, the company reported a first-quarter profit of $349 million versus a loss of $550 million in the year-ago quarter.

Updated at 3:45 p.m. PDT with additional information throughout.

Intel released a fix for its solid-state drives Monday, addressing an issue first reported back in February.

"We are releasing an end-user firmware update for our X-25M and X-18M SSD drives today," Intel said Monday.

Intel said this addresses a problem first introduced by technology Web site PC Perspective in February. "This update implements several continuous improvements and optimizations to the drive algorithms including a resolution for a performance issue first reported by the PC Perspective," Intel said.

The PC Perspective review, titled "Long-term performance analysis of Intel Mainstream SSDs," claimed, among other things, that the Intel X25-M solid-state drive would degrade in performance as a result of "internal fragmentation."

"Keep in mind that the risk of a typical PC user experiencing this issue is very low," Intel said Monday. "We are offering this firmware download to our OEM customers and any consumers who have purchased the drives. Consumers with questions can contact their PC maker or visit Intel support for more information."

A Monday post by PC Perspective said that "the Intel guys were surprisingly down to earth and receptive to our input" and that Intel "replicated our findings in their lab. An added bonus was they...passed us a new firmware and were asking for our feedback."

Intel did not recognize the problem initially, saying in February: "Our labs currently have not been able to duplicate these results."

Fusion-io, the company that boasts Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist, says it has achieved extremely high data transfer speeds on servers from Hewlett-Packard.

Fusion-io ioDrive Duo

(Credit: Fusion-io)

Solid-state drives are generally faster than hard-disk drives, particularly at reading data, and have no moving parts, unlike hard disk drives.

Working together in HP's ProLiant engineering labs in Houston, HP and Fusion-io built a system using five 320GB ioDrive Duos (see photo) and six 160GB ioDrives in a single HP ProLiant DL785 G5 server, running with four Quad-Core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices, Fusion-io said.

This configuration allowed the engineers to achieve about 1 million IOPS, or input/output operations per second. By comparison, hard disk drives typically don't excel at IOPS, achieving only a fraction of this level of data transfer speed, which makes solid-state drives appealing to large customers such as CitiBank and Bank of America. These kinds of companies need lots of IOPS for their financial transactions.

HP offers solid-state drive arrays as part of HP's BladeSystem. The HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator is a flash-based storage adapter based on Fusion's ioMemory technology. Each IO Accelerator card achieves more than 100,000 IOPS. A single HP BladeSystem server can accommodate two or three IO Accelerator cards.

"The ioDrive and ioDrive Duo are able to supply the extreme storage performance (for data centers) at a fraction of the power, cooling, and per unit-of-processing-power price compared to traditional solutions," said David Flynn, chief technology officer of Fusion-io, in a statement.

These drives are especially valuable for database and data mining, virtual machine deployments, and financial transactions, according to Flynn.