IBM, AMD & co move forward on the 32nm AMD hits a new low ForceWare 169.17 beta: Final Fantasy XI Toshiba will present its SSDs at the CES

Décembre 2007 L M M J V S D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 You can read previous news using our archives. [ Print all news of this day ]

<< Previous day's news December 7, 2007

Next day of news >> December 11, 2007

IBM, AMD & co move forward on the 32nm   Posted on 10/12/2007 at 23:41 by Nicolas - source: IBM

	While Intel has been producing SRAM chips in 32nm since September, IBM and its partners AMD, Chartered Semiconductor, Freescale, Infineon and Samsung have announced an innovative approach to accelerate the implementation of an important material known as "high-k/metal gate" (not to be confused with Low-K fabrication technology which doesn’t involve transistors but rather interconnexions) in the next generation of 32nm chips. This new "approach" will only be available in the second semester of 2009 and will therefore give AMD some time to concentrate on 45nm without High-K, contrary to Intel which already uses it for the Penryn. You may recall the creator of the Athlon is planning the use of metallic gate electrodes for this engraving width. In the meantime, IBM and its partners have succeeded in producing 'high-k gate-first' SRAM 32nm cells with a size inferior to 0.15µm². A few figures were given according to tests carried out at the IBM factory located in East Fishkill, New York: the size of the chips is reduced 50% compared to the previous generation and 45% lower power consumption for performance gains as high as 30%

AMD hits a new low   Posted on 10/12/2007 at 16:15 by Nicolas

	AMD’s stock has continued to fall almost continuously for two years now to the extent that the value of the company, $5.02 billion, is now less than the price paid for ATI: $5.4 billion, 4.3 of which in cash. While an AMD share was worth as much as $42.42 in February 2006 or 6 months before its announcement to buy the creator of the Radeon, it is now down to $9.05. How did they get there? Loss of market shares? Decreasing average prices? Lower profit margins? Delays in product releases? Negative synergies caused by the buyout? Excessive debt? Abuse of dominant position by Intel? Loss of investor confidence? Actually, it’s probably more or less a combination of these factors, one often leading to another. Moreover, some figures are less flattering for the company such as Nvidia’s quarterly revenue, which does not produce CPUs, and is now 68% higher than AMD’s. One thing is certain; the acquisition of ATI isn’t helping. AMD only had 19.1% of the GPU market in the third quarter while they had to take an disadvantageous obligatory loan in order continue to function that reimbursed a $2.5 billion Morgan Stanley loan made to finance the buyout. For the moment, the only tangible result of this operation for consumers is that Radeon Xpress chipsets for the Intel platform have practically disappeared and the Fusion project, the integration of a GPU to the CPU, will not concretize before the end of 2008 at best. Internally, there was especially the departure of some of the corporate hierarchy such as Dave Orton, the ex-CEO of ATI. However, things aren’t as bad as that: the company’s CPU market shares in the third quarter were 23.5% in a growing market, losses are decreasing, as well as the debt load. Also Mubadala, an Emirati firm, injected some much needed cash in exchange for 8.1% of capital and the German government is subsidizing AMD development projects when possible. Finally, investigations at the European Commission and with Japanese anti-trust authorities on the possible abuse of dominant position by Intel could oblige their rival to be less aggressive. In the meantime, the Phenom is hardly convincing and the share price continues to slide mercilessly. Let’s hope that AMD and those that may be interested in this company can find a solution to make this firm more competitive without waiting too much longer. Otherwise, consumers could end up paying the price.

ForceWare 169.17 beta: Final Fantasy XI   Posted on 10/12/2007 at 13:10 by Nicolas

	ForceWare 169.17 beta for 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows Vista and XP very inconspicuously made an appearance on Nvidia’s FTP (nZone). Besides the improvements already offered in the 169.13 version for SLI configurations in Crysis, there are optimizations for the GeForce 6, 7 and 8 in Final Fantasy XI.

Toshiba will present its SSDs at the CES   Posted on 10/12/2007 at 12:01 by Nicolas - source: Toshiba

	Toshiba will take advantage of this CES taking place from January 7-10 in Las Vegas to present its first SSD. While more and more companies are becoming involved in this very profitable market, it should be noted that the Japanese manufacturer will only produce hard drives in 1.8" and 2" ½ format mainly destined for laptops. This is actually the main target of SSD manufacturers given the reduced consumption and bulk of these drives. So in short, waiting any longer to launch a product in this area would have been dangerous for Toshiba... Following the example of STEC, the Japanese giant will use MLC chips which are slower than the SLC type usually found in SSDs; however, this will be compensated for by a high performance controller. Announced reading/writing speeds are 100 MB/s and 40 Mo /s, respectively. 32GB, 64GB and 128GB versions will be offered in the beginning all using the SATA-II interface and in existing in 1.8" and 2" ½ formats. The first models are expected out in March and wider availability is planned for May. Unfortunately, no information has yet been given on prices or power consumption.