Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Chip Industry Sets a Plan for Life after Silicon. Nanotechnology is Officially on the Roadmap

11:08 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

For almost half of the centry the semiconductor industry has repeatedly found ways to make transistors smaller and smaller, making it possible to place more transistors on a single chip for increased computing power and/or capacity. Currently the smallest of modern transistors are no more than a handful of molecules across and it is widely believed that scaling of silicon process technologies is limited.

Although silicon is going to be used for about a decade, alternative methods of building transistors have been developed for a while now. Researchers are experimenting with a variety of new materials beyond silicon, including organic molecules and carbon nanotubes.

The New York Times news-paper reports that the transition to new nanotechnology techniques could occur around 2015, when chipmakers have their abilities to shrink the silicon exhausted.

“The transition to a post-silicon era is forecast in a report called the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, to be issued Saturday. The report, which is produced cooperatively by semiconductor industry associations from Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States, is used by the semiconductor industry as a planning tool to determine how best to spend research and development money for new technology,” says an article at The New York Times.

“In between 2003 and 2005 there has been a tipping point. All of the buzz is about nanotechnology,” said Philip J. Kuekes, a physics researcher in the quantum structures research initiative department at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, Calif.

• New York Times: Chip Industry Sets a Plan for Life After Silicon.

Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 Reviews Hit the Web. Web-Sites Adore Intel’s New Chip

11:05 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Intel Corp. recently officially released the world’s first 65nm x86 microprocessor code-name Presler. The new chip utilizes the company’s NetBurst architecture and offers only a slight performance improvement compared to the dual-core chips made using 90nm fabrication process, still, the new product allowed Intel to claim victory over to-date fastest offering from Advanced Micro Devices at least in some cases.

Intel Pentium Extreme Edition model 955 operates at 3.46GHz and utilizes 1066MHz processor system bus as well as 4MB of cache in total, or 2MB per core. The new chip supports Hyper-Threading technology for both cores thus allowing execution of up to four software threads simultaneously. The new chip also features Intel virtualization technology as well as other platform innovations, such as EM64T, EDB and iAMT2. The new chip is only compatible with mainboards based on Intel 975X chipset.

Because this microprocessor is positioned as a top, high-performance offering, as well as the first x86 processor manufactured with 65nm technology, a number of web-sites have posted reviews, describing performance level, overclockability and features.

“Given a smaller manufacturing process, it would have been remiss of us not to overclock the sample. As seen on the previous page, we were able to overclock it, via an increase in the multiplier from a factor of 13 to 16, to an overall speed of 4267MHz, using a reference Intel LGA775 cooler and default voltages,” wrote Hexus.net.

“Pentium Extreme Edition 955 is not an eternal loser in the dual-core duel anymore. There are a lot of applications where Pentium Extreme Edition 955 managed to defeat AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+, the top dual-core solution from Intel’s competitor. In fact, AMD processor remains the leader only in gaming applications, in professional OpenGL tasks and a few codecs,” said X-bit labs analyst Ilya Gavrichenkov.

The new chip is expected to be available shortly at the price of $999 in 1000-unit quantities.

• bit-tech.net: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955.
• Hexus.net: Intel Extreme Edition 955 Processor.
• HotHardware.com: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 & 975X Express Chipset: 65nm is Here.
• Legit Reviews: Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 955.
• LostCircuits: Intel’s ExtremeEdition P4 955.
• NordicHardware: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955.
• PC Perspective: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 and 975X Chipset Review.
• Sudhian Media: Presler: Intel Extreme Edition 955 – Prescott’s Last Hurrah.
• TrustedReviews: Intel Extreme Edition 955 and i975x Chipset.
• Viperlair.com: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 & Intel 975X Express Chipset.
• X-bit labs: First Look at Presler: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 CPU Review.

The Gadgets That Kicked the Trends Off. The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years

11:04 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

PCWorld.com has put up a chart of gadgets rolled out in the last 50 years. The chart consists of relatively small devices that made a noticeable impact on the way of life. The web-site rated each gadget on its usefulness, design, degree of innovation, and influence on subsequent gadgets, as well as the ineffable quality.

The list of small devices that apparently were among the greatest ever made will be definitely criticized by many, but loads of people definitely adored the products from the list that includes such gadgets as Sony Walkman TPS-L2, Apple iPod, PalmPilot 1000, Sony CDP-101, Atari Video Computer System, Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, Sony PlayStation 2, Motorola Razr V3, BlackBerry 850 Wireless Handheld (1998), Sony Handycam DCR-VX1000, MITS Altair 8800 and loads of others.

“Some items in our Top 50 are innovative devices that appeared briefly and then were quickly consigned to museums and future appearances on eBay, but whose influence spread widely,” the article reads.

• PCWorld.com: The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years.

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