AMD expected to announce 30 percent workforce cut next week

Last year, AMD announced that it would cut 10% of its workers by the end of 2012′s first quarter. Now, 11 months later, it seems Advanced Micro Devices is about to announce a workforce reduction of up to 30%. This news comes after AMD’s annoucement on Monday that it expected sales to decrease approximately 10% from the last quarter.

An unidentified source “familiar with the company’s plans” told AllThingsD that AMD plans to announce workforce cuts between 20% and 30% next week, which would total about 2,200 to 3,300 jobs. The jobs in danger involve sales and engineering, and the anticipated cuts may result in AMD reducing its overall offerings. The first round of cuts at the beginning of the year reduced AMD’s operating expenses by $118 million, yet a bad economy and poor sales have prevented it from rebounding.

Sources say that the official announcement could come on October 18th, when AMD announces its quarterly data, or it could be on October 25th. According to one of the sources, the cuts may be completed, or close to completion, by the 25th. The exact time frame for the announcement is unknown, but is expected to be in the next two weeks.

According to the sources providing this info, AMD employees have been expecting the cuts to happen for quite awhile now, presumably since the end of last year when the first round of cuts were announced, and then as sales continued to flounder throughout 2012. The Q1 workforce reduction totaled 1,400 jobs. Said one source, “There are a lot of nervous people, and not a lot is getting done right now.”

[via AllThingsD]


AMD expected to announce 30 percent workforce cut next week is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Apple Hires Away Top Samsung CPU Designer to Build Custom Apple Chips [Chips]

Apple just took a big step toward upping its chip-making game, and took a big swipe at Samsung in the process. According to the Wall Street Journal, Cupertino’s hired away Jim Mergard, a well respected and vastly experienced engineer, from the Korean company. More »

These Brand New AMD A-Series Processors Could Power Your Next Desktop [Guts]

AMD just announced the processor that could power your next desktop: the second generation A-Series processor. It has more cores for more power, integrated graphics with the AMD Radeon HD 7000 for graphics and puts a high priority on power efficiency. More »

The iPhone 5′s Greatest Inside Story: Chipmaking Maturation For Apple

Apple-A6

The iPhone 5 brings a lot to the table, but a lot of its changes lie under the hood away from prying eyes. Or, at least, away from those eyes until Friday when it’ll get opened up by a host of folks, including iFixit.com’s perennial new Apple hardware tear-down. The iPhone 5 has already given up maybe its greatest secret, however: A custom-designed A6 system-on-a-chip that represents the fulfillment of an acquisition made almost half a decade ago.

The A6, unlike its predecessors the A5 and A4, isn’t simply a rebranded ARM design with minor tweaks. Instead, as Anand Shimpi of AnandTech discovered, it’s Apple’s own creation, based on an ARM blueprint — which it also licensed in addition to specific generic processors — but bearing much more of Apple’s own direct input. In other words, Apple is finally emerging as a chipmaker in its own right, and this could have a huge impact on device performance and consumer-facing features in its smartphones and tablets going forward.

I discussed the changes in a call with iFixit co-founder and IEEE Consumer Electronics Society member Kyle Wiens, who was excited about the new direction and its potential implications for users and Apple hardware.

“We’ve been wondering for a long time whatever came of Apple’s acquisition of P.A. Semi, so this is many, many years of strategy and development for Apple finally bearing fruit,” he explained. “And the critical thing here I think is probably power savings. Apple really knows, and has known for a long time, that cutting power [demands] was the most important thing. And I think Apple has been even more focused on that than even ARM has been.”

Battery has long been one of the iPhone’s major advantages over competition from Android handset makers, but the new iPhone 5 had a lot of new sources of power draw to contend with, as well as a slimmer profile within which to put the battery. There’s a new, larger screen, as well as LTE connectivity and software features like Passbook that use always-on location monitoring to serve up geo-fenced feature offerings. That combination of requirements is likely what drove Apple to move into its own design, allowing it to push the envelope on processor power consumption. And now that it’s moved into custom chip design, Wiens definitely sees that approach spreading to other areas of its mobile business.

“I think this is a long-term strategy, and that they’ve been at this for a long time,” he said. “I think they realized when they released the iPhone that this was a new form factor and that they were going to have to have a long-term processor strategy for it, and that ARM was a nice framework, but that this was going to take them in direction that was different from what processors had historically been designed for.” In other words, Apple has long known that a new kind of computing required an entirely new kind of chip, and only now is it really beginning to fulfill that vision.

Wiens points out that if you look at the iPhone 5′s highlights, there’s only really one place power savings could come from, and that’s the processor. Apple’s approach then not only provides the immediate benefit of making a more powerful device smaller and lighter without sacrificing battery performance, but also gives it a considerable future proprietary advantage to hold over the competition, especially if it keeps improving on its initial chip design, which seems likely, given it has the talent not only of P.A. Semi, but also of Intrinsity, an ARM processor design company it picked up in 2010.

Apple has always been about creating the perfect union between hardware and software in order to deliver the best possible user experience. Its emergence as a mobile chip designer in its own right only means that integration will become even more seamless in future devices, pushing the boundaries not only of what those gadgets can do, but also of the energy cost of doing them.


Intel finishes crossing the Ivy Bridge with new desktop Core i3 models

Intel finishes crossing the Ivy Bridge with new desktop Core i3 models

Intel has been staggering the rollout of its Ivy Bridge processors over the space of nearly half a year, starting with its higher-end quad-core chips; it’s finally time for the company to complete the story and ship some budget Core i3 desktop parts. The semiconductor giant is coy about the new roster at this stage, but it does promise both regular (s-series) and low-power (t-series) Core i3 chips at clock speeds between 2.8GHz and 3.4GHz. If the past is an indicator, the new components will be mostly or exclusively dual-core and lack extras like Hyperthreading — they will get Intel’s newer integrated graphics and other perks through the upgrade, however. Bulk pricing and other details haven’t yet been aggregated in one place, although we’re seeing that even the faster 3.3GHz Core i3-3220 is selling at retail for $130. We wouldn’t expect anything from Intel’s new offerings to break the bank.

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Intel finishes crossing the Ivy Bridge with new desktop Core i3 models originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Taking A Big Hit On Design, Samsung Doubles Down On Chips, Puts $974M Into ASML

asml picture

Samsung Electronics has been knocked hard on mobile phone design innovation in the last few days, but in what might be a spectacular display of diversionary tactics, it is also doubling down on another significant part of its business — chipmaking. Today, the Dutch semiconductor machine maker ASML announced that Samsung would be investing close to $1 billion — yes, more or less the same amount for which the jury in California held it liable over Apple patent violations on Friday — towards R&D and an equity stake in the business. In doing so, Samsung will be joining Intel, which took a 10% stake in ASML in July for $2.1 billion.

Samsung’s interest in ASML —  along with another investor, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s – was registered at the time of the Intel investment, and today’s announcement makes a point of saying that Samsung will “commit” the funds. That implies although the deal isn’t signed, sealed and delivered, Samsung was keen to get some news out quickly that pointed to it coming out fighting in the wake of the bad news delivered on Friday.

ASML describes itself as “one of the world’s leading providers of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry.”

The machines it makes, which employs a technique called extreme ultraviolet lithography, can help speed up the production of more powerful and smaller semiconductors — an essential component of smartphones, tablets and other devices. As Samsung pointed out in its internal memo to employees in response to the jury verdict, Apple is one of its most important customers for this part of the business.

Under the terms of the “commitment” announced today, ASML says that Samsung Electronics will put €276 million ($345 million) into ASML’s research and development program over the next five years. The company had targeted total backing of €1.38 billion for that R&D program, and it says that has now been met.

Separately to this, Samsung will also investing €503 million ($629 million) for a 3% equity stake in ASML. In total, Samsung, Intel and TSMC have 23% of ASML, equivalent to €3.85 billion, which will get returned to shareholders in a share buyback scheme.

Provided that Samsung has to pay the full penalties recommended by the jury, and that it follows through on its ASML investment, that $2 billion potentially will weigh heavy on profits in a typical quarter, especially if there are any injunctions attached to the first of those. In Q2, Samsung Electronics made $6 billion in operating profits — essentially, the news of the last couple of days would have wiped out one-third of that.

Worth pointing out that at the moment, the shining star for Samsung is its mobile phone business — which includes its Galaxy line of Android-based smartphones, the same ones that were the subject of the lost U.S. lawsuit. At the same time, its chip business actually declined by 6% in terms of revenue — a sign that Samsung needs to continue investing in the division to keep it in fighting form.

While we will still have to wait and see if Samsung will have to pay up the full amount of damages, and whether it will have longer injunctive effects, the ramifications have already come out in short-term investor activity. Just look at the drop in how Samsung’s stock performed in trading this morning, dropping nearly 8%:

(via Yahoo Finance)


Samsung’s New Exynos Mobile Chip: USB 3.0 and 1080p Video at 60fps [Samsung]

Samsung has released the specs of its new Exynos 5 Dual mobile chip, and it looks set to be an absolute powerhouse. An ARM-based 1.7 GHz mobile CPU, it seems set be a massive leap forward from the Exynos 4 Quad which currently powers the Galaxy S III . More »

IBM pushing System z, Power7+ chips as high as 5.5GHz, mainframes get mightier

IBM pushing System z, Power7 chips as high as 55GHz, mainframes get mightier

Ten-core, 2.4GHz Xeons? Pshaw. IBM is used to the kind of clock speeds and brute force power that lead to Europe-dominating supercomputers. Big Blue has no intentions of letting its guard down when it unveils its next generation processors at the upcoming Hot Chips conference: the company is teasing that the “zNext” chip at the heart of a future System z mainframe will ramp up to 5.5GHz — that’s faster than the still-speedy 5.2GHz z196 that has led IBM’s pack since 2010. For those who don’t need quite that big a sledgehammer, the technology veteran is hinting that its upcoming Power7+ processors will be up to 20 percent faster than the long-serving Power7, whose current 4.14GHz peak clock rate may seem quaint. We’ll know just how much those extra cycles mean when IBM takes to the conference podium on August 29th, but it’s safe to say that our databases and large-scale simulations won’t know what hit them.

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IBM pushing System z, Power7+ chips as high as 5.5GHz, mainframes get mightier originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Aug 2012 02:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s New Superfast Chips Could Fuel Your Future iPhone [Guts]

Samsung has just announced some superfast new chips and they might one day power an iPhone. More »

FDA approves Proteus Digital Health’s e-pills for dose monitoring

FDA approves Proteus Digital Health's e-pills for dose monitoring

An “ingestible sensor” doesn’t sound like the tastiest of snacks, but soon it might be just what the doctor ordered. A tiny microchip which activates upon contact with stomach acid has recently been given the green light by health regulatory agencies in the US and Europe. When the sensor is swallowed, an external patch picks up its signal and shoots a message over to whoever it’s supposed to. The technology is aimed at tackling an issue known in the healthcare biz as compliance — or, following instructions. Correct timing and dose are important for many drugs, and lax schedules can be responsible for treatment failures or the development of nasty drug-resistant bugs. Although the necessary trials used placebo pills, one pharmaceutical heavyweight has already bagged a license to the technology for real-world applications. If the thought of passing microchips is troubling you more than the thought of eating them, no need to worry — the kamikaze sensors dissolve in your stomach shortly after completing their mission.

Continue reading FDA approves Proteus Digital Health’s e-pills for dose monitoring

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FDA approves Proteus Digital Health’s e-pills for dose monitoring originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceDVICE, Proteus Digital Health  | Email this | Comments