Hasta La Gadget!

AMD’s Bulldozer CPUs remind us of Betamax (or MiniDisc), in that its superlative design hasn’t been embraced thanks to one or two humbling limitations. However, Mark Papermaster, Sunnyvale’s new CTO, took to the stage at Hot Chips to show how he’s changing the situation with the third-generation Steamroller architecture. It’s rowing back on the more experimental elements of the design, scrapping the single shared fetch-and-decode hardware in favor of dual-cores that should double the amount of instructions it can handle. It’s hoping to make performance gains of 15 percent, clawing back some of Intel’s lead, and is considering roping in the GPU to help with the heavy-hitting in future versions. The chips will be built at Globalfoundries 28-nanometer line and are hoped to be out at some point next year.

Filed under: Desktops

AMD teases next-gen Steamroller CPU, aims to Bulldoze the competition originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung has revealed details of the new Exynos 5 Dual, the company’s latest chipset for smartphones and tablets, packing a pair of Cortex-A15 cores for superlative mobile power. The new 32nm SoC packs twin 1.7GHz cores and supports up to 2560 x 1600 WQXGA resolution – interesting, given the persistent rumors that Samsung is readying an 11.8-inch tablet at just that resolution – along with 1080p 60fps hardware deceleration and 3D graphics.

There’s also USB 3.0 and SATA3 support, OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenCL support, and the ability to drive wireless displays. For the first time, Samsung has implemented a separate display subsystem, which the company says makes for a cheaper overall device and better performance.

Samsung is pretty vocal about the Exynos 5 Dual’s performance, comparing it to a desktop processor in terms of capabilities, and suggesting that it will offer twice the performance of an Exynos 4 Dual 1.4GHz. Its individual cores at between 1.5x and 2x faster than Cortex-A9 cores – as used by NVIDIA in the Tegra 3, though in NVIDIA’s chip you do get four of them not two – while memory bandwidth is similarly speedy.

Samsung claims to have planned for a “worst case” scenario in driving graphics, with the Exynos 5 Dual capable of handling a full 2560 x 1600 display overlaying a UI onto 1080p video, keeping a camera preview running, encoding video, and simultaneously using HDMI-out to an HDTV. Overall bandwidth is double that of the previous Exynos 4 Dual.

Meanwhile, power consumption is down – 30-percent lower than 45nm chips – and with specific power-saving routines for energy-hungry displays. Samsung isn’t saying what products we can expect to see the Exynos 5 Dual show up in, but we’re hoping that changes soon.

Samsung Exynos 5 Dual detailed: You want this in your next tablet is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AMD has snapped up ex-Apple mobile processor expert Jim Keller, hoping the engineer can bring some Cupertino-style magic to its future performance and low-power processors. Keller worked at Apple-acquired P.A. Semi as VP of design, moving to take up the reins as Apple’s director of platform architecture, where he was responsible for the Apple Ax series of chips powering the iPad, iPhone and Apple TV.

“Keller will lead AMD’s microprocessor core design efforts aligned with AMD’s ambidextrous strategy” the chip manufacturer said today, “with a focus on developing both high-performance and low-power processor cores that will be the foundation of AMD’s future products.” The engineer’s “innovative spirit, low-power design expertise, creativity and drive for success” will be integral in developing AMD’s next-gen chips, his new boss Mark Papermaster said in a statement.

Interestingly, it’s not the only AMD/Apple staff swap in recent weeks. Back in July, ex-AMD engineer John Bruno joined Apple, the man responsible for leading the development of the AMD Trinity APU which the company has staked its current range on. Bruno was originally at ATI prior to the AMD takeover, and specializes in multicore, low-power chipsets.

That area – individually low-power but collectively numerous ARM cores – has become a major threat in the processor business of late, with companies like Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and NVIDIA all looking to challenge Intel and AMD in mainstream computing such as notebooks and servers. Apple in particular has been surrounded by long-standing speculation that it plans ARM-based MacBooks in future.

AMD’s interest in Keller, therefore, is likely to be tied into the chip maker’s defense against that, having already admitted that it effectively ceded the smartphone processor space to rivals in instead prioritizing PCs and tablets.

AMD snatches Apple processor expert is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s the end of the second quarter, so a whole host of financial results are flooding in from technology companies. ARM continues to see strong growth, seeing a 23% increase in net profit at £66.5 million (~$102.9 million). That’s up from £54.2 million (~$83.9 million) earned during the second quarter of last year. Revenue has also increased to £135.5 million (~$209.7 million) from £117.8 (~$182.3 million) million, a 15% increase, and operating margin has jumped ever so slightly to 46.4%.

ARM is attributing the growth to the licensing of a new ARMv8 processor for networking applications, 23 processor licenses that have been signed across a bevy of mobile devices, and the 2 billion chips that have been shipped so far, a 9% increase over the same period last year. Royalties for processors have also increased by around 14% despite the fact that the industry saw an overall decline of 7%.

Finally, 3 licenses for the Mali GPU were signed in the second quarter, with 2 of those being with new customers. CEO of ARM, Warren East, seems pretty pleased with the results overall too: “ARM’s royalty revenues continued to outperform the overall semiconductor industry as our customers gained market share within existing markets and launched products which are taking ARM technology into new markets.” Going forward, ARM expects a small increase in industry revenues during the third quarter, but things aren’t looking as good in Q4 as “as macroeconomic uncertainty may impact consumer confidence.”

ARM Q2 ’12 sees profits jump by 23% is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple has quietly hired ex-AMD engineer John Bruno, the man responsible in no small part for the Trinity APU. Bruno is now “System Architect at Apple” according to a recent update to his LinkedIn profile, though the exact nature of his role at the Cupertino company has not been detailed. Still, there’s no shortage of potential speculation as to what the chip expert could be doing.

Bruno was at graphics card manufacturer ATI before it was acquired by AMD, but left the company after the sweeping job cuts at the chip firm back in November 2011. AMD cut 10-percent of jobs in an attempt to save money, with some significant losses in expertise; as well as Bruno, several other processor experts left to take up SoC roles with Samsung and other firms.

At Apple, Bruno is likely to be taking up similar reins as he managed at AMD. That could be part of Apple’s rumored progress working on its own processors for mobile and desktop; the company has already pushed ahead with its Apple Ax range of ARM-based chips for phones and tablets, and long-standing rumors suggest the company is also planning to shift its desktop line of MacBooks and Macs onto ARM silicon at some point too.

Even if that’s not Bruno’s initial focus, his expertise in multi-core processors such as AMD’s innovative APU should serve Apple well for future products wanting to deliver superlative graphics performance alongside solid battery life. There’s more on what APUs like Trinity can do here.

[via SemiAccurate – thanks Stefan!]

Apple grabs AMD Trinity genius John Bruno is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.