Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like 3D isn’t just a fad, folks, so long as we’re talking about silicon — Intel just announced that it has invented a 3D “Tri-Gate” transistor that will allow the company to keep shrinking chips, Moore’s Law naysayers be darned. Intel says the transistors will use 50 percent less power, conduct more current and provide 37 percent more speed than their 2D counterparts thanks to vertical fins of silicon substrate that stick up through the other layers, and that those fancy fins could make for cheaper chips too — currently, though, the tri-gate tech adds an estimated 2 to 3 percent cost to existing silicon wafers. Intel says we’ll see the new technology first in its 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs, going into mass production in the second half of the year, and it’s planning 14nm chips in 2013 and 10nm chips in 2015. Also, 3D transistors won’t be limited to the cutting edge — Intel reps told journalists that they “will extend across the entire range of our product line,” including mobile devices. Three videos and a press release await you after the break.

Chris Trout contributed to this report.

Continue reading Intel will mass produce 3D transistors for all future CPUs, starting with 22nm Ivy Bridge (video)

Intel will mass produce 3D transistors for all future CPUs, starting with 22nm Ivy Bridge (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA may be kicking all kinds of tail on the mobile front with its ubiquitous Tegra 2 chipset, but back on its home turf of laptop and desktop graphics, things aren’t looking so hot. The latest figures from Jon Peddie Research show that the GPU giant has lost 2.5 percentage points of its market share and now accounts for exactly a fifth of graphics chips sold on x86 devices. That’s a hefty drop from last year’s 28.4 percent slice, and looks to have been driven primarily by sales of cheaper integrated GPUs, such as those found inside Intel’s Clarkdale, Arrandale, and most recently, Sandy Bridge processors. AMD’s introduction of Fusion APUs that combine general and graphics processing into one has also boosted its fortunes, resulting in 13.3 percent growth in sales relative to the previous quarter and a 15.4 percent increase year-on-year. Of course, the real profits are to be made in the discrete graphics card market, where NVIDIA remains highly competitive, but looking at figures like these shows quite clearly why NVIDIA is working on an ARM CPU for the desktop — its long-term survival depends on it.

NVIDIA losing ground to AMD and Intel in GPU market share originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel may have just released the first generation Thunderbolt this spring, but Intel is already planning it for long term. Intel is already working on the Thunderbolt’s successor, even before the original really takes off. Here is what the director of Intel Research labs had to say:

We see them as complementary. It’s the evolution of these connectors and protocols as they move forward. 

[Besides], Thunderbolt is more than a cable. It’s a router chip that aggregates DisplayPort and PCI-Express.

No reason was given for the upgrades being developed so early on. Some companies outside of Apple have shown interest, but by no means have we seen anything big for it yet. Intel appears to be living more in a dream than a reality.

Via TG Daily

Looks like Gigabyte’s S1080 tablet, which landed in Taiwan earlier this month, is getting ready to hit shelves here in the US. The 10.1-inch Windows 7 slate stopped by the FCC, where it got cracked open and had its silicon-packed innards exposed for the camera. There’s nothing new to glean here — specs are still the same (dual-core Atom, 320GB hard drive, etcetera) and we haven’t heard anything about a much-needed price drop, but if you want a quick peak under the hood, check out the gallery below!

Gigabyte’s S1080 Windows tablet undressed by the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 08:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Woah there, Mr. Speedy. We’ve barely caught up with the 10Gbps Thunderbolt interconnect, debuted in the new Macbook Pro, and now Intel’s hyperactive researchers are already chattering away about something five times faster. They’re promising a new interconnect, ready in four years, that will combine silicon and optical components (a technology called silicon photonics) to pump 50Gbps over distances of up to 100m. That’s the sort of speed Intel predicts will be necessary to handle, say, ultra-HD 4k video being streamed between smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes and TVs. Intel insists that poor old Mr. Thunderbolt won’t be forced into early retirement, but if we were him we’d be speaking to an employment lawyer right about now.

Intel touts 50Gbps interconnect by 2015, will make it work with tablets and smartphones too originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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