Jul 29, 2010

HomePlug Powerline Alliance announces next gen specs

HomePlug Powerline Alliance announces next gen specs

NETWORKING OVER POWERLINES has yet to become a huge hit and it suffers from the same theoretical maximum speeds as Wi-Fi, but that hasn’t stopped the HomePlug Powerline Alliance from moving forward with further improvements to HomePlug AV. The continuation of the standard is of course called HomePlug AV2 and we can’t quite figure out why it’s not called HomePlug HD or 3D, as everything these days seems to include one of those terms or it’s just not hip enough.
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Jul 29, 2010

Early AMD Llano and Ontario performance numbers tip up

From a rather unlikely source

WE’RE STILL AT least a couple of months away from AMD’s Ontario announcement and even longer from Llano, but some very early performance figures have tipped up online courtesy of, well, distributed computing. To be more precise details of various distributed computing apps being tested on AMD Llano and Ontario systems have appeared on BOINC or the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing if you prefer.
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Jul 23, 2010

Intel to limit Sandy Bridge overclocking?

At least according to leaked slides

IF WE’RE TO believe what is meant to be Intel presentation slides of its upcoming Sandy Bridge processors that were embedded in a video posted on YouTube by HKEPC, it looks like Intel’s LGA-1155 processors will have very limited overclocking potential. The reason for this is because Intel decided to “help” with the cost cutting by implementing a clock generator built into the chipset, rather than relying on an additional chip on the motherboard.
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Jul 19, 2010

Intel Core i UM notebooks appearing all-over

We try to clear up the differences between all the models

IF YOU’VE BEEN waiting for a more powerful replacement of Intel’s CULV platform, then you’ll be glad to know that its partners have started to launch Core i UM based notebooks en masse. This is a couple of months later than expected and we wrote a little piece about this before Computex. Various markets seem to be getting models from different manufacturers at the moment, although this is most likely a business strategy more than a supply issue.
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Jul 19, 2010

Intel drops a few CPU prices

And adds a few new CPUs to boot

ALTHOUGH IT’S ABOUT a month since we reported Intel’s price drop and new processor launch, it has finally happened. We’ve got a few new processors in the market and Intel has dropped the price on some of its models by as much as 47.6 percent. So if you’re looking for a bargain deal on a new CPU, then there might be something that’ll fit your needs.
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Jul 16, 2010

Taiwan isn’t ready for centenary bug

Yes, you read it correctly, centenary bug

THIS IS ONE of those things that you almost have to be a local to grasp, but Taiwan is about to be hit by an equivalent to the so called millennium bug, but in the case of Taiwan, it’s a centenary bug. What many people don’t know is that Taiwan has its own calendar and this year it’s the year 99 in Taiwan and next year it’s 100 years since the Republic of China (ROC) was formed.
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Jul 16, 2010

TSMC to invest $9.34 billion in Fab 15

Set to produce in excess of 100,000 12-inch wafers a month

THERE HAVE BEEN some concerns over TSMC’s manufacturing capacity of 12-inch 40nm wafers and it seems like the company is set on solving this problem, although it won’t happen overnight. TSMC broke ground for its new Fab 15 earlier today in Taichung, Taiwan and the new fabrication plant is set to be ready to start mass production in the first quarter of 2012.
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Jul 15, 2010
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AMD releases Q2 financial results, and Ontario details galore

40nm supply problems persist

Another day, another quarterly earnings conference call.  AMD came in with their latest and greatest batch of numbers, tidbits of product information, and future guidance for the company.  While your man was unable to squeeze any questions in this time around, (and apparently vuvuzelas are frowned upon during these conference calls for some reason) there were still plenty of interesting nuggets of information dropped along the way, so let’s begin.
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Jul 14, 2010

Intel blames datacenter group for record quarterly profits

Increased Gibson hacking not a factor they claim

While listening in on hour-long industry financial conference calls should be the most fulfilling part of any geek’s day, for some reason people expect outfits like us to break it all down into nice bite-size chunks that they can assimilate over morning coffee. Whatever, who are we to judge?  Bottom line, Intel is on a tear this year and has just announced record quarterly; revenue ($10.8B), gross margin (67%), operating income ($4.0B), and earnings per share ($0.51).
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