THE HOT CHIPS 22 conference has released their lineup of talks this year, and it once again looks really good. If you haven’t been to one yet, it is one of the best conferences about chip architecture out there, and well worth attending.
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MOST SMARTPHONES ARE still only shipping with a measly 512MB of storage memory at best, there are exceptions, of course like Apple’s iPhone and a couple of devices from Samsung to mention a few. However, Toshiba seems set on getting more storage memory into our mobile devices, as the company has launched 128GB e-MMC compliant NAND Flash memory chips today.
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SEAMICRO IS A STARTUP that is attacking data center power use through a novel idea, optimizing hardware for a specific workload. For web serving workloads, the idea is simple, cram 512 Atom servers into a box with a virtual ‘shared nothing’ configuration.
Updated: Fixed wrong CPU speeds
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SUPERMICRO WAS SHOWING off a bunch of high end servers and boards during Computex, most based around Magny-Cours, and a few Becton machines as well. Not to be outdone, they finally revealed a new line of modular racks.
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THERMALTAKE HAD SEVERAL evolutionary cases, fans and docks at Computex, along with one really good new idea. If Thermaltake is a design trendsetter, and they usually are, look forward to cases with lots of HD docking bays. About time.
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ONE PROBLEM WITH USB 3.0 is that, to date, there’s no common pin-header layout for internal USB 3.0 connectors, but it appears that ASRock and ECS have taken things into their own hands and have come up with a suitable solution. Interestingly the two companies appear to be using exactly the same type of connector, although we don’t know if the pin-out is the same.
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ALTHOUGH WE EXPECTED to see a lot more SATA 6Gbps SSD drives at Computex, it seems like some manufacturers are holding off, waiting for new SSD controllers, before they launch their new products with SATA 6Gbps support. Nonetheless, AData was showing off a model based on the Marvell controller and it didn’t disappoint.
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WE MET UP with JMicron at Computex and although the company had a tiny booth at the show it was packed with people during our entire visit. JMicron is the first company to have a range of solutions for SDXC card readers, including support for USB 3.0. We ended up chatting with a very nice representative for the company who also spilled the beans on some upcoming products from JMicron.
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OCZ IS MOVING toward enterprise SSDs in a hurry, but they didn’t stop there. The company showed off everything from PCIe SSDs to a new proprietary interface for drives.
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ZALMAN IS DOING some really interesting things once again, and has one really innovative product that no one was expecting. As usual, the physical design is above and beyond the call of duty.
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VIA HAD A lot of goodies to show off at Computex, from USB to ARM to dual core Nanos. On top of it all, they had several of the buzzworthy ‘$100 tablets’ to show off.
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PLEXTOR MIGHT NOT be one of the big players in the SSD market space, but the company is now readying its first SATA 6Gbps SSD and we’ve got some early benchmark figures to share with you, as well as some details of the new drive family.
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SEMIACCURATE MANAGED TO snap a few pics of six new Gigabyte mobos, from fire-breathing Intel X58s and AMD 890FXs to diminutive micro-ATX systems. There is a lot to like in this new round of motherboards.
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IT LOOKS LIKE we’ll be seeing a lot of USB 3.0 hardware at Computex this year, although after yesterday’s competitive announcement by Fresco Logic, it now seems like we have the solution just about everyone has been waiting for, a four port USB 3.0 host controller and it’s about time too. The VL800 host controller comes from VLI, also known as VIA Labs, Inc, a subsidiary of VIA.
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FRESCO LOGIC’S FIRST attempt at a USB 3.0 controller was anything but impressive, as the FL1000 was a single port PCI Express Gen 1 solution. However, it seems like the company is now ready to give Renesas some serious competition with its second USB 3.0 controller, the FL1009 which offers two ports and a PCI Express Gen 2 interface.
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