Tag: intel

Tech companies start talking about hiring

Posted on September 4, 2014 by - News

Slaves_ruvumaApple, Google, Intel and Adobe have gone back to the drawing board to come up with a more reasonable deal with tech workers in a high-profile lawsuit over hiring practices in Silicon Valley.

The four were sued for conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees. Last month, US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected a proposed $324.5 million settlement in the class action case, saying it was too low, considering what the four actually did.

Both sides have said they had resumed mediation but provided no additional details on the talks. They also asked Koh to set a new trial date.

The employees said that the conspiracy limited their job mobility and  kept a lid on salaries. The case, filed in 2011, has been closely watched because of the possibility of big damages being awarded. It also showed the antics of the likes of Apple’s Steve Jobs, former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt and some of their rivals.

Koh cited “substantial and compelling evidence” that Jobs “was a, if not the, central figure in the alleged conspiracy”.

Jobs had previous form for setting up conspiracies which helped him and Apple at the expense of workers or customers. He was also named and shamed as the bloke who set up a conspiracy to make sure that customers paid more for ebooks.

Given the strength of the case against the companies, the plaintiffs should have got more money, Koh wrote.

Intel re-ARMing

Posted on September 4, 2014 by - News

rearm 2It seems that Intel has decided that in the long term its rival ARM has the right idea. We revealed that in the Eye a couple of weeks back.

Intel’s Brian Krzanich told the Citi Global Technology Conference that while ten years down the road the company will continue to get a bulk of its revenue from PCs and servers, a significant part of its revenue will come from mobile, Internet-of-Things and other emerging market segments.

To do that it will need to come up with some ultra-low-cost devices that will still need computing and communications capabilities.

That will mean working out a way to “take our silicon leadership and our architecture down into we talk about parts that may only cost $0.50 and have comms, CPU, everything down there and can run on small batteries.”

Although this is the normal “internet of things” style talk, it is the first time that Chipzilla has given the world its coming vision. In this case it is a super small chip which can run an entire computer’s services for less than 50 cents.

Intel has stayed out of the cheap chips market because the margins are incredibly small, but it is starting to look like it has realised that the Internet of Things will mean low-margin, micro-controllers and other low-cost chips. This will make it difficult for Intel to maintain its traditional 60 percent mark up.

Krzanich said that in a decade, Intel is definitely going to be a broader company across the much broader spectrum of computing. He is also not predicting the death of the PC or the server any time soon.

 

Intel releases eight core desktop CPU

Posted on September 2, 2014 by - News

Core-i7-EE-chip-538x600Chipzilla has released its first eight core desktop CPU targeted at gamers and computer users who need a little extra.

Dubbed  Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition processor, the chip has 16 computing threads which, along with support for the latest DDR4 memory.  On paper at least it should create some of the fastest desktop systems yet seen.

Lisa Graff, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Desktop Client Platform Group claimed that the whole thing was a reinvention of the desktop’ which is a mantra Intel has come up with since the beginning of the year.  After all chucking more power at desktop units has never been tried before, and Intel seems to think that doing what it always has done is going to stop people saying that the PC is dead.

To be fair, outfits like Alienware seem to think that the eight-core extreme processor is pretty good too. It has installed it under the bonnet of its new Alienware Area-51. Using new overclocking and monitoring features in Alienware Command Center 4.0, it has got the processors to go like the clappers.

Intel has released a slightly less interesting six-core version and the prices in its new range start from $389 and range to $999.

ARM ups 64-bit hype

Posted on September 1, 2014 by - News

arm_chipChip licensing company ARM said it has signed its 50th licensing agreement for the v8-A processing technology and said 27 firms have signed up for the show.

Although it did not specify the names of the 27 companies they include the usual suspects like Samsung and we know that Intel is now a big ARM customer too.

Noel Hurley, who runs the processor division of ARM claimed that tablets and smartphones are replacing PCs for many taks and the new 64-bit tech in the v8-A series is backwards compatible with 32-bit technology too.

That means the new tech will completely support the million plus 32-bit apps that already exist for the technology.

The number 50 is important for ARM in another way too, claimed Hurley, because the company said there are now 50 billion processors using its tech.

It won’t be long until there are 100 billion processors licensing its technology, according to ARM.

Intel poaches Qualcomm exec

Posted on September 1, 2014 by - News

cracking-eggs-mFashion bag and bracelet maker Intel is attempting to prove that it is serious about mobile by headhunting one of Qualcomm’s gadget makers.

Amir Faintuch is a senior executive at Qualcomm’s networking and connectivity businesses Atheros, which we were surprised to discover has nothing to do with one of the three musketeers.

It is unusual for Intel to look outside its own company for senior executives and the hiring is being seen as a portent that the company is serious to sort out its struggling mobile business.

Faintuch will be an Intel a senior vice president and co-general manager of the Platform Engineering Group.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said Faintuch will  be among Intel’s dozen or so most senior executives and will co-manage the Platform Engineering Group with Josh Walden, a manufacturing technology expert who previously led the group.

Mulloy said that Faintuch brings experience designing “system on chips,” or SoCs, which combine features like modems, Wi-Fi and memory.  Chipzilla is still a little short on the expertise needed for designing SoCs.

“We want to accelerate our success rate with SoCs and get the designs aligned and the roadmaps aligned to do that. We’ve made good progress but there’s more to be done. Amir has extensive management experience and a strong resume,” he said.

Since taking over in 2013, CEO Brian Krzanich has made a number of sweeping changes designed to counteract a slump in PC sales, including opening Intel’s cutting-edge factories to other chipmakers willing to pay for access to them.

Still the traffic between Intel and Qualcomm has not been one way. In fact Qualcomm is seen as a nicer place to work. In 2012, senior executive Anand Chandrasekher, a 25-year Intel veteran, jumped over to Qualcomm to become the outfit’s chief marketing officer.

ARM and Intel are as bad as each other

Posted on August 29, 2014 by - News

tweddle dee and tweedle dumFor years, ARM and Intel have been snarling at each other that each other’s chips are more power efficient. ARM has claimed that the reason it was more power efficient thanks to fundamental differences in the ISA (instruction set architecture).

As we reported earlier this week, however, Intel is one of ARM’s biggest fans.

ARM uses RISC and Intel’s x86 uses CISC.  ARM says that makes a big difference. However a team from the University of Wisconsin has been looking at the two architectures RISC and CISC and thinks that ARM might be wrong and that ISA is less important.

Their new research paper, which was reviewed in detail by Extreme Tech examines these claims using a variety of ARM cores as well as a Loongson MIPS microprocessor, Intel’s Atom and Sandy Bridge microarchitectures, and AMD’s Bobcat.

The report suggests that ISA can matter in certain, extremely specific cases where die sizes must be 1-2mm2 or power consumption is specced to sub-milliwatt levels.  At those rare times, RISC microcontrollers can still have an advantage over their CISC brethren.

But the report suggests that those who claim RISC still has enormous benefits over x86 at higher performance levels are ignoring the fact that RISC and CISC describe design strategies and which fixed technological limitations of years ago and are not important today.

The report said that in the good old days RISC chips could run at significantly higher clocks than their CISC counterparts thanks to reduced complexity, but that’s no longer true.

Now it is process technology controls clock speed, not one’s choice of RISC vs. CISC. Today a Core i7 and Cortex-A57 have far more in common due to decades of experience have led designers to adopt strategies and structures that work, even if the underlying ISA is different.

They concluded that the RISC vs. CISC argument should be cast into the dustbin of history even if it still has some relevance in the microcontroller realm. Basically an x86 chip can be more power efficient than an ARM processor, or vice versa but it has nothing to do with the instruction set.

Michael J Fox teams up with Intel

Posted on August 28, 2014 by - News

back-to-the-futureStar of Back to the Future Michael J. Fox is teaming up with Intel to use the Internet of Thongs to find a cure for Parkinson’s Disease.

Fox’s plan involves using gear like the Pebble Watch to help in the fight.

Patients in phase one of the Parkinson’s study are being given Pebble watches which are paired with a smartphone. “The setup monitored daily movements and securely uploaded data to the cloud, letting researchers seamlessly keep tabs on multiple patients without disrupting their schedules.”

The smartwatch maker is excited to see its technology being used in medical research and perhaps ultimately helping to bring a change.

Chipzilla’s involvement using a new big data analytics platform that detects patterns in participant data collected from wearable technologies used to monitor symptoms.

Todd Sherer, PhD, CEO of The Michael J. Fox Foundation said that data science and wearable computing hold the potential to transform the ability to capture and objectively measure patients’ actual experience of disease, with unprecedented implications for Parkinson’s drug development, diagnosis and treatment.

The potential to collect and analyse data from thousands of individuals on measurable features of Parkinson’s, such as slowness of movement, tremor and sleep quality, could enable researchers to assemble a better picture of the clinical progression of Parkinson’s and track its relationship to molecular changes.

Wearables can unobtrusively gather and transmit objective, experiential data in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With this approach, researchers could go from looking at a very small number of data points and burdensome pencil-and-paper patient diaries collected sporadically to analyzing hundreds of readings per second from thousands of patients and attaining a critical mass of data to detect patterns and make new discoveries.

The idea was trailed earlier this year to evaluate the usability and accuracy of wearable devices for tracking agreed physiological features from participants and using a big data analytics platform to collect and analyze the data. The participants (16 Parkinson’s patients and nine control volunteers) wore the devices during two clinic visits and at home continuously over four days.

Intel data scientists are now correlating the data collected to clinical observations and patient diaries to gauge the devices’ accuracy, and are developing algorithms to measure symptoms and disease progression.

Later this year, Intel and MJFF plan to launch a new mobile software that enables patients to report their medication intake as well as how they are feeling. The effort is part of the next phase of the study to enable medical researchers to study the effects of medication on motor symptoms via changes detected in sensor data from wearable devices.

 

Intel falls into ARM’s arms

Posted on August 27, 2014 by - Moving People, News

Intel-logoIn one of those strange twists of fate that dog the semiconductor industry, it appears X86 giant Intel is now one of the biggest licensees of ARM tech on the planet, now it is a foundry business. ARM, of course, offers an advantage over X86 servers in terms of both functionality and heat. Intel is considerably boosting ARM revenues, according to well informed sources close to the facts.

Actually, INTC has always had a lot of foundry business. It was forced by American authorities to guarantee that production of DEC’s Alpha microprocessor continued until the end of the decade, as we reported earlier at the INQster and the Rogister years back. Intel also had and probably still has a StrongARM licence – an opportunity Chipzilla signally missed back in the days.

It also still makes HP chips. Perhaps that is because of the peculiar nature of the partnership between Intel and HP.

Intel reacted very badly to the news.

Anna Cheng, the UK spinner for Intel, sent a snottogram to the Eyes saying that the world+dog knew it made ARM chips. She said that she objected to the fact that the Eyes blank carbon copied other people at Intel – including Chuck Mulloy – asking for clarification. She scolded the Eyes for not going through proper channels.

We responded by saying that we had in our possession many Intel “confidential” emails describing me – in no uncertain terms – as an old buffer.

ARM refused to comment, but it is quids in because of Intel’s decision to fab up the unique British designs…

Fashion bag maker Intel moves to jewellery

Posted on August 26, 2014 by - News

vogueChipmaker turned fashion bag designer, Intel is getting into the jewellery business turning out a smart bracelet for the very wealthy shoppers at Barneys.

The bracelet was designed by fashion house Opening Ceremony, and test sales were conducted at luxury retailer Barneys New York in January.

Daniella Vitale, COO of Barneys New York said at the time that wearable technology had to be a beautiful accessory that customers would desire.

Most wearable computers are fitness trackers which is largely pointless if you are not into exercise.  Intel’s bracelet will not do anything fitness related, but it is not clear what it will do.

The new wearable could be announced around Fashion Week in New York, which starts Sept. 4, or at the Intel Developer Forum from September 9 to 11, where Intel typically makes big company announcements.

Despite the competition, and the fact that no one has actually seen a real market for wearable computers yet, Intel wants to make up for the fact that it missed the mobile revolution by being right on time for the next big thing.

The wearables market is rapidly growing as the devices become functional and fashionable accessories. Over 19 million units are expected to be shipped by the end of this year, more than triple the total in 2013, researcher IDC said in April. That market should expand to nearly 112 million units in 2018.

 

 

Intel talks up wi-fi cunning plans

Posted on August 22, 2014 by - News

cunning-planChipzilla is telling the world about its cunning plans to move to “wire-free” computing by 2016.

Writing in the company bog, Intel is apparently developing a smart dock through which laptops can wirelessly connect to monitors and external peripherals.

Intel said that this will remove the need to plug HDMI or DisplayPort display connectors directly into laptops. The wireless dock will provide USB 3.0-like speeds to transfer data to external peripherals.

“When you walk in the office with your laptop, it will automatically link with your wireless-enabled monitor or projector to deliver an HD streaming experience without the hassle of plugging into your HDMI or DisplayPort,” Intel said.

Intel is developing technology so wireless monitors automatically start and link up when laptops are within a specific distance. Intel calls this “proximity-based peripheral syncing” technology.

People could also log on with face recognition, without the need to touch the keyboard.

Most of Intel’s wire-free computing is based on WiGig, which is faster than the latest Wi-Fi technology. Intel is also considering WiGig to connect wireless keyboards and mice to laptops.

Power adapters will also become outdated in Intel’s wireless world. It is developing wireless charging technologies for laptops. So far we have already seen charging pads based on A4WP’s Rezence magnetic resonance technology.

Intel is expected to explain its wire-free computing for business PCs plans at the Intel Developer Forum next month in San Francisco.

But it will have to move fast. Rivals bought Wilocity, which develops WiGig technology, last month and will put WiGig in its Snapdragon mobile chipsets so smartphones and tablets can wirelessly stream 4K video to external displays.

 

Oregon wakes up to deal with Intel devil

Posted on August 22, 2014 by - News

satanic pactIt seems that people are starting to add up the cost of their tax sweeteners with Intel and they are not liking the numbers they are seeing.

Blue Oregon  has reported that Chipzilla has  asked for, and may well get their second dose of 30 year “tax certainty”,

This means that Intel does not have to pay Oregon income taxes for 30 years. But that was not enough, it is negotiating with Washington County Commissioners and the Hillsboro City Council on getting the same low property taxes they’ve had for the last 20 years as well.

There were a few people who do not think this a good idea and the Washington County Commission’s and the Hillsboro City Council’s open comment periods saw tax payers ask elected representatives a few questions about why Intel  was being allowed nearly a tax free life.

Of course, the elected representatives are unlikely to agree with the taxpayers, and seem certain to pledge Intel 30 years’ worth of tax breaks. They will say that Intel is promising to keep at least 17,500 Oregon employees for the next 30 years and will invest $100 billion in the region during that time.

However, those pesky tax payers with their slide rules point out that Intel is not promising anything as part of the deal and even if it was, it stinks for local tax payers who will have to fund Intel.

Intel said that it needs all these tax breaks to fund new equipment because their equipment costs are rising. However, the taxpayers point out that money really should be spent on public services and not giving Intel some state supported gear.

All up it is fairly likely that Intel will get its way and the tax payers will not even get a discount on the State backed products they made.

 

Intel to buy MediaTek prediction

Posted on August 21, 2014 by - News

entrailsThe fortune-tellers at RBC Capital Markets have emerged from their blood-stained temples with a dark prediction for MediaTek.

Analyst Doug Freedman, after seeing the liver of a particularly well fed Ram, claims that Intel will write a cheque for $27 billion to buy wireless chipmaker MediaTek within three years.

He told the Street that the deal would make sense as Intel’s earnings would grow and would help stop the investment losses it is incurring to grow wireless market share.

Freedman said the deal will happen within the next two-to-three years “almost out of necessity.” He said that  MediaTek’s purchase is Intel’s best option to grow in the wireless market. Intel may also find that the timing is improving for a large deal as the baseband market continues to consolidate, the analyst said.

Although $27 billion is a lot of dosh, Chipzilla is already spending more than $1 billion a quarter to expand into the mobile and wireless market.  This money appears to be just disappearing and the company is suffering heavy losses in the unit as it tries to boost market share beyond the single digits. Over all buying MediaTek could be a less expensive way to drive market share gains and would entail less risk, Freedman said.

MediaTek is a big name in mobile and tablet chipsets, in addition to Bluetooth, WLAN and GPS chips and NFC system on chips.  While Intel pines away in the baseband market,  MediaTek has made steady market share gains.

This would be the second time that Intel has had to buy the stairway to wireless heaven. In 2010 Intel bought Infineon’s wireless solutions business for $1.4 billion .  However Intel’s baseband market share has fallen to the mid-single digits.

Intel has made significant investments but it isn’t expected to post revenue growth in the next two and a half years, according to Wall Street consensus.

 

AMD slashes prices

Posted on August 21, 2014 by - News

The_Pit_and_the_Pendulum_(1961_film)_posterAMD appears to have been going on a campaign of price cutting to take out  Intel’s Core i5 “Devil’s Canyon”.

According to Xbit Labs,  Intel wants to cut prices of its AMD FX-9000 “Centurion” microprocessors in a bid to make them more competitive “Devil’s Canyon” and several other chips from its rival.

AMD has also slightly reduced prices of other FX-series chips and culled some older and lower-end models.

From September 1, 2014, AMD’s FX-9370, with eight cores, 4.40/4.70GHz, 8MB L2 cache, 8MB L3 cache, 220W thermal design power will cost $199 .  The  top-of-the-range FX-9590, eight cores, 4.70/5.0GHz, 8MB L2 cache, 8MB L3 cache, 220W thermal design power will set you back $215.

The prices of the FX-9370 and the FX-9590 will be cut by 23 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Given the minimal difference between pricing of the FX-9370 and the FX-9590.

AMD has promised to cut the prices of “mainstream” FX-series chips slightly on the 1st of September to make them more competitive.

The company said that it will discontinue or will not change the price of many older AMD FX central processing units, including FX-8150, FX-8120, FX-6200, FX-6100, FX-4170, FX-4130 and FX-4100.

Centurion was AMD’s attempt to deal with the launch of Haswell. AMD released two “extreme” FX-class central processing units code-named “Centurion”, which are compatible with advanced AM3+ mainboards and require sophisticated cooling systems. Initially the FX-9370 and the FX-9590 chips were only available to select system integrators and cost up to $800-$900 per unit.

It had been expected that AMD would introduce all-new AMD FX-9000-series “Centurion” microprocessors with increased clock-rates, but it looks like the price cut will make them look better against Intel’s Core i5-4690K “Devil’s Canyon”.

 

Intel replays marketing card

Posted on August 20, 2014 by - Moving People, News

Intel-logoBecause Intel has so few products to show at its expensive upcoming Intel Developer Forum in September in San Francisco, it will play its old three card trick and show off new logos and marketing plans instead. Ailing Intel, it seems, has run out of “innovation”.

That’s according to reliable sources within the corporation that told the Eyes that newly formed CEOs need marketing ideas because product ideas are few on the ground.

The source – based in Asia – told the Eyes that it had attempted to convince ex CEO Paul Otellini that the marketing needed changing to a retro kind of thing, but had come up against determined opposition from the then CEO.

But facing ruin because it was slow off the mark with chips for tablets and for smartphones, instead Intel will attempt to bamboozle the world with marketing. The newly born CEO – and the INTC board are  up for it.

The re-branding will re-position Intel as a 21st century company that doesn’t really invent technology any more. Just manufacture it.

Although we don’t have the new logos and that yet, expect a blast of marketing publicity that talks a lot about not very much at all, faced with the opposition. Oh, that’s not AMD, by the way.

i7-5960X Haswell-E snaps leaked

Posted on August 18, 2014 by - News

leaked intel chipsWe are expecting Chipzilla to release its Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E CPU any day now after leaked snaps of the chips started to appear on line.

We have been waiting for Intel to officially launch its new X99 chipset along with a slew of new high-end processors for a while now and the key player in the release is the Core i7-5960X processor.
Now a Japanese site with the name Hermitage Akihabara has got its paws on what appears to be a paparazzi snap of the Core i7-5960X.

Although the chips are stamped “top secret” the LGA 2011-based Haswell-E processors are supposed to be released on August 29, with three models to be unveiled: the Core i7-5960X, the Core i7-5930K and the Core i7-5820K.

The top-of-the-line Core i7-5960X will have eight physical cores and eight provided through Hyper-Threading making 16 threads which is one of the most thread thinks we have seen in a commercial CPU.

The new Core i7-5960X has 20MB of L3 cache, quad-channel DDR4 RAM support, and 40 PCIe 3.0 lands in total. The default clock speed on the Extreme CPU will be 3GHz, and it’ll be built on Intel’s 22nm process.