by David Heyerman on September 24, 2009
by Jason Wilk on July 21, 2009
- Intel said Tuesday it is moving to a more advanced 34-nanometer manufacturing process for its X series of solid-state drives (SSDs). To date, Intel has built drives on a 50-nanometer process. The more advanced process allows for higher data densities, enabling Intel to pack more data onto the same number of flash chips and reduce cost. Solid-state drives typically offer better performance–in some cases, dramatically better performance–than hard disk drives. But SSDs cost more per gigabyte than hard drives, limiting their use to performance-sensitive applications such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers.
- The new price for the 80GB version of the X25-M drive is $225 for quantities up to 1,000 units, a 60 percent reduction from the introduction price of $595 a year ago, Intel said. The 160GB version of the Intel X25-M drive is now $440, down from $945 at introduction. “In the marketplace it will be around a $100 drop on the 80GB drive and almost a $200 drop on the 160GB drive,” he said. The X25-M comes in a standard 2.5-inch form factor, which is the size of most hard drives used in laptops. Intel will not introduce a 320GB SSD this year, he said. CNET.
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by David Heyerman on January 29, 2009
- Word is that Intel will be unveiling an eight-core Xeon processor at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco next month.
- The claim came out of MacWorld today, and if true will be Intel’s first eight-core chip.
- MacWorld seems to think the Nehalem-EP Processor from the above roadmap is it.
- Intel has declined to comment, so stay tuned…
by David Heyerman on January 26, 2009
- Heading into 2009, the global semiconductor industry will take a serious downturn in sales revenues. 2008 saw a decline of 4.4% from 2007, and analysts are predicting a 16% decline in 2009. Although layoffs and budget cuts will most likely occur, chip companies might just see the light again…..enter the aggressively growing solar industry.
- iSuppli came out with a study in June which claimed investment in solar cell production would match that of the semiconductor industry by 2010. So, are we looking at a huge boom in the solar industry, or more hype being casually neutralized by the economy? Many recent developments point towards the former.
- Hemlock Semiconductor announced back in December that they’d raised $3 Billion to expand their current polysilicon manufacturing capabilities. They’ll be adding a new production building to their Hemlock, Michigan location and building a brand new facility in Clarksville, Tennessee.
- Chip giant, Intel, has been moving towards solar for a while now investing near $100 million into solar startups. This summer alone, they invested $50 into photovoltaic solar cell startup SpectraWatt, and an additional $37.5 million into German thin-film solar module producer, Sulfercell. Just a few days ago, Intel revealed a 10KW solar installation at their New Mexico manufacturing plant.
- We’ve also seen some gigantic companies team up to get a piece of the solar pie as well. Panasonic plans to buy Sanyo, Sharp joined forces with Tokyo Electron, and IBM teamed up with Tokyo Ohka Kogyo all in attempt to boost solar capabilities. We even saw a chip company release their own solar technology when National Semiconductor launched SolarMagic.
- There are, however, many who argue the other side of the equation. With the economy in a serious slump and spending on the backburner mixed with a potential oversupply of polysilicon, many analysts are predicting a bad year for the solar industry. CEO of Novellus Systems, Rick Hill, openly remains skeptical about the apparent solar expansion necessity. Back in September, we saw Cypress Semiconductors completely divest themselves of their stake in SunPower (previously owned 52%).
- So what will happen? Will the solar sector blast its way through the recession and carry the semiconductor industry along with it, or will they both ruin eachother with oversupply and unnessesary investments?
by Jason Wilk on December 23, 2008
- A day after Apple snapped up 3.6 percent of Imagination Technologies, the company that developed the technology used in the 3G iPhone’s graphics chips, Intel increased its own stake in the company.
- London-based Imagination Technologies develops Meta processor cores and PowerVR graphics engines found on computer/smart phone chips. Companies including Apple, Samsung and Intel have all licensed out Imagination’s technologies in the past year to enhance their product line.
- Why is everyone so hot on the company? Imagination’s PowerVR Technology determines up-front what is visible or not when rendering pixels on a screen. This ingenious approach makes great savings in memory bandwidth and thus enables modern games to run at optimal performance in memory and power limited environments. The result: awesome 3D graphics in devices that require little memory and power. With netbooks and smart phones coming to market stronger than ever, both contain little memory and have low power, yet graphics cannot be sacrificed.
- Apple now owns 8.2 million shares, equal to a 3.6 percent stake in the company. The following day, Intel acquired 934,422 shares in Imagination rasing its total stake to 3.04 percent. The news bumped Imagination’s stock up 21% to $69.25 per share. Moreover, Intel also said that if anyone else trys to come in and gain a large stake in Imagination, that they will purchase the whole company. They wouldn’t want to do that right now, because Imagination licenses out to some of Intel’s competitors and it could potentially hurt the company’s long term future.
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