Hardware Archive

"Processor design company ARM has today unveiled two new updates to its Cortex-R range of processors: the Cortex-R5 MPCore and the Cortex-R7 MPCore. While the Cortex-A processors can be found in mainstream consumer products such as cell phones and tablet devices, the Cortex-R chips are meant for deeply-embedded and system-on-a-chip duties. Notably you can find the last generation Cortex-R4 in hard disk drive controllers, wireless baseband processors, and automotive systems."

"Each time a new version of Windows is released, many computer users find that their hardware is suddenly outdated. For cash-strapped schools, upgrading to the latest hardware with each major software release is simply impossible. A New York startup called NeverWare is offering a possible solution - a server that lets even decade-old PCs upgrade to the latest Windows 7 operating system."

Over the last three years, we've seen a lot of impressive demonstrations of what the material graphene (a single-atom wide sheet of carbon with the atoms spread in an hexagonal mesh) can do. However, according to IBM, graphene does not have an energy gap, which means that graphene transistors can't be "switched on and off", and thus that they are unsuitable for use inside of microprocessors.

"A team of researchers comprised of members from the Semiconductor Research Corporation and Stanford University has developed a new thermal nanotape which it claims will lead to chips that run cooler and last longer."

"Although the Tegra 2 chip with integrated dual-core processor has recently been released, NVIDIA is already poised to announce its successor at the Mobile World Congress next month. According to Mike Rayfield of NVIDIA, Tegra 3 may incorporate a quad-core processor with main focus of supporting Android smartphones and tablet PCs."

"Scientists from Oxford University have made a significant step towards an ultrafast quantum computer by successfully generating 10 billion bits of quantum entanglement in silicon for the first time -- entanglement is the key ingredient that promises to make quantum computers far more powerful than conventional computing devices."

This looks really strange, but it seems there's now a project to convert x86-64 processors into working as 32-bit! The author of this post claims that on x86-64 programs claim too much memory and they can work more efficiently by going back to 32-bit.

"Acer is developing a pair of Intel-based tablets in what could be a wider exit from the entire netbook category, the company's Taiwan sales manager Lu Bing-hsian said on Tuesday. The seven- and 10-inch slates would use quad-core versions of Sandy Bridge-era Core processors but, reportedly, run on Android rather than Windows 7. Rather than serve as complements, they were directly intended to help in "phasing out netbooks," IDG was told."

"Despite the progress, ARM, which licenses its designs to chip makers, is keeping its focus on smartphones and tablets. The company's CEO, Warren East, sat down with the IDG News Service to discuss Windows, the PC market and future architecture developments."

"While the availability of power in certain regions of the world cannot be solved by the OLPC, it can improve upon the power use of the XO Laptop. And with v1.75 they have managed to half that power use. The reason this has been made possible is the move to use an ARM rather than an x86 processor. So now rather than drawing 4 watts of power, the XO-1.75 draws 2 watts. The new chip being used is a 1GHz Armada 610 from Marvell." Update : Here are some clarifications regarding the use of ARM chips and Linux at OLPC.

Just - just hold on a second. This is big: NVIDIA, maker of graphics accelerator chips, has just announced, during its keynote at CES, that it is developing a high-performance ARM-based processor together with ARM, targeted squarely at the desktop, server, and even high-performance computing markets. That Windows on ARM thing? NVIDIA referenced it multiple times! Update: Boom, and we have a press release. "NVIDIA announced today that it plans to build high-performance ARM based CPU cores, designed to support future products ranging from personal computers and servers to workstations and supercomputers. Known under the internal codename 'Project Denver', this initiative features an NVIDIA CPU running the ARM instruction set, which will be fully integrated on the same chip as the NVIDIA GPU."

A 50 minute talk by Michael Steil at 27C3 on the low cost CPU that arguably introduced the home computer revolution.

Usually, the only live press events which garner any attention are those by Apple, and sometimes those by Microsoft. This time around, though, Acer's been the center of attention, and it has paid off: the company has unveiled a boatload of interesting hardware - including a dual-screen laptop, a high-resolution Android phone, and several tablets.

"In a move that holds great significance for the semiconductor industry, a team of researchers has created an alternative to conventional logic gates, demonstrated them in silicon, and dubbed them chaogates. The researchers present their findings in Chaos, a journal published by the American Institute of Physics."