text:
March 31, 2008 - Worldwide semiconductor revenue totalled $273.9 billion in 2007, a 3.8 percent increase from 2006, according to Gartner. Vendor performances were mixed with three vendors in the top ten that experienced double-digit growth and four vendors that showed declines in revenue.
Intel grew revenue more than twice as fast as the semiconductor market average, with growth primarily coming from strong shipments of microprocessors for mobile PCs. AMD revenue dropped 20.9 percent to $5.9 billion.
While Intel revenue grew more than twice as fast as market average
2007 rank
2006 rank
2007 revenue
2007 market share (%)
2006 revenue
2006-2007 growth (%)
Samsung Electronics
Texas Instruments
Infineon Technologies (incl. Qimonda)
Hynix Semiconductor
Renesas Technology
NXP Semiconductors
Total market
March 31, 2008 - Worldwide semiconductor revenue totalled $273.9 billion in 2007, a 3.8 percent increase from 2006, according to Gartner. Vendor performances were mixed with three vendors in the top ten that experienced double-digit growth and four vendors that showed declines in revenue.
Intel grew revenue more than twice as fast as the semiconductor market average, with growth primarily coming from strong shipments of microprocessors for mobile PCs. AMD revenue dropped 20.9 percent to $5.9 billion.
Book Description: This bestseller provides thorough, up-to-date coverage of digital fundamentals, from basic concepts to microprocessors, programmable logic, and digital signal processing. Apart from the explanations of theory supported by exercises and examples, the book is packed with photographs, illustrations, tables, charts, and graphs.]]>
March 27, 2008 - Today AMD announced the availability (!) of its Phenom desktop line-up. The chip manufacturer introduces five Phenom X4 9000 series Quad-Core processors and two Phenom X3 8000 series Triple-Core processors.
The fastest quad-core introduced today is the Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition. It comes with Clock Multiplier Control (an unlocked multiplier, compare the FX series), and is aimed at gamers and users of multi-threading applications.
Another special is the Phenom X4 9100e, an energy efficient quad-core processor with a TDP of 65 Watt, aimed at digital media enthusiasts. AMD calls this CPU a cool and quiet digital media workhorse.
The new triple-core processors are partly disfunctional quad-core parts that should otherwise have been sold as dual-core products. Paired with the 780 series chipset, these CPUs are positioned to be part of multi-media desktops. The 780G chipset adds DirectX 10 functionality.]]>
March 25, 2008 - Today, Intel introduced two new low voltage Xeon processors. The Quad-Core L5400 series consumes only 50 Watts, or just 12.5 Watts per core, at frequencies up to 2.50 GHz.
Apart from the 12 Mbyte L2 cache and the higher clock speeds, the L5400 series is similar to the current L5300 processors (featuring an 8 Mbyte cache and running at a maximum speed of 2.00 Ghz). The shrink from 65 to 45 nm enables the higher clock speeds while staying within the same power envelope.
|Clock speed
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price (tray)
|Intel Xeon L5410 LV Quad-Core processor
|333 MHz / 2.33 GHz
|Intel Xeon L5420 LV Quad-Core processor
|333 MHz / 2.50 GHz
Next quarter, Intel will introduce a Dual-Core Xeon LV processor based on this very same chip. These CPUs feature a 6 Mbyte L2 cache and two cores (the other half of the cache and the other two cores are disfunctional/disabled), and will run at 3.0 GHz.]]>
March 12, 2008 - The worldwide market for semiconductor assembly and test services (SATS) grew for the sixth consecutive year in 2007, according to Gartner. Revenue was up 7.4 percent at $20.6 billion. For the sixth year in succession, the SATS market continued to outpace the overall semiconductor market by more than 50 percent (overall semiconductor revenue grew 2.9 percent in 2007).
According to Gartner, a growing percentage of the total industry revenue is now attributed to packaging, assembly and testing. The outsourcing portion of this back-end manufacturing process has grown steadily since the recession of 2001.
Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs) and OEMs continue to expand their adoption of the outsourcing business model, said Jim Walker, research vice president for Gartner.
Their resources are now more focused on design and distribution and less on manufacturing. The result is increased demand for outsourcing. This demand, combined with the increasing transition to advanced packaging technologies, propels the SATS industry.
Februari 1, 2008 - The global sales of semiconductors grew for the sixth-consecutive year, reaching a record $255.6 billion in 2007, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reports today. That is an increase of 3.2 percent from the $247.7 billion reported in 2006.
Worldwide sales in December were $22.3 billion, an increase of 2.5 percent compared to the $21.7 billion reported in December 2006. December 2007 sales declined by 3.6 percent from the immediate-prior month when sales were $23.1 billion. The modest sequential decline in December reflected normal seasonal patterns. Worldwide sales in the fourth quarter of 2007 were $66.8 billion, an increase of 2.5 percent over fourth-quarter 2006 sales of $65.2 billion.]]>
January 17, 2008 - For all of you interested in the various Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) extensions of the X86 processors, we have published an overview of every instruction implemented since the 8086 CPU. In the future, we will provide more detailed information on each and every instruction, and provide information on the supported instruction set and the exceptions for each processor model.
Pentium/K6 ISA extensions:
SIMD ISA extensions:
Modern ISA extensions:
January 14, 2008 - Even though some Intel Quad-Core processors are faster than AMD's, similarly configured Quad-Core Opteron based servers consumed up to 41 percent less power, according to tests by Neal Nelson. However, the Intel processor itself is not necessarily guilty. It's the Fully Buffered memory modules (FB-DIMM) that consume more power than the DDR2 modules used by the AMD based servers.
According to Neal Nelson, his tests of servers using Intel and AMD Quad-Core processors showed that the Intel based servers delivered slightly better maximum throughput and the Opteron based servers were substantially more power efficient.
The power consumption at idle is particularly significant, since studies have shown that many servers are powered on, but idle, 80 percent of the time.
There is a consensus in the industry that a substantial amount of a Xeon server's power usage can be traced to Intel's use of Fully Buffered memory modules. The expectation is that for systems with a larger number of DIMMs, AMD based servers will have a significant power consumption advantage. For systems with a smaller number of DIMMs, the power consumption advantage might shift to Intel.
January 9, 2008 - Today, Nextreme introduces a new micro cooling element. The Ultra-High Packing Fraction (UPF) OptoCooler module is based on the Thermal Copper Pillar Bump technology, effectively integrating a Peltier cooler into the flip-chip bumps.
The OptoCooler module is based on Nextreme's Thermal Copper Pillar Bump process (TCPB), effectively integrating a Peltier cooler (a thermo-electric heat pump, TEC) into the interconnecting copper/solder bumps of the flip-chip package.
According to Nextreme, system level cooling solutions using heat sinks, fans, water cooling and even refrigeration will not be able to ultimately solve the heat, power and cooling requirements of future chips. By replacing the current Copper Pillar Bumps (CPBs) by thermally active bumps, the current mechanical and electrical functionality is complemented with cooling, temperature control and even power generation, making thermal and power management an integrated circuit element.]]>
January 8, 2008 - Today, AMD announced Live! Ultra, a new PC brand to help consumers identify high-end desktop and notebook computers optimized for gaming and multi-media. The systems will be equipped with Phenom 9000 series Quad-Core processors, Turion Ultra mobile processors, 700 series motherboards, and ATI Radeon HD 3000 series graphics.
The desktop PCs, codenamed Spider, will be available this half of this year. The notebook systems, codenamed Puma, are expected to be available in the second half.]]>
January 2, 2008 - Shares of Intel and AMD fell after both have been downgraded by Bank of America. Any upsides will have to come from stronger PC demand in the second half of 2008. However, according to the brokerage, it is too early for bottom fishing AMD stocks.
Bank of America Securities has downgraded Intel to Neutral from Buy. According to analyst Sumit Dhanda, former predictions were based on sales growth, margin improvement and an attractive share valuation. Even though he stated that Intel's competitive positioning has never looked better and the company will likely continue to be succesful in its defense against smaller rival AMD, upsides will have to come from stronger PC demand in the second half of 2008.]]>
January 2, 2008 - The trading of nVidia stock options peeked today after reports of Intel and nVidia talking. And with AMD stocks at a historical low, everyone is speculating who might buy the tormented company.
In its Top 10 predictions for semis in 2008, EE Times suggests IBM buying a stake in AMD. After all, IBM is a technology partner with AMD. However, in the same list, EE Times also thinks 2008 could be the year for IBM to spin out its semiconductor unit. Samsung is mentioned as another - unlikely - acquirer for AMD. On the other hand, the processor manufacturer could also go the private equity route.]]>
January 1, 2008 - The January issue of Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) newsletter is devoted to the history, the evolution and the current status of Dynamic RAM. Apart from six new articles, the publication includes reprints of two original papers and an original patent.
December 31, 2007 - According to the Israeli newspaper Globes Online, AMD and Commex have reached a collaboration agreement. The server chipset Commex is currently developing for multi-core processors, will be distributed as part of AMD's platform solutions.
Commex was founded two years ago by President and CEO Tal Horowitz and two investors. Horowitz is a former senior member of Intel's development team of dual-core processors. The fabless company specializes in optimization technologies for X86 multi-core processors.
In today's X86 platforms, bandwidth is increasing, processor execution speed is racing ahead, and the number of available processing cores in a typical X86 platform has more than quadrupled, reads the web site.
But system performance just isn't scaling up. In fact, performance per Watt is going down. First production will start in May.
December 31, 2007 - Worldwide sales of semiconductors rose to $23.1 billion in November, an increase of 2.3 percent from November 2006 when sales were $22.5 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today. Sales increased by 0.7 percent from the October sales of $22.9 billion. Year-to-date sales of $231 billion are 2.8 percent ahead of the $225 billion in sales for the like period of 2006.
Microprocessor sales increased by 5.8 percent month-on-month and by 7.4 percent from November of 2006, said SIA President George Scalise.
Strong PC unit demand contributed to a 2.6 percent sequential increase in microprocessor unit shipments and a 3.2 percent increase in ASPs.
December 30, 2007 - ChannelWeb assembled a panel of industry experts comprising vendors, analysts, and solution providers to discuss what they think will be the most important chip stories to watch in 2008. Of course, the top 10 wouldn't be complete without worries about AMD's future, the anti-trust proceedings against Intel, and the upcoming integration of CPU and GPU.]]>
December 29, 2007 - After making available the documentation of its Radeon graphics processors to the open source community, AMD now will also release information on accelerated video playback.
In the Phoronix forums, John Bridgman of ATI's Software Development Engineering Group stated that they will be releasing IDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform) and MC (Motion Compensation) information for everything up to and including the Radeon X1000 (R500) series. This can be used for hardware-assisted video decoding.
The same will most likely not happen for the R600 and R700 series, since the H.264 and VC-1 video decoding is combined with the Digital Rights Management functionality (DRM) in the Unified Video Decoder unit (UVD). However, Bridgman confirms that future Radeon GPUs will be more open, even if this requires developing a modular version of the UVD.]]>
December 20, 2007 - nVidia is voted Company of the Year by the Forbes editorial staff. Main reason was its performance over the last years. The Forbes editors were especially impressed by nVidia's annualized five-year results, sales growth, and earnings per share.
December sure is a month full of accolades for nVidia. Ten days ago, the company for the third time received the Most Respected Public Fabless Company award from the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).]]>
December 19, 2007 - Today, nVidia launched a web site and a forum for programmers of HPC software (High-Performance Computing). CUDA Zone organizes the information and tools for developing GPGPU applications (General-Purpose Computing on GPU) on their GeForce, Tesla, and Quadro products.
CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a development environment for the C programming language. It includes a compiler, libraries, a profiler, a debugger, and documentation. The environment is freely available for Linux and Windows.]]>
December 11, 2007 - Today, the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) has released SPECpower_ssj2008, the first industry-standard benchmark that measures power consumption in relation to performance for server-class computers. The specification can be used as both a benchmark to compare power and performance among different servers and a toolset to improve server efficiency.]]>
Book Description: DRAM Circuit Design, Second Edition brings students and practicing chip designers an easy-to-follow, yet thorough, introductory to the subject. Focusing on the chip designer rather than the end-user, this Second Edition offers expanded, up-to-date coverage of DRAM circuit design by presenting both standard and high-speed implementations. Additionally, it explores a range of topics including: the DRAM array, peripheral circuitry, global circuitry and considerations, voltage converters, synchronization in DRAMs, data path design, and power delivery.]]>
November 29, 2007 - Today, AMD announced the opening of a new silicon design and platform R&D facility in Bangalore, India. The center will accomodate the engineers currently working on the Shanghai processor, AMD's first 45 nm design. The same people were responsible for delivering key intellectual property (IP) for the recently introduced Quad-Core Opteron processor, codenamed Barcelona.
The number of employees in Bangalore continues to grow, AMD stated. Upon its completion, the new 52,000 square-foot center will house up to 350 engineers. AMD will continue operating its first facility in the city, which openened in 2004, using the existing office space for administration, sales and marketing staffs. Intel has a large site in Bangalore too. AMD also has a design facility in neighboring Hyderabad, which became part of the company when it acquired ATI last year.]]>
Book Description: Professionals such as signal integrity engineers, package designers, and system architects need to thoroughly understand signal and power integrity issues in order to successfully design packages and boards for high speed systems. Now, for the first time, there's a complete guide to power integrity modeling: everything you need to know, from the basics through the state of the art.
Using realistic case studies and downloadable software examples, two leading experts demonstrate today's best techniques for designing and modeling interconnects to efficiently distribute power and minimize noise.
The authors carefully introduce the core concepts of power distribution design, systematically present and compare leading techniques for modeling noise, and link these techniques to specific applications. Their many examples range from the simplest (using analytical equations to compute power supply noise) through complex system-level applications.
The authors
Book Description: Few people truly understand how a large chip is developed, but an understanding of the whole process is necessary to appreciate the importance of each part of it and to understand the process from concept to silicon.
Unfortunately, due to its complexity and dynamic nature, the topic of VLSI circuit design methodology is not widely taught in universities nor is it well understood by many engineers. This book provides the framework for understanding the key concepts involved in the development process, giving readers a solid foundation for further advancement in the field.
Questions addressed in this book:
November 12, 2007 - The semiconductor industry could be heading for a downturn, Gartner analysts warn. A recession in the U.S., caused by the credit crisis and the climbing oil prices, would lead to consumers having less money to spend on electronics, which would sharply slow the sales of semiconductors.
Klaus Rinnen, a managing VP at Gartner,
stated that the downturn in demand would likely extend into 2009.
For 2008, semiconductor equipment companies are most at risk, while chip companies would be for less impacted. Equipment companies' revenue in a mild recession could drop as much as 15 to 20 percent in 2008, while chip company revenue may decline in the mid-single-digit range.
November 8, 2007 - Today, Fedora released version 8 of its Linux distribution. After introducing installations for specific user groups and workloads - the so-called spins - with Fedora version 7, Fedora 8 is also available in a variant specifically aimed at the micro-nano electronic engineering field.
The Fedora Electronic Lab (FEL) brings you:
It is intended for electronic, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) students and hobbyists for educational purposes. According to the developers, Fedora is the first Linux distribution which considers to ship and provide adequate open source tools to VLSI users and to more than 250 universities around the world.
The Fedora Electronic Lab includes design tools for:
November 11, 2007 - Before AMD acquired ATI, Intel considered buying ATI or nVidia, Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and co-general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group (DEG), told The Inquirer. However, the chip manufacturer wondered whether they needed to, and had doubts whether such an acquisition would even be allowed by the regulators. The current strategy is to make the graphics engines more programmable and is heading to the Larrabee processor.]]>
Book Description: CMOS: Circuit Design, Layout, and Simulation, Revised Second Edition covers the practical design of both analog and digital integrated circuits, offering a vital, contemporary view of a wide range of analog/digital circuit blocks, the BSIM model, data converter architectures, and much more. This edition takes a two-path approach to the topics: design techniques are developed for both long- and short-channel CMOS technologies and then compared. The results are multidimensional explanations that allow readers to gain deep insight into the design process.
Features include:
Book Description: Some people say that Silicon Valley is a state of mind, but the cultural trends that drive us today were actually born in a very real place - the garages and back rooms of the cities between San Francisco and San Jose, California. Geek Silicon Valley delivers Silicon Valley history, taking us from success story to failed start-up and back again as we drive the roads from Menlo Park to Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara.
Place by place, readers get the background info on all the addresses that count: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Stanford University, NASA Ames, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Santana Row, Genentech, and many more.]]>
October 31, 2007 - Today, Intel unveiled the new Itanium 2 processors. One year late, the 9100 series offers only a few improvements compared to the current 9000 series.
The Montvale processors are a limited update to the existing Montecito CPUs. They are manufactured in the same 90 nm technology, feature the same amount of cache, and operate in the same clock speed range. However, a faster Front-Side Bus (FSB) and a slightly higher clock give the top models a performance increase of almost twenty percent compared to the current processors, Intel says.
|Clock speed
|L3 cache
|Power dissipation (TDP)
|Introduction price
|200/266 MHz / 1.6 GHz
|12 Mbyte
|200/266 MHz / 1.42 GHz
|12 Mbyte
|200/266 MHz / 1.6 GHz
|18 Mbyte
|200/266 MHz / 1.6 GHz
|24 Mbyte
|333/1666 MHz
|8 Mbyte
|333/1666 MHz
|16 Mbyte
|333/1666 MHz
|24 Mbyte
Book Description: Design for Manufacturability and Statistical Design: A Constructive Approach provides a thorough treatment of the causes of variability, methods for statistical data characterization, and techniques for modeling, analysis, and optimization of integrated circuits to improve yield. The objective of the constructive approach developed in this book is to formulate a consistent set of methods and principles necessary for rigorous statistical design and design for manufacturability from device physics to large-scale circuit optimization.
The segments of the book are devoted, respectively, to
October 25, 2007 - With the transition to the 45 nm process, Intel has officialy removed the last lead (Pb) from its manufacturing process. It has taken the chip manufacturer six years and over 100 million dollars to accomplish this. In 2008, the company will also transition its 65 nm chipset products to a 100 percent lead-free manufacturing process.
Lead has been used in electronics to form the electrical and mechanical connections between chip, package, and system circuitry. Finding suitable replacements for the lead/tin solder has been a technical challenge for the entire industry. Also, the huge number of components, the simultaneous availability, the reliability at higher temperatures, and the manufacturability at higher temperatures made this transition complex.]]>
October 25, 2007 - Today, Intel started volume production of its 45 nm chips at its new Fab 32 in Chandler, Arizona. The first Penryn processors are scheduled to be introduced on November 12.
Intel started the construction of Fab 32 in August 2005. The total costs are three billion dollars. The complete factory measures 1 million square feet, including 184,000 square feet of clean room space. More than 1,000 employees will operate the factory.
October 24, 2007 - The chip industry should maximize utilization of existing 300 mm technologies and facilities before moving onto a larger, 450 mm wafer size. That is the key message of today's keynote at the fourth International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative Symposium (ISMI) by Douglas Grose, AMD's senior vice president of manufacturing, technology development, and supply chain.
He calls upon the industry to unite behind a common vision.
The industry can adopt a vision here today to better meet customers' needs with accuracy, agility and efficiency, in addition to the more traditional route of making wafers larger and transistors smaller.
October 24, 2007 - Worldwide PC processor shipments grew 14.3 percent to record levels in Q3, IDC says. Consequently, worldwide PC microprocessor revenue rose 14.8 percent to $7.95 billion. According to IDC's study Worldwide PC Processor 3Q07 Vendor Shares, there is considerable worldwide demand for mobile PCs in the second half of the year.
The third quarter of 2007 was the second quarter in a row to exceed expectations in terms of PC processor unit shipments, said Shane Rau, director of IDC's Semiconductors: Personal Computing program.
We attribute the market's performance to Intel's and AMD's aggressive pricing for their new platforms, which stimulated early demand from PC OEMs building PCs for the back-to-school buying season. However, we also believe that real end demand is there. OEMs are passing processor savings onto consumers, who, instead of buying cheaper systems, are purchasing more robust configurations, partially to support Windows Vista.
October 23, 2007 - Graphics processors (GPUs, Graphics Processing Units) are increasingly integrated in the PC chipsets. According to In-Stat, the majority of general business and consumer graphics processors will transition to integrated implementations. In the future, only high-performance graphics will continue to be offered in both integrated and standalone versions.
With chipsets now sporting functions such as memory control, USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), and now graphics, they are growing into much more than their humble beginnings as glue logic, said Ian Lao, analyst at In-Stat.
We have reached the opportune moment in the semiconductor-technology industry when we need to get to work now to stay ahead of Moore's Law in the next ten years, said John Kelly, IBM senior vice president and director of research, opening up a recent look-ahead sponsored by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).
According to EE Times, Kelly, who is on the board of the SIA, considers 2007 the year of introduction of the nano era, at more than a billion transistors per chip.
We need a healthy industry atmosphere of cooperation and competition among industry, universities and government laboratories in order to find a new computational element as the end of CMOS scaling approaches, said George Scalise, president of the SIA.
We think more and more about modularity
The trick is using the same technology across iterations or you need to start from scratch. What we are good at is turning a single permutation from quad-core to dual-core to single-core to larger cache.
October 22, 2007 - Intel has revised its online Microprocessor Quick Reference Guide. It gives an overview of the processors Intel has produced over the last 36 years. A similar overview is also available as a poster in PDF format.]]>
October 17, 2007 - At IDF, Intel showed a wafer carrying dies of its next-generation Itanium processor. According to The Inquirer, the Tukwila dies are twice as big as the Nehalem dies, which are twice as big as the Penryn dies.
The Tukwila processor will be a Quad-Core CPU, based on an improved version of the current Itanium 2 generation. Each core will be able to run two threads.]]>
Book Description: Based on the results of a more than two-year study, Lead-Free Electronics: iNEMI Projects Lead to Successful Manufacturing is the first practical, primary reference to cover Pb-free solder assembly as well as the analysis and reasoning behind the selection of Sn/Ag/Cu as the recommended Pb-free replacement for Sn/Pb. The text provides specific results from the thirty company NEMI project activities.]]>
Book Description: The fundamentals and implementation of digital electronics are essential to understanding the design and working of consumer/industrial electronics, communications, embedded systems, computers, security and military equipment.
Devices used in applications such as these are constantly decreasing in size and employing more complex technology. It is therefore essential for engineers and students to understand the fundamentals, implementation and application principles of digital electronics, devices and integrated circuits. This is so that they can use the most appropriate and effective technique to suit their technical need.
This book provides practical and comprehensive coverage of digital electronics, bringing together information on fundamental theory, operational aspects and potential applications. With worked problems, examples, and review questions for each chapter, Digital Electronics includes:
AMD is forking
September 19, 2007 - Intel will not support AMD's SSE5 instruction extensions, Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and co-general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group (DEG), told The Inquirer. He said that AMD has forked by introducing SSE5.]]>
September 17, 2007 - Today, AMD officially announced its upcoming Triple-Core processors, confirming earlier messages. The parts, actually being Quad-Core K10 dies, come with one of the four cores disabled.
Apart from a better production yield, this allows AMD to close the gap in the product portfolio between the mainstream Dual-Core processors and the expensive, high-end Quad-Core CPUs.
We think there's a sweet spot between dual and quad, Brent Barry, a product manager in the AMD's Desktop division, told ExtremeTech.
Dual-Core has been serving the mainstream quite well. Quad is something really being picked up on the enthusiast side. But there's kind of this tech savvy media expert mainstream segment who we think needs the additional performance that Triple-Core can deliver over Dual-Core.
According to The Inquirer, the Triple-Cores are code named Toliman and Heka for the Socket AM2+ and Socket AM3 version, respectively.]]>
September 15, 2007 - AMD will introduce Triple-Core processors, according to HardTecs4U. The Phenom X3 processors will be introduced first quarter next year and fill the gap between the Dual-Cores and Quad-Cores.
Update: Meanwhile, AMD has confirmed the upcoming Triple-Core, code named Toliman. Contrary to previous messages, the Phenom X3 processors will be based on Quad-Core dies, increasing the production yield by disabling disfunctional cores. According to estimates by X-bit labs, it was highly unlikely that AMD had decided to develop a separate Triple-Core design.]]>
Performance both impressive and much needed
September 11, 2007 - AMD gained more market share than expected in Q2, iSuppli says. The chip manufacturer gained 2.5 percentage points compared to the first quarter to take a 13.4 percent share of overall microprocessor revenue.
Meanwhile, Intel in the second quarter suffered a 2 percentage point decrease in revenue share, giving it a still-commanding 78.8 percent portion of the market. This was a far greater than the preliminary 0.5 percentage point increase for Intel and the 0.5 percent increase for AMD iSuppli estimated in July.
AMD's performance in the second quarter of 2007 was both impressive and much needed, as the company managed to halt the three-quarter market share advance of archrival Intel, said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at iSuppli.
AMD's second-quarter advance brought to an end a period of decline for the company that saw its market share dwindle by nearly 6 points from 16.8 percent in the third quarter of 2006 to 10.9 percent in the first quarter of 2007.
AMD's rise in the second quarter was due to increased shipments for notebook, desktop, and server microprocessors, despite a decline in the overall microprocessor Average Selling Prices (ASPs). Intel too suffered a decline in its microprocessor ASPs, which spurred the decrease in its revenue share during the quarter.
|Q2 2007 sequential growth
|Q2 2007 year-over-year growth
September 11, 2007 - There will be no core wars, Guiseppe Amato, director, technical marketing, AMD EMEA, emphasized at the introduction of the Quad-Core Opteron Barcelona processors today. By the end of the decade, homogenous multi-cores will become increasingly inadequate. In the coming era of what AMD calls Accelerated Computing, heterogenous multi-cores will go mainstream.
First, this will take shape in specific coprocessors fitting AMD's multi-processor sockets (socket-compatible accelerators), built on the motherboard and connected to the chipset (e.g. Stream) or to the CPU directly (via HyperTransport Expansion, HTX slots). This is what AMD calls the Torrenza platform.
These Direct Connect Accelerators can be I/O interfaces or coprocessors for specific workloads and tasks. Java, XML, vector FP computing, and media processing, to name a few. When not being used, these accelerators drop to low-power states.
The Stream processor is a GPGPU (General-Purpose GPU). It can be used for imaging, video, and data intensive processing or HPC in general. According to AMD, using Stream results in twenty times the performance for specific workloads, compared to running the same task on a Dual-Core processor.
Book Description: An introduction to digital concepts, applications, and design, Introduction to Digital Electronics uses a logical organization of topics, clear explanations, and current examples to present key information in a way that is easy to grasp. Unique in its approach, this book covers combinational and sequential logic circuits using CPLDs while still covering circuit design at the gate level using TTL/CMOS devices.
The book begins by introducing combinational logic, including detailed explanations for implementing circuits in Altera Quartus II software and CPLDs. The material continues to be presented at the gate level, preparing readers to successfully navigate more complicated areas like functional circuits. Using formal problem-solving concepts, combinational design is then covered, which includes a large combinational design that includes the building and simulation of each component, marking a valuable departure from traditional books in the field which do not cover large-scale design at a combinational level. Additional coverage includes sequential circuits with an emphasis on relevant and useful circuits, and microprocessor and memory concepts.]]>
September 8, 2007 - Today, Intel broke ground on its first 300 mm (12 inch) wafer fabrication facility in Asia. Fab 68 will be build in Dalian, China, and cost US$ 2.5 billion. The facility will be operational in 2010, and cover 163,000 square meters of factory space and host a 15,000 square meter clean room.
Update: According to ExtremeTech, the new plant will go online in 2010, where it will become Intel's eighth fab. Fab 68 will be used to manufacture chipsets in 90 nm technology, and not microprocessors.
Intel's investment in Fab 68 sets its total investment in China to close to US$ 4 billion. Intel has established two assembly and test plants in Shanghai and Chengdu, along with R&D centers and labs in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere in China.
Update: According to DailyTech, Intel also has plans to retool its Fab 11x in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, for 300 mm wafer production. The chip manufacturer will begin its 300 mm fabrication for the 45 nm wafers in Oregon. Intel is also in the process of building two other 300 mm fab facilities in Chandler, Arizona, and Kiryat Gat, Israel, both scheduled for production in 2008.]]>
September 10, 2007 - Today AMD introduced its Quad-Core Opteron processor. Finally. Barcelona is what the chip manufacturer calls a "native" Quad-Core, meaning that all four cores sit on a single die.
Dual-Processor (DP, 2P):
|Clock speed
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price
|Quad-Core Opteron 2347
|1.9 GHz
|Quad-Core Opteron 2350
|2.0 GHz
|Quad-Core Opteron 2360 SE
|2.5 GHz
|December 2007
Dual-Processor (DP, 2P), High Efficiency (HE):
|Clock speed
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price
|Quad-Core Opteron 2344 HE
|1.7 GHz
|Quad-Core Opteron 2346 HE
|1.8 GHz
|Quad-Core Opteron 2347 HE
|1.9 GHz
Four/Eight-Processor (4P-8P):
|Clock speed
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price
|Quad-Core Opteron 8347
|1.9 GHz
|Quad-Core Opteron 8350
|2.0 GHz
Four/Eight-Processor (4P-8P), High Efficiency (HE):
|Clock speed
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price
|Quad-Core Opteron 8346 HE
|1.8 GHz
|Quad-Core Opteron 8347 HE
|1.9 GHz
Book Description:
Anyone who has built a computer or measured its performance recently knows that all but the slowest CPUs spend roughly 90 percent of their time twiddling their thumbs, checking their wristwatches, waiting on the memory system. The memory system today defines computer-system performance, yet very little is written about it.
The book tells you everything you need to know about the logical design and operation, physical design and operation, performance characteristics and resulting design trade-offs, and the energy consumption of modern memory hierarchies. You learn how to to tackle the challenging optimization problems that result from the side-effects that can appear at any point in the entire hierarchy.]]>
September 6, 2007 - Today, AMD's gamers site went live. In a similar fashion to nVidia's nZone, Game! offers an overview of new releases, cheats, and drivers. Lots of AMD marketing materials as well. According to The Inquirer, the new site looks like a revival of 3dfxgamers.com. Just like this old-timer, the gamers community will have to give AMD's new site its value. Unfortunately, the chip manufacturer failed to integrate the Game! community with its existing forums.
What AMD has in mind:
September 5, 2007 - Today, Intel introduced the first Quad-Core Xeon processors for multi-processor server systems (MP). According to the chip manufacturer, typical applications would be databases, ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning), and Business Intelligence (BI), running in a virtualized environment. With this introduction, Intel is setting the stage for the introduction of AMD's Barcelona processors next week.
The 7300 series processors range up to 2.93 GHz, requiring power envelopes of 130, 80, and 50 Watt TDP. The latter is running at 1.86 GHz and optimized for four socket blades (providing 16 cores per blade) and other high-density rack form factors.
|Clock speed
|L2 cache
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price
|Quad-Core Xeon MP E7310
|1.6 GHz
|2x 2 Mbyte
|Quad-Core Xeon MP E7320
|2.13 GHz
|2x 2 Mbyte
|Quad-Core Xeon MP E7330
|2.4 GHz
|2x 3 Mbyte
|Quad-Core Xeon MP E7340
|2.4 GHz
|2x 4 Mbyte
|Quad-Core Xeon MP X7350
|2.93 GHz
|2x 4 Mbyte
Low Voltage:
|Clock speed
|L2 cache
|Power dissipation
|Introduction price
|Quad-Core Xeon MP LV L7345
|1.86 GHz
|2x 4 Mbyte
Dual-Core: one core per die disfunctional/disabled.
|Clock speed
|L2 cache
|Power dissipation
|Dual-Core Xeon MP E7210
|2.4 GHz
|2x 4 Mbyte
|Dual-Core Xeon MP E7220
|2.93 GHz
|2x 4 Mbyte
Chipset: introduction price: $224.
Servers based on the Xeon MP 7300 series processors are expected to be announced by more than fifty system manufacturers, including Aberdeen, Dell, Egenera, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, HP, IBM, NEC, Sun, Supermicro, Unisys, and Verari.]]>
September 4, 2007 - The Montvale processor, an update to the current Itanium 2 Montecito series, is ready for production. At a Novell event on virtualization in London, Richard George, Intel's Itanium marketing manager for EMEA, said Montecito has been released for manufacturing. In fact, some European customers are already deploying the new processor.
According to George, Montecito is two months ahead of schedule. Now that would be a surprise indeed, since Itanium has been delayed, sometimes for years, since its conception. The new Itanium 2 processors will be announced officially between October 28 and November 3,
but it won't be Halloween.
Book Description: Over the last decade device performances are driven by new materials, scaling, heterostructures and new device concepts. Semiconductor devices have mostly relied on Si but increasingly GaAs, InGaAs and heterostructures made from Si/SiGe, GaAs/AlGaAs etc. have become important. Over the last few years one of the most exciting new entries has been the nitride based heterostructures. New physics based on polar charges and polar interfaces has become important as a result of the nitrides. Nitride based devices are now used for high power applications and in lighting and display applications.]]>
August 30, 2007 - Today, AMD announces the SSE5 extensions to the X86 instruction set. These allow software developers to simplify code and achieve greater efficiency for the most performance-hungry applications. According to AMD, High Performance Computing (HPC), multimedia, and security applications will benefit most.
As the industry's focus is shifting from processor speeds to increasing power efficiency, the number of instructions executed per second on one processor core remains relatively constant. As a result, both software and hardware vendors must pursue new approaches to improving computing performance.
A floating-point matrix multiply using the new SSE5 extensions is 30 percent faster than a similar algorithm implemented with the existing SSE instructions, Leendert van Doorn, a senior fellow for AMD, told DDJ.
Discrete Cosine Transformations (DCT), which are a basic building block for multimedia encoders, get a 20 percent performance improvement. And the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm gets a factor of 5 performance improvement by using the new SSE5 extension compared to an AES implementation that just uses the AMD64 instructions.
The new SSE5 instructions are part of AMD's Extensions for Software Parallelism initiative, designed to optimize programming for multicore chips. Two weeks ago, the chip manufacturer introduced the Light-Weight Profiling Proposal (LWP), an extension allowing user space processes to gather performance data about themselves with very low overhead.]]>
August 30, 2007 - Hardware Secrets publishes a tutorial on the HyperTransport bus used by all modern AMD processors. Theoretically the architecture used on AMD64 processors is better than the classic Front-Side Bus (FSB), since they can communicate with the memory and with other PC components (like the video card) at the same time. Intel's future move to the Common Systems Interconnect (CSI) proves AMD to be right concerning multi-processor configurations.]]>
Book Description: VLIW Microprocessor Hardware Design offers you a complete guide to VLIW hardware design - providing state-of-the-art coverage of microarchitectures, RTL coding, ASIC flow, and FPGA flow of design. The book also contains a wide range of skills-building examples, all worked using Verilog, that equip you with a practical, hands-on tutorial for understanding each step in the VLIW microprocessor design process.
Written by Weng Fook Lee, an internationally renowned expert in the field of microprocessor design, this cutting-edge hardware design tool presents unsurpassed coverage of the latests in VLIW microprocessing:
Book Description: Design for Manufacturability and Yield for Nano-Scale CMOS walks the reader through all the aspects of manufacturability and yield in a nano-CMOS process and how to address each aspect at the proper design step starting with the design and layout of standard cells and how to yield-grade libraries for critical area and lithography artifacts through place and route, CMP model based simulation and dummy-fill insertion, mask planning, simulation and manufacturing, and through statistical design and statistical timing closure of the design. It alerts the designer to the pitfalls to watch for and to the good practices that can enhance a design's manufacturability and yield.]]>
August 20, 2007 - Today, AMD introduces the Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition. Boxed in collector's packaging, the new processor is targeted towards gamers, enthusiasts and digital content creators. According to AMD, its appearance should help the channel make the 6400+ an attractive offering.
However, the new CPU is not a member of the latest Energy Efficient Athlon 64 X2 Revision G processors manufactured in 65 nm. It is based on the older Windsor core and manufactured in 90 nm technology.
The Black Edition runs at 3.2 GHz and features a 2 Mbyte L2 cache. Just like the 6000+, it requires a power envelope of 125 W TDP.]]>
We think there's still growth, but you have to go find it
The shift away from IDMs (Integrated Device Manufacturers) to foundries is causing new capacity to come on line for the foundries, which is a net positive for the equipment business. In the long term, though, it might be a net negative. You'd like to have as many buyers as possible filling their capacity to 50 percent. That means they buy twice the amount of equipment the world needs to produce those devices. As you shrink into foundries, they're able to operate at higher levels of capacity because they agglomerate demand, which means they buy less equipment.
Book Description: Designed for advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate courses in semiconductor or microelectronic fabrication, the third edition of Fabrication Engineering at the Micro and Nanoscale provides a thorough and accessible introduction to all fields of micro and nano fabrication. Completely revised and updated, the text covers the entire basic unit processes used to fabricate integrated circuits and other devices. It includes more worked examples, illustrations, and expands coverage of the frontiers of fabrication processes. The physics and chemistry of each process are introduced along with descriptions of the equipment used to carry out the processes.
The text uses a popular commercial process simulation suite - the Silvaco AthenaRG set of codes - to provide meaningful examples of many of the basic processes including diffusion, oxidation, lithography, and deposition. The book goes on to discuss the integration of these basic unit processes into various technologies, concentrating on CMOS transistors. The text breaks down the material into treatments on the concepts of process modules, thermal budget, advanced architectures, and the use of channel strain for improved performance.]]>
August 13, 2007 - Today, Intel added two new Quad-Core Xeon CPUs to its existing server processor portfolio. The X5365 runs at 3.0 GHz, and features a two-by-two shared L2 cache totaling 8 Mbyte. The L5335 runs at 2.0 GHz, also comes with an 8 Gbyte L2 cache, and fits a 50 Watt power envelope.
Last week, AMD did a similar thing, extending its high-end server processor lines. The company added the Opteron 2224 SE and Opteron 8224 SE Dual-Core processors to its price list. Both Santa Rosa CPUs run at 3.2 GHz, feature a 2 Gbyte L2 cache, and have a power dissipation up to 119 Watt (SE: Special Edition). The only difference between the two is that the 8224 supports configurations up to eight processors, while the 2224 supports only two.]]>
Book Description: Fabless IC techniques are growing rapidly and promise to become the standard method of IC manufacturing in the near future. This book will provide readers with what will soon be required knowledge of the subject. Other books on IC fabrication deal with the strictly physical process aspects of the topic and assume all factors in IC fabrication are under the control of the IC designing company. By contrast, this title is recognizing that fabless IC design is often as much about managing business relationships as it is about physical processes.]]>
August 6, 2007 - Today we published what's "known" about Intel's Itanium roadmap. Similar sections on Intel's and AMD's X86 processor lines will follow soon.]]>
August 3, 2007 - This week, Intel announced it joined more than 40 server technology providers in support of the Modular Server Specifications. What do you mean, joined? Intel is founder and one of the four Promotors of the Server Systems Infrastructure Forum (SSI Forum) that is responsible for this specification.
Nothing in the press release suggests Intel has anything to do with the foundation of the SSI Forum, and that the specification is Xeon-specific. Instead, it states that
Intel is proud of its history of more than nine years of contributions and association with SSI and that
Intel is an active participant in the specification that will drive new cost-effective, flexible, industry standards-based platforms based on the Intel Xeon processor into the server market. A boilerplate on the Forum is lacking.
The same goes for the website of the SSI Forum: no About or History section, nor any link between the goals of the Forum on the one hand and Intel and its Xeon processors on the other. Only a tiny copyright notice at the bottom of the page denotes that Intel owns the content of the site.]]>
July 30, 2007 - Even though AMD dropped two positions in the latest top semiconductor supplier ranking, its sales increased 12 percent compared to the first quarter of this year. Generating a revenue of 1.4 billion dollars in Q2, AMD's business is less then one fifth of Intel's. AMD is now at position 15, while Intel of course is leading at number one.
|Rank H1 2007
|Rank 2006
|Revenue 2006
|Revenue Q1 2007
|Revenue Q2 2007
|Revenue change
|Revenue H1 2007
|Qualcomm 2
July 25, 2007 - In 2009 AMD's Opteron MP processors will support DDR3 SDRAM, and twice as much memory modules as they support now, the chip manufacturer announced today. The extended memory capabilities will be part of the Socket G3 Memory Extender (G3MX) technology, developed in collaboration with memory makers IDT and Inphi.
Since the G3MX architecture will use a single buffer for every four modules (on one channel) instead of a buffer on each separate module like FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM, used by Intel, IBM, and Sun) does, AMD's solution will be cheaper and less power-hungry, and have less latency.]]>
July 23, 2007 - Today, the Itanium Solutions Alliance (ISA) announces its membership in the Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA), a group of companies working together to help customers move their mission-critical applications from the mainframe onto the Windows platform. Microsoft, the key driving force behind the MMA, joined the ISA a Charter Member already in 2005.
Currently there are over 12,000 applications with 3,000 Windows applications and a number of Windows-based tools available on Itanium 2 based systems.]]>
July 23, 2007 - AMD will soon launch an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ processor, motherboard makers told DigiTimes. The last CPU in the Athlon 64 X2 family has a 2 Mbyte L2 cache (1 Mbyte per core) and runs at 3.2 GHz. It will have to compete against Intel's new Core 2 Duo E6850 processor.]]>
July 20, 2007 - According to DigiTimes, AMD plans to launch a new remote management technology, with similar functions to Intel's Active Management Technology (iAMT, part of the vPro platform). By the end of this year, AMD's Remote IT will be part of the Phenom processors, the RS780/SB700 chipset, and I/O chips from Broadcom, Realtek, and Marvell, PC makers told DigiTimes.
A couple of months ago, AMD said it will support the Desktop and Mobile Architecture for System Hardware initiative (DASH) by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). For the management of server systems, AMD has been pushing its Open Platform Management Architecture (OPMA).]]>
July 20, 2007 - Computer testing firm Neal Nelson compared the power usage of a 3 GHz Intel Xeon Woodcrest server to a 3 GHz AMD Opteron server. The results show that the AMD based server used 7.3 to 15.2 percent less power at five different user load levels and 44.1 percent less power while the systems were idle and waiting for work.
AMD must have put a lot of energy into optimizing the power usage for their products and it appears that its customers will now realize significant energy savings, said Neal Nelson, president of the testing firm.
July 19, 2007 - After six months of microprocessor market-share loses to rival Intel, AMD in the second quarter managed to stabilize its market share, according to iSuppli. AMD accounted for 11.4 percent of worldwide microprocessor sales, up half a percentage point from 10.9 percent in the first quarter. This rise brought to an end a period of decline for AMD that saw its market share dwindle by nearly six points from 16.8 percent in the third quarter of 2006 to 10.9 percent in the first quarter of 2007.
The main cause of the market-share reversal of fortune was a decline in Intel's microprocessor Average Selling Prices (ASPs), said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at iSuppli.
This caused Intel's revenue share to decline - although its microprocessor unit shipments were up sequentially.
|Q2 2007 (preliminary)
July 18, 2007 - Core 2 Duo currently takes about half the shipments of all Intel processors, says Fudzilla. Production will peak in the coming months of this year, in the back to school season and later for Thanksgiving and Xmas time. NetBurst CPUs are retiring, and will be gone from the Intel processor portfolio early next year.
|Core 2 Duo, 65 nm
|40% / Wolfdale
|Core 2 Quad, 65 nm
|-- / Yorkfield, 45 nm
|Celeron 400, Conroe L
|Pentium D 900, 65 nm
|Celeron D, 65 nm
|Pentium 4 6x1, 65 nm
July 16, 2007 - Today, together with a price cut for existing processors, Intel introduced two new Quad-Core and four Dual-Core CPUs. Two of those are Extreme processors, coming with an unlocked multiplier. And one of these, the X7800, is the first ever Extreme processor for mobile usage, aimed at hardcore gamers, artists, and media enthusiasts.
Laptops are the fastest-growing computing market segment, and there is increasing demand from those who crave the ultimate in video, gaming and design computing performance, yet want the freedom and flexibility that a laptop brings, said Mooly Eden, Intel vice president and general manager, Mobile Platforms Group.
According to Legit Reviews and Hot Hardware, unlike its Extreme desktop cousins, the X7800 supports the C4 and DC4 (Enhanced Deep Sleep, DeepC4: L2 cache disabled) power saving modes. This should help to keep the dissipation down. Intel said it expects to announce battery-friendly Quad-Core processors for laptop computers next year. However, whether the combination of laptops and high-performance processors is a viable one, is yet to be seen.]]>
July 10, 2007 - Dave Orton, former president and chief executive officer of ATI Technologies, has resigned as executive vice president of AMD's Visual Media Business, effective the end of this month.
Adrian Hartog, senior vice president and general manager Consumer Electronics Group, and Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager Graphics Products Group, will now report directly into the Office of the CEO.]]>
July 9, 2007 - PCStats lists the highest overclocked core and memory clock speeds they were able to achieve while maintaining 100% stability.]]>
July 9, 2007 - With the introduction of the Turion 64 X2 TL-66 processor, AMD completes its 65 nm Turion 64 X2 line. The new revision G Tyler processors, also including the TL-56, TL-58, TL-60, and TL-64, are a shrink to 65 nm of the 90 nm process that the revision F Trinidad processors are manufactured in. Apart from the smaller process there are no differences in features or cache sizes.
The Tyler series is not to be confused with the Taylor series. These processors are based on the Trinidad series, having half of their L2 caches disabled.]]>
July 5, 2007 - Today, after neglecting it for a while, TechReport published a new System Guide. It helps the enthousiast picking the latest and greatest hardware for a new build.
With the introduction of new mid-range and high-end DirectX 10 graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia behind us, it is high time for a new system guide. The hardware landscape has been altered quite substantially. Processor and memory prices have plummeted, new CPUs and graphics cards have been released, Intel has rolled out a new generation of chipsets, and other manufacturers have introduced an array of new products to keep things interesting.
July 1, 2007 - This month, the Solid-States Circuits Society (SSCS) brings an interview with Gene Amdahl. After having worked for IBM, he started the Amdahl Corporation in 1970, specializing in IBM compatible mainframes. The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu since 1997.
We took about three weeks to do an analysis of the formidable task of competing head on with IBM, for we intended to be compatible with IBM and, in fact, use their operating system (we knew IBM had decided to lease it independently of the mainframe to reduce their antitrust risk). The reason for compatibility was that the mainframe market was almost exclusively IBM, and that producing a better product than IBM seemed simpler than changing the market place.
Furthermore, SSCS also publiced Amdahl's article Validity of the Single Processor Approach to Achieving Large Scale Computing Capabilities. It is his first publication of what became known as Amdahl's Law.]]>
June 29, 2007 - Intel has already shipped one million Quad-Core Xeon processors, Danny Cheung, an Intel spokesman in Singapore, told the IDG News Service.
The Xeon 53xx Cloverton series was introduced in November last year. Right from its introduction, Intel deployed an aggressive pricing policy on these processors to regain server market share from AMD.]]>
Book Description: Processor Design addresses the design of different types of embedded, firmware-programmable computation engines. Because the design and customization of embedded processors has become a mainstream task in the development of complex SoCs (Systems-on-Chip), ASIC and SoC designers must master the integration and development of processor hardware as an integral part of their job. Even contemporary FPGA devices can now accommodate several programmable processors. There are many different kinds of embedded processor cores available, suiting different kinds of tasks and applications.
Processor Design provides insight into a number of different flavors of processor architectures and their design, software tool generation, implementation, and verification. After a brief introduction to processor architectures and how processor designers have sometimes failed to deliver what was expected, the authors introduce a generic flow for embedded on-chip processor design and start to explore the vast design space of on-chip processing. The types of processor cores covered include general purpose RISC cores, traditional DSP, a VLIW approach to signal processing, processor cores that can be customized for specific applications, reconfigurable processors, protocol processors, Java engines, and stream processors. Co-processor and multi-core design approaches that deliver application-specific performance over and above that which is available from single-core designs are also described.
The special design requirements for processors targeted for FPGA implementation, clock generation and distribution in microprocessor circuits, and clockless realization of processors are addressed. Tools and methodologies for application-specific embedded processor design are covered, together with processor modelling and early estimation techniques, and programming tool support for custom processors. The book concludes with a glance to the future of embedded on-chip processors.]]>
June 27, 2007 - Today, a new Top 500 list of the worlds fastest supercomputers was presented at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC '07) in Dresden, Germany.
Even though the list shows a lot of shuffling among the top-ranked systems and the largest turnover among list entries in the history of the Top 500 project, the BlueGene/L System developed by IBM and DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, claimed the number 1 spot for the fourth straight time. The system reached a Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 TeraFLOPS (trillions of floating point calculations per second).
Two other systems exceeded the level of 100 TeraFLOPS. The upgraded Cray XT4/XT3 at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory ranked number 2 with a benchmark performance of 101.7 TeraFLOPS, and Sandia National Laboratory's Cray Red Storm system ranked third at 101.4 TeraFLOPS.
Book Description: SystemVerilog for Verification teaches the reader how to use the power of the new SystemVerilog testbench constructs plus methodology without requiring in-depth knowledge of Object Oriented Programming or Constrained Random Testing. The book covers the SystemVerilog verification constructs such as classes, program blocks, C interface, randomization, and functional coverage. SystemVerilog for Verification also reviews some design topics such as interfaces and array types. There are extensive code examples and detailed explanations. The book is based on Synopsys courses, seminars, and tutorials that the author developed for SystemVerilog, Vera, RVM, and OOP.]]>
June 24, 2007 - TechARP has updated its PC Buying Guide. It gives some background information for choosing a processor and motherboard. Sections on memory, hard disks, and sound cards will be added in the future.]]>
June 22, 2007 - IBM and BASF have entered into an agreement to jointly develop electronic materials required in the production process of 32 nm chips. The technology as well as its related chemicals and materials are expected to be commercialized by major companies in the semiconductor industry in North America, Asia, and Europe in 2010.
Chemistry will increasingly play an important role in the development of the next generation IC products, said Dr. Ronald D. Goldblatt, Distinguished Engineer and Senior Manager, IBM Research.
IBM's latest 45 nm chip technology will be introduced at the end of this year. However, the ongoing development towards smaller minimum feature sizes is already starting to generate major challenges for materials and chemicals.]]>
June 20, 2007 - Today, Intel unveiled more details on its Larrabee processors. They will form the first commercial product line based on the 80 core Teraflops/Polaris processor.]]>
Being dependent solely on the PC processor market makes Intel vulnerable. What keeps the company at top is its commitment to R&D - even during periods when electronics revenue growth turns negative.
In 2001, when the entire industry was on its knees, Intel only slightly reduced its R&D expenses to $3.8 billion from $3.9 billion in the prior year, while jacking up capex to $7.3 billion from $6.7 billion. Since then, the company has maintained both its R&D budget and capex spending at above 10 percent of annual revenue.
EE Times gives us the numbers.]]>
June 14, 2007 - Today, Azul Systems announced two monster Java appliances. The Vega 2 7240 and 7280 Compute Appliances offer up to 768 processing cores on 16 processor chips and 768 Gbyte of memory, all in a flat SMP architecture (Symmetric Multi-Processing). The new engines need 14U of rackspace and consume 1,835 and 3,235 Watt, respectively.]]>
June 14, 2007 - TechARP has published an update to their Mobile GPU Comparison Guide. The guide gives an overview of the specifications of the current and recent mobile GPU models (Graphics Processing Unit). Currently over 110 processors are covered.]]>
June 11, 2007 - By the end of next year, there will be more than one billion PCs in use worldwide. It took 27 years to reach this first billion. However, it will take only five years for the next billion.
According to the Forrester report Worldwide PC Adoption Forecast to 2015, this represents more than 12 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between 2003 and 2015. Specifically, the emerging Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) market will account for more than 775 million new PCs by then. The report praises programs like Microsoft Unlimited Potential, the Intel World Ahead Program, AMD 50x15, and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for bringing low-cost PCs to emerging countries.
The industry can probably survive selling incrementally better hardware and software to the people who already have technology in their lives, said Forrester Research Vice President and Research Director Simon Yates,
but the vast majority of growth in the PC and related industries will come from emerging markets.
Book Description: Verilog is a hardware description language used to model electronic systems (sometimes called Verilog HDL). This introductory guide focuses on application and use of the language, rather than just teaching the basics. It can be used as either a standalone introductory guide or in tandem with Vahid's Digital Design to allow for greater language coverage.]]>
May 22, 2007 - Today, VIA announced the first Pico-ITX motherboard, measuring only 10 x 7.2 cm. The Epia PX is build around the VX700 system media processor providing a UniChrome Pro II IGP 3D/2D graphics core, MPEG-2/-4, and WMV9 hardware decoding. The motherboard comes with a 1 GHz C7 processor and supports up to 1 Gbyte of DDR2-533 SO-DIMM.]]>
Book Description: This volume stems from the proceedings of Up the Nano Creek, the fifth workshop in the Future Trends of Microelectronics series, held in June of 2006. At this invitation-only workshop, top experts from academia, industry, and government came together to discuss, debate, and analyze the current trends in nanoelectronics. In addition, participants were asked to forecast the future of the field.
In this book leading profesionals in the semiconductor microelectronics field discuss the future evolution of their profession. The following are some of the questions discussed:
May 14, 2007 - Today, AMD announced the branding of the upcoming K10 Quad-Core (and Dual-Core) processor families. All high-end desktop products will carry de Phenom name. For now, mid-range, low-end, mobile, and server lines will keep the current Athlon, Sempron, Turion, and Opteron names, respectively.
AMD explicitly calls the new CPUs "native" and "true" Quad-Core processors, emphasizing that all four cores sit on a single die. The current Intel Quad-Core CPUs are in fact two Dual-Cores on separate dies, brought together in a single package (Dual-Chip Module, DCM). The two are glued together using the existing SMP facilities (Symmetric Multi-Processing).]]>
Burton Smith will present the opening keynote address at the 2007 International Supercomputing Conference (ISC'07) on June 27. He is an expert in high performance computer architectures and programming languages for parallel computers. Smith was the former chief scientist of Cray and one of the founders of Tera Computer, and now is a Microsoft Technical Fellow.
In his talk, Reinventing Computing, Smith will look at the ubiquitous deployment of parallel processors and what it could mean for HPC and the larger computing and IT industries. HPCwire features an interview in which he previews the topics that wil be addressed next month.
Burton Smith:
Moore's Law will continue to improve transistor cost and speed, but single-processor performance will no longer keep pace.
Book Description: Like the bestselling original, this second edition of Microlithography is a self-contained text detailing both elementary and advanced aspects of submicron microlithography, offering a balanced treatment of theoretical and operating practices. Reflecting recently developed technologies, this edition includes coverage of immersion lithography, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, imprint lithography, photoresists for 193 nm and immersion lithography, and scatterometry. The authors cover mechanical systems, optics, excimer laser light sources, and alignment techniques and analysis, as well as resist chemistry, processing, multilayer lithography, plasma and reactive ion etching, and metrology.]]>
Book Description: Germanium is a semiconductor material that formed the basis for the development of transistor technology. Although the breakthrough of planar technology and integrated circuits put silicon in the foreground, in recent years there has been a renewed interest in germanium, which has been triggered by its strong potential for deep submicron (sub 45 nm) technologies.
Germanium-Based Technologies: From Materials to Devices is the first book to provide a broad, in-depth coverage of the field, including recent advances in Ge-technology and the fundamentals in material science, device physics and semiconductor processing. The contributing authors are international experts with a world-wide recognition and involved in the leading research in the field.]]>
Tom's Hardware Guide (THG) is featuring an article on the production of microprocessors. It describes the whole process from the growing and shaping of the silicon crystal to the packaging and the final testing. From sand to processor it takes over 300 individual production steps.]]>
April 17, 2007 - By the end of 2009, half of all mainstream PCs will come with a Quad-Core processor, according to data from iSuppli. The high cost and limited availability of quad-core microprocessors has restricted their use to the high end of the PC market.
|PC segment
|performance desktop
|mainstream desktop
|value desktop
|mainstream notebook
In the first quarter of 2007, only 16 percent of performance desktop PCs were based on quad-core microprocessors. By the end of this year, that number is expected to rise to 33 percent and then to 94 percent by the end of 2009.]]>
Book Description: Everybody knows that digital technology has revolutionized our economy and our lifestyles. But how many of us really understand the drivers behind the technology - the significance of going digital; the miniaturization of circuit boards; the role of venture capital in financing the revolution; the importance of research and development? How many of us understand what it takes to make money from innovative technologies? Should we worry about manufacturing going offshore? What is the role of India and China in the digital economy? Drawing on a lifetime's experience in the industry, as an engineer, a senior manager and as a partner in a venture capital firm, Henry Kressel offers an expert personalized answer to all these questions. He explains how the technology works, why it matters, how it is financed and what the key lessons are for public policy.]]>
April 9, 2007 - Today, Intel introduced its fastest Core 2 processor. Featuring four cores in a two-by-two configuration, the QX6800 is aimed at power users and enthusiasts.
The new processor is a member of the Core 2 Quad Extreme series. In fact, it's the Quad-Core version of the Dual-Core Extreme X6800. The QX6800 comes with a two-by-two shared L2 cache of 2x 4 Mbyte, and runs at 266/2933 GHz. An unlocked multiplier makes this CPU a great toy for tweakers and overclockers.]]>
April 5, 2007 - Today, AMD added three Opteron Dual-Core processors to its server portfolio. Apart from the clock running at 3.0 GHz, the new 1222 SE, 2222 SE, and 8222 SE have the same specifications as their respective 1220 SE, 2220 SE, and 8220 SE cousins running at 2.8 GHz.]]>
April 3, 2007 - Bikers and geeks do mix. That proved Orange County Choppers (OCC) by building an Intel motorcycle for the 30th anniversary of the Embedded and Communications Group. It was presented today at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, CA.
The double (!) V-twin engine delivers 250 horsepower. And among other embedded gadgets, the bike sports a digital dashboard by Black Diamond. Fortunately the display on top of the steer can be taken off, for it looks really ugly. Want to take a ride, then buy your own virtual copy in Second Life.
The half-century of the integrated circuit has witnessed so many technical miracles that perhaps engineers can be forgiven for being a little blasé. But a little reflection should astonish even the most jaded: The silicon we use comes as giant monocrystals weighing hundreds of kilograms, and whose impurities are denominated in sub-parts per billion. On the wafers cut from these boules we regularly inscribe features with lateral dimensions of tens of nanometers, and routinely grow layers with controlled thicknesses of only a few atoms.
March 19, 2007 - 2006 was a great year for AMD. According to iSuppli, the chip supplier almost doubled its revenue, partly due to the acquisition of graphics chip seller ATI, but also because of strong gains in microprocessor market share. This makes AMD the eighth supplier in the chip market, up seven positions from the 15th rank in 2005.
Market leader Intel last year faced hard times in its microprocessor and flash-memory businesses, which together accounted for 83 percent of total company revenue. The revenue decline by 11.1 percent erased nearly all of the company's sales gains from its strong year in 2005. That resulted in Intel's market share falling to 12.1 percent, its lowest level since before 2000.
Meanwhile, AMD gained PC microprocessor market share at Intel's expense. AMD's revenue rose by 35.5 percent in 2006 and its market share in that product segment increased to 16.1 percent, up 5 percentage points from 11.1 percent in 2005.]]>
March 12, 2007 - Today, Intel expands its Quad-Core portfolio with two low power processors. The L5310 and L5320 CPUs run at 1.60 and 1.86 GHz, respectively, and consume only 50 Watts of power. Both feature 8 Mbyte of two-by-two shared L2 cache.
According to Intel, the new processors - members of the Cloverton LV family - represent a nearly ten-fold decrease in power in less than two years. Dissipation is now down to only 12.5 Watt per core, making these processors a suitable choice for high-density datacenters.]]>
ACM Queue recently published an interview with John Hennessy and David Patterson. They are the authors of Computer Architecture; A Quantitative Approach, which can be considered the New Testament of processor design and architecture.
We're into the explicit parallelism multiprocessor era now, and this will dominate for the foreseeable future. I don't see any technology or architectural innovation on the horizon that might be competitive with this approach.
From my perspective, parallelism is the biggest challenge since high-level programming languages. It's the biggest thing in 50 years because industry is betting its future that parallel programming will be useful.
Industry is building parallel hardware, assuming people can use it. And I think there's a chance they'll fail since the software is not necessarily in place. So this is a gigantic challenge facing the computer science community. If we miss this opportunity, it's going to be bad for the industry.
Imagine if processors stop getting faster, which is not impossible. Parallel programming has proven to be a really hard concept. Just because you need a solution doesn't mean you're going to find it.
February 20, 2007 - Today, AMD introduced three new processors for the desktop. The Energy Efficient Athlon 64 3500+ and 3800+ are single-core processors, aimed at consumers focusing on performance-per-Watt and saving energy. The high-end Athlon 64 X2 6000+ is the next step for power users on a Socket AM2 system.]]>
Check out our new Itanium section. We bring you everything you ever wanted to know about Intel's next generation processor. You want more? There is only 5000 pages of Intel manuals.]]>
January 11, 2007 - AMD is developing a new chassis layout for the desktop systems of the near future. The DTX specification will be published as an open standard, to be used by OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), ODMs (Original Design Manufacturers), and component vendors.
DTX will be based on Intel's popular ATX specification (Advanced Technology Extended). Backward compatibility of the BTX boards is guaranteed. Board screw holes, mount points, ports, and extension slots will be placed in such a way that it fits in a traditional ATX chassis as well.]]>
January 8, 2007 - Today at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Intel introduced three more Quad-Core processors.
The new X3210 and X3220 CPU's run at 2.13 and 2.4 GHz, respectively, and both feature a total of 8 Mbyte of L2 cache. Without support for multi-processor configurations (Symmetric Multi-Processing, SMP), the Xeon Quad-Core 3200 series will be found in low-end single-socket servers and workstations.
The third processor launched today is the first to carry the Core 2 Quad brand, and is available for end-users immediately. This Q6600 CPU, running at 2.4 GHz, will specifically benefit multi-media systems running digital video and multi-tasking software applications running several threads simultaneously.]]>
January 7, 2007 - Today, AMD announces five new Dual-Core Opteron processors. The 1218 HE, 2218 HE, and 8218 HE run at 2.6 GHz and all fit a 68 Watt TDP power envelope (Thermal Design Power). The 2220 and 8220 run at 2.8 GHz and both require a 95 Watt TDP. These are positioned at the top of the current 2000 and 8000 lines, and replace the 120 Watt SE chips (Special Edition).
AMD is currently replacing the complete 1000, 2000, and 8000 series. HE, standing for High Efficiency, emphasizes the focus on energy efficiency and performance-per-Watt. All the new Opteron processors come with PowerNow!, AMD's version of Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS). According to the chip manufacturer, this feature - formerly not found in server CPUs - can reduce processor power consumption by as much as 75 percent during idle times.]]>
The ChipList offers two RSS feeds for inclusion in news readers and web logs. These allow you to stay on top of the constantly updated processor news, articles, reviews and specifications we feature.]]>


text: iPod nano - wow 07 September 2005 The iPod Nano WOW. So you love the iPod Photo but its too big, and the iPod shuffle - well there is no screen. So take the best from both (size and color screen) and you get the Nano.2gb and 4 gb models available.Dimenssions: 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches - 8.9 x 4 x 0.7 cm.Thickness of a cd case: 0.27 inch - 0.7 cm.Weight class: featherweight: only 1.5 ounces - 42.5g14 hours between battery chargesHmmmmmm and so the Xmas list starts.

subset: commoncrawl


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Cities: Skylines announced for Xbox One
Paradox and Colossal order have just announced that our favourite game will be coming to the Xbox One.
Paradox and Colossal order have just announced that our favourite game will be coming to the Xbox One.
Posted By: Arazmus February 16, 2017
Colossal Order has just released the Cities Skylines European Club Pack which includes the stadiums, colors, and logos of football Clubs Barcelona, Chelsea Football Club, Juventus Football Club, and Paris Saint-Germain.
Posted By: Arazmus October 18, 2016
Posted By: Arazmus September 1, 2016
Paradox and Colossal Order are embracing the Cities Skylines modding community by releasing fan-made content as DLC from Matt "Shroomblaze" Crux. Shroomblaze has released some awesome creations for Cities: Skylines so this is well deserved.
Posted By: Arazmus August 25, 2016
We've all been asking for it now it's coming. The Cities: Skylines Natural Disasters expansion will be released this winter.
Posted By: Arazmus August 18, 2016
It's been one year since Cities: Skylines graced our screens and to celebrate there's new DLC on the way.
Posted By: Arazmus March 11, 2016


text: Elizabeth Arden 49.5ml Visible Difference Skin Balancing Lotion SPF15 SKU: W14304 £18.99 (RRP £34.00) Select Quantity 1 Select Quantity Add to Basket Product Description Keeping your skin perfectly hydrated all day is no small task. Elizabeth Arden Visible Difference Skin Balancing Lotion SPF 15 contains a blend of powerful botanical extracts and advanced moisture boosters to reverse dryness and maintain skin's moisture equilibrium. Advanced Filagrinol Complex TM pre-empts moisture loss at its source by binding moisture deep within the skin's surface layers. Clinically shown to keep skin hydrated after 24 hours.


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App Report for Coach Tactic Board: Football++
App Store Description for Philippines
"Very intuitive, stable and powerful." That is exactly what our users would say to describe this app. We have thousands of happy users with the average rating being 4.5 stars. Not only that, but it is also in the top app spot in nearly 40 countries worldwide! If you would love to have a classic whiteboard around but there simply isn't one around, then this is the perfect app for you! That is why we started the Coach Tactical Board. This app was made exactly for you, and to make your life easier! Features: 1. Create tactics/drills for your players (20 default tactics). 2. Training module (use ball, cones, ladders and other objects to create exercises). 3. Drawing tools: 8 different types of lines (solid, dotted, etc). 4. Save an unlimited number of tactics/drills. 5. Full and half court mode. 6. Create Teams with your players. 7. Substitutions: drag & drop players to made changes in you squad. 8. Customize players: name, number, position and photo. 9. Use folders to group tactics/drills by type. 10. Export tactics/drills to PDF or save as a picture (option to share on Facebook). 11. Customize your board: color, player, ball size, and number of players. If you have questions, suggestions, fell free to contact us: Email: [email protected] Facebook: www.facebook.com/CoachingAppsByBluelinden
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Has my order shipped?
Once your order ships, you will receive an email from FortyFour7Hockey providing tracking information for either UPS or FedEx. You can then use the shipping carrier website to track the shipment and see expected arrival date.
When will my order ship?
Our intention is to ship any order received by 2:00 pm (EST) the same day. Certain items may take longer, but the vast majority of orders ship within 24-48 hours. While we always try to have product in stock, however, sometimes due to high demand, we sell out and in other cases, manufacturers are either out of stock or have shipping delays. We will always provide you with the most accurate and up to date information regarding product availability. Packages ship directly from either our distributor in California or from our distributor in Montreal Canada.
When will my backorder ship?
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Which products are excluded from Free Shipping?
Shipping oversized or heavy items such as goalie leg pads, wheeled hockey bags, and sticks cost extra. Oversized items DO NOT qualify for our Free Shipping promotion.


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It is the most-frequent Dallas Cowboys question on social media and radio shows these days: How will the Cowboys replace what DeMarco Murray provided last season running the ball?
The short answer is: they won't.
But history tells us Dallas would not come close to matching 2014 in the running game this season even if Murray was still playing for the Cowboys, and it will be surprising if he ever produces anything close to last season's numbers for the Eagles.
Sports Connection
Connecting you to your favorite North Texas sports teams as well as sports news around the globe.
What DeMarco Murray did in 2014 was remarkable. He rushed for more yards (1,845) and yards per game (115.3) than Emmitt Smith, Tony Dorsett, Herschel Walker, or any other Cowboys running back ever had in a single season. Murray was rewarded with a $42 million contract in Philadelphia, $18 million fully guaranteed in the deal.
But the numbers on-the-field detail the real price Murray paid last season. At 26-years old, his 392 carries in the regular season were the ninth-most in NFL history. The eight running backs ahead of him on that list were never the same, and averaged 831 fewer yards the following season.
But those are just the surface numbers.
The most-frequently used example of an NFL team using a running back so much that it caused the player to never be the same in his career comes from the Kansas City Chiefs in 2006. At 27-years old, Larry Johnson set a Chiefs franchise rushing record with 1,789 yards on an NFL-record 416 carries.
But "carries" don't equal "touches" for a running back. You must also include Johnson's 41 receptions in 2006. So we're at 457 total touches in the regular season. Only, the Chiefs also made the playoffs that year. With 18 touches in Kansas City's first round loss to the Colts, Larry Johnson had either taken a handoff or caught a football 475 times in the 2006 season. He would never again be the same player, failing to reach 1,000 yards rushing in a season again his career, released by the Chiefs just three seasons later.
Back to DeMarco Murray. With 392 carries and 57 receptions, Murray's 449 total touches in the 2014 regular season is very near the regular season workload Johnson carried in Kansas City in 2006.
But that doesn't include the playoffs.
With 44 rushes and four receptions in two postseason games last season, Murray's final number finishes at an astounding 497 carries and receptions in the 2014 season, 22 more than Larry Johnson's historic (and career-dooming) 2006 season.
So, back to the original question: who in 2015 will replace what DeMarco Murray provided for the Cowboys in 2014? No one, and likely no two of the Cowboys running backs will even come close.
Not even if one of those running backs was DeMarco Murray.


text: Tablet Ranking 2018 : Here you'll get [Top 5] best tablet 2018. All these best tablets under 200 dollars are latest in the market and well reviewed before listed here. A tablet can help students in their study, to businessman and other office persons in their project, to house working persons in their house hold works. So, we can say we are needy to have a best tablet under 200 dollars. Means it'll be good if it's under budget. 1) KB-T900 KB-T900 is a LTE hot New 10 inch best budget tablet 201...More


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Monthly Archives: October 2012
Resume Workshop
We oversaw the writing of 80 resumes in under six hours one Wednesday. It took three rooms, six staff members, and immeasurable flexibility. The event also took some muscle, since persuasion wasn't going to do the trick. Next week we're trying … Continue reading
Macaroni and Cheese
I may never look at macaroni and cheese the same way. The week before I had accused him of never writing an honest paragraph in two semesters even though an overwhelming number of my prompts were based on life experiences. … Continue reading
The Limo Driver
If I've been quiet here it's because I've been trying to be quiet in my own soul. It was Friday morning when three of us walked in to the front lobby together. The Shift Commander waited until we were all … Continue reading
The Smile
I remember when Macias asked my TA, "How do you like being her TA?" It wasn't a nice question, I could tell, but I was distracted by one of my students trying to sneak out of my room. After the … Continue reading
Wrigley Re-enters Society
Wrigley left today. Staff were talking about him all day because he left earlier in the day than anyone expected. He had held his good-byes in check yesterday, hoping for one more chat. I'm not sure how many of us … Continue reading
As Cold As The Chain Fence
On the second day of in-service week between the semesters my TA had just settled into compiling the results from my course evaluations when the fire alarm stopped my heart. Outside we watched the response team wrestle with their fire … Continue reading
Every 28 days, reads an administrative regulation (AR), a team must meet to discuss the performance of every offender. In its fledgling years the day halls at my facility were all activity as offenders lined up to press their uniforms, … Continue reading


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Building trust through effective communication and collaboration
Seafarer training often focuses on the technical and operational part of the work process, and when placed in a situation where interpersonal skills are to be applied, many seafarers feel they are in deep water. Still, they do not always see the reason why they need this training. As a soft skills instructor I sometimes hear negative comments in the beginning of a course – mostly turning into positive feedback at the end.Read more >


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First responders help deliver baby in Wantagh
A crowd of first responders was expecting the arrival of a baby in Wantagh Tuesday evening -- just not so soon, Nassau police said.
Officers from the First and Seventh precincts and Wantagh firefighters got a 911 call at 6:15 p.m. about a mother in labor at home, police said.
A fire department medical technician determined the mother's contractions were too close for transport to the hospital, police said, so the first responders waited at the Merikoke Avenue home to shepherd a delivery.
At 6:44 p.m., a baby boy came into the world, police said. The mother, 33, and her son were taken to a hospital, where they are in good health, police said.
No other details were released.
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Christopher Hall is an internationally renowned furniture and interior designer, based in London. Having worked with Christopher and his team on their rebrand, we were reunited and tasked to help with the launch of their SOMATA collection. The collection consists of 32 handcrafted and bespoke pieces of furniture, all deep-rooted with a narrative inspired by the notional metamorphisms of mythology, celebrating the glory of nature.
A bespoke presentation box was created, holding individual product sheets and introduction pages. A gatefold envelope was also produced to house specific product sheets. Taking inspiration directly from the collection, we designed a bespoke pattern that mirrors the scales used within the Triton pieces, as well as taking colour references from individual pieces within the collection.


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When we think about the usability of a system, an important step is to define the users clearly. This helps in setting precise objectives for the design, as well as in making them measurable.
For example, suppose we are designing a calculator. The decision of what layout to use will depend largely on whom the device is intended for!
Is it for shopkeepers and home users who need to tally expenses and sales? Or is it for college students who need it for coursework? The questions of which features are must-haves, which are nice-to-haves and which are unnecessary; all have different answers based on which user profile you are targeting. Hence it is important (from the beginning of the development process!) to identify your target users.
Designers often use personas to define their target users. A persona is a realistic representation of the target user group. Personas have been long used in marketing to understand the psyche (and more specifically, the purchase drivers) of the different customer segments in the target market. Similarly, designers use personas to keep focussed on a representative user's needs and wants throughout the entire development process, and also to make decisions and prioritize between various options.
[Personas]…are fictional characters that we create, and they serve as a reminder of who our users are. Like any good fiction, a well-made persona has its own story to tell. The more believable the story, the better representation the persona is of users; the more accurate the representation, the more likely our decisions will reflect the user's needs…Ultimately, personas help us make the user's needs more memorable throughout the process.
A persona is the design equivalent of a character sketch in theater – it is only by delving deep into the character that we can hope to do it justice. Similarly, a good persona helps to uncover the motivations of users and their needs which we plan to address.


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We have just been informed that we have been awarded the Eco Schools Silver Award.
Well done to all those pupils involved with the Eco Club for their hard work this year. It has really paid off.
We can start working towards the Green Flag which we can hopefully get next year.