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TSMC To Boost 28nm Production
TSMC is able to make chips using 28nm process technology at a speedier pace that it originally anticipated. This means that the chipmaker will likely be able to meet demand for existing orders and start accepting new designs.
TSMC promised to increase its 28nm capacity to 68 thousand 300mm wafers per month by the end of the year. It did this by ramping up fab 15/phase 2 to 50,000 300mm wafers a month. According to the Taiwan Economic News it looks like the outfit managed to beat its own projections, which should be good news for customers like AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm. Well not AMD of course. It just told Globalfoundries to stop making so many of its chips so it can save a bit of money.
But it looks like TSMC is flat out. In November the fab 15/phase 2 processed 52,000 wafers. When combined with fab 15/phase 1, TSMC should be able to process 75 – 80, 000 300mm wafers using 28nm process technologies this month. TSMC produces the majority of 28nm chips at fab 15, which will have capacity of more than 100,000 300mm wafers per month when fully operational.
Will Intel Bring Medfield To The US?
September 28, 2012 by admin
Filed under Computing, Smartphones
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An Intel powered phone powered by a 2GHz Medfield processor is a huge leap forward for Intel. After few tries they finally got a significant design win.
Still many want to see an Intel design win the US market and we were told that this can be expected at 2013 as the USA network providers demand a LTE capability for all their new phones. Now even the iPhone has LTE and it was getting hard even for Apple to convince people in the US that LTE is not relevant.
Intel is aware of that and it is expected that Intel can finish its LTE modem in 2013 and that it will have a LTE enabled chip with its next generation. It’s interesting that this is the same timing for Nvidia LTE while Qualcomm already stunned the market with its S4 LTE enabled chip that everyone wants.
The new Intel-based RAZR doesn’t have LTE support, but even in the US only major cities and metropolitan areas have it decent LTE coverage. Even the suburbs in Silicon valley and surrounding towns have weak and intermittent LTE coverage, while 3G has been almost everywhere you can have a cell signal.
Intel got its first major designs out, and it plans to continue winning the major manufacturers with Intel inside powered phones.
IBM Beefs Up
IBM is unveiling a new version of its Connections enterprise social networking (ESN) software, which businesses use to give their employees social media capabilities adapted for workplace collaboration, such as employee profiles and blogging.
Enhancements in IBM Connections 4.0 include a more interactive activity stream, broader support for mobile devices, more granular usage analytics and integration with email and calendar systems, according to Heidi Ambler, director of product management for IBM Social Software. It is available immediately.
“This new release helps customers grasp the power of social analytics, gives them anytime-anywhere access to the software and provides cutting-edge capabilities,” she said.
Instead of a list-like news feed, the new software has an activity stream in employee profiles that users can filter for relevance, as well as act on the notifications right from the Connections interface.
For example, users can trigger pop-up boxes from the activity stream notifications and see the latest comments made about a file, see who posted the latest version of it and add tags to it.
An integration with IBM’s own Lotus Notes-Domino and with Microsoft’s Outlook-Exchange email and calendar systems lets users manage email messages through Connections.
TSMC Makes Expansion Plans
TSMC is expected to spend $10 billion next year in capital works as Apple plans to contract the outfit to build its next-generation processors.
According to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News TSMC has informed the equipment suppliers of its decision to hike capital expenditure for 2013 to US$10 billion. This indicates that TSMC has overcome technical problem with 20nm process, which Apple’s next-generation processors are said to use.
It also suggests that Jobs’ Mob is speeding up its reduction of work it gives Samsung. Apple has reportedly sent around 200 design engineers to help TSMC get familiar with the company’s next-generation processor designs at TSMC’s facility in Central Taiwan Science Park.
Is B.Y.O.D Proving To Be A Headache?
May 29, 2012 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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IT managers trying to cope with the growing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend can expect to see an explosion in the number of smartphones and tablets used by employees in the next few years.
As a result, IT shops won’t be able to provide the security necessary to protect company data, says Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney.
“The number of devices coming in the next few years will outstrip IT’s ability to keep the enterprise secure,” he said, adding that IT workers are “going crazy” and “get into fights” over whether users should have upgrades.
To help IT cope, software vendors should create what Dulaney called “beneficial viruses” that could be embedded in corporate data carried on mobile devices. These software tools would require users to have licenses in order to access files, just as digital rights management technology does with music and video files.
Beneficial viruses would also “be smart enough” to delete the sensitive data if a device is lost or stolen, or if data winds up on an unauthorized device, Dulaney said, adding, “It’s time for the SAPs and Oracles to begin thinking about doing that, and it’s a lot harder than we think.”
Today, IT shops use mobile device management software to monitor which mobile users are authorized to access applications and whether they can access the data outside the corporate cloud.
Microsoft and Others Enable IPv6
The so-called worldwide launch of IPv6 has been set for 6 June 2012, when companies will permanently enable IPv6 connectivity in their products and services.
Following the relative success of 2011′s IPv6 day, a number of firms including Cisco, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have pledged support for “World IPv6 Launch” day, which has been set as 6 June 2012. On that day the companies have pledged to permanently enable IPv6 connectivity to their associated products and services.
IP address allocation bodies such as ARIN and RIPE have been pushing IPv6 adoption for years but it took last year’s dramatic exhaustion of IPv4 addresses to jolt companies into action. IPv6 day was supported by many of the firms taking part in the IPv6 launch later this year, to drum up awareness and see how much disruption there will be when IPv6 connectivity is enabled.
Daniel Karrenberg, chief scientist at RIPE NCC said, “Operational experience and measurements on World IPv6 Launch will help content providers and ISPs to identify and rectify any potential problems with delivering services over IPv6.”
Kodak Goes After Apple
January 16, 2012 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Kodak has sued Apple and HTC for allegedly infringing patents related to camera imaging.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the camera firm is alleging infringement of four patents by both companies as well as a fifth by HTC. It also filed a related complaint against both companies with the US International Trade Commission (ITC).
Kodak said it obtained its patents because it decided that people would like to easily share pictures from their digital cameras before putting them on their PCs.
It claimed Apple and HTC are infringing the patents by selling and importing mobile camera phones, tablets and other devices. The federal lawsuits were filed in Kodak’s home town of Rochester, New York.
The firm wants to stop Apple and HTC from selling products such as the Iphone and Ipad and is seeking compensatory and triple damages.
Kodak also has patent litigation ongoing against RIM, and legal proceedings have been taking place for more than a year.
Is Samsung Flip Flopping?
January 3, 2012 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics, Smartphones
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Samsung is apparently rethinking its decision not to bring Android 4 to the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab.
Earlier the company stated that neither device could be updated due to the size of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface. The news created a bit of an issue with users sharpening scythes, pitchforks and lighting torches to go on a lynching. Now word on the street is that the company is considering backing down on its decision due to “strong customer demand.”
Android Hits 10 Billion
December 13, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Google said it exceeded 10 billion total app downloads from the Android Market over this past weekend at a growth rate of 1 billion downloads per month.
By comparison, Apple’s App Store passed the 15 billion download mark in July, with more than 200 million iOS devices now being used globally.
Google estimates there are more than 200 million Android smartphones and tablets.
“We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012,” said Eric Chu, direct of the Android Developer Ecosystem in a blog post Tuesday.
IBM Goes Social
December 12, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Responding to increased use of tablets within business settings, IBM will launch on Wednesday several mobile applications designed to let employees use IBM enterprise social collaboration software with iPads and other mobile devices.
The new applications, free to customers with active licenses of the IBM software, have been built specifically for tablet interfaces and have security, IT management and compliance features.
“The apps are very lightweight and talk directly back in a secure manner to the enterprise systems that people who don’t have these devices are using inside the company,” said Rob Ingram, senior manager of IBM’s Mobile Collaboration Strategy.
One of the applications lets employees use IBM Connections via iPads, while another one is for LotusLive Meeting users to participate in online meetings using iPhones or Android, BlackBerry or iPad tablets.
For IBM Sametime, another application lets employees engage in one-on-one or group instant messaging sessions on iPad and Android tablets. There is also one application for Lotus Symphony Viewer that lets users view ODF-based files, including documents, spreadsheets and presentations, on iPads, iPhones or Android devices.
There are also applications for managing telephony tasks within IBM Sametime from tablets and for Android device users to add widgets to home screens as shortcuts to their Lotus Notes mail and calendar.