Scott Ferguson

Transmeta, which once pursued Intel and Advanced Micro Devices with low-power processors for notebooks and desktops, has agreed to sell its remaining intellectual property and assets for $255.6 million. On Nov. 17, Transmeta announced that it had agreed to sell its intellectual property to Novafora, a fabless, privately held semiconductor company that is developing digital […]

Hewlett-Packard offered some good news for the technology sector when it released preliminary fourth quarter numbers that beat Wall Street expectations despite the sagging economy and financial crisis. On Nov. 18, HP reported that its revenue for the fourth financial quarter stood at $33.6 billion, an increase of 19 percent from a year ago. HP […]

Nvidia is looking to bring the power of a supercomputer cluster to the desktop. At the 2008 Supercomputing Conference in Austin, Texas, Nvidia will demonstrate a new HPC (high-performance computer) design that will allow OEMs to pack between two and four Nvidia GP-GPUs (general purpose graphics processing units) with a workstation form factor. Nvidia executives […]

IBM is planning to increase the virtualization capabilities of its Power Systems by acquiring Transitive, a company that has developed software that allows applications written for a specific microprocessor and operating system to run on different platforms. IBM and Transitive announced the acquisition agreement Nov. 18. The two companies did not disclose financial terms or […]

IBM’s Roadrunner supercomputer narrowly beat out a revamped Cray XT Jaguar high-performance computer system to hold onto the No. 1 spot on the latest version of the Top 500 Supercomputer list. According to the Top 500 list, which was released Nov. 17, the IBM Roadrunner system held onto the top spot with a performance of […]

It’s official: Intel is releasing the first of its Core i7 processors today. During an event in San Francisco Nov. 17, Intel will release the first three processors in its Core i7 family. The three Core i7 processors are based on an updated microarchitecture code-named Nehalem. The launch will allow Intel and its PC vendor […]

Among the most compelling messages behind the release of Advanced Micro Devices’ 45-nanometer “Shanghai” processor is that the chip will use the same Socket F (1207) socket that many of the chip maker’s OEM partners use with their current mainboards. AMD claims the 45-nm Shanghai chip uses the same socket technology and common core strategy […]

Advanced Micro Devices is poised to officially release the new 45-nanometer version of its Opteron processor line-formerly called “Shanghai”-Nov. 13, and AMD plans to emphasize the chip’s energy efficiency traits and its ability to handle virtualization workloads. When Shanghai launches during the company’s annual meeting with financial analysts Nov. 13, AMD will bring a total […]

Advanced Micro Devices is adding additional muscle to its line of FireStream graphics processing units with a new stream processor that looks to boost the company’s offering around high-performance computing . AMD is also expanding its software development kit for developers creating applications for this growing field. On Nov. 13, the same day AMD will […]

New Features of AMD’s 45-nm Shanghai Processor New Features of AMD’s 45-nm ‘Shanghai’ Processorby Scott Ferguson Performance —45-nm with Immersion Lithography—Greater frequency compared with Quad-Core AMD Opteron Performance —AMD Memory Optimizer Technology—Enhanced pre-fetching 2x Core Probe Bandwidth compared with Quad-Core AMD Opteron Performance —AMD Balanced Smart Cache—8MB: Twice the total cache compared with Quad-Core AMD […]

Advanced Micro Devices is planning to enter the low-cost notebook and ultraportable laptop markets in 2009 with new processors and platforms that will compete with the Intel Atom microprocessor. After sending mixed signals about whether AMD will enter the so-called netbook market, Randy Allen, senior vice president for AMD’s Computing Solutions Group, told analysts Nov. […]

Intel is cutting back its fourth-quarter sales and revenue forecasts, saying there has been less demand for its desktop and notebook processors in the United States and throughout the rest of the globe. In a statement released Nov. 12, Intel said its revenue for the fourth quarter of 2008 is expected to be below what […]