CPU

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is on-track to start volume production of chips in the first quarter of 2015, according to a media report. The first client to order 16nm chips from TSMC is expected to be Apple, which is a little bit surprising. TSMC has been making test chips using …

A web-site has published an Intel Corp.’s presentation that confirms specifications of the company’s upcoming high-end desktop (HEDT) microprocessors code-named “Haswell-E” and reveals their prices. Without a lot of surprises, the next-generation processors for extreme performance enthusiasts will cost similar amount of money as existing Core i7 Extreme chips: from …

Advanced Micro Devices on Monday announced a new way to sell its microprocessors to local PC makers. The company plans to ship its chips in packs containing six CPUs/APUs with a discount. The deal will start with the AMD A8-6600K and the Athlon X4 760K processors. AMD claims that the chips were …

Intel Corp.’s code-named “Braswell” microprocessors promise to offer increased performance and improved feature-set to entry-level desktop PCs next year. Unfortunately, actual configurations or performance estimates for the “Braswell” chips have never been released. A good news is that thanks to an unofficial report we now know what to expect from …

Unity Technologies this week said it will add native support for Intel Corp.’s x86 microprocessors and system on chips to its Unity game engine for the Android operating system, which is used by loads of video games. The move will improve performance of games on devices based on Intel’s x86 …

In a bid to finally become successful on the market of mobile devices, Intel Corp. needs to buy an existing developer of ARM-based system-on-chips (SoCs) for smartphones and tablets, a market analyst said. It is believed that MediaTek is a potential target for acquisition. It is not a secret that application …

Advanced Micro Devices plans to introduce four new microprocessors designed for enthusiasts and overclockers on the first of September. Three new AMD FX and one new Athlon X4 central processing units will address PC enthusiasts with different budgets, but will not necessarily offer unbeatable performance. Next month AMD plans to …

If you've been considering one of the new Z87 or Z97 motherboards along with a new Intel CPU lately, then chances are you're expecting to shell out a fair number of your hard earned pounds to do so. Fortunately, it turns out MSI and Intel are now offering cash back …

Although Advanced Micro Devices pins most of its hopes on hybrid accelerated processing units (APUs) these days, it continues to supply traditional central processing units for performance enthusiasts. In a bid to make its FX-series line a little bit more competitive, the company plans to cut-down their prices in the …

While the photos of the upcoming Intel Core i7-5900-series “Haswell-E” processors are no longer considered a breakthrough news, they still pose a lot of interest, especially if they are in high-resolution and reveal the backside of the chips. The first image of an engineering sample of the Intel Core i7-5900-series …

Intel Corp. has decided to speed up the introduction of its next-generation Core i7 5800/5900-series “Haswell-E” microprocessors by several days or weeks and introduce the new chips already in August. This should give Intel and its partners several additional days of sales and therefore additional revenue, but it will not …

Avago Technologies continues to resell assets it got from LSI last year. On Thursday Avago and Intel said that the latter will acquire the Axxia networking business from the former. The acquisition of Axxia essentially makes Intel a supplier of network processors based on ARM Cortex and IBM Power processing …

One of the features of Intel Corp.’s Haswell micro-architecture (and Broadwell micro-architecture) were transactional synchronization extensions (TSX), which could significantly boost performance in multi-threaded applications that take advantage of them. As it appears, usage of the technology leads to unpredictable PC behaviour due to an erratum. As a result, Intel …

Advanced Micro Devices yet has to commercially ship its first ARMv8-based system-on-chip for servers code-named Seattle. Nonetheless, the company already says that it is ready to develop semi-custom server-class SoCs for servers based on the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture. The company already offers customized Opteron chips powered by its x86 cores. …

Intel Corp. on Monday reaffirmed plans to start shipments of its next-generation code-named “Broadwell” microprocessors in late 2014 and to make them available in mass quantities in 2015. The announcement is made to persuade investors and partners that there will be no further delays with Intel’s new products as well …

As reported, the deal between International Business Machines Corp. and GlobalFoundries over chip manufacturing assets of the former has failed to materialize because the latter did not want to pay enough to the former. However, according to a new report, it was IBM, who was offering money to GlobalFoundries to take …

Although many market observers expect processors based on the ARM architecture to capture a significant part of server market going forward, delays of hardware and infrastructure development reduces ARM’s chances on this market. Intel Corp. is quickly developing new low-power x86 server chips that reduce appeal of ARM for server …

Intel Corp. this week demonstrated its new cooling system designed for the forthcoming high-end desktop (HEDT) processors code-named “Haswell-E”. The new cooler, which will be supplied with the Core i7-5800/5900-series microprocessors, will be bigger than the current one and will thus be able to dissipate more heat without creating too …

Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday began to sell server software development kits based on its multi-core AMD Opteron A1100-series code-named “Seattle” server microprocessors that employ the ARM Cortex-A57 cores. At present AMD is the only provider of 64-bit ARM server hardware with complete ARMv8 instruction set support to foster the …

It looks like the price war on the market of mobile system-on-chips is in full swing. Just a day after Allwinner announced a quad-core application processor that will be sold for $4, it transpired that Intel Corp. already sells its quad-core Atom products for $5. Without making any announcements, Intel has …

Intel Corp.’s Pentium G3258 “anniversary edition” central processing unit promises to become a hit among overclockers in budget. Unfortunately, so far only engineering samples of such chips have demonstrated extreme clock-rates. Nonetheless, a South Korean enthusiast has managed to prove that production versions of the chip are also capable of …

It is not a secret that Intel Corp. pins a lot of hopes on its code-named SoFIA system-on-chips for affordable smartphones and tablets. The company needs to drive its x86 architecture to these markets so to ensure that it can sell chips for mobile devices going forward. While SoFIA promises …

Intel Corp.’s next-generation high-end desktop microprocessors called “Haswell-E” are still a couple of months away from their launch, but select enthusiasts have already managed to obtain them. While unfortunately we do not have a lot of ideas about performance of the upcoming chips, the first discoveries about the Core i7-5960X …

International Business Machines Corp. and GlobalFoundries have ended negotiations regarding acquisition of IBM’s semiconductor manufacturing assets by the contract maker of chips. The two companies failed to agree on the price, according to a media report. Earlier this year it was reported that IBM wanted $2 billion for its money-losing …

Last year IBM established the OpenPower consortium and opened up Power8 processor specifications and architecture to its partners. The goal of the organization is to create an eco-system of Power8-based servers designed for future data centers and cloud computing. The first fruits of the collaboration may become available already early …

ARM Holdings, the company whose microprocessor architectures power the vast majority of mobile devices, is working on the second-generation of 64-bit central processing units based on the ARMv8 micro-architecture. Not a lot of details are known about the chips now. What ARM has revealed so far is that they are …

Although there are rumours that Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp. are not really happy with 20nm process technology of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., they will inevitably have to use it. A vice president of AMD said last week that the company’s 20nm chips would be out next year. “20nm …

Advanced Micro Devices this week reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2014. The company did not manage to take advantage of corporate PC replacements, like its rival Intel did, but sales of chips for video game consoles allowed the firm to post rather significant increase in revenue compared …

Last year Intel announced plans to accelerate its Atom roadmap and produce its low-power/low-cost products at the same nodes as its leading-edge chips for desktops and notebooks. Apparently, the widely-discussed issues with the 14nm general-purpose process technology seem to also affect Intel’s 14nm process for low-power system-on-chips. According to a …

Fujitsu Limited and United Microelectronics Corp. plan to form a joint venture that will operate Fujitsu’s semiconductor manufacturing complex in Mie prefecture in Japan. While initially Fujitsu will hold the control stake of the new company, it is going to gradually reduce it. The Japanese conglomerate has been winding down …