intel

The planes are stacking up on the tarmac.

Investigators for the Korea Fair Trade Commission notified Intel last week they believe the chip giant violated the country's antitrust regulations, Intel confirmed Wednesday.

And with the 18-month probe completed, which included an early morning raid on Intel offices early last year, the allegations raised by the South Korea FTC investigators will be reviewed by the full FTC Commission.

The commission will issue a ruling on whether the chip giant violated the Korean Fair Trade and Monopoly Regulation Act and whether sanctions are warranted. No specific date or schedule has been … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--In 45 days, Intel will open its first high-volume facility for building chips that use a 45-nanometer manufacturing process.

The facility, called Fab 32, is a new one built in Chandler, Ariz., said spokesman Nick Knupffer, in an interview here at the VMworld conference. Most of Intel's current chips are built with a process that permits 65-nanometer circuitry elements, but the new 45-nanometer process will mean more circuits can fit on the same area of silicon wafer.

Intel currently builds 45-nanometer processors at its D1D facility in Oregon, but Fab 32 will be geared for high-volume manufacturing.

Intel … Read more

Intel expects more revenue than it previously thought this quarter, as demand has turned out to be pretty strong across the globe.

The company now expects to record between $9.4 billion and $9.8 billion in revenue for its third quarter, which ends this month. When the company reported second-quarter earnings in July, it expected to do between $9 billion and $9.6 billion in revenue. The ranges are there as hedges--when Intel and other companies provide a range they are generally directing you toward the midpoint of that range.

In 2006, Intel announced it would be doing away … Read more

Remember how I said that Moore's Law is "the full-employment act for computer pundits"?

In the smaller niche of microprocessor journalism, there used to be another topic that was always good for a column: RISC vs. CISC.

In the early days of computing, a CPU (central processing unit) was a series of refrigerator-size cabinets in the computer room. Memory capacity was very limited. Computer scientists would analyze how programs executed on these machines and look for ways to shorten and speed up their programs by defining… Read more

AMD is asking software developers to consider its new x86 instructions when developing games and media applications in upcoming years.

Intel and AMD keep adding to the venerable x86 instruction set with new instructions that anticipate the performance of future applications. Intel will release SSE4 extensions later this year with the Penryn chips, and now AMD has proposed adding SSE5 instructions to its processors around the time the Fusion chips are released.

The proposal would add almost 50 new instructions that give software developers more tools to work with in designing next-generation applications. More details can be found on AMD's developer Web site, … Read more

Intel will come with a new way to connect its chips in 2008/2009, a shift that marks a big change in how the company's chips function.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker will move to the Common System Interface, a high-speed way to connect chips, at that time. David Kanter of Real World Technologies provides more details here.

Intel put out the first papers on CSI in 2004 and has provided incremental details as well as changed some of the details over the years. (Sometimes, people called it Common System Interconnect.) Canter, though, gives you a pretty thorough … Read more

Intel will complete its transition to the Core architecture across its PC and server processors with the launch of a new quad-core chip next week, the "Tigerton" Xeon MP processor, CNET News.com has learned.

Tigerton is a quad-core server processor designed for servers with four or more chips that is part of an overall platform code named "Caneland." Intel plans to hold a launch briefings next Wednesday with the usual suspects--Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM--plus its new best friend, Sun Microsystems, to preview the new processor and servers. Looks like the formal launch will be on … Read more

From Bavaria here's a new, "ruggedized" military-spec notebook PC with a keyboard that converts to a touch-screen, tablet PC in seconds by flipping the display 180 degrees and pressing down.

The magnesium alloy housing (4.85 pounds with battery) is completely sealed making it splash-proof, according to Acturion Datasys. (Even the integrated speaker is waterproof.) Since there are no fans, processor heat is distributed directly to the housing, which doubles as radiator.

Two models are available--the Victum-Note V10 (10.4-inch XGA display) and the Victum-Note V12 (WXGA 12.1-inch). Both come with sunlight-readable displays and work … Read more

Buying a new PC (or upgrading your current machine) isn't merely a question of what to buy, but also when to buy. With cheaper, faster, better, technology always around the corner, you can't completely avoid the feeling of buyer's remorse in the weeks or months following your purchase, no matter how carefully you map it.

Now is a particularly difficult time for desktop buyers and upgraders as both AMD and Intel have major CPU introductions planned for the end of the year. Intel is expected to release its 45nm Penryn chips, while AMD should deliver its native … Read more