Intel, AMD Readying Next-Generation Chips

Intel is expected to launch the first of its “Ivy Bridge” processors at the end of April, with AMD following with its first “Trinity” APUs in May.
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices reportedly are preparing to launch next-generation chips over the next few weeks.

Intel initially was expected to roll out its new 22-nanometer “Ivy Bridge” chips this spring, but earlier this year, executives, citing production problems, said they were delaying the release until June. However, recent reports say that the giant chip maker will roll out the first Ivy Bridge Core processors—for both desktop and mobile devices—later in April, with more coming the following months.

The Ivy Bridge chips are expected to offer users a performance bump over the current “Sandy Bridge” processors, but the real enhancements will be around the graphics capabilities and power efficiency. Among other features, the Ivy Bridge chips will be the first offering Intel’s 3D Tri-Gate transistor architecture, which will offer a 50 percent cut in power consumption over current chips, according to Intel.

Intel officials also are looking to the Ivy Bridge processors to add fuel to their Ultrabook push. There are currently more than two dozen Ultrabook models on the market, from vendors like Acer, Asus, Dell and Lenovo, powered by Sandy Bridge chips. However, Intel executives have said that the Ivy Bridge processors will herald in the second wave of Ultrabooks, and in a post on Intel’s ChipShot site, blogger Becky Emmett said there are 10 more Ultrabooks that have been announced and another 75 designs coming later in 2012.

Intel this week kicked off a massive advertising and marketing campaign—said to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars—around Ultrabooks. The campaign will offer everything from television ads to interactive Websites.

For its part, AMD is expected to launch the first of its “Trinity” accelerated processing units (APUs) for PCs May 15. According to several reports, the first of the hybrid CPU-GPU chips—based on AMD’s new Piledriver core—will be mobile APUs for notebooks, with desktop chips coming later.

Trinity will succeed the current “Llano” processors, which AMD officials have said have been the most successful product launch in company history. The new APUs reportedly will have better performance and graphics than the current chips, which are based on the Bulldozer core. The Trinity chips also are expected to run at higher frequencies.

Like larger rival Intel, AMD official are expecting some of the Trinity chips to fuel their push into very thin and light notebooks, what some company executives have referred to as “ultrathins.”

Internet as important as food, air and water: survey

Cisco has revealed in a study that one in three college students and young professionals consider the Internet to be as important as fundamental human resources such as air, water, food and shelter. This study is based on the second annual Cisco Connected World Technology Report that examines the relationship between human behaviour, the Internet and networking's pervasiveness in 14 countries across the globe.

In a teleconference held here on Thursday, Mahesh Gupta, Vice-President, Business-Borderless Networks, Cisco (India and SAARC), said about 33 per cent across the globe and 95 per cent Indian college students and young employees admitted that Internet was as important in their lives as water, food, air and shelter. More than half of the respondents globally (55 per cent of college students and 62 per cent of employees) said they could not live without the Internet and cite it as an “integral part of their lives.”

On the social life, people had indicated that Internet was more important to them than dating, going out with friends or listening to music. Mr. Gupta said within certain countries, including India, updating Facebook was ranked as the highest priority than socialising. About 91 per cent of college students and 88 per cent of employees globally had Facebook account. The other interesting factor was that two-thirds of students and more than half of employees (58 per cent) felt that a mobile device (laptop, smartphone or tablets) was the most important technology device in their lives. For young employees, India came second globally when it comes to importance of mobile device usage (71 per cent), behind the U.K (74 per cent), but ahead of Australia (66 per cent), China (62 per cent) and the U.S. (62 per cent).

In India, 68 per cent of young employees preferred to use smartphone and consider it as their most important device.

Keywords: Cisco, internet, Cisco Connected World Technology Report