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Intel To Add Broadwell To NUC Series
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Intel is planning to update its rather successful NUC (Next Unit of Computing) series and as you can expect, they will come with Broadwell CPUs inside.
Intel isn’t hiding the external design of the new cases and there is a dominant yellow connector at the front of the new NUC, and this one should be providing charging power even when the device is turned off.
The board comes with either M2 storage or single SATA and there will be two different designs one exclusively for M2 drive and the second taller that will be able to take 2.5 inch SSD or HDD as well.
We will probably learn more details at CES 2015 that is about to start in less than three weeks from now, but the Broadwell in this small form factor will get a speed boost and some future prove technologies such as M2 SSD support.
We are running Core i5 4200 powered NUC with Windows 10 and it really works great powered by 240GB Kingston mS200 mSata SSD and Impact SO DIMM memory. These machines takes less than half an hour to assemble and boot into windows, including Windows 10 and make a perfect choice for the lovers of quiet computing.
The new version will obviously run at least slightly faster than the one we are testing and the marketing is excluding about “the one with the yellow USB connector”.
Intel’s Cherry Trail Coming In 2015
Bay Trail was quite a big deal when it started shipping in late 2013.
It was a tablet chip that enabled great design wins such as the affordable Asus T100TA and even in late 2014 Asus used the platform to create the EeeBook X205, a $199 netbook.
Both of these designs are based on Intel’s Bay-Trail M processor, a year old 22nm quad-core processor based on the Silvermont design. Some machines that are coming with LTE, both netbooks and tablets and there will be new chip coming in 2015. It is called LTE Advanced XMM7360 chip and supports LTE Cat 10,3 CA up to 450 Mbits download and upload.
Intel will also offer Morrefield quad cores for machines with lower TDP ratings, especially tablets, and at some point in 2015 it will introduce its 14nm Airmont core based Cherry Trail processor. Cherry Trail based on 14nm Airmont core was originally expected in late 2014, but it got pushed towards middle of 2015.
Intel is clearly encountering more obstacles moving from the 22nm to the 14nm manufacturing process, but considering that most ARM competitors still have to start commercially shipping its 20nm SoCs in significant volumes, Intel still has a manufacturing node advantage. If only Intel had as many design wins to go along with its cutting edge fabs, as the company has been struggling to ship 40milion tablets in 2014, as promised.
Braxton will replace Cherry Trail in 2016. Braxton is a tock architecture, another 14nm design based on the quad-core Goldmont core. When it comes to the Performance Media Internet Device (MID) market Intel has another chip planned in 2016. It calls it SoFIA MID and the chip comes in intels 14nm manufacturing process.
Value and Entry markets for Media Internet Device (MID) and phones includes four new SoFIA parts, but with all these new and exciting chips Intel has to compete against some advanced chips coming on line in 2015, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 20nm, Nvidia Erista and more affordable Mediatek solutions such as the MT6795 A53-based octa-core and its successor.
Will Intel’s Core M Go Commercial?
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Intel is getting down from four processor lines to three and it looks like Broadwell won’t come with an M-processor line and 57W, 47W, 37W parts. This is not something we expect to happen at this point. The H-processor line will take over the 47W TDP high performance market for mobile computers and some AIOs.
The H-processor 47W line, U-Processor Line with 15W and 28W TDP parts will end up with 5th Gen Intel Core branding. We expect a range of Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 parts that will be revealed probably at some point after Intel Developer Forum, or after mid-September 2014.
The Y-processor line will end up with the new Intel Core M processor brand and it will aim for high performance detachable and convertible systems that will show up in the latter part of Q4 2014.
Broadwell with 4.5W TDP and Core M branding will end up only in these fancy detachable notebooks and might be one of the most powerful and fastest tablet/detachable platforms around. It will also ‘speak’ Windows 8.1 at launch and we should see some Google Chrome OS products in early 2015.
Intel also plans to keep the Pentium and Celeron brands around and they will be used for Bay Trail-M processors. These parts have been shipping for more than three quarters in entry level detachables such as the Asus T100TA.
AMD To Focus On China
Advanced Micro Devices has relocated its desktop chip business operations from the U.S. to the growing market of China, adding to its research lab and testing plant there.
The desktop market in China is growing at a fast pace and its shipments of desktops and laptops are equal in ratio, said Michael Silverman, an AMD spokesman, in an email. “The desktop market in China remains strong,” Silverman said.
The move of AMD’s desktop operations was first reported by technology news publication Digitimes, but the chip maker confirmed the news.
The company is also developing tailored products for users in China, Silverman said.
AMD’s move of desktop operations to China brings them closer to key customers such as Lenovo, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
“Not that they don’t have their sales in the U.S.,” but a significant number of those PCs are made in China and then shipped internationally, McCarron said.
AMD is the world’s second-largest x86 processor maker behind Intel. Many PC makers like HP and Dell get products made in China.
Being in China also solves some desktop supply chain issues because it moves AMD closer to motherboard suppliers like Asustek and MSI, which are based in Taiwan, but get parts made in China. Chips will be shipped to customers faster and at a lower cost, which would reduce the time it takes for PCs to come to market, McCarron said.
AMD already has a plant in Suzhou, which Silverman said “represents half of our global back-end testing capacity.” AMD’s largest research and development center outside the U.S. is in Shanghai.
Some recent products released by the company have been targeted at developing countries. AMD recently starting shipping Sempron and Athlon desktop chips for the Asia-Pacific and Latin America markets, and those chips go into systems priced between $60 and $399. AMD is targeting the chips at users that typically build systems at home and shop for processors, memory and storage. The chips — built on the Jaguar microarchitecture — go into AMD’s new AM1 socket, which will be on motherboards and is designed for users to easily upgrade processors.
China is also big in gaming PCs, and remains a key market for AMD’s desktop chips, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. “White box integrator’s play a big role in China,” he said.
Intel Goes AI
Intel has written a check for the Spanish artificial intelligence technology startup Indisys.
The outfit focuses on natural language recognition and the deal is worth $26 million. It follows Intel’s recent acquisition of Omek, an Israeli startup with specialties in gesture-based interfaces. Indisys employees have joined Intel already. Apparently the deal was signed on May 31 and the deal has been completed.
Intel would not confirm how they are using the tech: “Indisys has a deep background in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and machine learning. We are not disclosing any details about how Intel might use the Indisys technologies at this time.”
Intel Takes A Shot At ARM
ARM chips practically rule the mobile chip market, but Intel is trying to carve out a foothold with its new x86 chips, with relatively little success.
Intel claims its parts can outperform ARM chips in benchmarks and its manufacturing process lead should help it deliver faster and smaller chips. However, in spite of Intel’s claims, few vendors seem interested in its mobile chips.
Speaking to CNN, Intel mobile chief Mike Bell stressed that Intel has the software and systems competence to be the most successful player on the market. He pointed out that Intel can develop software to get the most out of its hardware and that Intel single core chips outperform multicore ARM designs.
“It’s a question of whether you’d rather have a jet engine or two propellers,” said Bell.
Granted, Bell has to tout the company line, but his engine comparison works both ways. Crop dusters and ultralight planes don’t need jet engines, or two piston engines for that matter. That is what really matters and Intel knows it. Not everyone needs a turbojet or turbofan, and not everyone needs an Intel core, especially not in mid- to low-end devices.
Intel believes its next generation 22nm mobile parts, with integrated LTE, will allow it to score some tablet and smartphone partners in late 2013 or 2014. However, Intel will have nothing to take on new A15 class ARM chips this year.
Android Apps To Run On Windows
Software firm Bluestacks is on a mission to close the gap between Microsoft’s Windows and Google’s Android OS with its App Player application, which was released in beta earlier this week.
App Player is an emulator that allows Android applications to run on Windows 7, Vista and XP OSes. Users can install the software in Windows and then run around 450,000 Android applications, including Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, the company said in a statement.
Beyond PCs, the App Player could also allow Windows tablets such as Hewlett-Packard’s Slate 2 and Dell’s Latitude ST to run Android applications. Bluestacks made headlines at last year’s Computex trade show in Taipei when Advanced Micro Devices showed off an x86 tablet with Android running on top of the Windows 7 software stack. Android applications are mostly written for the ARM instruction set, but the x86 tablet was able to switch between Android and Windows without any problems.
The emulator has new Layercake technology, which exploits hardware accelerators to improve the performance of Android games in Windows. The layer was not included in the previous Bluestacks alpha version. Android applications typically use hardware accelerators found in ARM’s Mali, Nvidia’s Tegra or Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR graphics cores, but Layercake is able to take advantage of hardware accelerators from companies like AMD found in x86 chips.
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AMD Not Chasing Smartphone Market
August 15, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Advanced Micro Devices is not immediately pursuing opportunities within the smartphone markets as it does not align with the company’s strength in technologies like graphics, an executive said on Monday.
Smartphones are constrained on battery, pixels and screen space, and AMD has other areas it can focus on in order to grow, said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager for AMD’s product group during the Pacific Crest Securities Technology Leadership Forum in Vail, Colorado. The company sees an opportunity to apply its graphics and chip technologies to tablets, where customers are demanding better video and battery life.
“We haven’t announced any plans to go in that handheld space. We’ve got plenty of opportunities… in server, notebook and now tablets, that’s our immediate focus. But if the right circumstances come up and we can see a way to impact the market, we’ll obviously continue to look,” Bergman said.
AMD has faced criticism for not aggressively pursuing the booming smartphone or tablet markets. The company in June rushed to release its first dedicated tablet chip, called the Z-series. The chip is a low-power variant of PC chips based on the Fusion microarchitecture, which includes a graphics processor and CPU on a single chip. Based on the x86 architecture, the chip can help tablets deliver a full PC and graphics experience, the company has said.