Processors - Page 110

Intel has just launched its new line of Haswell-EX Xeon CPUs, which include up to 36 threads (with the 18-core model), with up to 45MB of L3 cache, depending on the model.

The flagship Xeon E7-8890 V4 processor has 18 cores (36 threads), 45MB of L3 cache (LLC) and clock speeds that float between 2.5GHz and 3.3GHz in AVX workloads, and between 2.1GHz and 3.3GHz normally. This Haswell-EX powered Xeon CPU has a massive 165W TDP, packing some 5.6 billion transistors. All of this results in a wallet-busting price of $7175 or so.

The new Haswell-EX powered Xeon platform can handle up to 24 DIMMs per socket of either DDR3 or DDR4, with a full 8S server rack capable of consuming up to 12TB of DDR4 RAM. These new systems can handle up to 32 sockets, with 8-socket systems capable of taking 12TB of RAM, too.

As we begin to learn more about Intel's upcoming Skylake microarchitecture, the new 14nm-based chips are becoming more clear. We're now hearing details on the rumored Core i5-6600K and Core i7-6700K.

Starting with the Core i5-6600K which will have a total of four cores and no HT support, 6MB cache, a 3.5GHz clock speed (3.9GHz with Boost), 1600/2133MHz DDR3/DDR4 RAM support, Intel HD Graphics 5000 and a 95W TDP. The Core i7-6700K will feature four cores with four Hyper-Threaded cores, 8MB of cache, a 4GHz clock speed (4.2GHz with Boost), 1600/2133MHz DDR3/DDR4 support, Intel HD Graphics 5000 and the same 95W TDP. Both processors will slot right into the new LGA 1151 socket.

The rumored specifications are just that: rumors, especially considering the TDP sitting at 95W. We should expect some decent headroom for overclocking, with 4.5GHz being very easy for the Core i7-6700K to hit. WCCFTech is reporting that they expect something "major" with Skylake, and that it won't just be "another Haswell". We should learn more about Skylake as we get closer to Computex in the first week of June.

Intel has provided more details on its upcoming Xeon Phi line of processors, which will see up to 72 cores on a single processor, thanks to the Silvermont architecture. Not only that, but we can expect up to 384GB of DDR4, too.

Not only that, but the current prototype of the Xeon Phi coprocessor is capable of handling up to 32 cores, with each core capable of handling four threads for a total of 128 threads. Currently, we 8-core processors with 16 threads in total thanks to Hyper-Threading on the consumer side of the market. These new Xeon Phi processors would handle up to 36MB of shared L2 cache, and up to 16GB of the new stacked High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).

All in all, we can expect a six-channel DDR4 memory controller that can handle 2400MHz, and up to 384GB of DDR4 RAM. This is up from the quad-channel memory architecture we know and love with the X99 chipset from Intel, and the current flagship processor: the Core i7-5960X. It's interesting to note that we're seeing Intel move into HBM quickly.

Samsung is already pushing out 14nm technology, using its own Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge smartphones to demonstrate its impressive new fabrication technology. But most don't know that the South Korean electronics giant has partnered with GlobalFoundries, with the latter now spinning up its production of 14nm technology.

Mubadala Development Co. is an Abu Dhabi-based investment and development company that owns GlobalFoundries, with the company releasing a statement in regards to its 14nm production. Mubadala said: "GlobalFoundries announced a strategic collaboration with Samsung to deliver capacity at 14nm, one of the industry's most advanced nodes, as Fab 8 in Malta, New York began ramping production for customers".

Samsung developed both the 14LPE (low-power early) and 14LPP (low-power plus) technologies, licensing them to GlobalFoundries. Both of the manufacturing processes use FinFET transistors, but they still fall back on back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnects which are fabricated on the 20nm node. Both fabrication technologies don't radically reduce costs of the chips compared to the previous-gen node, but they do provide a nice 20% boost in performance at the same power usage, or reduce power consumption by up to 35% without a performance hit.

It looks like AMD has some interesting things coming in 2016, with the current rumor is that its next-gen APU would arrive as a 16-core processor based on its Zen architecture, as well as a "Greenland" GPU with HBM memory.

The new APU will replace the Godaveri platform which we were introduced to with the Carrizo APU, with the Carizzo-based notebooks arriving in the next couple of months, but most likely at Computex 2015 in June. The new Zen APU would feature quad-channel DDR4 support, up to 16 processor cores based on the Zen architecture, and the HBM-powered Greenland GPU.

We should expect Greenland to be based on the Fiji architecture, which will be powering AMD's upcoming flagship video card: the Radeon R9 390X. We don't know if AMD will be using HBM1 or HBM2 on the Zen APU, but with the R9 390X using HBM1, we should expect AMD to quickly shift to HBM2 sometime in 2016.

We just got back from a briefing of the Knights Landing platform at Intel Jones Farm. This new platform compacts a large number of cores into a small package that consisted of 1U blades.

Here is the basic Knights Landing (KNL) information screen. Knights Landing will be based on 14nm process node and have a TDP of ~300watts. The number of cores shown on the slide shows over 60 cores, we assume there will be several different SKU's with different core counts and other spec's.

The KNL core itself is based on Silvermount, these cores have full Xeon capability and features which have been modified to meet the new design platform. The system itself will have both Windows and Lunix capability with very little code modification to applications if any. While running a Windows OS on this platform you can see all the logical processors in the task manager which shows the OS actually sees all the cores unlike Knights Corner which was a PCIe coprocessor.

As seen on the Watercooled PC Facebook page, one users' comment to the following photo is that it "looks like the pins were at a football game doing the wave." All we know is that someone messed up - badly.

We've seen plenty of incompetent PC builders throughout the years, however this one almost takes the cake. Not only have they put their thermal paste on the pins, they've obviously pushed either the wrong socket processor in or not lined it up properly, bending many pins involved. But maybe there's something we're missing here - more thermal paste might be the solution we've all been looking for.

Don't try this at home people, unless you've got a lot of money to throw around.

With tongues wagging over the announcement of the Galaxy S6, we haven't seen any real-world performance numbers - with the biggest question being the battery life of Samsung's super-powered handset.

Analysts with Moor Insights & Strategy took to their blog over Mobile World Congress, which we're only getting around to now, with an article titled "Not All 4G LTE Modems Are Created Equal According To Tests With Qualcomm And Samsung". Where most are talking up the internal power and benchmarking abilities of the Galaxy S6, the hit on battery life thanks to Samsung baking in its own modem could be a bigger problem than previously thought. It looks like Qualcomm has the better modem chops, but Samsung has decided to use more of its own components than ever in its latest flagship.

The blog post covers this, where they said "Some companies, like Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics, have developed their own front end solutions in order to improve their modem solutions and make vast improvements in all aspects. They have accomplished these improvements in multiple ways, including increased throughput going from Category 4 150 Mbps download speeds to Category 6 300Mbps and Category 9 450 Mbps download speeds as well as reducing power consumption at the same time". While that might not sound like much, what they say next should have you opening your eyes a little wider.

The International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) has just kicked off in San Francisco, where Samsung has just unveiled the world's first 10nm FinFET technology. Samsung Electronics Semiconductor Business chief, Kim Ki-nam teased the future for Samsung when he took the stage.

Ki-nam teased the company's 10nm DRAM technology, as well as a sneak peak at its 3D V NAND technology. Samsung expects that its technology will be used in countless devices going into the future, where Kim said Samsung is "expected to come in the future advent of IoT (Internet of Things) spread into a wide range of IT equipment, including the age of the data center (Data Driven World) 'and the silicon semiconductor technology it is possible to ensure the performance and low-power solution for the semiconductor chip that can process these data through the innovation".

We should hear more about Samsung's 10nm FinFET process as we move deeper into the year, as well as what devices and products will be powered by the 10nm technology. Exciting times!

Intel will be providing more details on its upcoming 10nm manufacturing process this week at the 2015 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), and how its new research will continue pounding on the door of Moore's law when it hits 7nm, and beyond.

The chipmaker expects to provide the first 10nm-based processors late 2016 or early 2017, as the company is hoping to dodge the delay train it hit with Broadwell at 14nm. Before 10nm is even here, Intel is teasing 7nm, saying that it will need to use new materials in order to build it. This means that 10nm will be the last product Intel builds using silicon, with Intel eyeing down a replacement for silicon, such as III-V semiconductor, such as indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs).

Then we have even more interesting points of Intel's shift to 7nm, which could see the company using new types of packaging. This includes 2.5D, which is something AMD is using on its upcoming Radeon R9 390X which uses HBM memory. 2.5D has separate dies which are placed side by side on an interposer. Intel would also be looking at 3D, where each die is stacked directly on top of one another. When it comes to 10nm, Intel is hoping to continue pushing Moore's law against the wall, all while reducing the price per transistor. 7nm is going to be a very exciting milestone, as it will shift away from silicon that has been used for decades now. Imagine the possibilities of a 3D stack of 7nm dies... that should have any enthusiast begging for more.

The time has come for Samsung to tease to the world that it has started the mass production of its 14nm FinFET process technology, moving from its current node at 20nm.

Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, System LSI Business, Samsung Electronics, Gabsoo Han, said: "Samsung's advanced 14nm FinFET process technology is undoubtedly the most advanced logic process technology in the industry. We expect the production of our 14nm mobile application processor to positively impact the growth of the mobile industry by enabling further performance improvements for cutting-edge smartphones".

This is quite the achievement, as the new 14nm FinFET processors offer up to 20% more speed, 35% less power consumption, and 30% productivity gain when compared to Samsung's current 20nm process technology. Samsung's new 14nm FinFET process will see its way into the company's upcoming Exynos 7 Octa later this year, as well as many other products in the near future.

With over 10 years of cooperation, Intel have been a mainstay in Apple hardware - taking over from Apple's co-designed chips with PowerPC due to them reportedly having issues with slimming down their laptop range, turning to the processor giant for some help.

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Intel's CFO Stacy Smith stated "for a customer like Apple you'd have to take a big step off performance to step off our architecture. That is what in essence enables us to win across different customers."

This is a rather big statement from Intel, but lets be honest here - Intel is at the top and it will stay that way for a long period of time no matter what happens.

AMD and NVIDIA have been in the headlines quite often lately, with AMD now in the headlines for something completely different. The chipmaker has acknowledged that some consumers have purchased counterfeit processors from Amazon.

The fake processors have heatspreaders that say that they are an FM2+ AMD A8-7600 but the CPU underneath of the heatspreader is just an older AMD APU, which is not compatible with the AM2+ motherboard at all. The CPU that most people seem to be securing is the very old AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ which will not work on current motherboards.

AMD has released a statement to Overlock3D, saying: "It is apparent that this isolated incident is not related in any way to AMD's manufacturing or packaging, however AMD takes any reports of product tampering very seriously. As part of our ongoing efforts to help ensure consumers and businesses are sold only genuine AMD processors, we thoroughly investigate these extremely rare incidents in an effort to determine the source of the altered products, and consider all available legal remedies - including both civil and criminal prosecution - against persons found to have engaged in fraudulent actions affecting AMD products".

Apple and Intel have been partnered together for a while, ever since Steve Jobs announced that Mac systems would use Intel processors back in 2005.

At the time it was quite the shock, as Intel was the biggest chipmaker that made processors for PCs that ran Windows, and Microsoft were Apple's biggest enemy at the time. The tides have changed however, as Google was simply a search engine at the time, but they are now Apple's biggest competitor by far. Well, during an interview with Business Insider last week, Intel CFO Stacy Smith talked about how Intel is so far ahead of the competition, that when it comes to PC processors that Apple uses, the company has no choice but to use its CPUs.

Smith said: "Apple is a great partner of ours. Like Intel they like bringing really cool stuff to the market... As long as we're bringing great technology to the marketplace, we're enabling them to do great Apple products". Smith continued: "Our leadership over the rest of the industry is extending. We're not delayed relative to the industry. We're actually ahead of the industry". Smith also added: "For a customer like Apple you'd have to take a big step off performance to step off our architecture. That is what in essence enables us to win across different customers".

Intel is expected to unveil its new 10nm processors sometime in early 2017, with the news coming from Intel's GM for the Middle East and North Africa region, Taha Khalifa.

Khalifa, when talking about the new Intel CPUs, said: "We have been consistently pursuing Moore's Law and this has been the core of our innovation for the last 40 years. The 10nm chips are expected to be launched early 2017". When it comes to this year though, we should expect Intel to unveil its new 14nm Skylake processors in the second half of the year.

Intel was originally meant to roll out its 14nm processors in late 2013, but there were various technical setbacks with the Broadwell architecture, which was eventually delayed into 2014. This has pushed back the rest of Intel's upcoming processors, with the 10nm-based Skylake being included. Intel will most likely unveil tablet and mobile parts under its 10nm umbrella, before moving it into the desktop family in the later parts of 2017.

As according to a newly issued press release by ABI Research, there has been a major push for higher-workload media stations in today's climate - pushing these system to receive upgraded hardware including x86 processing units.

This comes paired with a foretasted an x86 processor growth from 43% market share in 2013 to a much larger 51% in 2020. This is coupled with higher levels of semiconductor integration, seeing Systems on Chips being merged x86 or ARM processors with DSPs becoming standard practice.

These new advanced media products have seen vast visualization improvements in recent years, with Sam Rosen, Practice Director for TV & Video, claiming "Cloud video workflows, such as that developed by Elemental and EVS for the FIFA World Cup, place a high priority on software flexibility" expressing a much-needed hardware upgrade for existing technology.

China is a rising economic superpower that lacks one key ingredient to acquire their goal of complete self-sufficiency; the all-important processor. China has over 1.3 billion mobile phone users, but imports over 90% of their processors. This adds up to a whopping annual total of $232 billion in imported chips. China consumes over 45% of the worldwide chip production, and the lack of semiconductor technology is a huge strategic gap.

To that end, China has invested an unprecedented $5 billion in the last 18 months on procuring semiconductor-related companies, and that is just the beginning. These investments are largely funded by the Chinese government, and they have pledged to spend up to $163 billion over the next 5 to 10 years to reduce their reliance upon foreign chips. China is moving aggressively, and has plans to boost 2013 semiconductor revenue 40% by the end of next year.

Chip production has many advantages that extend far beyond cellular phone production. The wars of today are increasingly powered by technology, and this reliance is only going to increase in the future. If China became involved in a protracted dispute, and found itself on the unfriendly side of a blockade or sanctions, simply cutting off CPU supply could simultaneously cripple their economy and military. A major thorn in China's side is also the fact that over 25% of their processor supply originates in Taiwan. The continued animosity between the two countries only adds fuel to China's desire to produce their own chips.

Just nine years ago Intel was sitting at 65nm CPUs, reaching 22nm just three years ago now. We've been enjoying 14nm CPUs since last year, but now it's time to move onto 10nm, 7nm and beyond.

Broadwell arrived as the Core M processor, but for the 14nm desktop CPUs, we will be waiting until sometime in 2015. After the 14nm-based desktop Broadwell processors arrive, we have to look forward to 10nm sometime late next year or possibly 2016, while 7nm is planned for 2017 or so. The 10nm node is going to be an interesting transition, as the semiconductor industry will have to upgrade to EUVL technology.

While Intel edges closer to 14nm on the desktop, with 10nm now in its sights, what about AMD? AMD are currently using the 28nm process, which will be used throughout most of 2015, as they rely on fabrication plants like GlobalFoundries and TSMC do to their bidding. Intel could Tick-Tock ahead a few notches in that time, that's for sure.

AMD is hoping for some serious improvements in the energy efficiency of its APUs by 2020, where the chipmaker is aiming for a massive 25x improvement. In order to reach this goal, AMD will have to outpace historical energy efficiency by over 70%, but the company is optimistic that it can do this.

The company has goals in terms of energy efficiency, where it wants to have "more performance with less power", as well as "long battery life, sleek light weight form factors, cool and quiet computation" mixed with "lower energy consumption and utility bills, lower Total Cost of Ownership" and a "reduced environmental impact".

Using a comparison of a 35W notebook processor released this year, versus a 35W processor from two years ago, the new notebook processor is twice as fast. You can say that the energy efficiency has improved by 200% as well, but the older 35W processors no longer fit into notebooks. AMD needs to find a way to reduce power consumption, as well as increasing the performance of the processor. Up until now, we've seen Intel and AMD do one or the other, but not both to the extent of 200% leaps each time.

Intel's Retail Edge Program's end-of-year benefits have been released. If you're an employee of certain technology companies (mobile phones included), you can join up to this project and reap the sale rewards. This information has been provided through Chiphell's online forum.

There are two main deals on offer, seeing Intel clear out their Core i7-5930K 3.5 GHz processor's for as low as $159 US, alongside their Core i7-4790K 4.0 GHz for a crazy $79 US.

If you think you're eligible for this program, you can register through your employee's certification to the Intel sales network. Once tasks are completed, you add 'points' to your account, allowing you to reach certain levels of discounts ranging from Producer, to Rockstar and finally Rock Legend - providing the best pricing.