Components – Page 10 – Digital-Lifestyles

Sony Invent Esper

Good news for all of you who’ve ever wanted to sit in front of a murky screen, in a darkened apartment, zooming in on a photograph of a stripper’s bedroom – Sony have developed a chip that lets viewers pan, zoom and enhance TV images.

Demonstrated in Tokyo yesterday, the Digital Reality Creation Multifunction v2 technology (DRC-MFv2)– modest name there – keeps the picture sharp by using image enhancement processes, rather than just stretching the scan lines, so there’s no loss of detail that might result in you retiring a human by mistake. With DRC, one pixel can become 36.

There’s no word when TV’s featuring the technology will appear, but you can bet it’ll be around the time that the first HD pornography hits the market. Voice-operated will be extra.

The DRC-MFv2

Alienware’s 4GHz Pentium

I love overclockers – I don’t know if it’s the nerves of steel needed to run components so far beyond their factory specifications that they need to be refrigerated, or the glowing water cooling pipes they use, or it might even be the UV lamps and dodgy stickers. And this is coming from someone who underclocks his graphics card – OpenOffice doesn’t really need much acceleration.

Overclocking basically involves running a processor at speeds beyond factory specification, and is generally performed by home enthusiasts who then have to solve the puzzle of extracting all that extra heat out of their PC case in colourful and complex ways. Some manufacturers have noticed this fashion and have taken to selling systems that have already been overclocked, and the professional build and cooling systems make them more reliable and less messy.

So, for those of you who want power at any expense, Alienware have released a pre-overclocked gaming system, featuring a Pentium 4 that runs at a (probably literally) red hot 4Ghz.

The Area-51 ALX is based around a Extreme Edition Pentium 4, with 1 gig of Corsair RAM, and a 6800 Ultra for a graphics card. Keeping this lot cool requires gold plated, pure copper coolers, and a specially formulated liquid solution to conduct heat away from components. Oh, and two pumps and a few fans. A custom power control board monitors liquid temperature and features an emergency alarm and automatic shut-down features, just in case things get too frantic during those FPS death matches.

At a wallet-alarming US$5,458 (€4,525) for a typical set up, it’s for devoted, power hungry gamers only – but I certainly can’t think of a better way to Half-Life 2’s launch.

Alienware ALX Series

Intel’s New Transistor Technology

Intel have announced that they’ve produced a fully functioning memory chip using 35 nanometer transistors. The breakthrough, etching components that are 30% smaller than current processes, should be delivering production chips in 2005 – ensuing that Moore’s Law will hold true for a while yet. This will elicit relief from Intel whose main business is based around the capabilities of copper and silicon devices.

Intel developed special techniques to get round the heat dissipation and power consumption problems encountered with such dense components – such as shutting off areas of the chip that aren’t in use.

In 1965, Intel founder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors in integrated circuits would double every two years in his paper “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits”– and so far he’s been right. The law is expected to hold true until the end of the decade, by which time silicon and copper chip technology are expected to reach their physical limits. Capacitance and the laws of physics start to interfere with devices at this stage, and it expected that the next big advances will be made using optical and other technologies.

“Intel continues to meet the increasing challenges of scaling by innovating with new materials, processes and device structures,” said Sunlin Chou, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group. “Intel’s 65nm process technology has industry-leading density, performance and power reduction features that will enable future chips with increased capabilities and performance. Intel’s 65nm technology is on track for delivery in 2005 to extend the benefits of Moore’s Law.”

Intel on the news

Moore’s Law

Apple Recalls 28,000 Notebook Batteries

Apple don’t have much luck with batteries, do they? First, the iPod batteries were too weedy to play tunes for a day, now the G4 Powerbook batteries are so beefy they overheat with a risk of fire with four cases of overheating reported worldwide.

Although no fires or injuries have yet to be reported, Apple have recalled 28,000 batteries from the popular 15” laptop range, as some of the units manufactured in the last week of December 2003 may short circuit and overheat. I wonder who was on the production line that week? Too many Christmas parties? The laptops themselves would have been sold between January and August 2004.

Apple have implemented a battery exchange programme in co-operating with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and international safety authorities.

Users are urged to contact Apple with the serial number of their laptop to see if they might be at risk. Apple will then ship a new battery to the customer free within five days, and provide a label to return the faulty unit.

The A1045 batteries were manufactured by LG Chem Ltd, and have series numbers beginning with HQ404 to HQ408. No other batteries are part of the recall.

Apple’s battery exchange

AMD Using Strained Silicon in Processors

AMD are now using strained silicon in their processors to improve performance. The technology has been incorporated into the company’s new 90nm chips and will soon find its way into the company’s 130nm products later this year.

Strained silicon is made when the metal’s atoms are pulled apart to increase the space between them. I suppose the scientists’ naming department had the day off when that was invented. The increase in atomic space means that the electrons carrying the signals through the silicon can move faster.

IBM and Intel already use a form of strained silicon in their chips, but AMD say that their technique is different. There have been recent developments in silicon straining, and the most recent development in this field is uniaxial strained silicon, where it has only been stretched in one direction. Perhaps AMD are using this technique.

AMD

AMD Launches Sempron on Wednesday

AMD launches its Sempron processor brand today with twelve new processors – eight for desktop PCs and four for laptops. The new processor is aimed at the low-cost PC market, with prices for the Sempron as low as US$39 (€32) in quantities of 1000.

As the chip is on sale now, you can look forward to it showing up in PCs and laptops in time for Christmas.

AMD are keen to maintain the image of their Athlon processor as a quality, high-spec product, so have not produced a low-cost version of flagship product. Instead, the Sempron will allow them to compete in the sub-US$550 (€456) PC market whilst keeping the Athlon brand intact.

John Morris, manager of desktop product marketing at AMD said: “If you look at the brand promise of the Athlon, it’s been about performance computing, so we want to make sure that (chips like the) Athlon 64 continue to stand for performance computing… Sempron reflects a completely different strategy that says, ‘There’s a growing group of people that have basic computer needs…so let’s provide a solution for them.'” However, Sempron will eventually replace the Athlon brand at some point in 2005.

AMD will be offering the desktop processor with the following model numbers: 2400+, 2500+, 2600+, 2800+ and 3100+. The 2200+ and 2300+ are to replace the Duron in emerging markets. Please note that AMD model numbers do not reflect the internal speed of their processors.

The Semprons have lower clock speeds than their Athlon cousins and have a smaller cache, but if they are powerful enough may encourage more PC manufacturers to produce media centre PCs featuring them.

AMD Sempron

PlayStation3: 2006, Playable Demo at E3

Ken Kutaragi has said that Sony plans to have a working PlayStation3 console at next May’s E3 show – so if you’re not doing anything between 18th and 20th of May next year, you might as well get yourself to Los Angeles.

Kutaragi told a meeting of PlayStation developers, suppliers and journalists: “There has been some talk that development is not going well, but we expect to have a playable version at E3. We are pushing ahead with that schedule in mind.”

Sony have been receiving a lot of criticism lately for their PlayStation brand – the PSX has been discontinued in Japan after selling only 100,000 units, and the PSP is under scrutiny with developers citing concerns battery life and screen quality. Sony have yet to confirm what the battery life of its new handheld console will be, and it has emerged that the screen in the demonstration model costs 70,0000 Yen (€520) alone. Clearly Sony will not be able to produce a console with the same screen and will have to source another, cheaper component.

Last week Sony Computer Entertainment announced that they had changed the memory chips in in the PS3 to 256 megabit chips, down from 512. This does not necessarily mean that the console has had its memory capacity halved, doomsayers – it could mean that, with the same memory and twice the number of chips that the bandwidth has been doubled: from 25.6 gigabits to 51.2 gigabits per second.

Sony are expected to follow their usual release pattern with PlayStation hardware – the console may well become available one year after its demonstration at E3, making that May 2006. US release will follow a couple of months later, with a European launch three months or so after that. Expect worried parents queuing up trying to get one of the few models released in the UK for Christmas 2006.

SCEE

Instat: Digital Set-top Box and PC TV Tuner Market US$3.8 billion in 2008

In-Stat/MDR are projecting that the worldwide market for digital tuners in set-top boxes and PC TV cards will be worth US$3.8 billion (€3.12 billion) by 2008.

PC TV cards are growing rapidly in popularity, due to PCs being more readily accepted as the entertainment centre of households. Many lifestyle PCs are being sold with cards preinstalled and preconfigured – and even if a PC doesn’t ship with one, the installation of a decent card will enable the owner to turn their PC into a fully functional PVR.

Consumers now expect their PC to be able to satisfy all of their entertainment needs, and television is an important aspect of this. A home entertainment computer without digital television will not be acceptable for much longer.

Motherboard manufacturers are also getting in on the act, and are producing boards with integrated tuners. Motherboards have always demonstrated a trend for integration – many features which previously required an expansion card, like 5.1 sound, RAID arrays, graphics accelerators and Bluetooth, are now built into some boards.

In-Stat predict that international growth (i.e. non-US) will be key, and that Europe will continue to lead the market for some time. Lifestyle PCs are remarkably popular in Europe, with many major brands such as Sony, HP and Shuttle doing well out of products aimed specifically it the entertainment niche. Asia is rapidly climbing into second place – will there be a time when Asia becomes the world’s largest entertainment market?

In-Stat

Hauppage

Nvidia Expect Media Centre Shipments to Treble

One of the leading manufacturers of video cards, Nvidia, has stated that it expects worldwide shipments of media centres – PCs used to play video, music and games in a living room environment – to treble in 2004. This would take global figures to around six million units.

Huang Jeh-hsun, president and CEO of Nvidia made the statement at Computex 2004, saying that demand was picking up, and further growth was expected as prices fell.

Most media centres are still based around a PC paradigm – and many home users find PC concepts and interfaces off-putting. Operating systems such as Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Centre Edition are a step in the right direction but are still daunting for casual users, and it’s frankly a pain to have to boot up your PC and navigate menus and settings just to watch K-PAX on DVD.

Nvidia’s optimism on increased shipments, however is no doubt inspired by their own range of products, principally their nStant Media platform. Currently a laptop-only solution, nStant Media allows users to use digital content without having to boot into an operating system – and consequently uses less power too.

Nvidia

Intel’s New Approach to Selling Chips

Microprocessors are old news – they’re now so mainstream that it’s no longer a surprise to see them advertised on television or on billboards, as it was ten or fifteen years ago. Intel know that it’s just them and AMD in the consumer processor market – and now that you can’t win on clock speed, cache size or bus width any more, they need to make their products appear different and sexy to make those billboards interesting again. Let’s face it all those claims about clock speed were dubious anyway – there are too many factors involved and now that AMD don’t even bother publicising processor speeds, it makes a nonsense out of comparisons (that’s right – your Athlon 2800 doesn’t run at anything like 2.8gHz. That’s just a marketing number to make you think it does).

Cue a new shift in Intel’s product emphasis – it’s not the processor, it’s the chip set. Intel now want you to see the benefits of having a motherboard built round their platform. Now that chip sets are working harder for their money, being the gateway to your PC’s multimedia and communications features, Intel want you to know about it.

Grantsdale is heading your way in June, and is pitched to lead a new generation of entertainment PCs. Just the sort of thing that Intel want to see sitting in your living room.

Marketing a processor just wouldn’t give Intel the clout they need to displace other pieces of consumer electronics in the living room – they need to show the full range of functions that a chip set can perform to show that you’re going to be getting the DVD playback, encoding, games and internet performance that will merit a space under your television.

Grantsdale integrates a lot of features that would previously require more electronics to pull off – including Dolby audio and 3D graphics, allowing PC manufacturers to build smaller, cheaper, quieter boxes.

Intel will be spending a huge amount of money to make sure you know why chipsets are important and why you would want one of theirs. As AMD have no visibility in this area, they’re going to have to come up with something fast.

Oh, and apparently, Intel are making a special effort to train retail salespeople in Grantsdale’s benefits. I look forward to some amusing conversations with the staff in Dixons in the summer then.

More news on Grantsdale as it appears.

Intel’s Chipsets