Friday, February 21, 2014

TechEye

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AMD's Carrizo will be 28nm

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 01:57 AM PST

AMD has disappointed industry watchers by suggesting that its next-generation Carrizo APU might be 28nm instead of the hoped for 20nm.

AMD was thought to have the time and tech to go for 20nm with its foundry partners, but LinkedIn data suggesting that Carrizo, AMD's first APU with an Excavator-class CPU, is built on the much less interesting 28nm.

This suggests that AMD is waiting to move to 20nm until that node is more mature, at least for big-core CPUs. Instead it is using GF28A, s GlobalFoundries (GloFo) standard bulk silicon node. Profiles from current and former AMD employees point to Kaveri as being built on 28nm SHP (Super High Performance) which is another big yawn.

According to ExtremeTech it is not clear if Kaveri and Carrizo are built on two fundamentally different types of 28nm silicon, or if the different codenames reflect subtle changes. AMD has been boasting of a 65W target for Carrizo and if that is the case then it is possible that AMD is moving to a different node that emphasizes lower power and higher efficiency.

AMD leaked another variant around Christmas which showed that the new Toronto APUs based on Excavator cores and DDR3/DDR4 controllers on the map for 2015, with and without a functional on-board APU. This was bad news for those hoping that AMD would return to shipping 8-core parts, and means that AMD is finished with larger CPU configurations. 

Chipmakers plough cash into EUV

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 01:56 AM PST

Three of the big names in chipmaking are putting $7.3 million into a tiny start-up called Inpria which is improving chip lithography and developing a lithography tool known as extreme ultraviolet.

Inpria is a 12-person outfit, which spun out of Oregon State University in 2007, and it is sure it will have a product for high-volume manufacturing in 2017.

Andrew Grenville, Inpria's chief executive told Oregon Live  that Samsung Venture Investment Corp. led the round, joined by Intel Capital and Applied Ventures – the venture capital arm of equipment-maker Applied Materials.

If development proceeds on target, Grenville said he hopes his company's technology will be ready for the 7-nanometer production node Intel plans to launch almost four years from now.

Inpria will hire additional staff, add lab space and accelerate its product development, Grenville said. The company plans to hire two or three people in the near term.

The focus of the company is EUV, but Grenville thinks that the company's materials work could be applied to other emerging challenges in the chip industry.

If they manage, it will mean the end of an era where EUV promised results which never turned up. 

Via shifts chip making to China

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 01:54 AM PST

Via is shifting its x86 CPU technologies and related personnel to its newly formed IC design joint venture with a China government-owned investment firm.

The company just surprised clients with a note in the mail saying that they will be pausing the sale of the x86 processors temporarily. Now it seems that the reason was that they have the removal men in.

Digitimes said that Via declined to comment about the news and pointed out that its x86 CPU business is still going so what is everyone worried about.

The venture with the Chinese was announced in early 2014 with Via owning a 20 per cent stake in the company. If Via is moving to China then the Chinese government can get its paws on x86 technologies to develop related products.

Via has been pushing its CPU products in China for many years, mainly targeting the white-box market. A move might indicate that Via may no longer release processors under its name and will instead use the name of the joint venture in the future.

The company's x86 CPU business is licensed by Intel and moving related resources to a new joint venture might raise an eyebrow at Chipzilla's HQ. However, the chip giant may not be able to do much because Intel reached an agreement with the US's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) in 2010 to not interfere with competition in the CPU and chipset markets, and extend its licensing of PCI Express to Via by at least another six years.

Besides, Chipzilla is also not going to want to hack off the China investment firm, which has powerful friends in the Chinese government. 

Brazil invests in robot security guards

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 01:52 AM PST

While the country might be broke, Brazil is investing a fortune into the 2014 Fifa World Cup and is now spending $7.2 million to buy robot security guards.

The games will have a bit of a problem with security, partly because they will be a magnet for terrorists, but mostly because many people in Brazil are miffed that the government is spending so much dosh on the games.

According to IBTimes, more than 30 military grade robot security guards will help if things go pear-shaped.

The bots have been built by iRobot, a US-based company that makes domestic robots for consumers, as well as defence and security robots for the military.

They look a bit like Short Circuit's Johnny Five and the versions ordered, the PackBot are one of the most successful battle-tested robots in the world.

Weighing just under 18kg, the remote-controlled robot fits in a backpack and comes with built-in flippers that rotate 360 degrees, so that the robot can climb stairs and rough terrain including rubble, rocks and logs.

It can survive two metre falls, be submerged in up to one metre of water and travels at a top speed of nine km/h.

The PackBot can perform different types of bomb disposal tasks and provide real-time video and other crucial information while performing surveillance of a life-threatening situation.

Apparently the Brazilians will be using them during all Fifa football matches to examine suspicious objects and to provide additional surveillance. 

Researchers can tell when you are lying

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 01:51 AM PST

The days of people telling porkies on social media forums could be outdated after EU researchers have come up with a tool which can tell if people are lying.

Software called Pheme can tell if you are fibbing on Facebook or Twitter. The idea is to quell the spread of dangerous misinformation, citing the quickly spread false rumour during the 2011 London riots that the London Eye was on fire.

Pheme was names after the Greek goddess of fame and rumours. This project is EU-funded research being carried out at the University of Sheffield. Initially it will assess large quantities of social media data and test stories classifying each one.

It uses lexical, semantic and syntactic information in the material which is cross-referenced with data sources that are assessed as particularly trustworthy. Finally, the diffusion of a piece of information is analysed and it is assessed to see who receives what information and how, and when is it transmitted. ATOS – Spain will be building the computational platform to do the job. 
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