Techo Rama

Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. have developed a platform technology for 45 nanometer (45nm) generation LSI logic chips that combines technologies for low power consumption and high performance interconnect. The new platform reduces the leakage current, when current is wasted in wait states to one-fifth that of previous levels and reduces interconnect induced lag time by approximately 14%. The new 45nm generation platform technologies will enable Fujitsu to offer LSI logic chips, which has higher speed, smaller size and lower power consumption to its customers. There are two problems in order to improve previous LSIs. Firstly to reduce the gate length of each transistor to make the spaces between interconnects. Second, minimize the time lag from interconnects between millions of transistors within the LSI chip for higher speed. Researchers from Fujitsu are using nano-clustering silica (NCS) with 2.25 dielectric constant, which is claimed to be the lowest of any insulating film. The lower interconnect region is suitable for the smallest interconnect spaces. NCS is an insulating material pocked with miniscule holes and enables a low dielectric value as well as high mechanical strength simultaneously. NCS is used in between different layers instead of an individual layer to further reduce interconnect capacitance. Image Credit: Designfor21st Via: Tech On

Toshiba Corporation has unveiled a new series of embedded NAND Flash memories for mobile phones, which offers configurable single-level cell (SLC) memory area and a multi-level cell (MLC) memory area to allow applications and data to be stored on the same chip. Toshiba’s new NAND Flash memory allows mobile phone manufacturers to use SLC NAND with a standard NAND interface in multi-chip packages (MCPs) to easily advantage of the lower cost and higher density of MLC NAND while optimizing NAND performance to fulfill the requirements. The mobileLBA-NAND series comes in the range from 2 to 32 gigabits (Gb). The 2Gb, 4Gb and 8Gb versions can be allocated as SLC up to their full capacity, while the 16Gb and 32 Gb versions can support up to 8Gb of SLC, which offers greater flexibility to mobile phone manufactures to allocate memory in their products. All new mobileLBA-NAND memories are integrated with a unique function, which is able to address both SLC and MLC. SLC supports high speed data read and write and it is suited to store programs for mobile phone functions. The key features of the mobileLBA-NAND are given below: 1) Manufacturers can define an SLC memory density best suited to store high speed write and read of application programs on the same chip, which is separate from an MLC area optimized for high density memory storage in each memory cell array. The SLC memory area can be set from zero to 8 Gb at maximum (for the 8Gb chip and above) by the manufacturer. 2. The new memories are fully compliant with the standard NAND flash interface, facilitating easy introduction into current products. 3. The LBA controller controls such essential functions as writing block management and ECC, minimizing any changes to the host controller specification and allowing manufacturers to quickly and cost-effectively market new and upgraded products. Image Credit:Skin IT & Arstechnica Via: WebWire

Sun Microsystems has announced that the company is building the world’s largest supercomputer named Ranger. Ranger will house 62,976 CPU cores, 125 terabytes of main memory, 1.7 petabytes of disk space and a whooping 504 teraflops of performance. The computer will be hosted at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas, Austin. The company also expects that the computer will go online on the first day of 2008. Ranger will also outshine the reigning boss of supercomputers that has been developed by IBM and is named BlueGene. BlueGene has a performance of just 327 teraflops. Talking about Ranger, it will house 16,744 quad-core AMD Opteron processors and will consume three megawatts of raw power. This will cost the University a million dollars per year. Sun also stated that the machine’s production timeline is dependent on when AMD is able to crank out the chips which will be used in the computer. When this new supercomputer comes online, it will help scientists conduct researches on an unbelievable speed and an unprecedented scale. The machine which will be six to seven times larger than any of the existing systems will be used in researches in the field of astrophysics, genomics, nanotechnology and meteorology. Ranger can also be taken as a thing which will be much common in future. If the chip size goes on decreasing as fast as it is now and the cost of hardware also keeps falling then in the next five to seven years, such machines will be common and better machines would have taken their place. But for now Ranger is the world’s biggest computer, lets see as to who comes with a better machine…! Via: Wired

Again Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pvt. Ltd has unveiled two FRAM ICs to expand its product range. Fujitsu’s new FRAM are featured with high-speed writing and the high number of available write cycles allows its application to store event counts or parameters and log every event in office equipment. The MB85R2001 and MB85R2002 are featured with non-volatile memory with high-speed data writing, low power consumption and the ability to provide a high number of write cycles. The Fujitsu FRAM write mechanism ensures that data, which can be written to FRAM at high speed even if the power is, interrupted even temporarily, so valuable data will not be lost. The FRAM‘s MB85R2001 is configured with 256K words x 8 bits, while the MB85R2002 is configured is 12K words x 16 bits. Both ICs are featured with access times of 100 nanoseconds and read/write cycle times of 150ns. They operate from 3V to 3.6V. FRAM’s allows 10 billion read/write cycles that corresponds to writing 30 times a second continuously for 10 years. FRAMs can also store data for more than 10 years without The 2-Mbit FRAM products have the electrical characteristics, while Fujitsu’s 1-Mbit FRAM products (MB85R1001, MB85R1002) are packed as TSOP-48. The elimination of battery from FRAM simplifies the production processes and removes the hassles of battery replacement and maintenance in products using the Fujitsu FRAM. Image Credit: Xanthal & Fujitsu Via: Tech On

An innovator in storage solutions for small and medium business (SMBs), MicroNet Technology has unveiled the Platinum RAID Pro, a multi-terabyte eSATA RAID solution, which transcends the capacity limitations of SATA disk arrays. The Platinum RAID improves the performance bottlenecks of USB and FireWire storage with a compact transportable unit, which provides simplicity and easy to use. It allows SMBs to focus on their business and not on data storage. The new 5 terabyte Platinum RAID Pro is a good combination of the highest capacity of any eSATA disk array on the market with a new performance focused design built around a 64 bit Intel XScale processor to accelerate I/O. The eSATA connectivity provides more bandwidth and eliminates penalties of USB and FireWire bridging. MicroNet’s new 5 terabyte Platinum RAID Pro is especially designed for small and medium enterprise, who need high performance storage but not high complexity storage. It is completely operating system independent and requires no drivers to be installed. It allows customers to access the full 5TB capacity potential of the Platinum RAID Pro. The new Platinum RAID runs on all operating systems, including Windows Server 2003 and above, Windows Vista, recent Linux releases and Mac OS X. it provide robust performance to easily handle the most intensive SMB RAID applications, which are given below: 1. Digital video 2. HD audio 3. Digital imaging 4. Streaming backup eSATA provides more than a 200 percent raw data improvement as compared to FireWire- and USB-based external storage solutions and it can be improved further with the pure SATA environment, which bypasses the throughput hits imposed by having to convert SATA drive protocols to FireWIre and USB signals. Image Credit: MauriProSailing & Super Ware house Via: Managing & Automation

the Motorola MOTOJEWEL is literally a fashion phone. Besides the mirror finish of the phone, the vanity case of the phone is a substitute of the make-up bag with the vanity mirror and pockets for tucking in the necessary cosmetics besides the bankcards. The technical features of the jeweled clamshell include shining purple keypad, touch sensitive music control, stereo Bluetooth, 2-megapixel camera, Motorola’s CrystalTalk noise reduction technology and Linux-based OS for quick response. However, it is not the specs that are attractive; it is the external angular design of the clamshell with the dazzling crystal outside that makes it more like a woman’s accessory. This limited edition jeweled phone can be bought from Carphone Warehouse for ₤99 only. via:Electricpig

The eAutomation Group of Advantech has launched the PCI-1763UP relay actuator and isolated digital input card. The PCI-1763UP has eight optically isolated digital inputs with isolation protection of 2500 VDC for collecting digital inputs in noisy environments. The eight relay actuators for serving as on/off control devices or small power switches. The low profile PCI factor and universal converter fulfils the requirements for size and reduces power consumption. The other features of the PCI-1763UP are given below: 1) LED indicators to show active relays 2) Eight form C type relay output channels 3) Output status read-back 4) Retained relay output values for hot system reset 5) High ESD protection of 2,000 VDC 6) High over-voltage protection of 70 VDC 7) Wide input range of 10 ~ 50 VDC Interrupt handling capability 9) Low profile PCI card 10) A BoardID switch Users can purchase the PCI-1763UP directly from Advantech at 1-800-205-7940 or from an Advantech authorized dealer. Image Credit: Advantech & Advantech Via: ManagingAutomation

You want to make your friend happy, then show him latest video which you have loaded on your iPod through YouTube. The easy to use vConvert coverts your videos into formats, which will work on your PSP, iPOd or mobile phone. Best part is that, the online tool does not cost a single penny from you. Just paste the URL of the YouTube video into the text box, press the ‘covert’ button and wait. Once the conversion is completed, then you can select videos according to choice of your format (.wmv), Macintosh format (.mov), iPod/iPhone/PSP format (.mp4), mobile phone friendly (.3gp), audio-only (.mp3), or just the flash file (.flv). It will take only couple of minutes to convert the play the video seamlessly. So far, the site is still in its beta stage, so it supports only YouTube Videos. It is expected that soon the site will support Veoh and Google. Image Credit: Musashi Via: APP Scout

Samsung Electronics has announced that the chip giant AMD is using the company’s GDDR4 high-speed graphics memory chip in their next-generation graphics chipsets. Samsung’s GDDR4 memory is being used in 1GB ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT and the 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics processing cards. The 1GB card is claimed to have the widest bus in the industry, which has specially been designed for full-performance HDR rendering in PCs. The memory modules are being made using 80nm process technology, which provide the cards with a 140.8GB per second performance which is claimed to be 25% faster than the 700MHz GDDR3 graphics memory. The GDDR4 memory modules are used to process video images in PCs and laptops at high speed are mainly used for gaming purposes so these cards will be a boon for all the game lovers. Image Via: Nikkeibp

AMD has again taken a leap ahead of rival Intel by reducing the cost of its desktop processor lineup by up to half. The new prices will come into effect from Monday. The company’s main Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor will sell for less than $200. The price of various other processors has also been reduced by a large margin. The 6000+ will now be selling for just $178 instead of the initial $464, while the cheaper 4000+ model will retail for $73 instead of $144. The company’s hi-end gaming processors like the FX-74 and FX-72 will both be available for $599 instead of $999 and $799 respectively. The company however has not made any changes in the price of its laptop chips. The price drop will surely lure customers to buy AMD powered systems, but how long will this lead remain in favor of AMD is yet to be seen as Intel has also announced a reduction in the price of its processors. However, for now the market is in the hands of AMD and if they are able to maintain this lead then they surely can be a great threat to Intel. Let’s see how Intel responds to this move…! Image Via: CBC