A bit of theater antics about the transitor then, now and next. What’s amazing to engineers and techies often doesn’t carry a flicker of meaning for others. But sometimes it makes sense when the story is told in such a way using images and a little tongue in cheek. Bravo, Paul and the PodTech crew for your creativity and helping Intel celebrate the new era of the 45nm transistor. Moore’s Law is interesting when ou can look back, consider what’s happening now and wonder what’s to come. Even my kids wanted to see this video again…and again.
Its tiny, shiny and about to change future computers. Intel’s new 45nm transistors were featured in the “Computers” category of TIME Magazine’s annual “Best Innovations of the Year” feature hitting newsstands tomorrow.
It didn’t beat out Apple’s iPhone, but it was picked among other top innovations like the $150 XO Laptop, flexible cell phone displays from Sony & LG. Philips, the WildCharger charging pad, Corning’s ClearCurve technology and Google Maps’ Street View. There were a dozen other categories of winners from health and automobiles to fashion and architecture.
820 million new Intel’s 45nm transistors will fit inside the first quad core processors hitting the market this month. Intel engineers add new elements to silicon, using a Hafnium-based high-k metal gate silicon technology that Gordon Moore called “the biggest change to how transistors are made in 40 years.”
These new, smaller on-off switches or engines will help make future PCs suck less energy while still improving performance with each new generation.
Here’s a warp-speed video showing the construction of a new Intel Fab in Arizona, where these new transistors will be made in maga-mass quantities.
It’s like those blockbuster movie reviews: “Sweet sensation!” “A thrill ride that rattled my bones and rocked my world!”
This week we got to see the first reviews of the soon-to-be-released Core 2 Extreme Edition designed with brand new Intel transistors. Manufactured in the new $3 billion high-volume Fab in Arizona, the new quad core processors:
are built using a new 45nm process technology based on Intel’s breakthrough in ‘reinventing’ certain areas of the transistors inside its processors to reduce energy leakage
have new smaller transistors (45nm vs. 65 nm) use a Hafnium-based high-k material for the gate dielectric and metal materials for the gate
have transistors that are so small that more than 2 million can fit on the period at the end of this sentence.
will be faster, more energy efficient compared to previous Extreme Edition generations, plus they’re lead- and halogen-free
You can read full reviews here. Some of coolest quotes:
“All signs point to, “Wow!”” — HardOCP
“The new Core 2 Extreme QX9650 is simply the fastest processor for gaming, media encoding and just about anything else you could do on your PC” — PC Perspective
“Less Noise, More Efficiency, More Speed and More Overclocking Potential!” — Tom’s Hardware
“Intel has pulled off a pretty remarkable achievement with the Core 2 Extreme QX9650’s…” — Firing Squad
“The Yorkfield-based Core 2 Extreme QX9650 is a success in every sense of the word” — Hot Hardware
“For now, the QX9650 represents the pinnacle of Intel desktop CPUs—and it’s simply the fastest desktop CPU on the market today” — Extremetech
See it in gaming action from this IDF video:
Here’s how the tiny, new transistors will make a big splash in future supercomputers:
I got to participate in the September 27 opening of Esquire North, the ultimate bachelor apartment located on the tree-lined edge of New York’s Central Park in Harlem.
The 5,700 square-foot, triplex penthouse offers rare and breath-taking views looking downtown over the lush green park. This NY apartment has two outdoor terraces and an Italian designed spiral glass & metal staircase.
I toted my Sony HDV and shot some wonderful footage then tried rendering some high resolution video files — I have lots to learn!
This is a behind-the-scenes look at the final hours before the opening gala, as broadcast media came to capture interviews and visuals for live and taped reports. Esquire magazine publisher Kevin O’Malley is genuine, thoughtful and very involved with so many of the people, furnishing, artwork and technology that together showed how a modern Esquire man would live if he had Kevin’s connections! Top designer brands filled each room
Live like a king at least for fund raising (CARE) night party, test drive F1 racing powered by Intel Quad Core processors while sitting in eel-skin covered racing seats, lounge with an UMPC or watch HD in any room streamed form a dream home hub powered by Intel Viiv with Core 2 Quad processor technology — below there’s more on Niveus.
The are some cool photos and crazy viewer comments on Gizmodo. And Gizmodo shot their own video featuring my Intel pal Michelle — she’s a technical wizard who easily slides into the role of technical art expert!
i4U News took b-roll and created a cool video tour.
Niveus’ entertainment hub was at the heart of the apartment. Michelle says the upstairs closet, which was packed with digital equipment connecting to 3.5 miles of cable, cost over $500,000. Learn more about Niveus, but here’s what the company says:
Niveus chose the top of the line Pro Series media server to deliver high-class and high-def entertainment throughout the Esquire North dwelling. Incorporating the most advanced hardware and software, the Pro Series allows the sophisticated Esquire man (and his guests) to easily manage and access hundreds of movies, thousands of CD’s, photos, games and television shows.
Based on the Windows Vista Ultimate Media Center platform, the Pro Series is engineered to provide exceptional images and pristine video quality; incorporating the Intel® Core™2 Quad processor, Nvidia’s GeForce Series 8 Graphics, and HDMI output. Specially designed in a sleek, rack-mount black chassis, the Pro Series offers up to 3TB of storage and supports simultaneous streaming of HD media and multi-channel music throughout the Esquire North home and features four television tuners, 7.1 analog and digital surround sound, and more!
With the Intel Core 2 Quad processor, the Pro Series is capable of streaming HD media to 5 additional, Esquire North zones while providing the power, compatibility, and connectivity to perform as the hard-core central media hub. In addition, the Intel powered server also allows instant access from any networked computer or DLNA enabled TV or Digital Media Adapter throughout the Esquire home!
Take your own private Esquire North tour here. First, get a behind-the-scenes experience.
Lots of buzz about the the big investment in Facebook that set off calculation artists to figure the funnest site on the virtual planet is valued at $15 Billion. Wow! My advice: Don’t buy it!! Let it live, breathe and be free to grow…at least for a while longer.
Here’s something just announced today by the company I work for, Intel. Press release is pasted below. But my mind is swirling, connecting numbers. What do they really mean? At a cost of $3 Billion, Intel’s new Fab 32 chip making plant in Arizona is rapidly pumping out nearly a billion newly minted Intel transistors onto each multi-core chip coming out soon. OK, actually on the new quad core chips, it’s estimated to be about 840 million newly designed transistors built using Intel’s Hafnium-based high-k metal gate silicon technology.
Press Release from 10/25/06: Intel is opening its newest state-of-the-art microprocessor factory (called Fab 32) in Chandler, Ariz. as it prepares to ship its first 45nm processors on Nov. 12.
Context: Manufacturing capacity and modernization are key differentiators in today’s competitive market for microprocessors. Intel invests heavily in its global manufacturing network, including a $3 billion investment in Fab 32, to ensure it can meet the demands of the market, and is quickly ramping production on its 45nm process technology. Two more 45nm factories will open next year.
Relevance: With 1 million square feet and more than 1,000 employees, Fab 32 is Intel’s latest environmentally friendly factory that will manufacture tens of millions of the most energy-efficient processors the company has ever made. These processors are based on Intel’s groundbreaking transistors with Hafnium-based high-k metal gate silicon technology, the biggest change to how transistors are made in 40 years.
Here is a fun, educational animation shared during the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last month. Following the animation is a video shot inside Intel’s fab and research facility in Oregon in January when Intel first showed working processors build with the new, smaller, energy-efficient transistors.
Broadband access in Africa is less than 1%. In Africa or even Brazil, where mobile phones are more common, maybe WiMAX and better content to phones could get the Internet to spread more widely, more quickly.
Here is a video story about the upcoming Connect Africa Summit, where Intel Chairman Craig Barrett his World Ahead posse will meeting with government and community leaders in Rowanda, Nigeria and Morocco.
This is a video by Jason Lopez, who will be traveling to a few of the stops to report on results. If you’re in Facebook — who isn’t?!! — follow the trip by joining the World Ahead Group.
Tom Foremski captures a group of Facebook application creators in Palo Alto. I’m one of the millions loving the fun apps on Facebook that help tie together different social media tools I’m using. Great stuff! Thanks, Tom.
From the PodTech site:
Video | 13:45 | Posted by Tom Foremski | August 28th, 2007 9:30 am
I spent Saturday afternoon crammed into a room in Palo Alto with a couple of hundred people listening to presentations from young developers creating Facebook apps. The enthusiasm was great and there was a sense of being at the start of something big.
Also on TechOne: RedMonk’s Michael Coté interviews Zane Rockenbaugh from Liquid Labs
Andrew Fanara, Team Leader for the Energy Star Products Group with the EPA, discusses how Energy Star impacts computing platforms from both a client and a data center perspective.
Tom Foremski of PodTech and SiliconValleyWatcher posted a timely video about the challenges of getting your company’s IT department to use or implement social media tools. Timely because Tom will be hosting a similar panel at the Intel Developer Forum, but this panel will feature IT pros, legal experts and bloggers rather than marketing and communications pros — more here.
More people are having these kinds of experiences at work and it’s helping us all learn and actually try new things with some grounded expectations — i.e. getting people to engage and interact rather than clocking the number of hits or downloads.
Before we move to the video, here is a brand new effort by Intel — Open Port, where IT pros and enterprise technology experts/enthusiasts can come and learn, ask questions, vent, meet people and help people understand how to use the latest tech tools for businesses. At first this will seem heavily voiced by Intel propaganda, but most of the stories, studies and information is about things Intel IT pros are learning as they work inside Intel and with IT shops at other companies. I hope this helps break down any walls that are keeping IT pros from running as fast as they’d like to use new technologies that help people do what they want, like and need to do in life. Of course security and risk awareness is important, but these are two issues that IT pros will has out when they gather around together with open minds and share.
BusinessWeek strory online today but dated September 3 leads with an anecdote about Intel exec Sean Maloney and his Andy Grove-inspired revelation that Intel could help speed the spread broadband by using wireless. Sean embodies Intel’s innovative spirit and vision for bringing to life the benefits of Moore’s Law — benefits are better computing performance at lower prices over time.From the title down through the first few paragraphs, this is a fun ride…great writing here from BusinessWeek.
Intel’s role as head WiMAX cheerleader makes sense. WiMAX is similar to Wi-Fi, which was embedded in Intel’s Centrino line of chips, but it offers dramatic improvements. Wi-Fi extends traditional wire-based broadband networks for just a few hundred feet, and Internet access speeds slow to a crawl when lots of people are online in the same area. Meanwhile, high-profile schemes for blanketing whole cities with cheap or free Wi-Fi networks aren’t working out.
Movin' Ahead 