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Joking aside, there really are transparent metals that let visible light pass while blocking the rest of the EM spectrum. It was covered here too

aarghh!! forgot the link

http://www.eetimes.com/op/showArticle.jhtml?articl eID=171204036

Texas Instruments outsourced their R&D to foundries in January. Kind of sad considering Jack Kilby was one of the guys that got the whole semiconductor business going. Link1 http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessioni d=2YWDTRBQ4NQHIQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=19700 0906/ Link2 http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessioni d=2YWDTRBQ4NQHIQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=19800 1319/

Texas Instruments outsourced their R&D to foundries in January. Kind of sad considering Jack Kilby was one of the guys that got the whole semiconductor business going. Link1 http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessioni d=2YWDTRBQ4NQHIQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=19700 0906/ Link2 http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessioni d=2YWDTRBQ4NQHIQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=19800 1319/

It's not a closed system because it requires energy to recycle the aluminum and gallium. Also, it's still not terribly efficient, since it requires 1 lb of aluminum per mile you drive.

but Twistor memory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistor_memory seems to be the concepttual predecessor, if not the ancestor, of this tech. Also, see http://www.eetimes.com/special/special_issues/mill ennium/milestones/bobeck.html an overview of bubble memory which also describes the "might have been" twistor tech.

So ... where is the original email? I'm not subscribed to the LKML, but the EE Times is reporting the same email, and neither seems to cite a source, so does that mean Linus sent an email to the LKML? Anyone want to paste a copy in here?

It's pretty clear you haven't even looked at the "Patent Reform Act of 2007." Among its highlights include a quick post-grant opposition procedure and serious limitations on the damages an infringer may be liable for. Both of these will make all patents "less enforcible."

Here are some more informed opinions on the legislation:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=117809668258 1
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml ?articleID=199400075

This stuff is complete crud. If the editors did any work (yeah that's you Zonk) then they would have linked to some actual information on the technology. Have a looky here:

http://www.gesturetekmobile.com/inside.html

They use the camera in your phone to detect motion. The same idea as an optical mouse. The problem with this is the camera uses a hell of a lot of power while taking photos normally. - From 0.5 to 2Watts peak according to EETimes : http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessioni d=0?articleID=12804124
So using this gesture recognition will run down your battery something crazy.

It also relies on being able to track movements through the camera. So if your hand obscures the camera, or you're not pointing your phone at something steady then this thing will not work at all. Sure even somebody walking in front of you from left to right might cause the gesture recognition to move left.

So, all in all I think this is a terrible terrible hack. If they can get it working then more power to them. But for gods sake, if you want gesture recognition just use an accellerometer. The complaints about high prices are simply because there isn't any massive market yet. When accelerometers start being included in phones, economies of scale will bring the price down.

-Vince

I found this paper.

http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html

It sounds like the chalcogenide is deposited as a thin film. Mind you they talk about transistors, so it must be an extra processing stage on a normal chip.

This seems to confirm it
http://www.eetimes.com/in_focus/silicon_engineerin g/OEG20030919S0044
Chalcogenide RAM is nonvolatile, boasts access speed comparable to that of DRAM and possesses advantages in scalability, high sensing margin, low energy consumption and endurance to cycling. The structure and processing of chalcogenide memory are much simpler than in other next-generation memories such as MRAM and ferroelectric RAM. In a chalcogenide memory cell, the data is stored in a flat chalcogenide layer that can be deposited near the end of the CMOS interconnect process. Therefore, disturbance of the CMOS process is minimal, making it ideal for systems-on-chip.

So I guess they add an extra step to the end of the process and deposit a layer of chalcogenide glass.

These things sound really cool BTW, they're writable at a byte granularity in tens of nanoseconds just like a regular SDRAM, but they are non volatile. It looks like they can flip bits individually either way too.

Whereas flash memory is much slower - tens of microseconds per byte, and you need to erase 16K-128Kbyte block at a time. And PRAM is supposed to be denser and allow unlimited erase cycles.

Plus Intel is backing it so it's not like it will fail because the vendor can't afford to scale the production process to make chips with a high capacity.

Now if Intel will just ramp up their phase-change memory alternative to flash, and get it out in a comparable size, the issues regarding cycling limits will be dealt with.

While it's true that nothing is stopping someone from making a hardware Java bytecode running solution, the fact that it's possible doesn't make Java a non-interpreted language, any more than the fact that it's theoretically possible to create a hardware BASIC solution makes BASIC a non-interpreted language.

Hardware CPUs that run Java bytecode directly already exist and have done for years.

So Java is no more "interpreted" than C, which was designed for a specific architecture (the PDP), and is also available in interpreted forms and used to compile code which is run as bytecode. You can even compile C to Java bytecode.

Whether something is compiled or interpreted is not a function of the language, nor is it defined based on which CPU instruction set happens to be most popular at the moment.

While it's true that nothing is stopping someone from making a hardware Java bytecode running solution, the fact that it's possible doesn't make Java a non-interpreted language, any more than the fact that it's theoretically possible to create a hardware BASIC solution makes BASIC a non-interpreted language.

Hardware CPUs that run Java bytecode directly already exist and have done for years.

So Java is no more "interpreted" than C, which was designed for a specific architecture (the PDP), and is also available in interpreted forms and used to compile code which is run as bytecode. You can even compile C to Java bytecode.

Whether something is compiled or interpreted is not a function of the language, nor is it defined based on which CPU instruction set happens to be most popular at the moment.

Right, I have 512Mb, I need to buy 3.5 Gb, that's about £245 in UK prices, or about $460.

almost as fast in what way, bandwidth or latency? i see the former being really easy. the latter... not so much. SRAM still beats the fastest DRAM in latency by an order of magnitude, easily.

EE Times article. Today SRAM is used for processor caches, but new multicore chips need massive (i.e. expensive) cache. Because eDRAM is much denser than SRAM, it allows chip designers to fit much more cache in the same size chip, increasing overall performance. IBM and AMD use silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, while the rest of the industry uses bulk CMOS; eDRAM for bulk has been available for a while (it's used in Xbox 360 and BlueGene/L for example), but now IBM has developed SOI eDRAM that can be used in IBM's future processors (and maybe AMD's).

The fight for the next-generation connector is now between HDMI and DisplayPort.

DisplayPort was in good part started as a reaction against HDMI's control by Intel & Silicon Image, and the associated licensing fees. Intel tried to counter it with UDI, basically HDMI without the licensing issues, but failed. DisplayPort had issues with the proposed DRM, proposed by Philips for a non-trivial amount of money. Much stronger than HDCP, but also more costly in silicon real estate.

Intel killed the UDI effort and pushed for HDCP to be used instead in DisplayPort. The Philips DRM remain an option, but I doubt it will ever be used since it is way more expensive and not required to comply with Hollywood's requirements. Thankfully HDCP is seen as "good enough" by the MPAA. That's nice, given how weak it really is.

Reference on UDI being dead
HDMI is trying to spin its current wins to prepare the battle against DisplayPort

Personally I am rooting for DisplayPort to kill DVI and hopefully make enough headway on TVs to also (very long term) kill HDMI. I am looking forward to DisplayPort 2.0 (expected in 2008), this should enable high-resolution displays with a single (thin) cable. Think 4K / 2160p at greater than 60Hz and greater than 24bits/pixel.

The spot price of NAND an 8Gbit (1Gbyte) chip is $5.15 at the moment

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml?articleID=197002923

A 4GB iPod Nano is $224 according to amazon.com. Adding 28GBytes of flash should be $144.2, so the total cost should be $368. Add in a few bucks for a bigger PCB since we're talking about 32 flash chips, and markup since Apple is not a charity, but it could be around $400 retail.

See http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID =197002923

$5.15 for 8Gb NAND (though I wonder what the space requirements would be for a 10 NAND package iPod might be). Also note that even though this is current market price, predictions are for these parts to get much cheaper yet and Apple could potentially be setting up contracts with that in mind (i.e. contracting now in volumes at say 67% market)... so rather than $200-300 it'll be more likely that an 80GB iPod would require $30-50 of NAND flash memory.

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml ;jsessionid=B2PRBFV3QLFISQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=1970 02923
This article was in My EE times yesterday. It talks about the rapidly falling price of Nand flash.

I also believe Vivid's claims that the revenue of the porn industry is grossly overestimated. Yet having worked at an adult media shop and reseller I know that even though there might not be that much profit to be made there's a still a damn high volume of discs sold. And this is the important factor in this whole discussion: there might be less market share in terms of profit but higher market share in terms of media sold.

A better link is here.

Incredibly old news. EE Times reported on it at the time, correctly referring to SHA-1 as a hashing algorithm, nothing more... by itself, anyway.

not sure why you were modded funny. It was a suggestion for RFID in currency. The EU had even planned to put RFID into the notes by 2005 back in 2001 (no idea what happened there).

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011219S0016

If you RTFA, they present a kidnapping scenario.

Imagine that you dump a handful of these coins on a single person. You could reliably track that person until he got rid of all but a few of the coins. Use this information to determine the location of a person for kidnapping, assassination, reliable location information during a hotel room search (i.e. "Subject is still in the coffee shop talking to our blonde decoy, make an image of his hard drive")

RFID technology in money isn't a new concept. EETimes reported that the European Central Bank announced in 2001 that by 2005 their money would contain RFID technology.

Recently in the US it has become illegal to melt down the coinage. Reason: The metal content of the coins has become more valuable than the face value of the coin. What with the continuing rise in commodity prices (or the return of inflation (or the imminent collapse in the value of some currencies)) the primary reason for this microchipping of coins and notes (and this Canadian experiment) might just be authentication of the currency. As reported elsewhere: http://www.prisonplanet.com/022904rfidtagsexplode. html & http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011219S0016

Of course, there are surveillance "benefits" too.

"What impact this will have on the next-generation video iPod is unclear. Consistent with previous speculation, Nvidia (Santa Clara, Calif.) has seen its graphics processor designed into next-generation video iPods, which are due out next year. In the new video iPod, the application processor will be supplied by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd."
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/rss/showArticle.j html?articleID=196600513&cid=RSSfeed_eetimes_semiR SS

But all that being said, Ada isn't trying to compete with C or C++, instead it works with them while still being an innovator in areas like concurrent programming. Although I would certainly say that Ada does everything these languages do better, the bottom line is there's a lot of C/C++ code out there (not to mention Fortran and COBOL in their respective domains) that Ada has built in interfaces too making it a very realistic and practical language. Good luck!

If faking doesn't tantamount to fraud - then what does ? And if the CEO is not responsible for this - what I call as defraud - then who is ? Sure this is no Enron, but when it comes to corporate governance there's nothing like a small fraud.

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011219S0016

Before you think it's tin foil hat thinking, read the reputable eetimes article on this.

"A spokesman for the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany confirmed the existence of a project, but was careful not to comment on its technologies. At least two European semiconductor makers contacted by EE Times, Philips Semiconductors and Infineon Technologies, acknowledged their awareness of the ECB project but said they are under strict nondisclosure agreements."

So the ECB doesn't confirm that the new technology will be RFID, but asking RFID companies confirms they are working on it under NDAs.

If you microwave a modern 50 Euro note it will burn a hole slightly off the centre within a few seconds, if you microwave one from 2002 it will burn the whole strip, but it takes much longer, 20 seconds or so. Try it for yourself. If Euros have it, then US$ may have it too.

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml?articleID=193005453

The only reason it's still crazy expensive is because the manufacturers want it to be.

I don't believe that to be the case. If some automaker figured that they could install it cheaply into vehicles they would do it because it's a damn nifty feature that would help sell cars. The car industry is too competitive at this point in time for them to be holding back features for one thing or another (particularly when it comes to luxury cars over $30k, where automakers struggle to define themselves out of the pack by putting in as many features as possible.)

I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of adaptive cruise control. That's driving up the cost. (The former article also implies that there are multiple companies making the product so it's not an issue of one company having a monopolozing patent on it.)

Adaptive cruise control is not exactly a safety feature (in my mind it's just short of it.) The automakers do not want it sold as a safety feature for fear of liability issues at this stage of the game. However, I think it's built to commercial aircraft levels of redundancy and sophistication anyway.

And frankly, I've been told it's a source of reliability issues, and trips to the dealer.

Here's a comprehensive video from EETimes (c/o Semiconductor Insights):

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml;jsessionid=W3LH3HBXTZ2ESQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=19 4500278

They take apart the controller too.

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml?articleID=194500278

No they are able to hand a ps3 to every kid in africa.

If you actually believe this, then your "background" in industrial engineering has failed you. It's a well known fact that the PS3 had production problems with the blu-ray technology that limited the amount of units they could produce. You are obviously too biased to take two seconds to google it, so here's a link for you .

EETimes has a couple of good articles about the PS3 and it's real cost ($840 for the 60GB model...ouch!)

Inside pics and teardown video

Teardown cost analysis

EETimes has a couple of good articles about the PS3 and it's real cost ($840 for the 60GB model...ouch!)

Inside pics and teardown video

Teardown cost analysis

Microsoft agreeing not to go after SuSE means they cannot go after the code full stop.

Sorry, but that's simply not true. They can secretly license their patents to Novel for $1, making it perfectly legal for them to sue the heck out of every other Linux distro in US courts. This kind of thing is done all the time. Patent portfolio companies often offer to license their technology for free or cheap to the top one or two players in a field, and then make their money suing everyone else. For example, these pricks pretty much gave away their patent license to Intel, and are now suing the heck out of everybody.

The GPU may be the culprit here as I have read that it does consume 60W to 90W but that was for the PC card so more research needs to be done.

I don't think the Cell is the issue here since in 2005 the following article http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml?articleID=163106213 was saying power consumption at 4GHz was going to be approx 80W. Reading other articles on the Cell it was basically designed to consume less power than conventional microprocessors.

If the PS3 uses 380W that is a lot of power to dissipate and the machine would get very hot (think approx 3 x 100W and one 75W globe) and the cooling fan would be sounding like a small jet engine. All reports to date seem to indicate that the machine is cool to touch and no one has commented on a blast of very hot air from the machine (I am sure they would have detected it). I have an older PS2 (45W) and if you put your hand to the back you can feel warm air coming out the back and the top is slightly warm, now multiply that by 8 and you would burn your hand so if the PS3 does consume 380W then Sony have turned the Laws of thermodynamics on it's head.

To be fair if the PS3 consumes 380W I would assume it would do that on start up but what I really want to know is what does it consume in standby and what does it consume running?

I tried to find out were and how the web sites arrived at 380W and could not, so far it appears to be hear say. Has anyone actually put a Watt-meter on this machine? or baring that measure the voltage (110V and 240V) and measured the input current in amps then using the simple formula Power (Watts) = Volts x Amps that would be the best solution.

Think iPod - because it's about the exact same chip. It probably hooks up through USB internally even.

More info here on the politics of this chip:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml ?articleID=186100394

Not much of a statement if you can't provide reference URLs.

Not my fault if the organisers haven't yet had time to post the postdeadline programme. I suppose it will be on SEE's or ECOC's website.

But I did find an announcement for Lucent's second paper there. It was about 1 Tbps (10 channels of 100 Gbps Ethernet) over 2000 km using off-the-shelf components.

Look here for more information on the technical specs; http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml;jsessionid=13DOWA104O1JYQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=19 3005741 From the article: "When combined with our recent breakthroughs in silicon photonics, these experimental chips address the three major requirements for terascale computing -- teraOPS of performance, terabytes-per-second of memory bandwidth, and terabits-per-second of I/O capacity," Rattner said in a statement. "While any commercial application of these technologies is years away, it is an exciting first step in bringing tera-scale performance to PCs and servers." I'm still in the "believe it when I see it" phase.

Neither Apple nor MS will take a loss on their MP3 player. The 30 GB 5G iPod was estimated at USD 151 last year. http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/business/showAr ticle.jhtml?articleID=172303152 The new iPod is only an update no significant change was made. The cost should've gone down significantly by this time of the year, despite the brighter TFT LCD screen. Everyone knows how fast the hard drive drops in pricing. iPod's volume does wonders in pricing negotiation as well. Yet Apple is selling at USD 299. So Apple will possible take a hit in the gross margin with the new USD 249 pricing. Let's look at MS. The Zune has bigger TFT LCD screen, wireless module and toshiba design and manufacturing ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5288042.stm ). These factors can add significant cost to Zune. I can't comment on the pricing of the EE parts since it is known, so I will assume it is comparable to iPod. Also the retailers (Bestbuy, Circuit city...) will need take their 10 to 20 percent margin as well. So it is clear that Apple will make less money on the new 30 GB iPod and MS' margin will be squeezed if the rumor for the low pricing for Zune is true.

The 10GBase-T spec, however, is targeting power consumption of 8 to 10 watts, still well above the 3 to 6 W required for optical links. Because power and heat are major system considerations in the data center, 10GBase-T may not gain much traction until lower-power versions hit, perhaps in 2007.

In earlier coverage on Slashdot of this chip (see the initial announcement, the follow up and the announcement of a 64-bit variant), at least in the coverage of the 32-bit Dragon version of the chip, no one blamed the chinese for ripping of anything. I even remember someone saying that the MIPS specification were free to use for anyone, as long as they paid around $20 for access to the specs. What has happened since then, and what is different in this case from, say, AMD cloning til Intel instruction set?

The principal investigator of the Godson program, Hu Weiwu, have some colorful comparions to houses and bedrooms when he tries to explain why he means that the Godson-2 processor does not infringe on any patents or intellectual properties.

They can't let game developers use the HD-DVD features at all, at least not anytime soon. The prospect of gamer backlash is just too great.

Unless Microsoft uses Toshiba's new three-layer HD-DVD format with two DVD-ROM layers (for Xbox 360) and one HD layer (for additional content on the Xbox 360 Hi-Def).

Motorola/Freescale held up as an example of good management? Maybe other divisions of Motorola, but even then I'm not so sure. As I recall, what became Freescale almost never made a profit when it was Motorola Semiconductor, and just ended up being a training ground for other companies. MSPS just liked to bleed money. That was true even before the tech bubble burst.

I won't comment on Freescale as my employer competes directly with them. I don't mind commenting on old news though.

Some day this might very well be the next big thing. But I wouldn't take the manufacturers word as the gospel for when it's going to arrive. And it really has to be cheaper to replace flash memories en masse. Flash is good enough for phones, memory cards etc. The new tech doesn't solve any obvious fundamental flaw (100 000 read/write cycles is still enough for most applications)

Compare with SED displays. We all want them (if they're not much more expensive than our current ones). But it's been slipping a bit. For now it looks it will arrive in 2008 in the mass markets according to Canon chairman Mitarai (Canon and Toshiba is working together on this). And I don't think he's being conservative. (The reason given for the delay is that "we have not yet established the manufacturing technology for mass-producing SEDs at low cost," Source: http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht ml?articleID=192700864.

The video compression technology, designed for high-definition video transmission and storage applications, is a key driver for satellite TV, IP set tops and high-definition DVD recorders scheduled for launch in 2005 [emphasis mine].

Wake me up when AMD has 65 nm scale cores.

Well, this is just a speculation, but... They plan to "bring 65nm to production in the second half of 2006", and have the entire fab36 converted to 65nm by mid-2007. Interesting timing, isn't it? Working prototype this year... It seams it's not in the realm of impossibility to expect AM3 to be 65nm.