John G. Spooner

IBM and Freescale Semiconductor aim to boost the Power processors architecture by aligning their chip design efforts. Senior executives at the two companies announced Feb. 6 an alliance under which they aim to create a common power architecture instruction set and align their chip road maps. Freescale will also join Power.org, the open Power processor […]

Intel said it has reached an important milestone on the path to rolling out the next generation of chip manufacturing in 2007. The chip giant said on Jan. 25 that it has completed a test chip using its forthcoming 45-nanometer process, dubbed P1266, which it expects to roll out in the second half of 2007. […]

Google Pack, a bundle of software from Google Inc. and other companies that was announced by the Web giant on Friday, is aimed squarely at consumers. But Google’s goal is to be the front end for everything people do on a computer, and enterprise use is not far off, analysts and solution providers said. Google […]

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is about to go live with a plan to meld broadcast and Web content, which could make for more active television viewing. The Sunnyvale, Calif., chip maker will unveil the plan, dubbed AMD Live, at this week’s 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Under Live, AMD will work to […]

Notebook PCs will help drive double-digit unit gains in PC shipments during 2006, a new report by International Data Corp. says. Despite a dip in growth, due in part to waning sales to businesses and slower overall economic growth expected in 2006, IDC says notebook PCs will help drive worldwide PC unit shipments to 229.5 […]

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and IBM are intentionally introducing strain into their chip-making partnership. The two companies on Tuesday detailed some of their work in developing new chip manufacturing techniques that will boost transistor performance, yet help limit power consumption, in chips with circuits knitted together at the 65-nanometer level and below. The revelations, which […]

Chip makers are making clear that they intend to continue to explore advanced technologies such as virtualization and multicore processors to help solve thermal problems and push the performance envelope. At the Fall Processor Forum last week, Fujitsu Ltd. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. shed some light on technology that will appear in their respective […]

Lenovo Group LTD is pitching a new low-price ThinkCentre desktop in an effort to gain more of a following in the small business market. The PC maker, created in May when China’s Lenovo closed its multi-billion-dollar purchase of IBM’s PC division, launched the ThinkCentre E Series, which starts at $379, on Tuesday. The desktop shows […]

Tablet PCs can’t catch a break. The fate of the pen-driven, portable PC category, which got a boost in 2002 when Microsoft Corp. first rolled out its Windows XP Tablet PC Edition software, is uncertain, as some analysts have begun to lower their long-term growth projections for the category and Microsoft remains mum about its […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel Corp. is powering down its entire processor line. The chip maker, as previously reported, aims to drive down the power consumption of desktops, notebooks and servers that use its processors significantly over the next several years by enacting a redesign of its chips’ architecture or underlying circuitry, Paul Otellini, its CEO, said during […]

Intel will have a multitude of multicore processors on hand this week at its fall developer forum, which opens Tuesday. Paul Otellini, CEO of the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker, will kick it off by unveiling what is likely to be the biggest news from this year’s fall event. Otellini will open the three-day fall […]

Intel, which next week is expected to announce plans to move to a new processor architecture, is switching to a new yardstick to measure processor performance: performance per watt. Intel Corp. is expected to detail next week at its IDF (Intel Developer Forum) a plan to begin building multicore chips with the architecture, a modified […]