Intel Demonstrates Programmable 48-Core Chip [Processors]

The cores aren't terribly powerful (described as being like lower-end Atom processors) but hey...it's got 48 of them, and it's programmable.

Dubbed as the 'Single-chip Cloud Computer' (SCC), the 1.3-billion transistor processor one ups it's 80-core Polaris predecessor because it can run standard x86 software. So far, it has successfully booted Windows and Linux during demonstrations.
Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner explained what he envisions for the future of these superchips:

'The machine will be able of understanding the world around them much as humans do,' Rattner said. 'They will see and hear and probably speak and do a number of other things that resemble humanlike capabilities, and will demand as a result very (powerful) computing capability.'

Speaking of powerful computing, this development comes only a couple of weeks after physicists demonstrated their first programmable quantum processor.
[Gizmodo via Intel via CNET]

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50-core processor brings us one step closer to the Singularity [Intel]

You're looking into the eye of a monstrous processing beast. Intel just showed off this 50-core processor it's calling 'Knights Corner' an energy-efficient 22-nanometer processor that will somehow shoehorn more than 50 cores onto a single chip. Sheesh, and we thought 12 cores was mind-blowing.

Intel, you're teasing us — no release date was announced. But as soon as this baby's unleashed, computers will be able to do lots more things at once — in this case, 50 processes at the same time.

Meanwhile, programmers will need to know how to write software that can be efficiently multi-tasked by this 50-headed beast, so Intel's now seeding a few developer kits to get code writers working on this multi-headed hydra. When they do, computers will be a lot faster, one step closer to the Singularity, when computers are as smart as humans.

[DVICE via Electronista]

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Limitless, Cheap Chips Made Out of DNA Could Replace Silicon [Chips]

Silicon chips are on the way out. According to Duke University engineer Chris Dwyer, a student using the properties of DNA could produce more logic circuits in one day than the entire global silicon chip industry could in one month.

Indeed, DNA is perfectly suited to such pre-programming and self-assembly. Dwyer's recent research has shown that by creating and mixing customized snippets of DNA and other molecules, he can create billions of identical, waffle-like structures that can be turned into logic circuits using light rather than electricity as a signaling medium.

The process works by adding light-sensitive molecules called chromophores to the structures. These chromophores absorb light, exciting the electrons within. That energy is passed to a different nearby chromophore, which uses the energy to emit light of a different wavelength. The difference in wavelength is easily differentiated from the original light; in computing terms, it's the difference between a one or a zero. Presto: a logic gate.

Rather than running computers and electrical circuits on electricity, light-sensitive DNA switches could be used to move signals through a device at much higher speeds. Furthermore, the waffle structures are cheap and can be made quickly in virtually limitless quantities, driving down the cost of computing power. Once you figure out how you wish to code the DNA snippets, you can synthesize them easily and repeatedly; from there you can create everything from a single logic gate to larger, more complex circuits.

A shift from silicon-based semiconductor chips would be a sea-change for sure, but semiconductors are reaching a technological ceiling and if the economics of DNA-based chips are really as attractive as they seem, change might be inevitable. DNA is already smart enough to be the foundation of life on Earth: why not the foundation of computing as well?

[Gizmodo via PhysOrg]

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In Case Self-Assembling Machinery Didn't Scare You Before... [Chips]

When chipmakers slim down their silicon, they need finer and finer tools to organize all that circuitry. With MIT's latest self-assembling chips, the detail work is handled by molecular strands that, freakishly, just know where to go.

Self-assembling chips aren't new, but up till now, people have used electron-beam rays to carve grooves where molecules get cozy. Electron-beam guns are damn expensive and damn slow. This breakthrough—which relies more than ever on molecules doing their own thing—will lead to a cheaper way to make the smallest physically possible microchips, and probably increase hard drive capacity and current chip performance in the meantime.

The news, published this week by MIT researchers Caroline Ross and Karl Berggren, is that they can now use an electron gun just to make "hitchin' posts" for the molecules to identify then wrap around. The trick? Using two separate kinds of molecule strands—described by Ross as spaghetti and tagliatelle, and by Berggren as DeNiro and Grodin in Midnight Run—that keep each other in line. Once the molecules are in place, a plasma charge dissolves one set, and turns the other set into glass crucial to processing. Berggren and Ross have shown they can fake a chip; their next step is to make a pattern that actually functions as a genuine circuit.

We've reached the limits of my understanding, but not my appreciation. This stuff will one day be used for making ever smaller microprocessors, but in the meantime can be used to streamline current chipmaking methods, and also to pack hard drive data in tighter. I'm relieved to hear there's still a need for someone to say where the posts go, but let's face it, with self-assembling chips like these, who needs ham-handed humans anyway? Queue the excitement—and paranoia.
[Gizmodo via MIT]

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Freescale's i.MX508 Chip Will Make E-Ink Readers Way Cheaper and Turn Pages 4X Faster [Guts]

The silicon inside 90 percent of ereaders out there is made by Freescale, and their new chip, the i.MX508—based on a ARM Cortex A8 (sorta like the iPad!)—will make them cheaper, and page turns 4x faster.

The chip's a custom SoC that integrates the functions from multiple chips into one—specifically, the E-Ink hardware display controller—along with that Cortex A8, which gives the readers enough juice to turn pages in half a second, versus the two seconds that's typical now. As the first chip expressly designed for ereaders, it also strips out unnecessary features, so the net result for the ereader is that it's $30 cheaper a unit. Freescale wagers that with the cost savings, it could drive ereaders to under $150 by the end of the year. (Though that in part depends on how much the E-Ink displays themselves are going to continue to cost.)

An E-Ink reader that costs $150 would definitely look more attractive as a dedicated long-reading device against an iPad that does lots of things on top of reading—and has those fancy digital magazines—than the ones that more like $260 today. Then again, Amazon's working on a full-color multitouch Kindle with Wi-Fi, if that tells you anything about the future of E-Ink readers. In the meantime, I'm all for cheaper.
[Gizmodo via Freescale via Bloomberg via Digital Daily]

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Beceem announces the BCS500, a new WiMAX/LTE multi-mode chipset

Well known WiMAX Chipset manufacturer Beceem announced this week that it is developing a dual 4G chip that offers both WiMAX and LTE connectivity at downlink speeds up to 150 Mbps. The new BCS500 multi-mode chip will seamlessly handoff a connection between WiMAX and LTE and supports the latest revision of both standards. The chip could be a boon to both hardware manufacturers and MVNOs who can now design hardware and sell connectivity solutions that utilize both 4G networks. A dual 4G device also enables drop dead easy global roaming as a customer on an LTE network in the U.S. can utilize a WiMAX network while visiting Russia. Just in time for the commercialization of LTE in the United States, the Beceem BCS500 is expected to be sampled to customers in Q4 2010 and available for mass production in Q2 2011.
[BGR]

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WiLink Crams Wi-Fi, GPS, FM Transmission and Bluetooth Into a Single Chip [Wireless]

Texas Instruments says that their WiLink 7.0 is the first chip with four wireless radios in one: FM transmission and reception, GPS, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. What does this mean for you, gadget lovers? In theory, a wholalot goodness.

Texas Instruments claims that mobile gadgets using this chip would be able to do all those four functions for less money—30 percent less—in less space—50 percent—and consuming less energy than the current alternatives.
[Gizmodo via PR Newswire]

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