Qualcomm server chips to power cloud-based Android gaming platform

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Qualcomm server chips to power cloud-based Android gaming platform

Qualcomm is finally talking about design wins surrounding its server chip platform called Centriq, unveiled this past November. Early excitement and technical interest in the company’s first attempt to bring a processor to the server space have been high, though without firm commitments from major system vendors or cloud service providers like Amazon and Microsoft, the markets have been hesitant to buy-in to this and similar Arm-based designs.

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Qualcomm pushes LTE forward again, up to 2 Gbps with Snapdragon X24 modem

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Qualcomm pushes LTE forward again, up to 2 Gbps with Snapdragon X24 modem

Hot on the heels of the 5G momentum that saw Qualcomm announce working with 18 different device OEMs and 18  different network providers to bring 5G hardware and carriers online for wide adoption in 2019, the mobile giant is launching another 4G LTE modem. The new Snapdragon X24 LTE modem will provide connectivity speeds as high as 2.0 Gbps (Cat 20) and happens to be the first chip officially announced to be built on a 7nm process technology. It will be shipping in products by the end of 2018.

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Broadcom’s meddling with Qualcomm could disrupt critical 5G transition

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Broadcom’s meddling with Qualcomm could disrupt critical 5G transition

Whether agreed to and approved through regulatory bodies or not, the current situation surrounding Broadcom attempting to purchase Qualcomm is creating instability in the market’s move to 5G cellular technology. This disruption will be substantially increased if a deal is agreed to or if the board of directors at Qualcomm is replaced, as the current Broadcom takeover plan calls for. During a sensitive time of transition like the one the mobile market finds itself, uncertainty and confusion about the leader in 5G technology could have a waterfall effect on the market.

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Qualcomm 5G devices coming in 2019, leaving Apple behind

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Qualcomm 5G devices coming in 2019, leaving Apple behind

With significant pressure to show the value and growth opportunities for the company with a looming hostile takeover bid from Broadcom, mobile chip design house Qualcomm is hoping that its position in the market of next-generation cellular radio technology will be a foundation of its future. The company revealed today partnerships with 18 global OEMs that will be launching 5G-ready devices in 2019 and 18 worldwide cellular carriers will be completing tests of Qualcomm 5G radios in 2018.

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Qualcomm agreement with Samsung weakens Apple in legal dispute

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Qualcomm agreement with Samsung weakens Apple in legal dispute

Lost in the shuffle of earnings releases last week was an announcement between Samsung and Qualcomm that the San Diego chip vendor hopes could have significant impact on its current battle with Apple and other vendors regarding licensing disputes. In a subtle, but potentially impactful agreement extension between it and Samsung, Qualcomm believes that it will be able to lay to rest the combative legal dispute with the Cupertino iPhone maker and bring along with it a boost in revenue through back-pay and future royalties.

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Cryptocurrency-based Graphics Shortage is Opportunity for HP, Dell, Lenovo

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Cryptocurrency-based Graphics Shortage is Opportunity for HP, Dell, Lenovo

There is a severe shortage of graphics cards and memory in the market thanks to the continued rise in demand for the chips to handle cryptocurrency mining. This leaves a large market of do-it-yourself consumers and PC gamers without the ability to build or upgrade computers without overpaying for these components. OEM PC builders have an advantage of priced-locked component costs that is redirecting consumers previously uninterested into the market for these pre-built machines. Vendors like HP, Dell, Lenovo, and others have an opportunity to capitalize on the product shortages with increased revenue and new customers for both notebooks and desktop PCs.

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AMD Hires Two Graphics Execs to Help Tackle NVIDIA

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AMD Hires Two Graphics Execs to Help Tackle NVIDIA

AMD announced today that it has hired two new executives to run its graphics division after the departure of Radeon Technologies Group’s previous lead. Raja Koduri left AMD in November to join Intel and launch its new Core and Visual Computing group, creating a hole in the leadership of this critical division at AMD. CEO Lisa Su filled in during Koduri’s sabbatical and subsequent exit, but the company had been searching for the right replacements since late last year.

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Security vulnerability creates Spectre over Intel, AMD, Apple, and others

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Security vulnerability creates Spectre over Intel, AMD, Apple, and others

2018 started off with a bang for chip vendors like Intel and AMD, as a new and potentially industry-shifting security vulnerability at the silicon level was announced. Along with it came concerns about consumer privacy, financial security, and even potential performance impacts on computers and servers that were patched to alleviate the vulnerability.

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NVIDIA technology lead in autonomous driving gives it 2-year lead over competition

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NVIDIA technology lead in autonomous driving gives it 2-year lead over competition

At its press conference preceding the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stood on stage and declared the company’s dominance in the exciting and growing autonomous driving market. With a flurry of new partner announcements with key players like Volkswagen and Uber, along with new details on upcoming hardware and platform changes that enable customers to integrate these solutions, NVIDIA has the appearance of an organization firing on all cylinders.

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Meltdown and Spectre Security Vulnerability Impacts Intel most, but AMD, Arm as well

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Meltdown and Spectre Security Vulnerability Impacts Intel most, but AMD, Arm as well

Just before the closing bell on Wednesday, Intel released a statement responding to the security issues brought up in this story. While acknowledging that these new security concerns do exist, the company went out of its way to insinuate that AMD, Arm Holdings, and others were at risk. Intel also states that performance impact on patched machines “should not be significant and will be mitigated over time.”

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Apple slows iPhones over time as batteries degrade

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Apple slows iPhones over time as batteries degrade

For years consumers have complained and theorized that Apple would purposely degrade the performance of older models of iPhones as newer models were released, pushing and encouraging consumers to accelerate their upgrade cycle for devices. Concerns were mostly based on a phone “feeling slower” and there was little evidence that Apple was or would be willing to decrease the performance of older devices intentionally. Knowledgeable media and analysts typically chocked it up to new versions of iOS (the operating system software for iPhones) targeting newer hardware and processors with less time for optimization by Apple engineers for older model phones.

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NVIDIA keeps foot on gas of machine learning with lower cost development hardware

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NVIDIA keeps foot on gas of machine learning with lower cost development hardware

This week at the annual Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in Long Beach, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang surprised attendees and media with the announcement of a new graphics card targeted at artificial intelligence and machine learning developers. The “NVIDIA TITAN V” might look like a traditional graphics card used for gaming, but under the hood this new product offers a different level and type of performance.

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Broadcom takeover makes little sense after aggressive Qualcomm announcements

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Broadcom takeover makes little sense after aggressive Qualcomm announcements

Qualcomm has found itself in another important battle over the last few weeks. Rather than a legal dispute with Apple, this fight comes from a potential takeover and buyout by tech-giant Broadcom. Broadcom already made one official offer to shareholders for the company, totaling around $103B, but it was unanimously rejected by Qualcomm’s board.

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Bitcoin surging will impact graphics products from NVIDIA and AMD again

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Bitcoin surging will impact graphics products from NVIDIA and AMD again

Both AMD and NVIDIA inherently have a lot riding on the success of the crypto markets. Graphics processors are used for a large portion of the computing necessary to make cryptocurrency viable, discovering new currency and validating transactions to allow Bitcoin and others to maintain scalability and security. Even though graphics cards with chips on them from NVIDIA and AMD might be used primarily to mine for smaller currencies, in the end it usually falls back to payouts made in Bitcoin, thus the impact Bitcoin’s $10k price tag can have.

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Intel® Optane™ Memory and Intel® SSD 545s combine to offer NVMe-class storage performance

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Intel® Optane™ Memory and Intel® SSD 545s combine to offer NVMe-class storage performance

Though originally targeted for hard drives, combining the caching performance of Intel® Optane™ Memory with an SSD is a solution that can offer improved performance in numerous consumer workloads without a significant increase in price. By utilizing 16GB and 32GB Optane™ modules with various capacities of Intel® 545s solid state drives, the competitive landscape of the consumer storage market takes on an interesting twist.
 

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Samsung Z-NAND Products Take Aim at 3D XPoint

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Samsung Z-NAND Products Take Aim at 3D XPoint

Intel and Micron are starting to enjoy the technology disruption caused by their 3D XPoint memory, which offers significantly faster access times while also maintaining the non-volatility of slower storage mediums. During Flash Memory Summit, Samsung made it clear that it wanted a piece of the action with Z-NAND.

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Intel makes moves into 5G, potential partnership with Apple

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Intel makes moves into 5G, potential partnership with Apple

Intel this week made announcements surrounding its efforts and products in the mobile connectivity device segment. The Intel XMM 8000-series of 5G capable modems will bring the next-generation of wireless connectivity to PCs, smartphones, and infrastructure devices with a target consumer product launch in mid-2019. Intel also updated plans for a new 4G LTE modem that will offer speeds as high as 1.6 Gigabits-per-second, a substantial upgrade from current connectivity options on smartphones (peaking at 1.0 Gigabits-per-second), again with a 2019 target release.

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Qualcomm server CPUs battle Intel for IoT data center growth

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Qualcomm server CPUs battle Intel for IoT data center growth

Qualcomm, already a leader in the mobile processor space of phones and tablets, made a splash late last week with the announcement and shipment of its first server-grade discrete processor targeted at disrupting the cloud enterprise ecosystem. With more than four years of development behind it, the Qualcomm Centriq 2400 (pronounced “centric”) family is a high-core count processor for cloud applications that have seen and will see drastic expansion and growth. SVP and GM of Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies Anand Chandrasekher took stage in San Jose to showcase the capability and partners for the Centriq 2400.

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Shakeup at AMD with Radeon Technologies Group Lead Departure

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Shakeup at AMD with Radeon Technologies Group Lead Departure

After a forty-day sabbatical from the company, AMD Radeon Technologies Group SVP and Chief Architect Raja Koduri is leaving the company. Koduri returned to AMD four years ago to lead its graphics development and was placed in charge of the Radeon Technologies Group when it was formed two years ago with a stated goal of focusing on graphics and returning AMD to a leadership position.

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