HardwareIntel's SoC Update: 1B Transistors Embedded in 5 Years

Intel revealed a bit about its upcoming embedded and SoC plans. Aside from Larrabee, these are brand new areas for Intel's x86 architectures. Intel has 15 chip designs in the works and is using similar rhetoric to what we heard when the first dual-core chips were in production. Does this mean that Intel embedded and SoC designs will be as pervasive in a few...

It’s announcement day! Well, not really. Intel made a few disclosures about its efforts in the embedded space, but nothing tremendous. It all starts with a little chip called Atom. Oh, hai. You're bigger than I expected. You know, being called Atom and all.  Intel’s Atom processor is quite possibly Intel’s most important microarchitecture, yet it is hardly discussed - mostly because current implementations are hardly interesting. Today the Atom processor is little more than a very low power x86 chip that performs a lot like a 1.2GHz Pentium M, it’s not exactly setting any speed records. We’ve already detailed the Atom architecture in depth here, to recap it’s a 2-issue, in-order architecture with SMT support. The goal for Atom has always been to be able to deliver the performance of a 4-year-old Pentium M, in a 1W power envelope. As we found in our initial performance... [ Read more on www.anandtech.com ]

HardwareReview: Think small with Linutop 2

The Linutop 2 is a tiny, Linux-based PC that offers solid basic computing and low-power use for small or home offices at an extremely low price.

HardwareCalTech: Intelligent space robots will explore universe by 2020

A CalTech scientist said work has started on developing intelligent space robots that can explore the universe for their human makers.