The world's top chipmaker, Intel Corp, yesterday unveiled its latest series of chipsets in Taipei, paving the way for the launch of next-generation Core Duo processors next month to claw back market share in the US$35 billion chip industry.
The California-based chipmaker hopes to take back shares lost to smaller Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc, which is nibbling up Intel's global market.
Intel's problems were compounded when Dell Inc added AMD to its computer chip suppliers, ending Intel's dominance over the last two decades.
Fighting back, Intel demonstrated during the launch that the new P965 chipset would allow computer users to access data eight times faster than similar products AMD is offering now.
"Intel products are the fastest on the planet," said Richard Malinowski, a vice president of Intel's General Manager of Chipset Group, during the launch at the annual Computex trade show in Taipei.
Intel has started shipping in volume to computer makers, the company said.
Chipsets are collections of chips that surround the main processor and connect it to other parts of the motherboard.
The P965 chipset, formerly code-named Broadwater, will work with Intel's new Core 2 Duo desktop processor, also known as Conroe, which is slated to hit the market next month.
Conroe, which Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher likened to Pentium, would be 40 percent faster than Intel's best desktop chip but consume 40 percent less power, Intel said.
Intel's new chipset series would not only enhance computer performance but also make it easier for users to turn desktop computers into an entertainment center as more and more people use PCs as personal theaters, the company said.
In August, Intel is due to have two more from the 965 family -- Q965 and G965 -- go on sale. The G965 chipset will support Intel's Viiv platform, which includes a dual-core processor, a networking chip, audio and video components and software for functions such as remote control of PCs.
The combination would enable users to have a cinematic experience on PCs, Intel representatives said, demonstrating Dolby sound effects and high-quality visuals from a movie featuring Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (
"We can feel where we are," Malinowski said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained