Intel Corp, the world’s biggest semiconductor maker, said computer manufacturers have begun selling desktop products equipped with its latest chip design.
Three models of the Core i7 chips, based on a design called Nehalem, will initially be available and cost US$280 to US$999 each, the Santa Clara, California-based company said in a statement on its Web site. Intel was to show machines made by 18 companies, including Dell Inc, yesterday at an event in San Francisco.
The release of the chip is part of chief executive officer Paul Otellini’s plans to protect the company’s lead over Advanced Micro Devices Inc, as slumping demand forced Intel to cut its sales forecast last week. Ottelini is seeking to avoid a repeat of 2006, when falling behind AMD in introducing new technology led to a 9 percent decline in sales.
Server versions of the Core i7 chips are scheduled to go into production this quarter and make their way into computer systems that run corporate networks and Web sites in the first three months of next year.
For the first time, Intel is combining memory and processing functions in one chip, instead of two, speeding up computing.
AMD has had a memory-controlling chip available since 2003. Its current mainstream design, called Barcelona, was about a year late, initially performed worse than expected and had an error that further slowed adoption by computer makers. Last week, AMD released an updated version that makes the chip about a third faster, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said.
Microprocessors run software in computers and use memory chips to store data while they make calculations. Intel controls 81 percent of the market for PC processors, according to researcher IDC Corp in Framingham, Massachusetts.
AMD holds all of the rest except for the less than 1 percent of Taiwan’s Via Technologies Inc (威盛電子). In servers, Intel has an 85.6 percent market share.
Intel on Nov. 12 cut its fourth-quarter sales forecast by about US$1 billion because of significantly weaker demand across its entire product line, stoking concern that the financial crisis is stifling global technology spending.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique