Recognizing the top processor products of 2011, industry analyst firm The Linley Group today announced the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processor (code-name Sandy Bridge) is winner of their first annual Analysts’ Choice Award for Best PC Processor. “Benchmark scores from enthusiast sites such as Anandtech.com show that Core i7 versions of Sandy Bridge handily held the high ground in performance and performance/watt against AMD’s FX and Llano processors,†said Senior Analyst Kevin Krewell.

In another nod to Intel, The Linley Group noted that the initial prototype for the “Analysts’ Choice Award for Best Technology of 2011†– Micron’s Hybrid Memory Cube – was developed in collaboration with Intel Labs researchers, who paired the cube with an extremely energy efficient, high-bandwidth memory interface. This type of 3D memory stacking was envisioned in Intel’s Tera-scale research program more than five years ago (see AnandTech’s 2007 article) as a key capability to feed data to many-core chips as core counts scale from 10s to 100s.

And dubbing 2011 “Intel’s Innovative Year,†the January 23, 2012 Microprocessor Report mentions other noteworthy Intel 2011 technologies:

When your computing device – be it a smartphone, tablet, or Ultrabook – just ‘works,’ you never have to think about where it came from or how it works. It just does. It’s your window to the world. It’s your connection to your friends and family. It’s how you get your work done. It’s how you shop. It’s how you play. It’s that one thing in your life that you would likely never be willing to give up. And unless you are an energy drink guzzling, over-clocking gaming fanatic; you certainly may not be doing much thinking about where the components like the microprocessor inside your computing device came from.

But you might want to take just a minute or two to reflect on what goes into the manufacturing of that microprocessor you could never do without. Here at Intel we talk about our transistors a lot. We have an army of PhDs working on how to make them more powerful and more energy-efficient every couple of years. But once they’ve done their magic, and design engineers have developed products to make the best use of those transistors, how does that translate to what you care about – the products you love?

That’s where Intel’s manufacturing powerhouse comes in. Those tiny little microprocessors, the “brains†inside your favorite products, get pumped out of nine Intel production fabrication facilities or “fabs†around the world that are running 24 hours, seven days a week.

Intel’s fabs are some of the most technically advanced manufacturing facilities in the world; as complex as the chips that get made inside them. And we are constantly looking at ways to improve them, to develop and manufacture leading-edge chips more cost-effectively. Over the past year, Intel broke ground on two new fabs, “D1X,†a development fab in Oregon, and “Fab 42†in Arizona, which will allow us to do exactly that. Recently Industry Analyst Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research and Financial Times West Coast Tech Correspondent Chris Nuttall visited the Arizona Fab 42 construction site. See their articles for their perspectives and photographs from their tours (Note: you may need to register on each site to view articles):

And to get a better understanding of the scope of this construction project, check out some of the numbers. First of all, Intel is using the largest land-based crane in the world – one that can pick up and place massive roof trusses that weigh approximately 300 tons each. The crane is so large it had to be delivered on trucks to the site in pieces – approximately 250 truck loads in total.

Additionally, Fab 42 will require 24,000 tons of steel rebar and 21,000 tons of structural steel. And to make room for the fab, 875,000 cubic yards of dirt had to be excavated. When all is said and done, approximately 10.5 million man hours will be required to complete the project.

Pretty cool, right? So next time you pick up your smartphone, tablet, or Ultrabook; remember that Intel is here, with our fabs humming away day and night to make sure the next generation of microprocessors will be ready for future products that you’re going to love!

Stumped on what to get your family or friends for the holidays this year? Gadgets are always a great gift and with all the different devices available in the market today, there’s always something out there for everyone. Since the holidays are all about having fun, and creating memorable times with our loved ones, why not give the gift of a device that will keep you connected to them beyond just the holiday season?

To help you along with your shopping here are four must-have devices that have been topping this year’s wish lists:

Ultrabook Devices

For the on-the-go power-user in your life, consider an Ultrabook device, a new category of no-compromise computers that deliver best-in-class performance and are ultra-responsive in thin, light and sexy designs. Inspired by Intel, Ultrabook systems are incredibly quick to respond and are available from a number of manufacturers. They are a must-have gift for those looking for a new computing experience.

Netbooks

Netbooks are basic web-connected companions perfect for those of us who want to take our music, video and entertainment on-the-go. These Intel Atom processor powered devices come in compact designs and have long-lasting battery life. The Samsung NC215S is one of the world’s first solar-powered netbook, making it the perfect gadget for your “green†family members. The Asus Eee PC X101 is another lightweight, low-cost option and is the choice for someone looking for basic features like Web browsing, viewing photos and videos and basic content creation.

Tablets

Another popular gift this year is the tablet, which offers Internet browsing, casual gaming and e-reading with the touch of a finger. For a rich multimedia, multi-touch experience, consider the ViewSonic ViewPad 10. As an additional bonus, this tablet supports both the Google Android and Windows operating systems.

Hybrids

Another popular up- and-coming device category is called “hybrids.†These offer productivity and play in one device, combining the touch of a tablet with the familiarity of a PC. The classmate PC also powered by the Intel Atom processor is an excellent kid-friendly gift choice. Rugged designs instantly convert from clamshell to touch-optimized tablet mode, giving students expanded flexibility inside and outside the classroom.

For more ideas here are a couple other tech-related gift guides with excellent suggestions:

http://reviews.cnet.com/holiday-gift-guide/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/

I’m a Gen Xer. My generation is the first to have grown up experiencing personal computer technology and the last generation to be in awe at what we do on the internet today. Whether it’s entering letters into a search engine and receiving thousands of relevant results in a fraction of a second, taking an audio sample of a song and getting the lyrics in real-time or receiving personalized recommendations based on previous online purchases, we take these experiences for granted today. But 15 years ago, this would have seemed like science fiction.

Cloud computing makes these experiences possible. Cloud computing is powered by large data centers and delivers services and content to a consumer device seamlessly and quickly. To understand why the demand for servers, networking and storage to support cloud computing is insatiable, just look at some of the numbers. Today 20% of the 7 billion people on the planet, about 1.5B people, are connected to the internet creating, consuming and collaborating with each other. 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute – that’s equivalent to 160,000 feature films uploaded every week. Today, up to 200M tweets a day occur on Twitter, and 7.5B photos are uploaded each month. By 2015, another billion people will be connected, the number of devices will increase to 15 billion, the amount of internet traffic supporting content will increase 10X, and the services industry for cloud computing will reach $176B.

I’m proud of the role Intel is playing as an enabler for cloud computing technology. We have delivered successive generations of technology that increase performance and improve security while managing power consumption. Intel is honored to have won the business powering leading search engines, social media sites, e-commerce, gaming and other cloud services. As a result, 9 out of every 10 cloud servers today run on Intel technology and for every 600 smartphones or 122 tablets that are brought online, we estimate another server is added. Intel is also working to accelerate the industry growth and enable more companies to deliver great cloud computing experiences. We helped establish the Open Data Center Alliance, an organization of over 300 global IT leaders who are defining requirements and usages for cloud computing based on standards and interoperability in the cloud. Their goal is to accelerate $50B of cloud services and save $25B in total annual IT spend within 5 years. To make it easier for companies to deploy cloud computing infrastructure, Intel developed a program called the Intel Cloud Builder’s program where there are currently over 50 real deployable solutions documented as reference architectures from the industry’s leading solution providers.

And we’re just getting started. It’s what gets my team and me excited everyday as captured in this short 60 second video that recently aired on Discovery Channel’s Curiosity show.

We are right now developing the technologies that will enable a new generation of experiences that we will one day take for granted but once never thought possible. Search will evolve from text to full video search with the ability to identify faces and support voice recognition. Your shopping experiences will be more immersive and customized to your location and preferences. You’ll have richer media and interactive social media experiences. Intel’s goal is to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth, and we are creating the underlying technology to make this happen – bringing new ways to explore, share and connect with each other – as securely, privately and efficiently as possible. We’re making the cloud work for you. Visit Intel’s Cloud Computing Solutions page to learn more.

by Mike Mayberry, Vice President, Technology & Manufacturing Group, and Director, Components Research

Welcome! I’ve been blogging about research progress towards making compound semiconductors mainstream and talking about both challenges and opportunities. Three IEDM 2011 papers show the latest progress so in this installment I’ll talk about the papers and how they relate to our challenges.

First as a reminder, unlike silicon, a compound semiconductor is made up of two or more elements, indium, gallium and arsenic for example (InGaAs). The key advantage of these materials is high charge mobility. Mobility is a measure of how easily you can move charges within the material with application of an electric field. Higher mobility can produce faster devices and/or devices that require much less power. Using two or more elements means more opportunity to tune the materials for performance or optical properties but also makes the challenge of fabricating wafers and processing much more complicated. Today, compound semiconductors are used in smaller scale applications where their special properties outweigh the added costs. Our goal is to take advantage of the vastly larger spending on silicon infrastructure and put it to use fabricating compound semiconductor devices.

Let’s look at how a generic transistor behaves over a range of control voltages in figure 1. On the left I’ve plotted the current on a linear scale while on the right I’ve used a logarithmic scale. Since a modern transistor can have a current ratio in the range 10,000 to 100,000, you can see why it is tough to see both on the same scale. The plot on left is best to understand how the device turns on while the right shows what happens as the device turns off. In the real world, better on state performance leads to higher switching speeds and thus more potential computations per second. Better off state means the stand-by state doesn’t run down your battery.

Fig 1: Device behavior can be plotted on a linear scale to examine turn-on behavior or on a logarithmic scale to examine turn-off behavior.

Continue reading →

I wanted to share this inspiring blog posted by Paige Johnson in the CSR@Intel blog on how governments are using technology to improve education in their countires. Paige is a scientist by training and a teacher by passion who has devoted the past 20 years to education, curriculum development and professional development. The past 14 of those years have been with Intel, where her current title is Education Strategist. Recently, she has also been providing sabbatical coverage for Brian Gonzalez, Director of Global Education Sales Programs at Intel.

I recently took on a new role that put me in closer touch with countries where technology in education has moved high up on the political agenda. Not all that long ago, governments were asking, “Why should we do this?” and “How do we do this?” Today, a number of countries are recognizing that ensuring that every student has access to computer and the internet is a key to being economically competitive — locally, regionally and globally. These countries are pioneers in ensuring all young people have ubiquitous the ability to develop 21st century skills at an early age. My new role has given me a deeper understanding of some of the challenges of making a technical infrastructure work seamlessly in lots of different environments. And seamless is important, because you’re not going to get great use of technology in schools unless teachers and students have real access that’s real easy. But easy is hard. It’s not just about adding technology on top of what you already do. It’s about changing school cultural and teachers’ behavior. It means thinking about instruction in transformative ways to keep pace with the information age. In an ideal world, you’d change the entire educational system at once. You’d deploy computers along with amazing new digital resources, new learning standards, revised testing methods, new approaches to teacher professional development. In the real world — and especially the developing world — you can’t let perfect get in the way of good enough. The leading countries are not letting the goal of perfect hold them back from making progress.

Here’s one thing I’ve observed: When you see large deployments of netbooks in schools, you often find visionary leaders driving those projects. For example, consider Alicia Bañuelos from the Universidad de La Punta in San Luis, Argentina. Alicia is an important leader in the state of San Luis’s effort to provide a netbook to every student in their province. It has taken tremendous effort for this poor rural state to give each student access to a device and the internet and one that Alicia acknowledges has sometime fallen short of ideal. “It’s not going to be perfect. But the only way I know to bootstrap my struggling rural economy into the information age and become globally competitive is through a strong workforce and a great infrastructure to the Internet. It’s worth me taking the risk to make it happen.”

Deployments like these points to a promising trend: Affordable netbooks based on our Intel® Atom™ architecture are opening up a whole new opportunity for governments to invest in another segment of education. Until recently, many countries focused more on integrating technology in higher education and secondary schools, with an emphasis on job skills training and workforce development. Today, affordability of technology and the performance of Atom-based netbooks allow even countries with limited budgets to consider the transformative potential of technology in primary grades. Countries like Macedonia, Georgia and Portugal are not just putting technology into schools but also looking at broadband connectivity to the internet, digitizing their curriculum, and training their teachers to fully take advantage of the devices in schools.

There is a common theme in our conversations with governments around the world. They know that to compete in an information economy, they need to start developing a knowledge-based citizenry much earlier. Our students have to be able to learn how to learn, to think critically and to collaborate across cultures. Having those skills — and the opportunity to practice them — is particularly important in developing countries, where students often leave the education system at younger ages.

• Read more about Intel’s deployments of netbooks in education on Intel’s website.

• Policymakers seeking to create a technology plan for their school system can download a free e-book to help with their planning at the Tech & Learning Website.

• Educators considering the move to a 1:1 computing model can find resources to help at the K-12 Computing Blueprint.

Want to know how to save more than $2 BILLION and 1.7 million metric tons of CO2 with just a flick of a wrist? Read to the bottom…

With the rise of cloud computing and the explosion of mobile data, we are facing an unsustainable rise in power use: data centers today are estimated to consume about 1.5% of the world’s energy power, resulting in an annual cost of $27 billion according to IDC. The way things are going, these numbers could double by 2014.

But why are datacenters using up so much energy? Well the rise of the smartphone and tablets, the mobile revolution, is driving the cloud revolution, which in turn is fueling incredible demand for Intel Xeon processor based servers, Intel’s loveliest, juiciest (and most expensive) Intel Architecture chips.

But the chips themselves can’t be drinking $27 billion worth of juice? That would be an enormous bar tab. No, the datacenters of today are inefficient and frankly a bit ’20th century’.

They spend about 40-50% of their energy use on things like cooling, and another big chunk on things like UPS (uninterruptable power supplies), and only about a 1/3 of the electricity delivered to the datacenter actually makes it into the server, where the lovely Xeon processors gently cajole the electrons into production.

The datacenter is a factory, a factory for computing. So any energy that doesn’t go into the server, is WASTED.

This is why Intel has created a guide to building servers that can run at higher temperatures. higher temperatures mean no air conditioning, and no air-conditioning means MUCH lower electricity bills – OR MORE INTEL XEON BASED SERVERS! (Which is my preferred option). You can also choose to cool using fresh air (from the outside) instead of using air conditioners. Using an economizer (a big fan) can save some serious money.

We also have a small number of uber-elite-boffins that help governments and very very large customers design better, more efficient datacenters. They then write up their experiences in the form of white papers so everyone else can benefit from their massive experience. My buddy Leif Nielsen is just such a guy, a Datacenter Architect – see some of the white papers he has worked on with Korea Telecom and a Vietnamese datacenter in Danang.

Higher Ambient datacenters or HTA datacenters can run at 81°F [27°C] or higher – we even have a customer that is running one at 122°F [50°C], but 81°F [27°C] to 104°F [40°C] seems to be the fashion these days.

Remember, higher temperatures = less cooling = lower energy usage.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/ssSE2SD8OfU ]

HTA Examples :

Another way of saving costs is to get rid of the UPS. They are massive banks of batteries that the datacenter will use should the power from the street fail. But they are expensive and take up a LOT of room. So, let’s get rid of them.

Isn’t this fun? We just got rid of the air conditioners, and now we are getting rid of the UPS’s too. Together those items typically use up as much space as all the servers in the datacenter. So getting rid of them frees up space and energy for (yep, you guessed it) MORE SERVERS!

But what happens if the power fails? No worries – Intel to the rescue again. Future servers will have batteries INSIDE the servers, just like a laptop does. If the power fails, the servers can use a technology called ‘Intel Node Manager’ to automagically switch to the internal battery and if you like, turn to a lower power setting, just like your laptop does when you pull the plug out.

But Node Manager can do much more, like a car that monitors your fuel efficiency and reports your MPG’s back to you, Node Manager can monitor your electricity usage, for individual servers, racks, rows of racks, or even entire datacenters! But unlike your car, you can use Node Manager to IMPOSE a particular power state on your servers if you so wish. You can even save about 30% of your power using Node Manager without sacrificing performance. Read more about how BMW, Baidu, Oracle and China Telecom are using Node Manager here and here.

So, how do you save $2.16 Billion with just a flick of your wrist? Well easy. Just convince all the IT managers in the world to raise the temperature of their datacenters by just 5C. Turn up that thermostat.

This would result in:

Intel IT uses a lot of these techniques to make our own datacenters (we have 91) more efficient.

Want to know more? Go to our new Datacenter Efficiency website at www.intel.com/go/datacenterefficiency

Interesting coincidence. As I opened my mail this morning to begin writing this blog post, a headline that jumped out from the inbox was “20 Years of Eco-Surveys Show Americans Know More, Feel Less Empowered”*. This caught my attention since Intel is working hard to make energy use very personal – and to use technology to empower us all to understand the impact of our behavior on the environment. In fact, we just worked with a film crew to create a 30 second video on this idea of personal energy.

It’s a little disconcerting to watch myself in the video – but especially given the survey results – the message is really important. Our daily decisions really DO make a difference and Intel and others in the industry are working hard to make that impact more visible and to make energy-saving behavior much easier. In our house we monitor our energy use real-time instead of waiting for the utility bill to come way after the fact and wondering what caused it to be so high. Amazing how much a little feedback changes actions – that fan doesn’t need to be on. Turn off the television as you leave the room. It’s only October, we don’t need the central heat on yet!
And now we’re extending that feedback mechanism into the office environment, where we don’t even see the electricity bill. As we make it obvious to people how much energy they’re using – and how they compare to their co-workers we believe behavior will change. We first started focusing on office energy as part of working with industry on hyper-efficient commercial buildings that generate as much or more energy than they consume over the course of a year. In that setting, plug-loads and occupant behavior become critical.
Of course being Intel, we’re also very interested in how technology can make it easier to save energy – concepts as simple as automatically turning off everything that doesn’t need to be on when you leave your home and as complex as having buildings that understand individual environmental preferences and adjust the temperature in a meeting room for greatest comfort and productivity.
We’re just beginning to make energy personal – and would love your suggestions on other needed personal energy innovations.

^{*These are among the findings from a report S.C. Johnson released yesterday, “The Environment: Public Attitudes and Individual Behavior — A Twenty-Year Evolution.” It follows S.C. Johnson’s 1990 report, “The Environment: Public Attitudes and Individual Behavior,” the predecessor of the Green Gauge consumer survey, which S.C. Johnson called the world’s longest-running survey of consumers’ green attitudes.}

I recently had a conversation about security wtih Jennifer Gilburg and I felt strongly that she share the details with everyone and hence she decided to write a blog post – which is below for your reading pleasure (authored by Jen). As background, Jennifer Gilburg runs marketing for Intel Corporation’s Intel® Identity Protection technology. She has over two decades of software marketing and business development experience mostly in security. She spends her time crusading for better online security for consumers. In this guest post, she outlines how “digital tokens” are worth their weight in gold when it comes to protecting your identity online.

Until recently, when it came to exposure from online fraud, most people only worried about the protection of their online financial accounts. These accounts have been big targets for fraud as evidence by the thousands of phishing sites produced each month targeting financial institutions. While the threat of a compromised account can be a huge concern for the general consumer, liability in security incidents has traditionally landed on financial institutions, which are expected to protect their customers.

Today, though, responsibility is less clear. Fraudsters have found that by leveraging trust between online parties they can proliferate malware an incredibly fast rate. As people accumulate hundreds of trusted “friends” on social networking sites, fraudsters are targeting these accounts to spread malware downloads and send spam or targeted phishing emails. Moreover, with mass storage now readily available through consumer email service providers, more people are keeping valuable private information in their inboxes (think: mortgage applications!), which can provide data to fraudsters to perform identity theft. Throw in online gaming with millions of dollars of value in virtual goods and it is easy to see why fraud is booming.

The problem is: usernames and passwords (especially weak passwords and ones used at multiple accounts) do not provide ample protection. They are being phished, socially engineered, guessed or stolen at astonishing rates- to the point where most people have had or know someone who has had an account hijacked and used for malicious intent. What is needed is a way to more clearly tie a user’s identity to a trusted device, much as credit cards with personal photos provide an extra way to identify you when the card is presented to a retailer.

One popular way businesses do this today is to use physical, “two factor authentication” tokens. These are credit card-sized devices that combine something you know, your username and password, with something you have, a randomly generated code created in the token, that you input at a site to gain access. The tokens are used by many Fortune 500 companies to give employees, partners and vendors access to corporate network resources. The trouble with this approach is that there is a certain level of expense involved to maintain the system, and if the algorithms behind the tokens are ever compromised, it can take months to recode and replace them.

To address these challenges, Intel worked with other industry thought leaders to embed two-factor authentication in computer chip hardware, a security approach that promises to be more seamless for end users and more cost effective for organizations. This new technology is called Intel® Identity Protection Technology (IPT) Here’s how it works: Built into select 2nd generation Intel® Coreâ„¢ processor-based PCs, IPT eliminates the need to memorize a code or attach a security device to your computer. When you access an Intel IPT-integrated web site you will be prompted to “register” your PC at that site.. On subsequent logins, you simply enter your user name and password and behind the scenes the PC generates a unique six digit code which gets validated by the website. Intel IPT’s smart technology makes this process simpler and more secure, changing your code at regular intervals before your account can be hacked. If you’re away from your PC, the web site can also offer an alternative method for authenticating users (such as SMS one-time password codes sent to registered phones or pre-determined knowledge based questions). For the end user, this whole process is very fast, easy and frictionless.

For a demo of the IPT experience, go HERE.

The great news is that OEMs started shipping IPT-enabled consumer desktops and laptops in June, and more than a dozen are now available, offering people and Web sites an integrated way of protecting access to online accounts. In addition, more than 1,000 Web sites now support IPT-enabled computers, and Intel is actively working with partners to expand that number.

For more information, please go to www.ipt.intel.com.

If you’ve had the good fortune to use a Cisco Telepresence system like I have at Intel, you can already see glimpses of the ‘Star Trek’ future of video communications. It’s a game-changer.

And that’s just one of the cool features you’ll find on Cisco’s recently introduced Cius, the first business-class, collaboration tablet and desktop phone. The Cius is based on an Intel Atom processor, takes advantage of Android, and combines secure voice, video, collaboration, desktop virtualization and custom (and controllable) apps all in one. The device also works seamlessly with Cisco WebEx, Cisco Quad, and of course my favorite, HD video interoperability with Cisco TelePresence.

It makes sense that Intel and Cisco would work together on this true business class tablet given our respective long-standing experience in Enterprise computing. Cisco has done a really nice job with this device, and what has me truly excited is what this first enterprise-centric tablet means to the high-tech industry and Intel.

Up to now, enterprises have had to mostly choose from consumer-driven tablets. For those who work in institutions or vertical segments like healthcare, finance, manufacturing, hospitality, retail and education – now there’s a choice. The Cius has a specific focus: the enterprise. It speeds collaboration and productivity, not just content consumption. It lets us every day consumers have a great tablet experience, with access to Android applications, while meeting the requirements of enterprise IT, such as device and application security and manageability.

Net-net, the Cisco’s entry into this segment is good news for CIOs and IT managers who want to provide employees with some more mobile freedom, but in a way that’s integrated into a company’s infrastructure and controllable in terms of apps and network access. Cius offers us an upgrade to business class – well done, Cisco!