GlobalFoundries breaks ground on New York chip fab
Cvasi-AMD spinoff and wannabe TSMC arch-rival, GlobalFoundries has now finally kicked off construction of its $4.2 billion chip manufacturing facility at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, New York. Known as Fab 2, the 300mm 'foundry' is expected to start volume production in 2012 with 28nm technology, and will move later on to the 22nm node.
"With the development of Fab 2, we'll take the first steps in realizing our vision to harness resources and talent on a worldwide basis to enable our customers product innovation to come to market faster and on the most advanced technology platforms," said Doug Grose, chief executive officer of GlobalFoundries. "Combined with our facility in Dresden, this fab will provide customers access to a truly global foundry, offering scale, operational excellence and leading-edge manufacturing capabilities."
According to GF, Fab 2 will create about 1,400 direct semiconductor jobs when at full scale production, and approximately 5,000 indirect jobs in the region. For more info about the new chip plant check out this page.
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MSI to offer two GeForce GTS 250 Twin Frozr cards
MSI is finishing up the work week with a new product announcement, that of two more Military Class graphics cards, the 512MB and 1GB N250GTS Twin Frozr OC. The upcoming 55nm G92b-powered models feature 128 Stream Processors, and a 256-bit memory interface, DirectX 10, PhysX, CUDA and SLI support, two DVI outputs, and come equipped with the dual-slot Twin Frozr cooler that boasts two dual PWM fans and three copper heatpipes.
MSI hasn't mentioned anything about the cards' prices, retail shipping date, but said that they will be factory overclocked and have GPU, shader and memory frequencies of 760, 1836, and 2300 MHz, respectively. The rest, is awaiting game.
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Scythe Slot Rafter provides SSD expansion for crowded cases
Fast and growing in popularity, solid state drives are unbalancing the desktop segment a bit as most models come in a 2.5-inch form factor, whereas most PC cases have 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch bays. To fix this compatibility problem several companies, including some that sell SSDs, have begun to sell adapters or mounting kits for 2.5-inch drives. Scythe is taking this trend to another level though as with the Slot Rafter, it enables people to install up to four 2.5-inch SSDs (or HDDs) in an empty PCI slot.
Seen below, the Slot Rafter measures 195 x 10 x 25 mm and it even has support for two 80mm fan to make sure your data is not getting hot under the collar. The Rafter is now on sale at of 4,95 Euro $7.90 (without taxes).
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SteelSeries reveals new gaming mice and the 9HD mouse pad
Apparently countering Razer's latest products, SteelSeries has now announced the Xai laser mouse, the Kinzu optical mouse and the 9HD gaming surface. Measuring 270 x 320 x 2 mm, the 9HD mouse mat featured a textured surface that consists of tens of thousands of light reflecting microscopic points which is supposed to provide 'extremely consistent' precision, accuracy and stability, and has a recommended price tag of 34.99 Euro.
The Xai wired mouse, with its ambidextrous shape and seven programmable buttons, can brag with a 10.8 megapixels/second sensor, a 128 x 32 pixels LCD screen on its underside that provides configuration capabilities on-the-go, built-in memory for profiles, gold-plated USB connector, and patented technologies like SteelSeries ExactAim, ExactRate,ExactSens and FreeMove. The Xai's price tag has been set to 79.99 Euro.
Last but not least, the Kinzu has the same shape as the SteelSeries Xai, but is 7% smaller, has a 3,200 CPI optical sensor, just three buttons, no LCD screen, but a gold-plated USB plug and internal memory for three profiles. This one is priced at 34.99 Euro.
According to SteelSeries, the 9HD, Xai and Kinzu will all start shipping next month.
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Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 3 now available
A new alpha build of the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 open saucy Linux distro has been released and is awaiting download. This third test build of the operating system codenamed Karmic Koala is based on the Linux 2.6.31-3.19 kernel, it includes the GNOME 2.27.4 development release, has GCC-4.4 as the default compiler, and makes use of the ext4 file system and the GRUB 2 boot loader.
The release, which can be downloaded from this page, also ships with the https://ubuntuone.com/ file sharing service which provides tightly integrated file synchronization with other computers and the Ubuntu One network, the UXA video driver, and updated packages for a lot of its applications. The full and final Ubuntu 9.10 is scheduled for an October 29 launch.
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A-Data announces the SX95 solid state drives
Still hoping to grab a good piece of the SSD market, A-Data has now introduced a new family of flashy drives, the SX95. The new XPG-branded 2.5-inch SSDs come in 32, 64, 128, and 256GB capacities, features MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash memory chips, have a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, a MTBF of 1 million hours, and "onboard DRAM cache buffer."
The SX95 drives also boast an aluminum casing and are said to deliver maximum read/write speeds of 230/180 MB/s (128, 256GB models) or 210/140 MB/s (32, 64GB models). The SSDs are backed by a two-year warranty and for now don't have a release date or pricing scheme.
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Another EVGA P55-powered motherboard exposed
After seeing the 132-LF-E655 model in June, it's now time to enjoy the sexy sight of another EVGA-made P55 motherboard, the one tht goes by the codename 132-LF-E657. Looking hot in a black PCB, the upcoming board has a 12+2 phase power design, and comes with support for LGA 1156 processors, four DDR3 memory slots and three PCI-Express x16 slots for SLI or CrossFireX multi-GPU setups.
The overclocking-craving motherboard offers both LGA 1156 and LGA 775 mounting holes so people can use an 'older' CPU cooler, it boasts six SATA 3.0 ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio, triple BIOS, a debug LED, one flash memory slot that may end up being removed, and Power, Reset, and Clear CMOS buttons.
The 132-LF-E657, and other EVGA P55 motherboards, should debut in about a month since the Lynnfield launch is expected for September 6th.
Photo courtesy of the XtremeSystems Forum.
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Microsoft reports all-round drops for June quarter
Top software maker Microsoft wasn't able enjoy the Windows 7 RTM milestone much as the global economic criris has seen it post its first-ever on-year revenue drop in the quarter ended June 30th. The Redmond company's report shows a Q4 revenue of $13.10 billion, down 17% compared to the same quarter last year, with the declared net income and earnings per share reaching $3.05 billion and $0.34 per share, down 29% and 26%, respectively, on-year.
"Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750 million of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter."
Rounding up the fiscal year, Microsoft said its revenues topped $58.44 billion, this being a 3% decline from the prior year, while operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the year were $20.36 billion, $14.57 billion and $1.62, down 9%, 18% and 13%, respectively.
Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't expecting to do a lot better this year, but is hopeful that next year, once demand picks up, it will be ready to offer a strong line-up of products and services.
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Gateway readies the ION-based QX2800 nettop
No longer playing the independent card, Gateway has taken Acer's AspireRevo nettop and, after a few hardware tweaks, renamed it to QX2800. Seen below, the new nettop comes with a dual-core 1.6 GHz Atom 330 processor (single-core Atom 230 on the AspireRevo), 2GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and GeForce 9400M integrated graphics.
The ION-based machine also boasts a 4-in-1 card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, and is powered by Windows Vista Home Premium. The QX2800's price tag is yet unconfirmed but it could be over 350 Euro.
Picture courtesy of PCADV.
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Adobe delivers security update for Shockwave Player
Adobe Systems has just released an updated version of its Shockwave Player to fix a critical vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. The security issue in question is found in Shockwave Player 11.5.0.596 and earlier versions so Adobe recommends that everyone their player as soon as possible to prevent attacks.
The 'safer' Shockwave Player 11.5.1.601 is available for download on Adobe's website.
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