Category: Computer

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From Engadget: SanDisk makes 128-gigabit flash chip, crams three bits per cell, takes afternoon off

SanDisk has developed a chip that earns it membership in the exclusive 128-gigabit club. Not content with simply matching the Micron / Intel effort, SanDisk and its partner Toshiba claim their new memory uses 19- rather than 20-nanometer cells in the production process. Shrinking the size is one thing, but SanDisk’s new chips also use its X3 / three-bit technology. Most memory stores just two bits per cell; cramming in another means fewer cells, less silicon, more savings, cheaper memory, happier geeks. Analyst Jim Handy estimates that the price per gigabyte for the tri-bit breed of flash could be as low as 28 cents, compared to 35 for the Micron / Intel equivalent. Full details in the not-so-compact press release after the break.

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from Engadget

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From Engadget: Aakash lurches toward another crisis as India loses patience with DataWind

The conflicts and behind-the-scenes drama surrounding India’s Aakash project once again threaten its existence. Despite a record-breaking 1.4 million pre-orders gained in under a fortnight, maker DataWind has only shipped 10,000 units to nearly universal derision. Early adopters have found the processor too slow, battery life too short and the resistive touchscreen difficult to use. Kapil Sibal’s Human Resource Development ministry now plans to re-open tendering for a replacement contractor and withdraw DataWind’s deal for a further 90,000 units. An anonymous ministry official has said that they’ve seen “sufficient interest […] to get better specifications at the same or lower price.”

In response, DataWind has claimed that its development-partner, the Indian Institute of Technology, pulled a bait-and-switch, demanding at the eleventh hour that the tablet meet US military criteria for durability — including being able to withstand four inches per hour of “sustained rain.” Work has been on hold since then but neither party can afford another delay. DataWind promised it would sell the commercial version of the slate this month, while Kapil Sibal has promised that a second edition of the Aakash would be announced in April.

 

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From Engadget: ASUS gives Transformer Prime a bootloader unlock tool, Ubuntu promptly ported

Ah, it was indeed only a matter of time. Much like the way HTC caved into fan pressure, ASUS has finally released a bootloader unlock tool for its Transformer Prime TF201. Understandably, the tablet will no longer be covered under warranty once you set it free, but the other catch is that it needs to be running Ice Cream Sandwich in the first place as well. Not that it concerned modder littlesteve who promptly ported a partially-working Ubuntu over to his unlocked slate, pictured above. Steve says there’s much work to be done yet, especially with enabling touchscreen support, so keep an eye on his tweets if you’re itching to get a taste of his Linux pie. Now, about that mysterious TF300T…

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From Engadget: Ubuntu’s full desktop OS coming to multi-core Android devices

What the Atrix 4G first promised, it looks like the folks at Canonical may deliver. Think back to CES 2011, when Motorola showed us a future where our phone was the only computing device we would need — only to leave us wanting when its webtop app didn’t deliver the requisite functionality for such a future. Well, it turns out Ubuntu now runs on multi-core Android devices and your handset can grant a full desktop experience when docked with a display and a keyboard. It’s a customized version of Ubuntu that plays nice with Android, the two OS’s sharing data and services while running simultaneously. So, you can still access telephony and texts from the Ubuntu environment while enjoying all the computing capabilities it has to offer, including: Ubuntu TV, virtualization tools for running Windows applications, desktop web browsers, and Ubuntu apps built for ARM. It isn’t clear exactly what hardware you’ll need to run Ubuntu on a handset, but Canonical has said it works on multi-core devices with HDMI and USB connections. We’ll get more info next week when it’s shown off at MWC, but until then you’ll have to settle for the source below and PR after the break.

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From Engadget: Qualcomm Krait S4 SoC fully benchmarked, diagnosed as ‘insane’

Qualcomm Krait S4 benchmarks

We’ve seen it, touched it and we fully expect it’ll be turning heads in Barcelona next week, but until now Qualcomm’s Krait chip has largely escaped the rigors of independent benchmarking. Fortunately, AnandTech has to come to our rescue once again with a characteristically thorough analysis at the source link. Those blue and green charts can speak for themselves, but if you’re in a rush then here’s the rub of it: the Krait truly is a next-gen SoC, with the dual-core 1.5GHz MSM8960-powered reference handset delivering an “insane performance advantage” of between 20 percent and 240 percent on CPU benchmarks. As we glimpsedrecently, graphics performance is somewhat less ground-breaking but still very healthy, with the 28nm process allowing the Adreno 225 GPU to run at up to 400MHz, versus 266MHz on its Adreno 220 predecessor. Oh yes, this is going to be one mother of an MWC.

 

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From Ars Technica: We can do no Moore: a transistor from single atom


At the center of modern technology lies the logic circuitry provided by semiconductor devices. Extending circuit logic to the realm of nanotechnology requires the construction of atomic-scale systems, which has proven challenging. Both the electric nature of individual atoms and the need to place them at specific points within a crystal lattice has kept scientists from creating atom-scale transistors until the present.

Now, a group of researchers has fabricated a single-atom transistor by introducing one phosphorous atom into a silicon lattice. Through the use of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and hydrogen-resist lithography, Martin Fuechsle et al. placed the phosphorous atom precisely between very thin silicon leads, allowing them to measure its electrical behavior. The results show clearly that we can read both the quantum transitions within the phosphorous atom and its transistor behavior. No smaller solid-state devices are possible, so systems of this type reveal the limit of Moore’s law—the prediction about the miniaturization of technology—while pointing toward solid-state quantum computing devices.

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from Ars Technica