SoCs
After a 2021/2022 product cycle that was a bit more interesting than Qualcomm perhaps would have liked, 2023 has been a far more straightforward year for the prolific SoC and cellular modem vendor. After releasing the first of their Gen 2 family of parts earlier this year with the flagship-class Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the company is preparing to iterate through the next step of its product stack with the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. Aimed at what’s become Qualcomm’s traditional “premium” market segment, which focuses on flagship-level features with more modest performance and costs, for the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, Qualcomm is aiming to deliver a sizable performance boost to the platform.
Thecus N2560: Intel's EvanSport NAS Platform Review
NAS units targeting home consumers have traditionally been underpowered in terms of hardware as well as firmware features. Low power, reduced cost and media-centric features are primary requirements in...
75 by Ganesh T S on 11/25/2013Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805: 2.5GHz, 128-bit Memory Interface, D3D11-class Graphics & More
Qualcomm has had an incredible year. It wasn’t too long ago that I was complaining about Qualcomm’s release cadence, the lull between Scorpion and Krait allowed competitors like NVIDIA...
105 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/22/2013ECS Reveals Bay Trail-D Mini-ITX Line
With Intel's Bay Trail platform and Silvermont Atom cores in the news for tablets, we have spotted their use in mini-ITX platforms as far pack as Computex 2013 where...
41 by Ian Cutress on 10/23/2013Intel Announces Galileo: Quark Based Arduino Compatible Developer Board
At this year’s IDF Intel announced its third major microarchitecture family: Quark. Before Quark we had Core at the high-end and Atom for smartphones/tablets/cheap PCs. Quark adds a third...
42 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/3/2013Chipworks Provides First Apple A7 Die Shot
Hot on the heels of their Samsung 28nm confirmation, Chipworks just sent over the first die shot of a delayered Apple A7. An annotated version is following early next...
41 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/20/2013Chipworks Confirms Apple's A7 is Built On Samsung's 28nm HK+MG Process
Chipworks is in the process of delayering Apple's A7, but they just confirmed what we mentioned in our iPhone 5s review: Apple's A7 is built at Samsung using their...
25 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/20/2013ASUS Introduces T100: Bay Trail based 2-in-1 Tablet
ASUS CEO Jerry Shen just pre-announced the ASUS T100, a Bay Trail 2-in-1 tablet (dockable) with up to 11 hours of battery life. Think Transformer goes Intel. I believe...
11 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/11/2013The Bay Trail Preview: Intel Atom Z3770 Tested
Earlier this year Intel unveiled Silvermont, its first true architectural update to Atom since its introduction in 2008. I won’t rehash Silvermont’s architecture here, but it’s designed to be...
190 by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on 9/11/2013Intel 14nm Progress Update: Broadwell & Airmont On Schedule
Continuing our IDF 2013 keynote coverage, Intel is also using this morning’s keynote to announce progress updates on previously announced 14nm products. Intel’s plans here remain unchanged, with Intel...
36 by Ryan Smith on 9/10/2013Intel Announces “Quark” SoC Family: Tiny SoCs For Tiny Devices
Kicking off today is the 2013 Intel Developer Forum, Intel’s annual gathering of developers, press, and techies. Among the many sessions scheduled over the rest of the week we’re...
26 by Ryan Smith on 9/10/2013Apple Announces A7, World's First 64-bit Smartphone SoC
Apple just announced the iPhones 5S featuring the A7 SoC, which is the world's first consumer ARM based SoC with 64-bit support. We're likely talking about an updated version...
91 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/10/2013Understanding Panel Self Refresh
Earlier today Brian spent some time with the G2, LG's 5.2-inch flagship smartphone based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) SoC. I'd recommend reading his excellent piece in order...
39 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/7/2013IBM Offers POWER Technology for Licensing, Forms OpenPOWER Consortium
The CPU wars are far from over, but the battlegrounds have shifted of late. Where once we looked primarily at the high-end processing options, today we tend to cover...
32 by Jarred Walton on 8/7/2013NVIDIA Shield Review: At the Crossroads of PC and Mobile Gaming
NVIDIA is doing something different with Tegra 4, very different. To bring up its silicon, each vendor usually makes a reference design phone and tablet with a selection of...
135 by Brian Klug on 7/31/2013NVIDIA Demonstrates Logan SoC: < 1W Kepler, Shipping in 1H 2014, More Energy Efficient than A6X?
Ever since its arrival in the ultra mobile space, NVIDIA hasn't really flexed its GPU muscle. The Tegra GPUs we've seen thus far have been ok at best, and...
141 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/24/2013Samsung Updates Exynos 5 Octa (5420), Switches Back to ARM GPU
In the first part of our series on ARM, we mentioned that with every major microprocess design ARM tries to choose 3 licensees to get early access to technology...
44 by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on 7/22/2013The ARM Diaries, Part 2: Understanding the Cortex A12
A couple of weeks ago I began this series on ARM with a discussion of the company’s unique business model. In covering semiconductor companies we’ve come across many that...
66 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/17/2013The ARM Diaries, Part 1: How ARM’s Business Model Works
We’ve had well over a decade of Intel sharing its beliefs with us, but this is ARM’s first attempt at doing the same. What will follow over the next...
65 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/28/2013NVIDIA to License Kepler and Future GPU IP to 3rd Parties
Earlier today NVIDIA announced that it would begin licensing its Kepler GPU architecture to 3rd parties. This is a sensible next step for NVIDIA, but an unprecedented one among...
59 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/18/2013CPUID's CPU-Z Arrives on Android via Google Play
About three years ago, I remember one of the biggest problems I had while sorting out phones was figuring out what SoCs were inside them. Manufacturers weren't yet open...
28 by Brian Klug on 6/16/2013