Intel

Intel says it plans to roll out a bevy of midrange processors, all built on its new 45-nanometer manufacturing process, on Monday. Game computer vendors, among others, are expected to follow suit with new machines.

The Core 2 Quad Q9650 heads the list of updated chips, according to Intel. It has a core clock speed of 3GHz, a 12MB level-2 cache, a 1333MHz front-side bus, and is rated at 95 watts. Generally, the larger the level-2 cache memory, the better the performance. The front-side bus (FSB) carries data between the processor and other silicon.

Intel (NSDQ: INTC) on Monday released technical details of a new line of graphics processors that would take on market leaders Nvidia and the ATI division of Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel plans to present details of the chip design, code-named Larrabee, Aug. 12 at the SIGGRAPH industry conference in Los Angeles. In the meantime, Intel has made the paper available online through the Association of Computing Machinery's portal.

Despite a minor snafu that held up the launch by three weeks, Intel officially introduced its new Centrino 2 platform at a press event here Monday night.

The delay was reportedly a problem with the FCC certification for the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard used in the platform, in addition there were reports of problems with the integrated graphics feature.

As notebook shipments have begun to significantly outpace the sales of desktop computers, each new notebook platform launched by Intel becomes more important to the company. This Monday July 14 marks the launch of Intel’s Centrino 2 platform, previously known by the code-name Montevina. The launch comes weeks after Intel had planned due to a problem with Intel’s own integrated graphics for the platform.

Intel has bad news for software developers. It's been hinted at already, but now the company has stated explicitly: it's not enough for software developers to be targeting dual, quad, or eight cores. No, the future holds tens, hundreds, or thousands of cores, and developers are going to have to bite the bullet and write programs that will scale to such systems.

INTEL IS teaming up with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) to build a wireless mobile services R&D lab in the country.

Based in Riyadh, the labs purpose will be to provide the Arab parts of the Middle East, Turkey and Africa with Wimax broadband networks as well as services for wireless broadband service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers, and system integrators.

ntel is planning to launch a Core 2 Quad Q8000 CPU series, offering entry-level prices to counter AMD's triple-core CPUs in the mainstream market, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Intel will launch the Core 2 Quad Q8200 in the third quarter this year, supporting FSB up to 1333MHz, L2 cache of 4MB and a core frequency of 2.33GHz. Pricing will be set around US$203 in thousand-unit quantities

As Intel (NSDQ: INTC) and rival Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) increase computer performance by adding cores to microprocessors, software makers are left with the daunting task of writing applications that take full advantage of the complex environment. Intel hopes to lend a hand through a new programming language -- called Ct -- the chipmaker has developed specifically for multi-core computing.

South Korea’s antitrust regulators have slapped Intel with a $25.4 million fine ($26 million won) for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the local chip market. According to the Korea Fair Trade Commission, Intel was found guilty of offering unfair subsidies to Samsung and Trigem Computer on the condition that they wouldn’t purchase processors from smaller rival AMD.

BY THE TIME you read this, Intel will have fired off its keynote salvo at the aggregated masses attending Computex 2008. However, Intel held a telephone conference call yesterday highlighting their big crowd-drawers for the duration of Computex 2008 – so now we can tell you what’s going on before they do.