gizmosure

Tag: Intel

  • Apple buys Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion

    Apple buys Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion

    Apple has officially confirmed in a press release that it has acquired a major stake in Intel’s 5G smartphone modem business. The iPhone-maker wants to acquire the majority of Intel’s smartphone business, along with over 2200 Intel employees, intellectual property, equipment and leases, in order to manufacture modems for future iPhones. The move will cost Apple nearly a billion US dollars, and plans to close the deal will happen sometime in the fourth quarter of 2019.

    “We’ve worked with Intel for many years and know this team shares Apple’s passion for designing technologies that deliver the world’s best experiences for our users,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “Apple is excited to have so many excellent engineers join our growing cellular technologies group, and know they’ll thrive in Apple’s creative and dynamic environment.”

    Apple, however, won’t take over the entire smartphone modem business from Intel, who’ll still manufacture modems for products such as autonomous vehicles, personal computers, and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. Once the deal is finalized, Apple will acquire over 17,000 wireless technology patents ranging from protocols for cellular standards and modem operation and architecture.

    Meanwhile, Intel claims it wants to sell the smartphone modem business because they want to focus on 5G technologies for telecommunications equipment manufacturers, network operators, and cloud service providers. Intel CEO Bob Swan stated that the agreement will allow the compny to focus on developing technology for 5G network while also retaining crucial intellectual property and modem technology.

  • Intel unveils next-generation Sunny Cove microprocessor architecture

    Intel unveils next-generation Sunny Cove microprocessor architecture

    Intel has announced its next-generation microprocessor architecture, dubbed as Sunny Cove. According to the company, this new architecture is designed to improve performance per clock as well as power efficiency for general computing tasks. The new Sunny Cove architecture is built using a 10nm process, and the next-generation Core and Xeon processors will be built around it.

    Intel claims Sunny Cove architecture can execute more instructions in parallel, with new algorithms to reduce latency, as well as increased key buffer and cache sizes to optimize heavy workloads.

    The company also unveiled the new Gen 11 integrated graphics, claimed to offer up to 2x performace improvements over Gen 9 graphics coupled with Skylake-based chipsets. Besides, Gen 11 graphics are also equipped to support 4K video streams and 8K content creation, even under restrained power environments. They also feature Intel’s Adaptive Sync technology for a smooth and immersive gaming experience. Besides, Intel also announced its plan to provide a discrete graphics processor by 2020, but did not reveal any further details.

    Finally, Intel also announced the use of 3D stacking of logic chips. The company touts it as an industry first technology, which essentially allows logic-on-logic integration between layers. Put simply, 3D stacking of logic chips would allow manufacturers to pack the processor into much tighter spaces, thereby freeing up area for other PC components.

    Intel’s had a rough year so far. They’ve had to fire their former CEO, Brian Krzanich, over violating the company’s policies. Besides, Intel has also been hit by low sales numbers compared to its rivals. Not to mention, they’ve been stuck with the Skylake microarchitecture since 2015. That said, it appears the company has finally come up with something new and exciting for its next-generation processors with Sunny Cove.