processors

Apple and Samsung may be battling each other in the courts over patent claims but the two companies are reportedly still working with each other on the technology for the next iPhone.

Samsung will supply the A6 processor slated to appear in the iPhone 5, or whatever Apple dubs its next phone, says The Korea Times. Citing industry sources, the publication reports that Samsung has boosted the production of Apple-designed A6 chips at its plant in Austin, Texas.

"Apple has been in talks with Samsung over shipment of its A6 quad-core mobile processor (AP) chips to be used in … Read more

Editors' note: This article was originally published October 13. It has been updated throughout.

A teardown by iFixit and analysis by iSuppli, Chipworks and others reveal the iPhone 4S as a mini version of the iPad 2 in many respects.

Camera: A Sony CMOS sensor, according to Chipworks. Overall, camera is 8 megapixels, 60 percent more pixels than the camera on iPhone 4. A larger aperture (f/2.4) and new sensor. Better in low-light conditions. Video at 1080P, 30 fps.

Memory: The Apple A5 chip has 512MB of Samsung DDR2 RAM, according to iFixit's teardown. The capacity matches … Read more

Some 5 percent of Apple's workforce is reportedly working on improving the company's mobile processors.

The company has 1,000 engineers working to refine its processors, Steve Jobs had told a "veteran Silicon Valley CEO," according to TechCrunch report. (The company has about 20,000 non-retail employees.)

"Getting low power and smaller is the key to everything," the unidentified executive said, adding that "form factor no longer becomes an issue."

Improving battery life without sacrificing speed is key for mobile devices. Apple's A5 processor, which will be used in the new … Read more

Apple is shelling out about $200 to make each 32GB iPhone 4S, which the company will ultimately sell for $749, not counting the carrier subsidy.

At least that's the initial estimate from research firm UBM TechInsights.

Analyzing the overall cost history and the breakdown of each major component, UBM has calcuated a manufacturing cost of $203 for each 32GB model of the new phone. That's about the same range as Apple paid to make the iPhone 4 last year, giving the company around the same profit margin. This preliminary projection includes expenses of $26 for the new A5 … Read more

Kitchens are constantly in a state of flux. Food comes and goes, transforming from raw ingredients into finished plates. Frequently, as the chopping, slicing, and overall prepping occurs, things need to be switched up on the fly. When confronted with change while operating a food processor, home chefs are usually required to exchange attachments, stalling the cooking process. Or they could just flip a switch. More than just a feature for adapting to change, an external lever on the KitchenAid KFP1333 Food Processor allows you to adjust slicing thickness of a variety of foods, whether the need to is foreseen … Read more

The long-awaited new iPhone has reportedly popped up in Apple's inventory with signs indicating that it will be a major upgrade over the current iPhone 4.

As described by 9to5Mac and SlashGear, the phone uncovered in the inventory list is code-named N94, the same name hidden in code for Apple's iOS earlier this year. That code name was found to point to a device with a dual-core A5 processor, the same chip that's been expected to appear in the iPhone 5.

Citing information from its anonymous but apparently reliable Mr. X source, who is known for leaking … Read more

Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison made his fortune with software, but he'll take the stage today to show off the first servers powered by the company's new Sparc T4 processor.

The product, called the Sparc SuperCluster T4-4, is "the first engineered system from a new generation of high-performance Oracle Sparc servers," according to an Oracle invitation to the event . Ellison will share the stage with John Fowler, the systems executive vice president who also led Sun's server group, at Oracle's Redwood Shores, Calif., headquarters.

Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year for its server products, … Read more

You might not need a whole 1.21 gigawatts to travel through time, after all.

Computer engineers at the University of California at Berkeley have found a way to reduce the minimum voltage required to store a charge in a capacitor--an electron-storing device that works somewhat like a battery--paving the way for ultra-low-power computing. This is a result of a project started in 2008 and led by Asif Khan, a UC Berkeley electrical engineering graduate student, and Sayeef Salahuddin, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of electrical engineering.

The engineers took advantage of ferroelectrics, a class of materials that can hold both positive and negative electric charges, even when there's no voltage applied. On top of that, the electrical polarization in ferroelectrics can be reversed with an external electric field.

The team was able to demonstrate that when a capacitor made of ferroelectric-based materials was paired with an electric insulator, the charge accumulated for a given voltage could be amplified in a phenomenon called "negative capacitance." This means you can create a charge that would normally require a higher voltage. And this, when applied to transistors--the on-off switch components that generate the zeros and ones that are the core of binary computing used in all personal computers--would translate into lower minimum voltage required to operate a computer processor. … Read more

Another blockbuster acquisition has hit the tech industry.

Semiconductor company Broadcom announced today that it has agreed to acquire NetLogic Microsystems for $50 per share, or about $3.7 billion. The $50 per share represents a nearly 57 percent premium on NetLogic's closing stock price on Friday of $31.91.

NetLogic seems to be a reasonable acquisition for Broadcom, which focuses on chips for networking gear. Both companies compete in the semiconductor market, but NetLogic offers components in areas that Broadcom needs to bolster its own lineup, including knowledge-based processors and multicore embedded processors, the companies said in a … Read more