Posts Tagged ‘Computing’

« Older Entries

3M creates high-density material for PCBs

February 8th, 2012
Share

3M has announced a new high-density version of its Embedded Capacitance Material (ECM), an innovation it says will have wide application in miniaturized computing.

Embedded Capacitance Material (or ECM) is constructed from a thin layer of epoxy filled with ceramic and layered on both sides with copper foil. It can be embedded directly onto printed circuit boards (PCBs), reducing the number of surface mount capacitors needed, leaving more room on the boards and reducing noise that causes electromagnetic interference.

The company says it has increased the capacitance in its ECM to between 20 to 40 nF from 10 nF in previous versions. This means computer and electronic component manufacturers will be able to “include more functionality in a device of the same size, or within practical limits, shrink the device some more,” says Alexander Barr, senior product develop specialist at 3M.

The new ECM would theoretically be able to reduce the hardware required for something like a mobile device by several orders of magnitude, adds Joel Pfeiffer, a technical support engineering specialist at the manufacturer. “It works that way, mostly. If you for some reason had a need for, say, 100 nF of embedded capacitance previously, that would have taken 10 square inches and now you could do that with much less.”

According to a 2010 study by AVX Corp., a U.S.-headquartered global manufacturer and supplier of electronic components, up to 70 per cent of the PCBs on today’s electronic devices are covered with passive components (which consume energy that could be used to power the device). ECM is designed to replace these, thus making PCBs more functional per square inch.

However, Prof. Todd Hubing, who works in the electrical and computer department at South Carolina’s Clemson University, says while ECM could be the future of computers and electronics, its cost remains too high to see widespread adoption in those industries.

“If it cost the same as just adding surface mount capacitors I think everybody, well not everybody, but most electronics would be using embedded capacitance materials because they really do reduce the noise,” he says. “Electrically, they’re just a better option than these lumped components. But the problem has always been the cost of putting this material in versus the cost of just adding some more surface mount components.”

ECM suffers from a chicken-and-egg problem with manufacturers, he says. “There’s nothing inherently expensive about it. I think the reason the costs are so high is because the volumes are so low. It’s one of those things, I think, that if everybody started using it, it would be cheap, and if it were cheap everybody would start using it.”

So far, 3M [NYSE: MMM] has not released the new ECM to the market, but has supplied it to several OEMs in the qualification process.

Hubing says ECM is just one emerging technology with the potential to make computers smaller and more powerful. In September of last year, IBM and 3M announced a partnership to develop special adhesives that would stack semiconductors into towers of as many as 100 chips, creating a new kind of microprocessor. These stacks could be used in everything from servers to smartphones.

“Certainly we’re doing a lot more stuff on-chip right now,” says Hubing. “The stacked silicon inside chips is catching on [and] will eventually be widely used, I think. And that’s allowed us to put a lot more computing power or a lot more function inside a single chip.”

Source:http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/3m-creates-high-density-material-for-pcbs/144839

No comments »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

Cloud-Computing Hardware Shipments Set to Rise Sharply in 2012

January 18th, 2012
Share

Cloud computing has long been the technology of hype, the “new” way of doing business that saw its origins in centralized data centers. While large companies and early adopters have been reaping some of the cloud’s benefits for the last few years, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and their IT have been more reluctant to jump on board with this reinvented form of service. Recent data, however, indicates that cloud-computing hardware is now rolling out quicker than ever and will continue to do so in 2012.
Here Comes the Hardware
A recent GigaOm article discusses the projected number of cloud server shipments heading out to providers in 2012, and that number is substantial. In 2011, almost 650,000 units went out, but over the course of the new year, approximately 875,000 will make their way to cloud service suppliers across the nation–that’s an increase of 35 percent. Part of this increase comes from providers looking for more reliable servers, including those with rack-optimziation and highly condensed blades. For providers, it’s all about ensuring that they are able to expand while still staying energy efficient and keeping costs low.
For SMBs, the increase in cloud computer hardware being shipped means an increase in choice of providers, and an overall improvement service quality. This growth is expected to continue as the fastest-expanding portion of the server industry through 2015.
Here Comes the Capital
A report by CB Insights regarding the distribution of venture capital in the fourth quarter of 2011 tells the tale: Over a quarter of Internet investments were for companies involved in cloud computing, and the total funding accounted for more than a third of dollars invested. Both start-ups and existing cloud companies are in the money as on-demand services become more of a safe bet and the customer base expands.
For a small business IT manager, that more servers are making it to market and the cloud-computing investment space is booming is nothing but good news. Increased production and the trend toward most cost-effective options is one of the surest signs that a technology is established instead of simply being the new kid on the block. Not just growth but the fact that providers are looking for mass-produced cloud-computing hardware will help to standardize the market, and this in turn is what small business IT needs to hear.
In a virtual world with no standardization, it’s easy for a provider to talk quickly and whitewash any shortcomings their service may have,. But when more servers are being produced and investment dollars are flowing, providers will have to start answering tough questions and ensuring that customer satisfaction and retention top their list–the gleaming shine of new technology is wearing off as the bare bones come to light.
The Lay of the Land

It’s clear that cloud hardware growth won’t slow anytime soon, and that with server increases come investment dollars. SMBs need to get used to the new lay of the land–one populated with intelligent providers and failover ready servers–in order to get the best service they can at costs that are worth the move from local hardware.

Source:http://www.theinfoboom.com/articles/cloud-computing-hardware-shipments-set-to-rise-sharply-in-2012/

Comments Off »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

How the BBC Micro started a computing revolution

January 11th, 2012
Share

Dan Frydman remembers clearly how the computer he used at school in the 1980s changed his life. Now 38, he was one of the generation who grew up with classroom computers that almost anyone could use to write self-contained programs – the equivalent of today’s smartphone apps.

The computer was the BBC Micro, a computing revolution dressed in light brown plastic. Made by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, the first version, released in December 1981, included a simple programming language called BBC BASIC which even very young children could follow. And with coin arcades offering video games such as Space Invaders, this was their chance to create their own – free – version.

“We all had a bash [at programming it],” Frydman says. Though he moved into architecture, he came back to programming, designing and writing websites: “Without that early introduction to programming as something that was logical rather than scarily scientific, I don’t think I’d have got into it,” he says.

Originally called the Proton, the BBC Micro got its name after Acorn, then just two years old, won the contract to make the hardware for the BBC’s then-ongoing computer literacy project. It was a contract that was the making of Acorn – and, arguably, the modern world, for a descendant of Acorn’s chip design methods now powers every mobile phone, including the smartphones used by millions.

Neil Kinson, 42, says the appearance of the machine when he was at school in north-east England “inspired people to get under [its] covers… I had visions of my own little software empire.” Though that didn’t happen, he went on to study software engineering at university “otherwise I would have done a pure physics degree”.

Another then-pupil, Nicholas Radcliffe, recalls that he “ended up producing commercial software for my local education authority” – and later use that skill to fund himself through university. “That BBC Micro experience led to everything I’ve done since, which has included being part of the formation of the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), spinning out my group from there as Quadstone Limited, a VC [venture capital]-based Edinburgh-based software company that was eventually acquired by Portrait Software.”

Alhough the BBC only specified that 12,000 should be made (so viewers of its new Computer Programme would be able to share the experience of the new microcomputing revolution), uptake was so rapid that, in 1982, 24,000 were sold – and schools were soon ordering them by the thousand. By the 1990s, when PCs running Microsoft software began to supplant the ageing BBC devices in the classroom, a million had been sold.

The Micro wasn’t cheap: prices started at £235 (£700 at current prices) and £335 (£1,000 at current prices) for the Model B, which became the iconic version. Prices rose slightly (to £299 and £399 – not that much more than a computer would cost today).

The specifications, by today’s standards, were minuscule: a processor running at two megahertz, more than a thousand times slower than a typical CPU today, and 32 kilobytes of Ram. You had to plug it into a TV set as there was no monitor output. There was no hard drive; programs were stored on cassette tape, from which they could be played back or on to which they could be recorded. (Program names were also limited to a maximum of 10 characters.) Any of the 163,000 points, or pixels, on the screen could display eight colours, or flash in eight combinations of two colours. Today, screens offer millions of available colours and millions of pixels.

Yet the BBC Micro’s arrival in classrooms as part of the government’s initiative to drive computing use in schools revolutionised computing in Britain. Scores of small games and other software companies were set up by people who had got their start writing programs on the BBC Micro, and on other computers from the period, including the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which also ran BASIC and was substantially cheaper at £80 (£240 at current prices).

But the arrival of those “more powerful” PCs spelt the death knell for the self-made classroom programmers: the new machines didn’t have BASIC, and pupils were now taught “ICT” (information and communications technology) rather than coding.

Part of the effect has been the ongoing skills shortage in programming and the falling enrolment in university courses. Radcliffe thinks that “ironically, programming is much harder to get into now, for kids and others. It’s a weird combination of things. Back then, every machine came with BASIC or similar. Programming was a much bigger part of experience. I also think there was less to learn, and the machines were less abstract. You could just set bits to draw on the screen. Now you have layer upon layer of abstraction to get through.”

Where would he start now? “I think quite often about what I would be doing today if I were 12 or 14, and I’m certain the answer is badgering my parents for an iPad and a developer kit. The iPad is appealing because it does have all those sensors and access to so much stuff, and because of your ability to turn the whole device into a physical manifestation of something. But the learning curve to get the first thing working is really large in that environment; you can’t really do it as a first thing.”

Kinson suggests “it is simply a case of building the right curriculum, as virtually all of the infrastructure to do this exists today, but stripping back one or two layers of the usability of some of today’s tools to ensure people learn the fundamental principles and skills”.

But even while some wrestle with reviving the BBC Micro’s legacy, it lives on in at least one form. Acorn, Apple and VLSI Technology teamed up to create a new company, Advanced Risc Machines – later shortened just to Arm – to make better versions of the specialised low-power chips that had run in the Acorn Archimedes computer, a successor to the BBC Micro.

An early ARM chip powered Apple’s handheld Newton device. But ARM soon discovered new markets in mobile phones, and now billions of chips using ARM’s designs power every smartphone in use, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices.

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/bbc-micro-school-computer-revolution?newsfeed=true

Comments Off »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

The Year Ahead in High Performance Computing

January 6th, 2012
Share

With 2011 officially in the books, it’s time to offer a few predictions about the upcoming year in HPC. In general, I expect 2012 to continue the major trends we’ve seen over the past couple of years, namely the increased adoption of GPU computing into the mainstream and more parity of HPC capability around the world, as exemplified by China. There may, however, be one or two new trends to pop up.

More flops at the top

No big surprise here. By the end of the 2012, the top 10 supercomputers in the world will be dominated by 10 petaflop-and-above machines. Currently, Japan’s K computer is the one and only double-digit petaflopper on the planet. The move to multi-petaflops hardly qualifies as crystal-ball prediction, given that 10-petaflop-and-above contingent — Blue Waters (NCSA), Sequoia (LLNL), Titan (ORNL), Mira (ANL) and Stampede (TACC) — are all scheduled for boot-up in the second half of 2012.

The big machines mentioned above are all US-based systems, but it wouldn’t be too shocking to see a Chinese super or two in the 10 petaflop realm before the end of the year. In any case, the prevalence of so many multi-petaflop systems in the States will reestablish the US as the leader for elite supercomputing.

Meanwhile, expect China to continue to broaden its share of the planet’s top supercomputers. By next November, I’m guessing China will claim more than 100 of the top 500 systems in the world. Europe, on the other hand, looks like it could be heading for recession in 2012, and may have to tread water on the HPC front until governments regain their financial footing. In the US, federal spending for big-ticket HPC programs (e.g., UHPC) may also be a bit constrained given the apparent lack of political enthusiasm for publicly funded R&D.

GPUs rule

Accelerators, especially GPUs, will continue their inroads into HPC. I expect NVIDIA’s introduction of its next-gen Kepler processor to be the biggest news in this area for 2012. Kepler looks like it will be in production no later than the second half of 2012, which is when Cray is supposed to start plugging the new parts into the Titan super at Oak Ridge National Lab.

Intel’s Many Integrated Core (MIC) debut in Knights Corner isn’t expected to go into full production until early 2013, but the Stampede system at TACC is supposed to get some early MIC silicon at the end of 2012. That won’t stop Intel from closing some more MIC deals for some big supers that will be on the drawing board this year.

Meanwhile, AMD should introduce its next-generation FireStream products for HPC with its latest and greatest Radeon GPUs. I say “should,” but given there has been so little activity in the FireStream group lately, I’m wondering if AMD is even planning to continue the product line. Even if AMD refreshes the FireStream parts, I’m not sure how much attention that will receive, given the lukewarm adoption of OpenCL, AMD’s preferred GPU computing framework. A CUDA port for the Radeon architecture, which is now more likely than ever, could change the game, however.

We’re all big data vendors now

The big data/analytics side of HPC heated up in 2011 and should continue to do so in 2012. The debut of IBM Watson was a pointed demonstration of the power of custom analytics running atop a supercomputer. The technology is already being adapted to healthcare analytics and appears to have a lucrative future.

In 2012 a lot more HPC vendors will try to leverage their natural advantage in parallel architectures and fast storage to capture big data customers. Even supercomputing stalwarts, like Cray, want a piece of the action. Those looking to expand into the business analytics space will do well to hook up with companies with some experience in this realm — SAS, Cloudera, and so on. Key hardware technology to watch is solid state storage; key software technology is Hadoop, especially the variants tweaked for performance.

Ethernet surge

After years of consolidating 10, 40 and 100 GbE technologies and products, Ethernet may now indeed be ready for prime time in high performance computing. The number of TOP500 system using 10 GbE as the system interconnect doubled from 7 to 14 over the last year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it doubled again in 2012. Look for companies like Brocade, Cisco, Mellanox, and a handful of others to make some big HPC-related Ethernet news this year.

FDR InfiniBand, meanwhile, may get off to a somewhat slow start. Although the bandwidth is nearly twice that of QDR, latency is no better, at least in the current Mellanox product set. QLogic has yet to introduce it’s FDR InfiniBand products, so right now the technology is a single-source solution. Also, FDR adapters needs PCIe 3.0 to perform optimally and only a handful of chipsets in server ecosystem includes that support right now.

It’s not easy being green

Datacenter power is becoming a bottleneck everywhere, and that includes HPC. Power efficiency is just not keeping pace with performance, and for users who need to add capacity into existing facilities, that’s a problem. Besides, running a 10MW supercomputer to study global warming just seems like an oxymoron.

Every vendor from the chipmakers and OEMs up to workload managers and application developers will need a strategy to minimize energy use. Most of these, especially at the processor and system level, are in motion now, but we’ll see more progress on the software side in 2012.

Source:http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-01-05/the_year_ahead_in_high_performance_computing.html

Comments Off »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

Self Aware Computing Project Angstrom Is ‘A World Changing Idea’

December 26th, 2011
Share

Computing has undergone some radical changes in previous decades. With being just a rudimentary device serving the purpose of calculations, computers have taken control of the industrial processes too. Even after the computer revolution, there is one more dimension in which the industry can grow. It is the idea of making computers self-aware. The Project Angstrom initiated by MIT has been selected as one of the “World Changing Ideas” by Scientific American in the December 2011 issue.

The initiative is funded by U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and involves scientists from multiple organizations working for this cause. Those related with the project directly include Research Laboratory of Electronics, Microsystems Technology Laboratories and the Materials Processing Center.

The project is aimed at making the computer adaptive of the needs of user and to improve its performance accordingly. The basic idea of this project is to design Hardware and Software that will make the future generation of computers. One of the aspects in this regard is the introduction of multicore processor computing environments. The team believes that it will be smart if a computer performs a specific task using many more cores-may be dozens or even thousands than what is the technological scenario today. The coordination between different cores, if made tangible and simple, can pave way to superior outputs. This also means of developing systems which are energy efficient.

Let us take a look at some facts and figures of energy efficiency. The video below shows why and how the SElf awarE Computing Model (SEEC) will be able to deliver good output with minimum wastage of energy.

Above video is divided in two parts, for the same video has been encoded with SEEC (right) and the one that isn’t (left) and having the resources allocated for the worst case scenario timing, compares the performance of the two. The corresponding graphs of power consumption per frame are plotted below the respective videos. Both the graphs depict the power of SEEC when it is running on Linux/x86.

Well, there is more to it. You are also able to fix the performance of your computer. For example, if you are playing some video and want it to yield clarity of 30 frames per second then you are able to adjust it. The system will make arrangements that will enable you to set this speed. It might skip some slides but if it is unable to achieve the expected target, then the system will recruit more number of cores to do the job. This is the beauty of the system. The thumb rule that the system follows is to ‘adapt’.

Such adapting systems are the need of the day and many companies might also be working to achieve it. The place that Scientific American has given to the project is an indication of its potential. We have to wait and watch the course that the project takes with time. However, looking at the prospects, do you think that self aware computing will be the next big thing in future?

Source:http://www.crazyengineers.com/self-aware-computing-project-angstrom-is-a-world-changing-idea-1466/

Comments Off »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

Cloud Computing: Hardware As Software

December 13th, 2011
Share

There’s a lot of confusion surrounding this elegant approach to marshaling remote computer resources. And, we do not wish to profit from the confusion created by the broad marketing of cloud computing to the public. So here we offer a definition of cloud computing that is easy to understand, accurate, and without marketing hype.
1. Cloud Computing Is Hardware As Software

Let’s deal with the first part of our simplified definition of cloud computing – that “cloud computing is hardware as software.” Imagine that hardware resources, like memory and processing power, are replicable and portable like software. This special quality of software allows for its replication almost without effort or expense: the creation of 100 copies of a file is done as easily as two. However, this is not the case with RAM modules or CPUs; they need to be purchased and installed, interrupting the operation of the server. With cloud computing, hardware seemingly assumes the flexibility of software; for example, memory and processing power can be multiplied and moved from server to server at anytime.

The seeming transformation of hardware into a portable and replicable resource is realized by rendering a likeness of actual server hardware – virtual hardware. The guest operating system* is presented with access to hardware surrogates, including virtual memory, virtual processing, and virtual disk. The real hardware remains concealed and isolated from the guest operating system. For example, 64GB of actual RAM might be presented as two individual banks of 20GB, with 24GB withheld and reserved for future use. By controlling the presentation of the actual hardware through the use of virtualization, cloud platforms can dynamically allocate resources to guest operating systems.

A cloud platform, like Open Hosting’s, allows you — and your applications, via our API — to request and modify hardware resources as if they were software. Want more memory? Disk? Such resources can be adjusted without having to wait for a technician to power-down the server, open the server, install new RAM modules, and power-on.

2. Cloud Computing Is Remote Computing

The second part our definition states that “cloud computing is remote computing”. The critical point is cloud computing is more than the virtualization of hardware, but the subsequent packaging of these resources as a remotely accessible service. The service can be private and closed to the public. For instance, many large organizations operate private clouds for just their purposes. Or, more commonly, it is a public retail service, like Open Hosting. The point is virtualization isn’t enough: remote accessibility is key.

“Cloud Computing!”

Behind the marketing of this phrase, there’s an assumption that the definition is commonly understood. Yet, maybe this isn’t the case. As evidence, we regularly receive inquires from folks wanting to migrate their existing applications to a cloud host, often for no obvious technical advantage. They just want cloud.

This has happened before.** In the late 1990s, Sun Microsystems ran TV advertisements for Java, their new computer programming language. By 2000 everyone wanted Java. Most folks didn’t know what it was, but they believed it to be a connection to a shimmering future.

Ten years on, and it is cloud computing. Not since Sun’s launch of Java has the general public been so excited by a technical innovation that they often don’t understand. Everyone wants cloud.

Unlike Java, which was then the property of Sun Microsystems, cloud computing belongs to no one. It is simply a way of organizing computer resources. Still, the expression “cloud computing” — sometimes just “cloud”— is today’s Java largely by the efforts of firms like Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. Apple has the iCloud. Microsoft’s ‘To the Cloud’ campaign promotes Windows Live. And, Amazon wants your media for its Cloud Player and Cloud Drive.

Source:http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2011/12/cloud-computing-hardware-as-software/

Comments Off »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

Is cloud computing a threat to older technology companies?

December 5th, 2011
Share

The International Data Corporation, whose technology analysis and predictions influence many corporate purchases, foresees the creation of a new high-technology industry in the convergence of mobile devices, social networking, and cloud-based computing and data storage.

As a result, the company said in a new study, many industry giants will scramble to sustain relevance, and some upstarts will achieve leadership positions or be purchased.

Frank Gens, IDC’s chief analyst, who led the study, said, “The incumbents are facing a huge transition.”

Spending on the new technologies will reach almost $700 billion, or about 20 percent of the $3.5 trillion in hardware, software, and services spent on information technology worldwide, IDC said. As a great deal of spending in the sector goes toward maintaining older systems, such a share for relatively new technologies is surprising. Spending on the new technologies is growing six times faster than that of traditional computer servers and personal computers, IDC said, and by 2020 will be 80 percent industry growth.

Much of the new development will also take place in emerging markets such as China, IDC said. It predicted that 28 percent of overall spending, and 53 percent of the industry’s growth, would come from outside the United States, Japan, and Western Europe. By mid-2012, China is expected to be the world’s second largest consumer of information technology, eclipsing Japan.

If the IDC predictions bear out, the technology industry is in the midst of perhaps its fastest-ever transition. Earlier transitions, like the move from mainframe and mini computers to personal computers and client-server technologies, led to the rise of giants like Oracle and Microsoft and the downfall of older stalwarts, like Digital Equipment Corp. and Wang Laboratories.

This time will be no different, Gens said.

“Hewlett-Packard will be challenged. Microsoft, Intel, SAP, RIM, Oracle, Cisco, Dell — they are all facing the next transition, competing to be around in 2020. At least a third will fade away.”

Among the notable claims in the forecast, IDC said that spending on hardware, software and services in cloud computing systems alone will be $60 billion in 2012. The growth rate in this sector is about 4 1/2 times that of the industry overall. About $36 billion of that was projected spending for companies providing cloud services to businesses, from companies like Amazon.com, Salesforce.com and Google, and the balance will be from “arms dealers,” supplying things like servers and networking gear.

Amazon, which does not formally break out how much it makes from selling corporate computing services over the Internet, will make more than $1 billion in that business next year, IDC said.

Mobile devices, which earlier this year outshipped personal computers worldwide, will in 2012 generate more revenue than PCs for the first time, IDC said. Shipments of mobile devices will outstrip PCs by two to one, and 85 million mobile applications, or apps, will be downloaded.

More money will be spent on mobile data networks than on networks tethered by lines.

The rapid transition to mobile, driven by an explosion of tablet computers, will challenge both traditional computer software companies like Microsoft and beneficiaries like Apple, which is seeing the dominance of its iOS operating system challenged by the open source Android operating system developed by Google.

“By 2013 we’ll know who the leaders are,” Gens said. “Android will be there, iOS will be there will Windows 8 put Microsoft there? By the end of the year we’ll know if putting a PC operating system onto mobile was a good idea.”

Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which IDC said would take 20 percent of the tablet market in 2012, will be a particularly successful device. While the Fire runs on Android, Google has no involvement with the product. Gens called the Fire “a phenomenal content device,” which he predicted Amazon will produce in larger formats that will make it more useful for business functions, like creating and sending data, in a couple of years.

The increasing number of people and machines online will additionally create an explosion of digital data. IDC said that the amount of data stored in 2012 would increase 48 percent from 2011, to 2.7 zetabytes, or 2.7 billion terabytes. By 2015, the firm said, the total will be 8 zetabytes.

These changes will likely prompt incumbents rich in cash but possibly challenged in relevance to acquire newer companies, Gens said.

“IBM, Microsoft and Oracle all have to be cloud providers,” he said. “Microsoft needs a content and media cloud, like Netflix,” he said, adding that “smaller independent service providers like NetSuite, Workday, Taleo, and Success Factors will get bought up in the next six to ten months.”

Source:http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/is-cloud-computing-a-threat-to-older-technology-2012272.html

Comments Off »

Posted in Hardware News

Tags:

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes