ARM today announced the availability of a high performance, power-optimized quad-core hard macro implementation of its flagship Cortex-A15 MPCore processor.

The ARM Cortex-A15 MP4 hard macro is designed to run at 2 GHz and delivers performance in excess of 20,000 DMIPS, while maintaining the power efficiency of the Cortex-A9 hard macro. The Cortex-A15 hard macro development is the result of the unique synergy arising from the combination of ARM Cortex processor IP, Artisan physical IP, CoreLink systems IP and ARM integration capabilities, and utilizes the TSMC 28HPM process.

Crushing previous reports saying that Windows 8 would have up to nine editions, Microsoft has officially announced that its next Windows release, due in the second half of this year, will come in three main flavors, two for x86 systems - Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro, and one for ARM-based devices - Windows 8 RT.

The 'standard' x86 Windows 8 SKU will target consumer-grade PCs and tablets and will allow upgrading from Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic and Home Premium. Windows 8 Pro, which is aimed towards tech enthusiasts and business/technical professionals, includes everything in the non-Pro SKU and adds goodies like BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, Boot from VHD, Hyper-V, Encrypting File System, Group Policy and Remote Desktop (host). This edition also supports upgrades from Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate.

ARM today announced the availability of a significantly expanded lineup of ARM Processor Optimization Pack (POP) solutions for TSMC 40 nm and 28 nm process technologies targeting a range of ARM Cortex processors. At least nine new POP configurations targeting Cortex-A5, Cortex-A7, Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A15 processor cores will be released. An essential element of ARM's comprehensive implementation strategy, POPs enable ARM partners to quickly close timing of single-, dual- and quad-core implementations across a broad envelope of power, performance and area optimization points. This solution reduces risk and improves time-to-market in the development of Cortex processor-based Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) with partners achieving competitive results in as little as six weeks.

At the leading-edge 28 nm HPM (high performance for mobile) and 28 nm HP (high performance) process variants, ARM is launching new POPs for the Cortex-A9 core as well as the first POPs for ARM's newest Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 processors. Since the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 cores are used in tandem as ARM's big.LITTLE energy-efficient processing solution, the addition of POPs for both cores assures a complete solution for big.LITTLE implementations. ARM's lead licensee for the Cortex-A15 POP for TSMC 28 nm HPM is progressing toward the tape out of its first chip in the coming months.

It's no news that Valve is working on its own gaming hardware platform so far referred to as Steambox, but its talk has been mostly based on rumors and anecdotal information. The Steambox theory, and the theory that Valve is working on hardware, got cemented by a new job vacancy posted by Valve, which calls for experienced electronics engineers. The posting reads "For years Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences. Now we're developing hardware to enhance those experiences."

The skillset asked for in the posting fills a lot of holes in the Steambox theory. It requires engineers to be proficient with prototyping, system-level design, embedded systems, high-speed serial interfaces, circuit simulation, etc., with a much more juicy "recommended" skillset requirement covering areas such as board layout, ARM/x86 system design, power/thermal management, RF and antennas, etc., basically everything a company out to design a game console would seek in its new engineers. Find the posting here, under "Electronics Engineer."

Intel is planning to launch a line of low-power Xeon processors in Q2-2012, which will be the company's first Xeon processors built on the 22 nm fab process, with 3D transistors. It is quite likely that these chips are built in the LGA1155 package, however Intel is only releasing low-power variants, which ensures performance-segment Xeon E3-1200 family isn't disturbed, and more importantly, it doesn't have to pull out the best bins of its 22 nm Ivy Bridge silicon just yet (for use in higher clock-speed Xeon parts).

Intel has another emerging problem. With the advent of "micro-servers" (low power independent servers in high-density data-centers, which provide better cost-performance and manageability than virtual servers), ARM processor architecture is making inroads to the enterprise computing market. Intel's answer to that is refining the same silicon that goes into making low-power Atom processors, and making it enterprise-grade. This part is codenamed "Centerton", and Intel expects an entire micro-server platform based on these chips to be out in the second half of 2012.

Taiwan's premier semiconductor foundry, TSMC, is reportedly facing an acute shortage in 28 nm manufacturing capacity. This shortage is expected to relax in Q3, 2012, according to sources. Qualcomm, AMD, and NVIDIA are the three biggest patrons of the 28 nm process, Qualcomm uses it to manufacture performance ARM application processors, while AMD and NVIDIA use it for their new generation GPUs. Although launched at the very end of Q4 2011, AMD's HD 7970 shipped a relatively small volume due to low manufacturing capacity. NVIDIA launched only two 28 nm GPUs, the GTX 680, and GT 640M, and has had to delay launch of more models, due to this reason, according to source. Qualcomm, meanwhile, shifted some of its orders to UMC.

It looks like troubles have queued up for Raspberry Pi, the $25 credit card-sized wonder hobby-computer, which officially started shipping in late-February. After shipping delays and a manufacturing setback caused due to erroneous selection of RJ-45 Ethernet jacks, the hobby-kit faces a new problem. As a high-tech consumer-electronics product, it requires the CE (Conformité Européenne) mark, which denotes compliance with European standards. It is similar in function to the FCC mark that's mandatory for consumer electronics merchandise sold in the United States. The Raspberry Pi team was under the impression that it didn't need the CE mark to ship samples (read: small quantities) of its product, until its big product launch slated for later this year.

Wintel (slang for Windows+Intel architecture) tablets, which launch along with Microsoft's latest Windows 8 operating system, which grab a greater market-share than WoA (Windows on ARM) tablets by the end of 2012, DigiTimes research predicts. This, despite the fact that the x86 and ARM versions of the operating system will be released simultaneously. PC majors such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, ASUStek and Toshiba, have all pledged 1-3 models of Wintel tablets by the end of 2012. Although still an emerging market-segment, tablets will see a clash between x86 and ARM architectures, as they are wooing for the same exact class of devices for the first time in computing history. Intel has made a lot of progress in miniaturizing the Atom processor, while led by the likes of Qualcomm and NVIDIA, ARM processors are getting stronger.

Shortly before launching its next-generation game console (codenamed "Durango"), Microsoft is said to be working on a new product (SKU, rather), called Xbox Lite. This new console will cost as little as $100. According to a source, Xbox Lite will be ARM-based, and scheduled for "late 2013 which does Arcade-style games & all the current & future media apps with Kinect (with near-mode)." What makes the rumor plausible is that ARM chips advancing faster than ever, and so is the ecosystem of casual games on Xbox Live Arcade, which don't have very high graphical detail (and hence, aren't resource-heavy). Many of these casual games, along with Kinect-enabled games, could make up the ecosystem around Xbox Lite.

Things on the Chromebook front have been pretty quiet this year but it seems they will change soon as the US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has received and tested a new machine running Google's Chrome OS. Seen below is the VAIO VCC111 Series, Sony's very first Chromebook, which features a 11.6-inch LCD screen (made by Samsung), 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, an SSD, an SD card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI output, a webcam, and a 4100 mAh battery.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated mobile devices graphics chip shipments for 2011. Mobile devices include smartphones, tablets, cameras, vehicles, and game consoles.

The market for smart mobile devices is soaring. Mobile devices are not necessarily replacing the PC, but they are outselling PCs. Increasingly mobile devices have a graphics processor and those processors are integrated in the device's system on a chip (SoC) application processor.

We know from a slightly older article, that the first variants of Windows will be released to market some time in Q4-2012. A new report by Bloomberg pin-points that to October, exactly 3 years after the market-launch of Windows 7. Further, Microsoft should launch Windows 8 for both x86 and ARM machine architectures around the same time, in what could be a breather for tablet and low-cost netbook designers. Despite that, there are fewer ARM devices running Windows 8, which will launch around that time, than x86 notebooks/PCs. With an October 2012 launch Microsoft should be able to target shoppers in the crucial winter shopping season, in mature markets, according to Bloomberg Analysts.

With the advent of highly-complex 28 nm discrete PC graphics processors, and ARM designers lined up with their increasingly powerful SoCs, TSMC is bound to see a pile up of orders for chips built on its newest bulk manufacturing process. In view of this, the "messiah of the fabless" is planning an expansion of its 28 nm manufacturing facility. This expansion is set to occur a little later in 2012. TSMC reportedly is running at full capacity at its 12-inch fabs because of strong demand for 28 nm as well as 40 nm and 65 nm. Due to this, some designers are approaching TSMC's competitors UMC and Samsung for 28 nm bulk manufacturing, according to sources. The expansion will follow a revision of TSMC's capex target for 2012, up from US $6 billion.

On the opening day of the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression, announced that Uruguay will be the first country in the world to receive the newest model XO children's laptop.

Uruguay began working with OLPC in 2007 and by mid-2010 achieved complete laptop saturation, providing XO's to all 570,000 primary school children in the country. The project recently ordered 60,000 XO 1.75's in order to take advantage of the many breakthrough hardware and software features in the new model.

Earlier this week, we learned about Nokia working on a Windows 8-driven tablet. Concept art of this tablet (probably designed by well-informed fans), suggests that the tablet, Nokia "Lumia Coffee Tab", is essentially a stretched-out Lumia 800, which is its flagship Windows-driven smartphone that's extensively marketed with the monies it received from Microsoft to go Windows. The tablet features a 10.1-inch screen, and is designed to be competitive with Apple's iPad.

Interestingly, Nokia will have to use Windows 8 ARM, since the tablet reportedly uses a Qualcomm-made processor, and it is reported that Windows 8 ARM could arrive much later than Windows 8 x86. Could this mean Microsoft handing out Nokia exclusive early-access to Windows 8 ARM? Microsoft is evidently desperate to give its mobile versions of Windows a single potent launch-pad manufacturer, and as one of the most competent mobile phone makers, Nokia is the chosen one. Microsoft looks aware that the post-PC future of computing is very real, and approaching fast.

ARM today announced the ARM Cortex-M0+ processor, the world's most energy-efficient microprocessor. The Cortex-M0+ processor has been optimized to deliver ultra low-power, low-cost MCUs for intelligent sensors and smart control systems in a broad range of applications including home appliances, white goods, medical monitoring, metering, lighting and power and motor control devices.

The 32-bit Cortex-M0+ processor, the latest addition to the ARM Cortex processor family, consumes just 9µA/MHz on a low-cost 90 nm LP process, around one third of the energy of any 8- or 16-bit processor available today, while delivering significantly higher performance.

Poking around the registry of Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Windows8Beta discovered the operating system, at least the PC version, as having six variants. There are also mentions of ARM variants (for ARM tablets and notebooks), but let's look at the PC SKUs:

• Windows 8 Starter Edition, for low-cost PCs, netbooks, nettops, etc., probably targeting emerging markets only
• Windows 8 Home Basic, for value desktop PCs, netbooks, and notebooks
• Windows 8 Home Premium, for mainstream desktops and notebooks
• Windows 8 Professional, for home, office desktops and more functional notebooks
• Windows 8 Professional Plus, for office desktops and notebooks in dense local networks, probably has extra management, data security features
• Windows 8 Ultimate Edition, has the complete feature-set of the OS

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that its Snapdragon processor will be joining Microsoft Corp.'s Windows on ARM developer seeding program. Qualcomm is working with Microsoft to provide test PCs to select developers in order to test and optimize apps for forthcoming Snapdragon-powered Windows on ARM PCs and tablets. This invitation-only program will combine a pre-release version of Windows on ARM with next-generation, high performance Snapdragon S4 test PCs. These test PCs are not representative of commercial form factors or the final Windows on ARM experience; they are designed to give developers early access to building and testing Windows Metro style apps on Qualcomm's latest technology.

The Windows on ARM developer seeding program will help ensure that Windows Metro style apps available in the Windows Store work great on all Windows 8-based PCs, including those with Qualcomm's ARM-compliant Snapdragon processors.

The season's hottest hobby-kit for electronics and embedded computing enthusiasts, Raspberry Pi, started selling. The device is a fully-functional, self-contained, ARM-powered computer, complete with modern interfaces such as SDHC, USB, HDMI, and Ethernet (USB and Ethernet with $35 Model B), for as low as $25. The device can be powered up using Fedora Remix for Raspberry Pi, a Fedora ARM variant that's heavily optimized for the device. The Raspberry Pi is now available (limited to one quantity per customer), through Premier Farnell or RS Components.

Even as there's quite some buzz around Microsoft's next major version of Windows, there are reports such as one from Bright Side of News citing "multiple sources close to Microsoft, or inside [it]," revealing the tentative launch schedule of the two main branches of Windows: for x86 platforms (client and enterprise), and ARM (for tablets and compact computing devices). Windows 8 for clients and enterprise (x86 architecture), will get up to 5 months' head-start over the much hyped ARM version for tablets. It is expected to be launched some time in Q4 2012, while the ARM version, some time in Q2 2013.

Intel and AMD can rub their hands as they both have extremely compact x86 processors fit for the tablet form-factor planned, and can woo tablet designers to opt for their solutions and get Windows 8 tablets instead of waiting for the ARM version of the operating system. Tablet vendors with mature ARM-based designs can always opt for Google's Android operating system, which will see no major competition for the greater part of this year.

ARM today announced the availability of the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore Processor Optimization Pack (POP) for GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 28 nm-SLP High-K Metal Gate process technology. Optimized for mobile, networking and enterprise applications, the energy-efficient ARM POP 28 nm-SLP for Cortex-A9 processors delivers a performance range from 1 GHz to 1.6 GHz for worst case conditions, with up to 2 GHz in typical conditions. This provides a wide range of flexibility for System-on-Chip (SoC) designers to optimize performance and energy-efficiency using the ARM Artisan Physical IP Platform and Cortex-A9 POP.

Developers at the Seneca College released a version of Fedora Remix ARM that's optimized for the Raspberry Pi. Fedora Remix is itself a lightweight version of the open-source Red Hat Linux derivative, which is now further optimized for this $25 self-contained hobby-kit computer. The new Fedora Remix variant fits in a 2 GB SD card that the Raspberry Pi boots from. By simply connecting a display to the HDMI port (1080p supported), a keyboard and a mouse to the two USB ports, Fedora Remix will lead you straight to user information screen, from where normal usage is a minute away, without needing any hardware configuration. The 2 GB SD card is left with some space for user data. Raspberry Pi with Fedora Remix works just like any desktop. In related news, the makers of Raspberry Pi announced that the first batch of these boards will be through QA testing by the 23rd, and out for shipping.A video presentation of Fedora Remix for Raspberry Pi follows.

Early last week, a news post on the website of PDXLAN set the enthusiast community, particular the press, in a tizzy, when it claimed NVIDIA and Gearbox Software would come together at PDXLAN 19 to give attendees "an exclusive treat from one of the year's hottest games that will blow their mind" (sic). The press, as well as enthusiasts all over anticipated this to be an unveiling, or some blind talk of NVIDIA's upcoming Kepler family of GPUs, because NVIDIA is known to unveiling new hardware to small crowds; or at least some exclusive about Gearbox's upcoming projects such as Aliens: Colonial Marines. It turned out to be absolutely neither.

What attendees reported to have seen, instead, was a setup of an NVIDIA Tegra 3 machine running Borderlands 2. There's nothing particularly bad about Tegra 3 running Borderlands, in itself it is an amazing feat for an ARM-architecture machine, but then the hype built around it, coupled with the circumstances, makes this event a damp squib indeed.

While Intel and AMD are making efforts to come up with low-power x86 processor platforms to compete with the plethora of ARM processor vendors, manufacturers of the target devices of these low-power x86 processors - tablets, netbooks, and smartphones; note that the architecture simply isn't competitive due to its prices. ARM processors are manufactured by a variety of companies, in a variety of different SoC configurations, and as such the tough competition among these companies ensure ARM processor platforms are comparatively cheaper to low-power x86 ones.

Intel recently debuted its 32 nm "Medfield" Atom processors, with power consumption as low as 11W for the platform. In the second half of 2012, it will launch another line of processors with under 10W power consumption, for high-end smartphones. AMD, on the other hand, will unveil "Hondo", which combines its x86 architecture with Radeon graphics IP, and a power consumption target of less than 5W. In 2013, it plans to launch the "Temash" APU, with power consumption under 2W, and built on the 28 nm process.

Back in the 1990's, when the software industry knew the 32-bit x86 address-space limitation was closing in, they geared up for transition to another machine architecture, then came AMD64 and EM64T, which allowed an x86 processor to perform in both 64-bit and 32-bit modes. Microsoft didn't want users of its 64-bit Windows to be deprived of using software coded for 32-bit Windows, which was infinitely more in number than 64-bit software. Hence it developed what is known as Windows-on-Windows 64 (WOW64), a translation layer that interfaces 32-bit software and drivers to the 64-bit OS and drivers. With its next major Windows version, Windows 8, Microsoft wants to give the ARM architecture a big push, with a Windows 8 version for ARM computing devices (such as tablets and netbooks). Guess what?

A latest bulletin at MSDN hints at the possibility of Microsoft working on a x86-to-ARM translation layer, which allows you to run desktop windows (Win32) software on Windows 8 ARM, effectively "Windows-on-Windows ARM". Without specifically pointing out the ability to run Win32 software on ARM, the bulletin mentions the ability to run non-metro applications (native Windows) on SoC (system-on-a-chip) architectures. It could also just be a reference to Intel's single-chip SoCs such as Medfield, which are x86-based. If Microsoft pulls off a "WOWARM", it could spell terrible news to Intel, because something such as the hypothetical WOWARM is all that stands between ARM and high-performance desktop PCs. In a market that only has two other competitors (AMD and VIA), dozens more could join in overnight, including NVIDIA's karmic entry after being shunned off an x86 license.