Intermolecular, Inc. today announced that GLOBALFOUNDRIES and IBM will leverage Intermolecular's High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) technology, as the companies work to speed development of manufacturing technologies down to the 10 nm node.

Intermolecular's combinatorial technology allows many more tests to be done using a single wafer. This enables experimental data to be generated and analyzed with significantly greater speed and efficiency than a traditional development line, accelerating innovation in materials, processes, and device architectures.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has completed its acquisition of Texas Memory Systems (TMS), a privately held company based in Houston, Texas. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. IBM announced on August 16, 2012, that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire TMS, a leading developer of high-performance flash memory solutions.

Founded in 1978, TMS designs and sells solid state memory solutions as the RamSan family of shared rackmount systems and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) cards. The products are designed to help companies improve system performance and reduce such critical issues in the data center as server sprawl, power consumption, cooling, and floor space requirements. Leveraging such solutions can help organizations save money, improve performance and invest more in innovation.

AMD announced today that Jack Harding has been appointed to the company's board of directors. Harding currently serves as president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of eSilicon Corporation, a privately-held semiconductor design and manufacturing services provider he co-founded. eSilicon designs and manufactures complex, custom chips for a broad and growing portfolio of large and small firms. Harding brings more than 25 years of management experience in the semiconductor industry to the board, especially in the area of ASIC and system on a chip (SoC) design, productization and manufacturing.

"Jack's wealth of industry experience and familiarity with evolving industry trends make him a perfect choice to join the AMD board," said Bruce Claflin, chairman, AMD Board of Directors. "As AMD establishes itself as a more nimble, flexible semiconductor design innovator, Jack's operational experience, strategic expertise and business acumen for bringing SoC and custom integrated circuit solutions to market should add tremendous value for AMD's future business."

The IBM (NYSE: IBM) board of directors today declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.85 per common share, payable September 10, 2012 to stockholders of record August 10, 2012.
With the payment of the September 10 dividend, IBM will have paid consecutive quarterly dividends every year since 1916.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced it is moving forward with the final construction for the extension of Module 1 at the Fab 8 campus in New York. The project will add 90,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity, bringing the total capacity for Fab 8 Module 1 to 300,000 square feet. Construction activities are scheduled to begin in August and work is expected to be completed in December 2013.

"During the construction of Fab 8, we extended the shell of the Module 1 building with the expectation that our business would continue to grow. Today we see increasingly strong demand from our customers, especially at the 28nm node, and we are excited to be moving forward with this next phase in the development of the Fab 8 campus," said Eric Choh, vice president and general manager, Fab 8, GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "By continuing to expand our investment in the project, GLOBALFOUNDRIES is delivering more options to our global customers, while helping to redefine upstate New York as a premier hub of the global semiconductor industry, creating thousands of new advanced manufacturing jobs, and contributing billions of dollars to the regional economy."

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced second-quarter 2012 diluted earnings of $3.34 per share, compared with diluted earnings of $3.00 per share in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 11 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings were $3.51 per share, compared with operating diluted earnings of $3.09 per share in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 14 percent.

Second-quarter net income was $3.9 billion compared with $3.7 billion in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 6 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $4.1 billion compared with $3.8 billion in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 8 percent.

The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family reached a new supercomputing milestone as the fastest adopted new processing technology to power 44 systems, including 3 Petascale-class supercomputers on the 39th edition of the Top500 list announced today.

The "SuperMUC" supercomputer at LRZ in Germany, which ranked fourth on the list, delivers 2.9 PetaFLOPs of performance, making it the most powerful in Europe, as well as the largest installation based on the new Intel Xeon processors E5 family.

ISC'12 - NVIDIA Tesla K10 GPUs offer performance breakthroughs on popular high performance computing (HPC) applications -- ranging from seismic processing to life sciences to video processing -- according to new benchmarks NVIDIA released today.

Based on the new NVIDIA Kepler computing architecture, the Tesla K10 GPU delivers the industry's highest single precision performance (4.58 teraflops) and highest memory bandwidth (320 GB/sec) in a single accelerator. This is 12 times higher single precision flops and 6.4 times higher memory bandwidth than the latest-generation Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs.

The Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), in collaboration with IBM, today announced the world's first commercially available hot-water cooled supercomputer, a powerful, high-performance system designed to help researchers and industrial institutions across Europe investigate and solve some of the world's most daunting scientific challenges.

The new LRZ "SuperMUC" system was built with IBM System x iDataPlex Direct Water Cooled dx360 M4 servers with more than 150,000 cores to provide a peak performance of up to three petaflops, which is equivalent to the work of more than 110,000 personal computers. Put another way, three billion people using a pocket calculator would have to perform one million operations per second each to reach equivalent SuperMUC performance. Also, a revolutionary new form of hot-water cooling technology invented by IBM allows the system to be built 10 times more compact and substantially improve its peak performance while consuming 40 percent less energy than a comparable air-cooled machine.

SK Hynix Inc., today announced a joint development agreement and a technology license agreement with IBM for the development of Phase Change Random Access Memory (or 'PCRAM') technology.

IBM brings years of research experience in phase change memory technology, as well as profound know-how in developing multi-level cell (MLC) technology. Last June, IBM researchers demonstrated a reliable multi-bit, phase-change memory technology that would allow computers and servers to boot instantaneously and significantly enhance the overall performance of IT systems. Combining IBM's expertise in such disciplines with SK Hynix's cutting-edge manufacturing process optimization and cost competitiveness will help to accelerate the commercialization of PCRAM technology.

Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced its enhanced business laptops product line with 3rd generation Intel Core processors and new technology developed with IBM that enables IT professionals to better control the security and power management across enterprise deployments. The new models include the Portégé Z930 Ultrabook and the Portégé R930 ultraportable, as well as upgrades to its Tecra line of laptops, business workhorses with enhanced durability, security and reliability.

Mentor Graphics Corp. today announced that GLOBALFOUNDRIES is helping its customers improve reliability checking by adding Calibre PERC to select 28nm bulk CMOS design enablement flows. Calibre PERC will give designers access to the new reliability verification rules developed by the IBM Semiconductor Development Alliance (ISDA), augmented with GLOBALFOUNDRIES specific checks to help prevent external latch-up. Using Calibre PERC's unique architecture, complex reliability rules that require the integration of logical (net list) and layout (GDS) information can be fully automated, eliminating manual spreadsheet-based efforts and reducing the chances of design errors.

"In the past, verification of latch-up immunity depended on manual layout checks and rough approximations of device and interconnect resistance using traditional mechanisms," said Bill Liu, vice president of design enablement at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "Now our customers can perform accurate measurements and analysis automatically using Calibre PERC's data integration capability. For example, some of our customers are currently using PERC to accurately determine the resistance of the paths in complex output driver arrays as a function of device spacing. This allows them to easily and accurately detect points in the circuit where latch-up could be an issue and to make appropriate improvements."

IBM and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of the Republic of the Philippines today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to establish the first Philippine Systems & Technology R&D Laboratory to help spur economic growth.

The R&D Lab is aligned with Philippines' strategic growth initiative that calls for greater partnering between industry and government to advance four critical areas for the country: business process outsourcing, governance for anti corruption, talent development, and innovation for a knowledge-based economy. Touching on all four pillars, the new R&D Lab will strive to contribute to the productivity of the Filipino people and improve their quality of life through the generation and promotion of strategic technologies and expertise.

IBM today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Tealeaf Technology, Inc., a leading provider of customer experience analytics software that helps organizations to gain intelligence and react more swiftly to consumer trends in today's digitally transformed marketplace. Financial details were not disclosed.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.

IBM today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Vivisimo, a leading provider of federated discovery and navigation software that helps organizations access and analyze big data across the enterprise. Vivisimo is a privately held company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Vivisimo software excels in capturing and delivering quality information across the broadest range of data sources, no matter what format it is, or where it resides. The software automates the discovery of data and helps employees navigate it with a single view across the enterprise, providing valuable insights that drive better decision-making for solving all operational challenges.

Today's news accelerates IBM's big data analytics initiatives with advanced federated capabilities allowing organizations to access, navigate, and analyze the full variety, velocity and volume of structured and unstructured data without having to move it.

The IBM board of directors today declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.85 per common share, payable June 9, 2012 to stockholders of record May 10, 2012. Today's dividend declaration represents an increase of $0.10, or 13 percent higher than the prior quarterly dividend of $0.75 per common share.

This is the 17th year in a row that IBM has increased its quarterly cash dividend, and the ninth year in a row of double-digit percent increases. IBM has increased its dividend by over 600 percent since the beginning of 2000. With the payment of the June 9th dividend, IBM will have paid consecutive quarterly dividends every year since 1916.

A report in the the latest issue of Xbox World print magazine suggests that developer kits (devkits) of Durango (next-generation Xbox console), were implementing a "state of the art" 16-core IBM PowerPC CPU, its companion graphics processor is AMD-made, spec'd equivalent to AMD Radeon HD 7000 series, as previously reported. The 16-core CPU is said to have been implemented with a far-sight on the platform's longevity. "It's a ridiculous amount of power for a games machine - too much power, even. But remember, Kinect 2 could chew up four whole cores tracking multiple players right down to their fingertips, so it'll need a lot of power," the Xbox World article commented.

Worldwide factory revenue for the high performance computing (HPC) technical server market increased by 8.4% in full-year 2011 to reach a record $10.3 billion, up from $9.5 billion in 2010, according to the newly released International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide High-Performance Technical Server QView. The 2011 results exceeded IDC's forecast of 7.2% year-over-year revenue growth.

Unit shipments in 2011 declined 6.9% year over year as average selling prices grew, indicating a continued shift to large system sales. IBM and HP ended the year in a statistical tie for leadership with 32.6% and 32.1% of overall factory revenue market share, respectively. (Note: IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide server market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.)

Intel is making serious efforts to boost CPU-integrated graphics performance using homegrown architectures, without having to borrow/license any technologies from the other two major players in the PC graphics business that have technological edges over Intel, and hence make high-performance discrete-GPUs (NVIDIA and AMD). Intel's architecture that succeeds Ivy Bridge, codenamed Haswell, will be at the receiving-end of a significant advancement in GPU performance.

We know from history, that Intel carves out variants of chips using a common silicon, by toggling the amount of L3 cache available, number of cores, and even number of iGPU shaders, apart from other natural handles such as clock speeds, voltages, and feature-set. With Haswell, the highest iGPU configuration will make use of a 4th-level cache (L4 cache), that sits on the package, while not being a part of the Haswell silicon. The Haswell silicon will instead be placed on a multi-chip module (MCM) along with a separate die that holds this L4 cache. The L4 cache will serve as a fast memory for the iGPU, while reducing or completely offloading the iGPU's dependency on the system memory as a frame-buffer (UMA).

Common Platform, a consortium of three major silicon fabrication companies: IBM, Samsung, and GlobalFoundries, met at their 2012 Technology Forum, where they announced their intention to transition to FinFET 3D transistor technology, but only with the 14 nanometer (nm) silicon fabrication process. Chips on this process will be built in the 2014~2015 time-frame. 3D transistors is a technology pioneered by Intel, which provides space-optimized, energy-efficient transistors on a nano-scale.

FinFET transistors will be combined with Fully Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FD-SOI) to offer extremely high transistor densities, with lower chip power. FD-SOI overcomes the limitation of current partially-depleted SOI (PD-SOI) technology, of lower-yields due to the pressure required for SOI insulation, which nears the breaking-point of strained silicon transistors. FinFET tech will be combined with chip-stacking technology, which helps make devices with better use of available PCB footprint.

IBM scientists today will report on a prototype optical chipset, dubbed "Holey Optochip", that is the first parallel optical transceiver to transfer one trillion bits - one terabit - of information per second, the equivalent of downloading 500 high definition movies. The report will be presented at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference taking place in Los Angeles.

With the ability to move information at blazing speeds - eight times faster than parallel optical components available today - the breakthrough could transform how data is accessed, shared and used for a new era of communications, computing and entertainment. The raw speed of one transceiver is equivalent to the bandwidth consumed by 100,000 users at today's typical 10 Mb/s high-speed internet access. Or, it would take just around an hour to transfer the entire U.S. Library of Congress web archive through the transceiver.

IBM and Toshiba Corporation today announced that Toshiba's new line of enterprise laptop PCs will be integrated with IBM software, providing energy management and advanced endpoint security protection. Toshiba plans to sell the new lines of enterprise PCs and its integrated solution globally in mid 2012.

With the growing use of laptops by organizations, there are several important factors to consider, including today's 24/7 work environment that requires many users to keep laptops running around the clock-not always in power-saving modes. Stolen laptops were also one of the biggest causes of data breaches to organizations in 2011. This directly relates to laptops that contain confidential data requiring higher security measures to protect them if stolen or misplaced. Multiply these behaviors across all employees in an organization, and the security risks, energy costs and environmental impacts rise.

IBM today announced the opening of the first-ever server remanufacturing center in China. The new center, located in Shenzhen, will help reduce the impact of e-waste on the environment by extending the life of older IT equipment that otherwise would go into landfills. IBM will also buy back select IBM Power Systems from clients as they upgrade to new IBM equipment.

The new facility expands IBM's global remanufacturing and refurbishment operations in Australia, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany and the United States. The Shenzhen facility will initially remanufacture hundreds of mid-range IBM Power Systems, which are reconditioned, tested and certified using rigorous processes and original manufacturing standards, or rebuilt to meet specific customer requirements. The facility will rapidly expand to remanufacture 100,000 PCs and low-end and mid-range IBM and non-IBM servers per year by 2014.

According to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market decreased 7.2% year over year to $14.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11). This was the first quarterly decline in factory revenue in two years. Worldwide server shipments increased 2.0% to 2.2 million units in 4Q11 when compared with the year-ago period.

For the full year 2011, worldwide server revenue increased 5.8% to $52.3 billion when compared to 2010, while worldwide unit shipments increased 4.2% to 8.3 million units.

On a year-over-year basis, all three classes of servers experienced decreased factory revenue totals in the fourth quarter. Volume systems experienced a 2.0% year-over-year factory revenue decline to $8.8 billion, while midrange revenue decreased 4.6% to $1.8 billion when compared to 4Q10. Additionally, high-end system revenue declined 18.4% to $3.7 billion in the quarter. This is the first time all three server classes have experienced year-over-year declines in revenue since the third quarter of 2009.

Scientists at IBM Research (NYSE: IBM)/ (#ibmresearch) have achieved major advances in quantum computing device performance that will accelerate the realization of a practical, full-scale quantum computer. For specific applications, quantum computing which leverages the underlying quantum mechanical behavior of matter has the potential to deliver computational power that is unrivaled by any supercomputer today.

Using a variety of techniques in the IBM labs, scientists have established three new records for reducing the error in elementary computations and retaining the integrity of quantum mechanical properties in quantum bits (qubits) - the basic units that carry information within quantum computing. Furthermore, IBM has chosen to employ superconducting qubits which use established microfabrication techniques developed for silicon technology, providing the potential to one day scale up to and manufacture thousands or millions of qubits.