Last week, Intel released a firmware update (0362) for its SSD 320 Series products that it claimed would address the "8 MB bug", which results in a data loss with the drive not being able to see more than 8 MB of the installed NAND flash memory. After application of the firmware update, some reported back to Intel Support Community claiming that the new firmware did not effectively address the 8 MB bug, and has in some cases, made the drives even more unreliable. The users note that a SSD self-test cycle by the drive is causing Windows to crash with a bluescreen (BSOD). Intel has not responded to these posts.

LG announced its first 3D-capable notebook, the XNote A530. Two of its biggest selling points are the 15-inch LED backlit display that's capable of 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution, and stereoscopic 3D webcam, that uses two individual cameras to build a stereo 3D video stream, backed by LG's software. The XNote A530 is powered by "Sandy Bridge" 2nd Generation Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics. A Korean press release also mentions that the notebook will back 3D PT software, that allows users to make stereo 3D presentations that can be displayed using 3D-capable displays and projectors. The company did not announce pricing and availability details.

Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions reveals the GX-7 CPU cooler of its GAMER product line. Engineers at GELID Solutions have created an outstanding new CPU cooler with 7 power heat pipes. Contrary to traditional heat pipe arrangement for this GAMER CPU cooler "GX-7", a special array of heat pipes was used to take full advantage of all 7 heat pipes heat transfer capacity. Further V-shaped aluminum fins were used in the center of the heat sink to allow airflow to reach the heat sink more evenly. Openings inside of the heat sink and near the heat pipes let fresh-air flows in from the top and the bottom to zones normally poorly ventilated, and eliminate the creation of hotspots. The unique heat sink shape supports dual fans.

Included in the GX-7 is the multi-award winning Wing 12 PL fan, allowing the cooler to reach remarkable temperature. The Wing 12 PL Blue features blue LEDs and unique Nanoflux bearing which ensures a friction-free and silent operation. Thanks to the clever design and magnetic bearing, the impeller can be detached for easy cleaning. Additionally, fan blade winglets were designed to achieve larger airflow and greater static pressure. The fan also includes a premium PWM control, so the temperature can be controlled precisely by the BIOS.

Intel today released the much awaited fix for the "8 MB bug" (BAD_CTX 0000013x error) affecting some 320 Series solid state drives, which it announced it was looking into, back in July. The fix comes as a firmware update, version 1.9. The bug is caused by an unexpected power loss, which causes the drive to stop seeing data above 8 MB, resulting in a data loss. Intel fixed this bug with a new firmware update, which can by run by downloading the disk image (.iso file), burning it onto a blank CD, and booting from it. The firmware update can be downloaded from this page.

This fall, Intel plans a series of price-cuts covering its second-generation Core processor family, and Sandy Bridge-based Pentium Dual Core processors. The cuts will see prices lowered by roughly $10 across the board. The cuts cover dual-core Intel Pentium G630 and G850, dual-core Core i3-2120, i7-2390T, and quad-core Core i5-2400S, i5-2405S, i5-2500S, i5-2500T, and i7-2600S. Prime selling enthusiast models such as i5-2500, i5-2500K, i7-2600, i7-2600K don't feature in this list. Most of these cuts will come into effect in September, the price cuts of i3-2120, and the two Pentium Dual Core chips, will come into effect in October.

Intel's upcoming Core i7 processors in the LGA2011 package, codenamed "Sandy Bridge-E," will come in a unique package that's completely different from what's being reported as AMD's, in which self-contained liquid CPU coolers will be bundled with some FX-series processors. Intel's upcoming Core i7-3820, Core i7-3930K and the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor boxes will lack Intel's certified (stock) heatsink-fan (HSF). Instead, Intel plans to sell the certified coolers separately, probably having the same market reach and availability as the processors themselves.

The idea behind this is that the target users of Sandy Bridge-E will most likely use third-party cooling solutions. Hence it makes sense to save them of a chunk of metal they'll probably never use. For those who do use stock cooling, seldom/never overclock, and rely on the Intel certification to go with the cooler, Intel will have the certified cooler available separately for purchase, with its retail partners. Sandy Bridge-E processors have a rated TDP of 130W, though tests by those having access to engineering samples have shown that it can reach as much as 180W on load, even without overclocking. It is expected that PC cooling products manufacturers will have entire lines of LGA2011-ready coolers in time for the launch of Sandy Bridge-E.

Here are some of the first motherboards by Intel's Desktop Board brand of consumer motherboards. Towards the end of 2011, Intel will release its Sandy Bridge-E high-end desktop platform. Like with the launch of any new chipset or desktop platform, Intel will have its Desktop Board products in place, that follow the chipset and branding specifications to the letter. With Sandy Bridge-E, Intel will launch two Extreme Series motherboards, the DX79SI and the DX79TO. In the second half of 2011, Intel will also launch a variety of Intel Atom boards, including one codenamed "Marshaltown".

Then in the first half of 2012, Intel will launch its next-generation 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" desktop processors in the LGA1155 package (compatible with Sandy Bridge). To back its launch, Intel will release a new chipset called Z77 Express. There will be no discrete graphics chipsets. H77 is the client desktop chipset that lacks overclocking features. Z77 has them, and support for Smart Response technology. Q77 adds a few enterprise management features. Intel's Z77 based motherboards include two Extreme series models, and two top-end Media Series models.

Team Group Inc. makes an active plan and layout to break into the industrial class and server memory module market in 201. Facing the emerging cloud computing market, Team Group is optimistic about the future potential of cloud technology. To satisfy the customer's need for a more flexible customized server production, Team Group has been actively trying to cut into the industrial class memory module market by means of its advantages in strong R&D and procurement.

Team Group's Registered DIMM memory module comes in two clock specifications, DDR3 1066/1333, and a selection of three capacities of 4GB, 8GB and 16GB. The 16GB was made under a more stringent technological standard than the industry's norm and a more rigorous product testing. It is double-sided and dual-layered to achieve the maximum capacity. The Registered DIMM is compatible with the latest chip sets such as Intel 5500/5520 and AMD SR5670/5690 to provide servers with the most stable memory storage space, making it the best partner for building a cloud server.

Panasonic Solutions Company, provider of collaboration, information-sharing and decision-support solutions for government and commercial enterprises, today announced the Panasonic Toughbook S10. Powered by an Intel Core i5-2520M vPro processor, the Toughbook S10 delivers up to 12.5 hours of standard battery life - the longest in its class - and weighs only 3.0 pounds. The notebook offers optional Gobi2000 mobile broadband and other enhancements to increase performance and drive return on investment. This lightweight device is ideal for road warriors and other highly mobile workers in a variety of markets.

Panasonic has designed the Toughbook S10 for the most demanding mobile users, offering exceptional battery life, connectivity, security features and performance. The Toughbook S10 also supports both USB 3.0 and 2.0, analog (VGA) and digital (HDMI) video and the latest SD card standard (SDXC) to enable faster file transfer speeds and greater flexibility. A host of security features, including an optional fingerprint reader, are available to keep your data protected and secured while on the road.

Until recently, conventional wisdom stated that SLC-based (single level cell) solid state drives (SSDs) were the only drives suitable for demanding Tier 0 Enterprise applications. That has changed with the introduction of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies' (Hitachi GST) new Ultrastar SSD400M MLC (multi level cell) SSD family. As a cost-effective alternative to SLC SSDs, Hitachi GST's Enterprise MLC SSDs are the most advanced in the industry, utilizing Intel's 25 nanometer (nm), highest endurance Enterprise-grade, MLC NAND Flash and delivering outstanding performance. Couple this with Hitachi GST's known quality and reliability, and the result is a compelling Enterprise-class MLC SSD that meets the performance, capacity, endurance and reliability demands of today's Enterprise and Cloud data centers. Targeting Enterprise capacity sweet spots, the Ultrastar SSD400M family is available in a 2.5-inch form factor with a 6Gb SAS interface in capacities of 200GB and 400GB.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and computing hardware solutions today announced their entire range of 6 series motherboards are ready to support the next generation Intel 22nm CPUs (LGA1155 Socket) as well as offer native support for PCI Express Gen. 3 technology, delivering maximum data bandwidth for future discrete graphics cards.

Wanting to provide maximum upgradeability to customers, GIGABYTE has enabled native support for PCI Express Gen. 3 across the entire range of GIGABYTE 6 series motherboards, including the recently launched G1.Sniper 2 motherboard, when paired with Intel's next generation 22nm CPUs. By installing the latest BIOS for their 6 series motherboards today, users can be assured they are ready to take advantage of all the performance enhancements tomorrow's technologies have to offer.

Last month, there reports of Intel pushing its Sandy Bridge-E enthusiast desktop platform to 2011. It was originally scheduled for 2011, but was reportedly delayed to 2012 because of issues Intel was facing with its flagship desktop chipset, codenamed Patsburg-D. Intel will be launching Sandy Bridge-E this year, but the first wave of motherboards will feature Patsburg-A/B chipsets, which have fewer SATA 6 Gb/s ports than Patsburg-D.

Intel put its launch plans on paper with its latest desktop platform roadmap, that shows the first three models of socket LGA2011 Sandy Bridge-E processors, the six-core Core i7-3960X, Core i7-3930K, and the quad-core Core i7-3820, featuring in the Q4 2011 column. The roadmap shows that the three processors will hold their market-positions till Q2-2012, when Intel will release faster models to displace them. The roadmap slide also shows that Ivy Bridge, Intel's next-generation socket LGA1155 processors that are built on the 22 nm fab process, will be released in March or April 2012, and not early 2012 as speculated earlier.

Biostar released a new, improved variant of its TZ68A+ socket LGA1155 motherboard, the TZ68K+. The new board looks almost exactly the same as its predecessor except for the stronger CPU VRM. The CPU is now powered by an 8-phase VRM, compared to the 4-phase VRM on the previous version. The VRM cluster north of the CPU socket has its own little heatsink as well. Apart from that, it's the same budget Z68 chipset based motherboard in the ATX form-factor that TZ68A+ was.

Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, one PCI-E x16 (electrical 2.0 x4), a PCI-E 2.0 x1, and two PCI. The board builds entirely on the chipset's and the LPCIO chip's feature-sets. In the storage department, we have two SATA 6 Gb/s, four SATA 3 Gb/s ports, all internal. Connectivity includes legacy ports such as LPT and COM given out as headers, wired to the LPCIO chip, a number of USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, 6-channel HD audio, and PS/2 keyboard connector. Display outputs include HDMI 1.4, DVI, and D-Sub. Being Z68 based, it features Intel Smart Response technology. Like the TZ68A+, it uses UEFI firmware. We don't expect much of a price-difference between this board and the TZ68A+.

Stealth.com Inc., a leader in the industrial computer and peripherals market has released a new ultra small PC designed specifically for in-vehicle/mobile/embedded applications. Stealth's model LPC-125LPM is a rugged small form PC that operates in extreme temperatures and is energy efficient, drawing less than 20 Watts in operational power.

Housed in a rugged aluminum enclosure this energy efficient & versatile PC measures out at only 4.0" x 6.1" x 1.45" (102mm x 155mm x 37mm) or about the size of a deck of playing cards. The Stealth Mini PC weighs in at a mere 1.2lbs or 0.54kg. The PC operates from 10-26V of DC power making it ideal for DC powered applications typically found in vehicles and mobile applications.

It's not just host nations of the Olympics that are decided almost decades in advance, but also Intel's silicon names and the fab process they're going to be built on. Intel has its plan for the greater part of this decade already charted out, well beyond the upcoming Ivy Bridge architecture. Intel follows the "tick-tock" product cycle, where every micro-architecture gets to be built on two succeeding fab processes, and every fab process getting to have two succeeding micro-architectures built on it, in succession. Westmere is an optical shrink of the Nehalem architecture, it was a "tick" for the 32 nm process, Sandy Bridge is its "tock", and a new architecture. Ivy Bridge is essentially an optical shrink of Sandy Bridge, it is the "tick" for 22 nm process.

Ivy Bridge will make its entry through the LGA1155 platform in 2012, it will make up the 2012 Core processor family. Haswell is the next-generation architecture that succeeds Sandy Bridge and IvyBridge, it will be built on the 22 nm process, and is expected to arrive in 2013. Roswell is its optical shrink to 14 nm, slated for 2014. Looking deep into the decade, there's Skylake architecture, that will span across 14 nm and 10 nm processes with Skymont. This model ensures that Intel has to upgrade its fabs every 2 or so years, an entirely new micro-architecture every 2 or so years as well, while providing optical shrinks every alternating year. Optical shrinks introduce new features, increased caches, and allow higher clock speeds. 10 nm for processors by 2018 sounds realistic looking at the advancement of NAND flash technologies that are pushing the boundaries of fab process development. NAND flash is much less complex than processor development, and hence serve as good precursors to a new process.

Panasonic today launched the Toughbook CF-H2, its second generation, fully rugged tablet PC designed specifically for health workers. Setting new standards in ease of use, connectivity and productivity, the CF-H2 is a lightweight, water-resistant, shock and drop-tolerant and easily disinfected tablet device that meets the highest demands for mobility and networking within clinical environments. It allows doctors and nursing staff to benefit from instant access to medical records at the point of care, accurate documentation on patient conditions and medication, and enables greater efficiency of clinical processes.

With the latest Intel Core i5-2557M (1.7GHz) Ultra Low Voltage processor with vPro and the Intel HD 3000 graphics for enhanced multimedia capabilities, the Toughbook CF-H2 performance has been improved more than 400% over its CF-H1 predecessor. The CF-H2 is ideal for power hungry healthcare applications such as Electronic Patient Records (EPR) and Patient Administration Systems (PAS). RAM has also been raised to 2 gigabyte as standard, with up to 6 gigabyte optional, and it comes with a 160 gigabyte hard disk drive as standard with 128 gigabyte SSD as an option.

Intel Corporation today reported its fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue, with double-digit revenue growth across all business segments. On a Non-GAAP basis, revenue was $13.1 billion, operating income was $4.2 billion, net income was $3.2 billion, and EPS was 59 cents. On a GAAP basis, the company reported second-quarter revenue of $13.0 billion, operating income of $3.9 billion, net income of $3.0 billion, and EPS of 54 cents. The company generated approximately $4.0 billion in cash from operations, paid cash dividends of $961 million, and used $2.0 billion to repurchase 93 million shares of common stock.

"We achieved a significant new milestone in the second quarter, surpassing $13.0 billion in revenue for the first time," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. "Strong corporate demand for our most advanced technology, the surge of mobile devices and Internet traffic fueling data center growth, and the rapid rise of computing in emerging markets drove record results. Intel's 23 percent revenue growth in the first half and our increasing confidence in the second half of 2011 position us to grow annual revenue in the mid-20 percent range."

Intel Corporation today announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems Inc., a privately held fabless semiconductor company that designs Ethernet switch silicon for data center network providers.

"Intel is transforming from a leading server technology company to a comprehensive data center provider that offers computing, storage and networking building blocks," said Kirk Skaugen, Intel vice president and general manager, Data Center Group. "Fulcrum Microsystems' switch silicon, already recognized for high performance and low latency, complements Intel's leading processors and Ethernet controllers, and will deliver our customers new levels of performance and energy efficiency while improving their economics of cloud service delivery."

Here are details of the first three models of Intel's "Sandy Bridge-E" Core i7 processors in the LGA2011 package. Some of these details were made public as early as mid-April. It was then analyzed that Intel was driving two distinct lines of LGA2011 client processors: Enthusiast and Performance, and within Performance, there were BClk multiplier-unlocked six-core, and locked quad-core chips. With the new series, Intel will move to the 3000 series of processor model numbering, indicating that the new processors will be part of Intel's 3rd generation Core processors, even though they're based on the Sandy Bridge architecture.

Before we move to the model numbers, here's a quick run up of the brand extenders. "X" denotes Extreme Edition, "K" denotes "Unlocked" (BClk multipler unlocked). Leading the pack will be Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. This six-core (6 cores, 12 threads with HTT) chip has a nominal clock speed of 3.30 GHz, Turbo Boost speed of up to 3.90 GHz, and features the full 15 MB of L3 cache present on the Sandy Bridge-E silicon. Expect this chip to have a four figure price-tag.

Sandy Bridge-E is Intel's next-generation high-end desktop and enterprise platform that is an upscale of the Sandy Bridge platform the company launched early this year. At this year's major trade-shows such as Computex, motherboard partners displayed their socket LGA2011 motherboards with the complete feature-set of the platform. Apart from the large socket, and memory slots at odd places, the most distinct feature of those motherboards was the plethora of SATA ports they came with. Even the most [relatively] low-end LGA2011 motherboards had around 10 SATA ports, most of which were 6 Gb/s. Platform schematics also made it to the public domain around that time, revealing a key feature that makes driving 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports possible: a supplementary PCI-Express 3.0 x4 link between the X79 PCH and the LGA2011 processor, that adds 16 GB/s (8 GB/s per direction) of bandwidth between the processor and the chipset, without which the storage controller would be severely bottlenecked with the DMI Gen2 (physical PCI-Express 2.0 x4), with its puny 8 GB/s (4 GB/s per direction) bandwidth.

Originally slated for Q4 2011, Intel's Sandy Bridge-E platform was reported to have been delayed to Q1 2012. It is now emerging that Patsburg-D, the variant of Patsburg X79 chipset, which features 8 SATA/SAS 6 Gb/s ports, which requires that supplementary PCI-E 3.0 x4 link, may be causing a development hold up at Intel. So, the company is planning on launching the platform this year itself, but with Patsburg-B, a variant of the chipset that has only four SATA/SAS 6 Gb/s ports, and relies entirely on DMI as the chipset interconnect. The slide below lists out differences between the many variants of Patsburg PCH. DMI would give the platform the same amount of chipset interconnect bandwidth as today's LGA1155-Cougar Point platform. It is, however possible that the higher Patsburg-D/X variants will be launched when Intel irons out whatever issues exist with them.

Intel's 320 Series SSD is the silicon giant's big push of SSD technology into homes and offices. The SATA 3 Gb/s compatible 2.5" SSDs offer generally good price per gigabyte by SSD standards, and is even backed by a 5 year warranty after some customers were skeptical about the low NAND flash rewrite cycle capacity of the new 25 nm MLC NAND flash chips. Off late, several customers have been noting a bug in its firmware that drops capacity down to 8 MB, making data occupied on the rest of the capacity inaccessible. This bug came to be popularly known as the "8 MB bug".

Intel's Support Community boards have been piling up with complaints about this bug by users of 320 series. Then earlier this week, Intel's Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group acknowledged this bug. It asked customers to contactIntel representatives or Intel customer support, and said that it will provide an update when it has more information. In all likelihood, this is yet another case of buggy firmware by Intel, which haunted it through the 34 nm X25-M and some older SSDs.

Panasonic today launches the Toughbook CF-H2, its second generation, fully rugged tablet PC designed specifically for field workers. Setting new standards in ease of use, connectivity and productivity, the CF-H2 is the ultimate tool for mobile and field workers helping them to stay productive, even in harsh environments, by delivering constant access to their applications and business data. The lightweight, yet fully rugged tablet is ideal for field workers in utilities, logistics, automotive workshops, rail and aviation as well as sales personnel, retail point of sales and market research.

With the latest Intel Core i5-2557M (1.70 GHz) Ultra Low Voltage processor with vPro and the Intel HD 3000 graphics for enhanced multimedia capabilities, the Toughbook CF-H2 performance has been improved more than 400% over its CF-H1 predecessor. The CF-H2 is ideal for power hungry field applications such as GIS, mobile CAD and powerful diagnostic tools. RAM has also been raised to 2 gigabyte as standard, with up to 8 gigabyte optional, and it comes with a 160 GB hard disk drive as standard with 128 GB SSD as an option.

Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions adds a 66mm high multi compatible CPU Cooler with PWM fan to its popular SILENT product portfolio. The Siberian with its super competitive pricing contains a premium aluminum heat sink and a silent 80mm fan with GELID intelligent PWM control. The cooler offers multi compatibility for AMD & Intel latest sockets. It features a compact size and is especially suitable for HTPC and small chassis. The silent fan achieves high airflow rate and the GELID intelligent PWM Control accelerates the fan speed only when it's necessary.

The cooler is RoHS and WEEE conform and carries a warranty of 5 year. "The perfect choice of CPU cooler for system builders looking to replace the stock cooler with a single cooler that fits all platforms", said Gebhard Scherrer Sales Director of GELID Solutions Ltd.

Taiwanese PC enthusiast Coolaler has a new Ivy Bridge LGA1155 dual-core engineering sample to play with, and wasted no time in putting it through some tests. The sample has two cores, four threads with HyperThreading enabled, clock speed of 1.80 GHz, 256 KB L2 cache per core, and 4 MB shared L3 cache. It is running on an Intel P67 chipset-based motherboard with 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory. At 1.80 GHz, it may not be game for absolute performance figures since it's unlikely that Intel will release a chip with that clock speed unless it has unreal performance:clockspeed gains over Sandy Bridge; but it's good enough for clock-to-clock performance comparisons between Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge. A Core i5-2400 was clocked at 1.80 GHz with 18x BClk multiplier, and put through a single-threaded benchmark, and a multithreaded one.

The cache and memory benchmark that measures bandwidth and latency of caches and memory was unable to measure bandwidth, but measured some latencies. The L1 cache at 2.2 nanoseconds (ns), and L2 at 2.9 ns. Next, the Ivy Bridge DC, and the Core i5-2400 (@ 1.80 GHz) testbeds were put through CPUMark 99, where Ivy Bridge DC scored 278 points, and Core i5-2400 clocked at 1.80 GHz scored closely followed at 276 points. Moving on to multithreaded performance, the two were put through Cinebench 11.5 64-bit. The Ivy Bridge DC chip scored 1.81 points; while the Core i5-2400 clocked at 1.80 GHz, scored 2.61 points. Coolaler promises more benches.

Intel updated its product offer to OEMs with a new low-cost ultra-low voltage (ULV) processor, the Intel Celeron M 857. The chip is designed for use in ultra-portable notebooks. Built on the 32 nm processor node, this dual-core chip is clocked at 1.20 GHz, lacks HyperThreading, has 2 MB of shared L3 cache, dual-channel DDR3 IMC, and embedded graphics. The chip has a TDP of just 17W. Celeron M 857 has the same channel price as Celeron M 847, $134, which it displaces.