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NVIDIA: results and prospects

Sony announces 405-nm laser

AMD announces new roadmap: San Diego, Odessa, Athens

NVIDIA announces Q3 financial results

AMD plans workforce cuts?

M-Audio Revolution 7.1: new 24-bit/192kHz soundcard

Gladiac 9700 Pro and Winner 7000: Neue ELSA GmbH is back to the graphics market

Toshiba announces DynaBook SS3500 Tablet PC

HP announces Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 on 1GHz Crusoe TM5800

IBM announces new 2.5-inch Travelstar 80GN series

Kingston announces 1GB PC2100 EPOC modules



NVIDIA: results and prospects

In addition to the posted financial results of NVIDIA, I’d like to state some values and facts, announced at the quarterly press conference.

According to CEO and president Jen-Hsun Huang, NV30 volume shipments are scheduled to January 2003. Though company representatives say NV30 will appear in the market before X-mas in limited quantities.

According to chief scientist David Kirk, NV30 will be announced at NVIDIA Mania Day on November 18 at Comdex in Las Vegas.

The press conference hasn´t confirmed the possibility of producing chips at IBM facilities, but confirmed that NVIDIA is to partner with TSMC. It’s interesting the latter ties recent 19.4% revenue growth in October directly to increased orders from NVIDIA.

NVIDIA is satisfied with TSMC´s 0.13-micron chip yield. NV3X family development will cost the company about $400 million.

Fresh market analysis of Mercury Research indicate that in Q3 2002 NVIDIA increased its market presence from 56% of Q2 to 58%. At that ATI presence on the GPU market reduced from 36% to 33% despite sales of new high-performance chips.

Despite Q3 losses NVIDIA is generally satisfied: for nine months of 2002 the company earned $1.44 billion, that’s 66% more than $865.8, earned for the first nine months of 2001. For nine months of 2003 the profit made $39.9 million or $0.24 per share.

Sony announces 405-nm laser

Today Nikkei Business Daily reported that Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor, one of Sony subsidiaries, finished the development of blue/violet laser prototype (405-nm wavelength). New laser can work for about 10,000 hours, features 50 mW output power at 70°C, enough for commercialization.

New gallium nitride semiconductor laser is grown on sapphire substrate and can generate rays with 2.3 side ratio (lower value indicates approaching to ideal circle; most competing developments feature about 3.0 ratio).

Now Sony plans to release players and optical drives, based on the new laser. The production might start after the summer of 2003.

Source: Nikkei Net

AMD announces new roadmap: San Diego, Odessa, Athens

Today AMD posted new processor roadmap.


What strikes first: new 90-nm chips are scheduled to 2004 only instead of late 2003 as before. In H1 2004 we should expect new 90-nm Athens to replace server AMD Opteron (SledgeHammer), San Diego – to replace desktop ClawHammers, and Odessa – to replace Mobile Athlon with ClawHammer core. In other words, all three should replace chips not volume-produced today. This provokes a feeling that, most likely, the company means to simply redesign chips for newer process technology, not to release new cores.

Also note the disappearance of ClawHammer DP from the roadmap, that was intended for 1-2-processor servers.

NVIDIA announces Q3 financial results

Today NVIDIA announced Q3 financial results. The company reported quarterly sales of $430.3 million, that lies near $427.3 million of the previous qaurter and is 18% more than $365.0 million earned a year ago. However, in Q3 the company suffered $48.6 million dead loss or $0.32 per stock. Last year in Q3 NVIDIA was profitable with $41.3 million net profit or $0.24 per stock. In the previous quarter the company lost $5.3 million.

Company leaders tie losses to the generally negative PC sales situation worldwide.

AMD plans workforce cuts?

At the annual meeting with financial analysts AMD is expected to announce mass workforce cuts. Worldwide rumors appeared the next day after the quarterly press conference of October 17, when company leaders announced the necessity of additional annual saving of $350 in 2003 to remain afloat and maintain sufficient technological level. To remind: in the last, fifth unprofitable quarter AMD lost $254 million.

English The Inquirer posted the complete note from AMD leader Hector Ruiz to company workers, stating financial problems and possible solutions. Though it´s not directly mentioned, the document provokes feeling of coming workforce cuts.

Last mass cuts were conducted by AMD in September 2001. Early that fall many companies were cutting thousands of workers. Then AMD dismissed 2300 people. About the same is expected to be dismissed this year. Though this wasn’t proved yet, according to rumors from 5% to 20% workforce is to be cut. Currently 13187 people work for AMD.

According to provisional data, workforce cut is a part of restructuring plan, called Operation Flexibility, that will be presented to analysts at the coming press conference.

M-Audio Revolution 7.1: new 24-bit/192kHz soundcard

M-Audio announced new 7.1-channel Revolution 7.1 PCI soundcard supporting 24-bit/192kHz quality and Sensaura 3D. Press release doesn’t provide information about the audio chip, but considering claimed features, it’s, most likely, Envy24HT.


Revolution 7.1 brief specs:

  • DTS output and Dolby Digital 5.1/EX (6.1 DVD) decoding
  • High-resolution audio output up to 24-bit/192kHz
  • 24-bit/96kHz recording
  • Real-time stereo-to-surround conversion
  • SRS CircleSurround II and TruSurround XT support
  • All popular media players support, including Windows Media 9
  • All speaker configurations from stereo (or headphones) up to 7.1
  • Analog line in supports recording up to 24-bit/96kHz
  • Analog mic in supports recording up to 24-bit/96kHz
  • Coaxial digital output
  • Sensaura, EAX, DirectSound, A3D support
  • SNR A-D: !106dB
  • SNR D-A: !106/108 dB (eight channel/two channel)
  • Software bundle: Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, MixMan Studio, VJ Lite, PowerDVD XP 4.0 (Dolby Digital EX version), Propellerhead Reason (trial version), Ableton Live (trial version), etc

Gladiac 9700 Pro and Winner 7000: Neue ELSA GmbH is back to the graphics market

Today ATI Technologies announced partnership with German Neue ELSA GmbH, that will advance ATI-based ELSA Gladiac 9700 Pro and ELSA Winner 7000 under ELSA brand in the market. First, new cards are to appear for sale in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.


ELSA Gladiac 9700 Pro bases on ATI Radeon 9700 Pro and has 128MB DDR. Chip clock is 325 MHz. The package includes 5 new games, including Electronic Arts´ Battlefield 1942, WinDVD player, PowerStrip utilities.

ELSA WINNER 7500 on ATI RADEON 7500 is another card, announced today. It has 64MB DDR and is intended for mainstream PCs.


Just to remind you that on August 1 ELSA AG announced the return to the computer market under new Neue ELSA GmbH name. The renewed company releases SOHO solutions, mainly graphics and multimedia.

Japanese ELSA Japan assets, former ELSA AG subsidiary, were fully passed to Technology Joint Corporation (TJC), former 5% joint owner.

Toshiba announces DynaBook SS3500 Tablet PC

Toshiba is to start sales of its new Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition product — Toshiba Tablet PC DynaBook SS3500 (PP3501EP2HST).


Resembling a usual notebook much, the novelty bases on Trident Cyber ALADDiN-T (16MB video memory) chipset, has 12.1-inch XGA LCD, supporting 180° rotate, 1.33 GHz Mobile Pentium III-M, 256MB RAM (up to 1GB), 40GB hard disk, Ethernet port, PC card Type2, CF Type2, SD slots, integrated Bluetooth 1.1 and IEEE 802.11b interfaces, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 56k modem, etc.

Tablet dimensions are 295x234x29.9 mm, weight – 1.85 kg. Its batteries provide 4 hours of operation. The approximate price is about $2200, PP3501EP2HSU with Microsoft Office XP Personal will cost about $2400.

Source: PC Watch

HP announces Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 on 1GHz Crusoe TM5800

Yesterday Microsoft announced its first Windows XP Tablet PC Edition for consumer electronics. And at last we can see new tablets controlled by it, and can introduce you Hewlett-Packard´s new tablet on long-expected 1GHz Crusoe.


Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 can be used in three configurations: as a tablet, a notebook, or a desktop. It has 88-key keyboard, cradle with an optical drive, VGA jack for the second display, three USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet controller.


The tablet bases on new 1GHz Crusoe TM5800, has 256 MB PC133 SDRAM (up to 768MB), 30GB HDD, 16MB GeForce2 Go 100 graphics, 10.4-inch XGA LCD, 2 USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 802.11b WLAN, Ethernet port and a V.92 modem, PC card Type2 and CF slots.

Tablet dimensions are 274x216x20 mm, weight – 1.36 kg. Built-in batteries provide 4 hours of operation.

Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 sales in Japan are scheduled to mid-December, the approximate price will be about $1800.


Source: PC Watch

IBM announces new 2.5-inch Travelstar 80GN series

IBM announced 2.5-inch Travelstar 80GN series with capacity increased up to 80GB due to pixie dust technology. It includes IC25N080ATMR04, IC25N040ATMR04, IC25N020ATMR04 models of 80, 40, 20 GB capacity, respectively.


Thanks to additional "pixie dust" layer with ruthenium, Travelstar 80GN disks data density reaches 70 Mbit/sq.in, providing 40Gb per plate density.

4200RPM Travelstar 80GN disks have 8MB cache. Average head position time is 12 ms. The design also includes Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB). New disks are 9 mm thick and support Ultra-DMA 100, max. work shock resistance is up to 200 G/2 ms, standby – ip to 800 G/1 ms. 20, 40, 80GB disks have 1, 1, 2 plates, respectively. 1, 2, 4 GMR heads, and provide up to 24, 24, 27 dB noise working, 20, 20, 23 dB noise in standby. Weight ranges from 95 to 99 g.

IBM closest plans also include the release of new 7200RPM mobile workstation hard disks.

Kingston announces 1GB PC2100 EPOC modules

Kingston Technology announced 1GB registered PC2100 EPOC, developed for servers, workstations, comm and network devices. They have low-profile design for 1U racks and are the first Kingston DDR devices, using patented Elevated Package Over CSP (EPOC) technology.


EPOC enables to mount DRAM chips in two layers in different packages. Upper layer features TSOP (Thin-Small Outline Package), chips, lower — CSP (Chip Scale Package) chips.



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