Zalman to ship noiseless TNN 500A case

IDF Fall 2003: Three new Serial ATA II specifications announced

Compaq T5500 and T5300: thin clients on Crusoe TM5800

VIA introduces 8-channel Envy24HT-S audio controller

IDF Fall 2003: Intel showcases personal server prototype

Zalman to ship noiseless TNN 500A case

TNN 500A noiseless operation is provided due to natural convective cooling without the help of any mechanisms.

Zalman TNN 500A case specs:

• Weight: 2.1kg
• Power supply: up to 300W (250W nominal);
• ZM 350-HSC1 power supply: 12V 12A, 5V 20A, 3.3V 16A, —12V 0.6A, —5V 0.3A
• Form-factor: ATX
• CPU cooler: ZMC 6HA
• VGA cooler: ZMV 2HA
• HDD cooler: 2HC1

IDF Fall 2003: Three new Serial ATA II specifications announced

At IDF the Serial ATA II workgroup introduced three new Serial ATA II specifications called to speed up the development and implementation of Serial ATA-enabled products into desktop, mobile, server systems and NAS.

Specialists believe these specs will actually speed up the adoption of this interface. Serial ATA II bases on Serial ATA and provides additional features, including higher throughputs.

Digital 1.1 specification

According to Serial ATA workgroup, the Serial ATA Digital 1.1 specs feature the following:

• Asyncronous signal recovery
• Asyncronous ATAPI notification so hosts don´t need to request for device presence
• Queue optimization enabling additional instructions during long transfers
• Configuration combinations enabling OEM companies to disable unsupported SATA features in hard drives
• SAF-TE and SES connectors
• Accelerated I2C processor address identification so hosts don´t need to search I2C space for processor

Port Multiplier 1.1 defines host connectivity over SATA for multiple devices. This spec enables single host connection with multple devices to minimize cabling and improve cooling in SATA storage systems. Port Multiplier 1.1 adds asyncronous notification from Digital 1.1. This eliminates the need in checking for installed or removed devices.

Port Selector 1.0 enables two different host ports to connect to a single device to provide a backup data path. Port Selector 1.0 is a compulsory structure component for RAID, NAS and backup system builders that develop fully reserved storage topologies. Additional features include:

• In-band or protocol management to avoid additional routing between initiator and destination
• Sideband signalling for simple interaction with external controls

At IDF the Serial ATA workgroup demonstrated the Serial ATA solutions, including:

• Inexpensive SATA storages for large volumes of rarely modified or unmodified data from 3ware, Maxtor and Seagate
• SATA port multipliers with multitasking controllers from Silicon Image, Intel and Maxtor
• JMR´s Serial ATA system on 2.5" SATA hard drives
• External SATA storages from Maxtor, Silicon Image and Comax
• 4:16 SATA port multipliers from Vitesse Semiconductor and CI Design

Source: Intel

Compaq T5500 and T5300: thin clients on Crusoe TM5800

At TechEX in New York Hewlett-Packard announced two new inexpensive thin clients — T5500 ($379) and T5300 ($349) – based on Transmeta TM5800 Crusoe processor.

New solutions differ by the CPU clock speed that is 733MHz in T5500 and 533MHz in T5300. New devices extended the line of HP´s Crusoe-based solutions that already includes TM5700 model ($599-629) on 1GHz TM5800.

New terminals operate under Windows CE.Net, feature 32Mb flash memory, 8Mb ATI Rage XC discrete graphics, 10/100 Base-T Ethernet, 4 x USB ports, support MPEG2 and MPEG4 playback. T5300 has 64Mb and T5500 has 128Mb of DDR SDRAM. Dimensions are 230x100x195mm, weight – 1.39kg.

Currently sales volumes of these devices are not even close to PCs, however analysts believe that low price will provide enough competition capabilities to the former. According to IDC, already in 2004 the thin clients market might make 1.86 million units, growing to 3.4 million by 2007.

VIA introduces 8-channel Envy24HT-S audio controller

VIA Technologies introduced the VIA Envy24HT-S audio controller for inexpensive audio cards that supports 8-ch. 24-bit/192kHz resolution and DVD Audio.

VIA Envy24HT-S main specs:

• 20-bit/48kHz analog interface
• Up to 24-bit/192kHz digital interface
• 3 x I²S / AC-link outputs
• 2 x I²S / AC-link syncronous inputs
• PCI 2.2
• Integrated S/PDIF with IEC958 linear interface
• MPU-401 MIDI UART port
• ACPI and PCI PMI support
• I²C peripheral interface control
• 16-pin GPIO port
• Windows WDM drivers
• 24.576MHz, 22.5792MHz clock speeds
• 3.3V voltage
• 128-pin PQFP, 14x20mm

Soundcards on VIA Envy24HT-S are already manufactured by Mad Dog Multimedia, Chaintech, AVLabs. Chaintech AV-710´s solution on Envy24HT-S will cost about $27 in USA.

IDF Fall 2003: Intel showcases personal server prototype

At the pre-IDF press conferences Intel for the first time demonstrated a personal server prototype that consists of two units shown below. The first looks like a wrist watch, the second – like a small box suitable for a handbag. The box module features wireless interface and flash storage, while the wrist unit is a miniature display combined with a remote control for external wireless devices.

Perhaps, in the future we won´t have to carry mobile PCs, but only the storage and wireless interfaces for external systems connectivity. In the future the company plans to integrate the storage and wireless module into mobile handsets.

Such an conceptual move to warm you up. Stay tuned to read more in our next reports from IDF Fall 2003!

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