Samsung Develops 8GB Mobile microSD Card

Panasonic Develops New MEMS Microphone

AMD Details Next-Gen Notebook Platform

Samsung Develops 8GB Mobile microSD Card

Samsung Electronics announced that it has developed an 8GB microSD (Secure Digital) memory card for today’s multimedia mobile phones.

With a read speed of 16MB/s and a write speed of 6MB/s, Samsung’s 8GB microSD card exceeds the Speed Class 4 SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) standard which requires a data write speed of 4MB/s.

Samsung Electronics

Panasonic Develops New MEMS Microphone

Matsushita Electronic Industrial has developed a slim MEMS microphone suitable for portable electronic appliances typifying mobile phones. Sample shipment will start at the end of May 2007. The new MEMS microphone is constructed from an acoustic transducer (MEMS chip) made of MEMS technology and a CMOS amplifier, realizing low profile, at the same time, high heat resistance which enables Pb-free reflow solder mounting.

The new MEMS microphone contributes to reducing the height of portable electronic appliances, as well as reducing the mounting cost in their production process. It also contributes to realizing environment-conscious appliances by high heat resistance of 260 degree C which is required by Pb-free automatic reflow solder for print circuit board surface mounting.

The new MEMS microphone has the following technologies:

• Solid metal shield structure and mounting technology realizing 1.05mm low profile;
• Newly developed technology of high heat resistance inorganic multilayer electret diaphragm formation;
• CMOS amplifier design technology realizing low power consumption, low noise and low output impedance.

Sample shipments will start on May 2007, price depending on quantity.

Source: Panasonic

AMD Details Next-Gen Notebook Platform

At a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, AMD today officially disclosed more details of its next-generation open platform for notebook computing. Codenamed “Puma,” the platform is designed to deliver battery life, graphics and video processing enhancements and improved overall system performance. The “Puma” platform is expected to build on the launches of the AMD M690 mobile chipset and 65nm AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core CPU in April and May 2007, respectively.

The key technologies that comprise “Puma” are AMD’s next-generation notebook processor, codenamed “Griffin”, matched with the next-generation AMD “RS780” mobile chipset. Notebooks based on the “Puma” platform are expected to be available in the mid-2008 timeframe.

With “Griffin” processor AMD will deliver a number of new capabilities to enhance battery life and overall mobile computing performance:

• Power optimized HyperTransport and memory controllers integrated in the processor silicon that operate on a separate power plane as the processor cores, thereby enabling the cores to go into reduced power states;
• Dynamic performance scaling offers enhanced battery life with reduced power consumption through separate voltage planes enabling each core to operate at independent frequency and voltage; and
• Power-optimized HyperTransport 3.0 with a more than tripling of peak I/O bandwidth, plus new power features including dynamic scaling of link widths.

In its turn, based on PCI Express Generation 2 and the HyperTransport 3.0 specifications, ”RS780” is expected deliver:

• Motherboard DirectX 10 graphics processing
• Energy efficient high-definition multimedia support with the Unified Video Decoder
• Integrated multi-monitor support with DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort
• Native southbridge support for NAND flash with HyperFlash
• PowerXpress for dynamic switching between integrated and discrete graphics to extend battery life

The “Puma” platform is based upon an open platform strategy. In addition to the “Griffin” microprocessor and “RS780” chipset, the “Puma” platform includes ATI Radeon graphics, NVIDIA chipset and graphics technologies, and wireless technologies.

“Puma” will be further discussed during a presentation by AMD Fellow, Maurice Steinman at the Spring Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California on May 22nd.

Source: AMD

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