Samsung strikes drive deal with Google

Samsung Electronics has agreed to supply Google with its advanced three-dimensional NAND flash (3D NAND) solid state drives (SSD).

This deal is considered another huge boost for Samsung to go ahead of its chief overseas rivals in the race for development of 3D NAND technology, said officials.

"The agreement calls for Samsung to supply 3D NAND SSD products for Google datacenters. Samsung is in discussions with Google to end some minor differences such as guaranteed shipments and pricing," an executive from a Samsung Electronics partner company told The Korea Times, Tuesday.

The exact value of the deal is unknown, but the executive said the worth is "sizeable."

A Samsung Electronics spokesman declined to comment on the agreement. Google representatives were not immediately available for comment either.

The deal comes a few days after its chief U.S.-based memory chip rival Micron Technology teamed up with Intel for their new 3D NAND technology.

Samsung's factory in Xian, China ― the main location to fabricate 3D NAND chips ― will increase its annual shipments of 3D NAND chips to 960,000 wafers this year, from last year's estimated 480,000, according to research firms.

From a technology point of view, 3D NAND is a type of flash memory that stacks memory die on top of each other within a single package using specialized interconnectors. The vertical stacking allows for a significantly higher density of memory cells and improves performance and reliability.

The 3D NAND is a breakthrough in overcoming the density limit currently facing the planar (2D) NAND architecture and floating gates used in conventional flash memory, as well as yielding speed and endurance improvements.

3D NAND SSDs for datacenters have higher margins than those used in portable devices such as notebooks and smartphones ad datacenters need more storage capacity and faster speeds for data-processing.

In a related note, Samsung previously agreed with Amazon to export its 3D NAND technology, while Apple was testing the quality of Samsung 3D NAND SSDs as the iPhone designer also intends to use Samsung products. Facebook is another target for Samsung to promote its 3D NAND SSDs.

Samsung seeks to improve its 3D NAND technology as the world's biggest memory chip producer believes it will be an important growth driver.

In August 2013, Samsung released the first-generation SSDs for datacenters and the company released the 3D NAND SSDs in October last year.

While Samsung has first mover advantage, SanDisk, Toshiba and SK hynix are also well positioned to benefit from the industry's shift and come up with their 3D NAND offerings.

Samsung, however, say it will be several generations ahead and will have solved the teething problems of controller design and other architectural issues.

 http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/03/133_176227.html

Intel opens acquisition discussions with Altera

Altera, a maker of chips for networks and cars, would be Intel’s biggest purchase ever

http://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-in-talks-to-buy-altera-1427485172

New 3D NAND flash will triple capacity of SSDs, Intel and Micron say

Standard consumer SSDs will increase up to an astounding 10TB of storage, thanks to a new type of 3D NAND flash memory that Intel and Micron introduced Thursday morning.
The two companies, longtime joint partners in NAND flash development, said the breakthrough isn’t to make larger flash chips, but thicker ones. Much like Manhattan, when you’re out of space, the only way to go is up.


Executives at the two companies said that by stacking the NAND they can greatly increase the capacity. The new 3D NAND technology stacks flash cells vertically in 32 layers to achieve a 256Gbit multilevel cell (MLC) and 384Gbit triple-level cell (TLC) die that fit within a standard package. Both say this approach will yield greater efficiency and lower the cost too.
Pack a bunch of those together, and the end result is a tripling of capacity over today’s drives, at least initially. For a standard 2.5-inch SATA drive that means up to 10TB of space; for the M.2 drive type used by most laptops, the 3D NAND will boost capacities up to 3.5GB.
"This 3D NAND technology has the potential to create fundamental market shifts," said Brian Shirley, Vice President of Memory Technology and Solutions at Micron Technology, in a statement. "The depth of the impact that flash has had to date—from smartphones to flash-optimized supercomputing—is really just scratching the surface of what's possible."


The chips are already sampling at both companies, and Intel said it expects to offer products for sale using the 3D chips in the later half of this year. But how long will the chips last before they fail? That information wasn’t disclosed.
Intel did say it expects to offer products using the new NAND chips this year.
Why this matters: SSDs have drastically impacted computing—but even as prices have dropped, the capacities still lag far behind those of traditional magnetic hard drives. This 3D NAND announcement puts SSDs on a density increase that could very well see it eclipsing hard drives, at least for most people’s needs.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2902246/new-3d-nand-flash-will-triple-capacity-of-ssds-intel-and-micron-say.html

Intel's Deep Learning Play: Next-Gen Xeon Phi Could Challenge NVIDIA GPUs

Intel disclosed new technical details about its next -generation Xeon Phi processor to a small group of technology analysts-journalists at one of its Hillsboro sites this week. First revealed last year, the “Knights Landing” chip is expected to ship later this year, however Intel showed pre-production parts parts running in a Hillsboro test lab. The briefing included a whiteboard design walkthrough by Avinash Sodani, Knights Landing Chief Architect at Intel, a product update by Hugo Saleh, Marketing Director of Intel’s Technical Computing Group, an interactive technical Q&A and a lab demo of a Knights Landing system running on an Intel reference-design system. The architectural differences between Knights Landing and prior Phi products is substantial and should translate to much easier adoption and a broader set of commercial applications, including areas like deep learning, genomics, databases and general purpose containerized (Docker) workloads. Unlike more specialized processors, Intel describes Knights Landing as taking a “holistic approach” to new breakthrough applications.
Unlike the current generation Phi design, which operates as a coprocessor, Knights Landing incorporates x86 cores and can directly boot and run standard operating systems and application code without recompilation. The test system, which resembled a standard server board, with socketed CPU and memory modules was running a stock Linux distribution. This is made possible by the inclusion of a modified version of the Atom Silvermont x86 cores as part of each Knights Landing ’tile’: the chip’s basic design unit consisting of dual x86 and vector execution units alongside cache memory and intra-tile mesh communication circuitry. Each multi-chip package includes the a processor with 30 or more (rumored up to 36) tiles and eight high-speed memory chips. Although it wouldn’t offer specifics, Intel said the on-package memory, totalling 16GB, is made by Micron with custom I/O circuitry and might be a variant of Micron’s announced, but not yet shipping Hybrid Memory Cube, but this wasn’t confirmed. The high-speed memory is conceptually similar to the DDR5 devices used on GPUs like NVIDIA's NVDA -0.58% Tesla.

Intel is long on device-level technology details, but short on specifics regarding the types of business problems, applications and users Phi targets. So far, Phi has been used by HPC applications like scientific simulations, modeling and design, with product announcements often happening during supercomputing conferences. Yet as NVIDIA demonstrated at GTC,, the opportunities for compute hardware supporting wide, vector operations built for highly parallelized algorithms, whether general purpose GPUs or now Xeon Phi, extends far beyond the supercomputer niche. As I previously discussed, NVIDIA has morphed its GPU architecture into a powerful engine for calculating deep learning neural network algorithms that is now being applied to accelerate SQL database operations and analytics.
The internals of a GPU and Xeon Phi are much different, however both share many common traits: dozens (Phi) to thousands (GPU) of lower performance (Phi) to relatively simple cores (GPU), vector processing units and very high-speed local memory and buses. The creative exploitation of this capability isn’t limited to scientific or graphics calculations and seems limited only by the imagination of developers. But on this front, Intel didn’t have encouraging news. Although Saleh mentioned deep learning as a potential application, he couldn’t point to specific customers or researchers using Phi for anything but traditional scientific HPC problems.

Source: Kurt Marko

Unlike NVIDIA, which announced the price and availability of a Titan X development box designed for researchers exploring GPU applications to deep learning, Intel wouldn’t share details about when OEM partners will have Knights Landing systems, whether any ould be sized and priced for individual developers, nor a timeline for what Saleh characterized as a Phi developer program, which will include access to hardware, updated software tools and training materials. But developer resources, outreach and evangelism are critical to any success Phi is to have, particularly since the hardware itself represents a substantial departure from the standard x86 microarchitecture, and here NVIDIA has a big head start.
Yet thinking of Phi as an alternative GPU or vector processor is wrong since it’s actually a hybrid that includes dozens of full-fledged 64-bit x86 cores. This unique design, if used right, could significantly accelerate certain parallelizable application categories besides HPC simulation like deep learning and data analytics that use vector calculations, while offering drop-in computational offload for standard x86 code.
Read more:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtmarko/2015/03/25/intels-deep-learning-play/

Organic LEDs, carbon nanotubes may light up future fabrics

With the emergence of wearable electronics that monitor fitness and health, there is a growing need for more flexible light-emitting devices. One option that researchers have been interested in is developing fabrics with integrated light-emitting devices. Unfortunately, fabrics themselves are not a suitable surface for current light-emitting materials. However, a team of scientists have found a way around this issue by integrating the light-emitting devices directly into fabrics using a new technology: light-emitting device fibers.
These research team, based in China, worked with polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells (PLECs). Like many other light-emitting devices, PLECs have a structure that is composed of two metal electrodes connected to a thin organic layer that acts as a semiconductor. Because PLECs have mobile ions incorporated into the semiconductor, they have many benefits compared to other light-emitting diodes (LEDs): low operating voltage, high efficiency in converting electrons to photons, and high power efficiency. PLECs are also a good option because they do not require the use of metals that are sensitive to air and they can be used on rougher surfaces; these characteristics make them suitable for large-scale manufacturing.
These fiber-shaped PLECs have a coaxial structure with four layers. Using a solution-based processing, a steel wire, which acts as the base of this fiber, is dip-coated with a thin layer of ZnO nanoparticles. This layer has two key functions: protecting the light-emitting layer that's applied next; and decreasing the leakage of the current, thus enhancing current efficiency.
Next, the electroluminescent polymer layer is deposited onto the wire using dip-coating. Finally, a sheet of aligned carbon nanotubes is wrapped around the bundle using a dry-drawn form of spinnable carbon nanotubes. Because the carbon nanotubes were highly aligned, they provided the fiber with high electrical conductivities. Imaging revealed that the fibers had a uniform diameter and a smooth outer surface.
The scientists who created these fibers determined the lifetime of the devices. They found that the fibers gradually light up over a 21-minute period and gradually dim over a four-hour period; in these studies, the light emitted by the fibers was blue. The fiber lit up when a voltage of 5.6V was applied and reached a peak intensity at 13V. When the fiber is pre-charged, it displays a rapid turn-on response that is similar to conventional LEDs.
The brightness of the light emitted by the fibers was almost entirely independent of viewing angle. When the fibers were bent, they maintained their brightness above 90 percent and no obvious damage was observed. Though only blue light was explored in these studies, the team believes other colors could be displayed as well.
Together, these studies demonstrate that these light-emitting fibers can be woven into fabrics without compromising their luminescence, which makes them a promising candidate for the development of wearable electronics and other fabric-based electronics in the future.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/03/organic-leds-carbon-nanotubes-may-light-up-future-fabrics/

IBM to share technology with China in strategy shift: CEO

(Reuters) - IBM Corp will share technology with Chinese firms and will actively help build China's industry, CEO Virginia Rometty said in Beijing as she set out a strategy for one of the foreign firms hardest hit by China's shifting technology policies.
IBM must help China build its IT industry rather than viewing the country solely as a sales destination or manufacturing base, Rometty said at the China Development Forum, an annual Chinese government-sponsored conference bringing together business executives and China's ruling elite.
"If you're a country, as China is, of 1.3 billion people you would want an IT industry as well," the chief executive said on Monday. "I think some firms find that perhaps frightening. We, though, at IBM ... find that to be a great opportunity."
Rometty's remarks were among the clearest acknowledgements to date by a high-ranking foreign technology executive that companies must adopt a different tack if they are to continue in China amid growing political pressure.
A number of U.S. technology companies operating in China are forming alliances with domestic operators, hoping a local partner will make it easier to operate in the increasingly tough environment for foreign businesses.
China has been pushing for the use of more Chinese and less foreign-made technology, to grow its own tech sector and in response to ex-U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's leaks about U.S. cyber surveillance.
IBM's sales in China have stabilized after a sharp drop that began in the third quarter of 2013 following Snowden's revelations. The Armonk, New York-based company reported a 1 percent slide in revenue in China during the fourth quarter of 2014, compared with the prior year.
IBM's new approach allows Chinese companies to build everything from semiconductor chips and servers based on IBM architecture, to the software that runs on those machines.
Last week IBM said Suzhou PowerCore Technology Co will begin producing a version of IBM's Power8 chip to run on Chinese-made servers. Its POWER line of processors is often used for intensive calculations in financial services, where Chinese banks have been required by new government regulations to use more domestic vendors.
The U.S. company had already announced a series of partnerships with Chinese vendors and now packages its database software with products from Inspur, a server hardware maker and IBM rival, and has also struck agreements with Youyou, a Beijing-based software firm.
Other vendors are making similar efforts.
SAP SE Greater China head Mark Gibbs for instance said in October the company sought to be a "complementary player to the Chinese market” by selling its software on hardware made by Lenovo Inc and Huawei Technologies.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/23/us-china-tech-ibm-idUSKBN0MJ14X20150323

Chip Gear Makers Look Less Fab

Samsung may be squeezing more life out of the expensive equipment it uses to fabricate semiconductor products. That may be bad news for the firms that depend on selling new gear, but perhaps not as bad as the market is making out.

Read more:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chip-gear-makers-look-less-fab-heard-on-the-street-1427043217