IDF Fruits: Atom Android, SSD 710, Future

^{Pictured is an employee of Intel Corporate Demos Craig Raymond is holding a tablet running on Intel platform.}



The already ended Intel Developer Forum brought so many different news that one can safely say one thing - this year the conference really brought together a huge number of visitors, participants from the corporation and partners. Interest in the conference was fueled by Andy Rubin, vice president of Google’s mobile business at IDF, where he and Paul Otellini, the CEO of Intel, announced mutual cooperation between the two companies, aimed primarily at releasing Atom smartphones and tablets.



Working with Google, which plays a major role in the creation and development of the Android operating system, Intel is discovering a new market for user devices . Two top managers told the press and participants about joint plans to release and improve the Android version of the Atom processors - this suggests that Intel engineers will also improve the Android Software Development Kit and the Native Development Kit. In addition to the mobile direction, Intel will work together with Google and on Chrome OS and Google TV.



Paul Otellini noted that the agreement between the two companies is a significant step towards the development of the smartphone market, where devices on the ARM architecture dominate today.

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Andy Rubin, in turn, said that "the connection of Android and Intel's plans for creating low-power devices open up tremendous opportunities for innovation and choice."







The second equally important news is the announcement of a new corporate-level SSD-drive (for use, first of all, in OEM-servers) with the simple name SSD 710 (codename: Lyndonville), replacing the X25-E Extreme.



Perhaps, I’m not mistaken if I say that this is the first device in the world that combines NAND-layout with a multi-level structure ( MLC ) - the use of such architecture has reduced the cost of production of 25-nm process technology and improve the efficiency of the memory itself. In the Intel data center, during tests, 5 such disks sustained a load similar to that for 90 disks operating at 15,000 RPM.



SSD 710 will be available in three versions: 100 GB, 200 and 300, while the prices were immediately made public when ordering a batch of 1000: 100 GB model $ 649, 200 GB for $ 1,289 and 300 GB for $ 1,929, which Engadget called " knock out a tear. "



However, if we take into account the performance of these devices, as well as the technologies used to extend the life of drives (High Endurance Technology), then the result is that the SSD 710 series offers a resource that is almost the same as a single-level (SLC) cell structure, and as a result can save on updating such drives.



The write resource is 1.1 petabytes, and when used in I / O applications, these drives are capable of randomly writing 4 KB data blocks at speeds of up to 2,700 operations per second (IOPS) and randomly reading blocks of similar size at speeds of up to 38,500 IOPS, when all cells are activated.



As a result, SSD 710 serves as a replacement for modern single-level SSDs, as well as industrial HDD-drives, which consume a significant amount of energy, in comparison with flash drives.

Keynote

Such events never go without a look into the future, especially since the entire public has fixed its eyes on Intel as a leader in the field of semiconductor technologies - which areas are developing in the first place and where is the future of computers?



Paul Otellini began with the forecast that today's technologies, which seem to us and the entire industry to be truly “high”, cannot be compared with what lies ahead: “We are only on the threshold of an era of computing and we are watching for the first return”, Paul said, referring to the efforts of manufacturers to produce fundamentally new devices and modernize existing technologies.



The president of Intel called the transformation behind the reduction in the size of transistors a transformation in calculations, without failing to mention in passing that today the company is already engaged in operating time on the 14-nm process technology. The transition to a smaller size will give a huge jump in computing power and energy efficiency - already in 2013, ultrabooks running on the still-secret Haswell platform will withstand up to 10 days of work (I think, taking into account your sleep) offline with connection to network over Wi-Fi .



According to calculations by Intel, in the next five years, the entire semiconductor manufacturing industry will produce them in the amount of about one sixthillion (one with twenty-one zero behind) transistors.



At the same time, the company never stops working to improve the energy efficiency of all processors. At IDF, a conceptual development by researchers at Intel Labs was shown: a Pentium-class processor (codename: Claremont) using the “voltage voltage” technology - at a minimum voltage, at which the processor “switches on”. The energy for its work is produced by a solar cell cell the size of a postage stamp - we will tell about this processor in a blog in more detail a little later.