Carbon, the New King in the Semiconductor Industry

-Silicon is likely to be kicked out of the team.

                                                           
Silicon is one of the oldest veterans in the IT industry. It has marched a long way but modern requirements tend to ask for more than it can offer. Just like the transistor, silicone is about to retire, or at least this is what Princeton University researchers say.

The Princeton University engineers have discovered a method that is alleged to substitute the old fashioned silicon with carbon. They say that the team found a way to build transistors on a graphene substrate a few atoms thick. This will bring unimagined benefits to the semiconductor industry, as the method offers switching speeds up to ten times higher than the conventional, silicon substrate.

The main obstacle was getting a wide enough graphene sheet that can be used with modern wafer technology. Initially they could achieve a sheet of couple square millimeters in extreme laboratory conditions while a processor asks for 300 to 500 millimeter layers. The researchers needed to weld more tiny patches to achieve the desired surface and then to overlay them on a traditional silicon substrate wherever logic circuits are required. The final result is a set of graphene tiles paving the substrate.

The process is extremely delicate and involves an enormous amount of work, but "electronic hole" measurements show that carbon circuits can perform ten times faster than silicon. This will have a huge impact on tomorrow's technology, such as cell phones and wireless devices: they will be smaller and will consume less power at an improved performance rate.

The researchers consider that the technology will become truly viable in a few years. Once demonstrated, the technology must be scaled to match larger applications and it is highly likely that entire CPUs can be achieved – units that will be ten times faster at the same power consumption as the ones we are using today.

The full credit for the achievement goes to professor of electrical engineering Stephen Chou and graduate student Xiaogan Liang at Princeton University. As for the funds, the university is financed by the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as other government institutions.

NEC to Develop Next-Generation of Non Volatile RAM

- MRAM is a non-volatile type of memory for embedding in future consumer electronics products

NEC has announced that it has succeeded in developing a new type of memory that preserves the SRAM compatibility. The new discovery has been named MRAM, which stands for Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory, and is alleged to run at a speed of 250 MHz, the fastest MRAM speed in the world.

Apart from the fact that the MRAM is as fast as SRAM, one of the most important features of the new memory type is its non-volatility: the hardware is able to resume even if the computer power has been turned off. The unique memory type has been manufactured and designed exclusively by NEC. The company has adopted the 1 megabit capacity form factor.

The design incorporates a memory cell with two transistors, one magnetic tunnel junction, and a newly-developed circuit scheme that allows an operating speed of 250 MHz, which is almost double than the nowadays' MRAM speeds. Same speeds can only be achieved by the newer, LSI-embedded SRAM memory.

The NEC manufacturers have carried extensive tests on the memory, using an internal signal-monitoring circuit, and they have measured a data output time of 3.7 nanoseconds from a 250MHz clock edge.

"MRAM are expected to generate new value and applications for future electronic devices thanks to their nonvolatility, unlimited write endurance, high speed operation, and ability to cut memory power dissipation in half. For example, these features could enable instant start up of PCs and prevent drive recorders from losing data after a sudden break in power in the future. As substitutes for system LSI-embedded SRAM, MRAM can provide even more value as they are expected to enable extremely low power dissipation of system LSIs because they can sleep when they are not in use and wake up instantly."

Hackers Trying to Get Control over the World's Second Fastest Computer?

- “Jaguar” targeted by hackers

A new day, another hack attack. This seems to be the perfect motto for the companies and organizations around the world, as they are all attacked by more or less powerful hackers aiming to steal their data. But this time, hackers targeted the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which hosts the second fastest computer in the world, AP reported today. Although the lab's official said the attacks were supposed "to be part of a coordinated attempt to gain access to computer networks at numerous laboratories and other institutions across the country," nobody knows for sure if the hackers ever wanted to get control over 'Jaguar'.

The attack didn't cause any data loss, the lab's representatives said, according to the same source mentioned above. "There was no classified data of any kind compromised. There are people who think that because they accessed this database that they had access to the lab's supercomputer. That is not the case. There was no access at all," lab spokesman Bill Stair told AP.

Just like usual, the attack was based on infected spam messages, which attempted to deploy malicious applications on the computers. It seems like the first email reached the inbox on October 29, while six more assaults came afterwards. "At first glance, they appeared legitimate," lab director Thom Mason said. Obviously, the email messages contained all sorts of text messages supposed to convince the readers that they had to open the attachments. One of them informed the employees about a complaint sent at the Federal Trade Commission, AP continued.

The lab's representatives have already sent emails to approximately 12,000 potential affected visitors although they underlined the fact that no information had been stolen.

Certainly, there's a problem with the computers' security. I wonder if they've ever installed a spam filter and if yes, how efficient is it since the emails have reached the inbox? However, the employees should be advised not to open any suspect email which contains malicious information, as the attackers aim to infect every single computer in the world.

No More Memory Leaks in Internet Explorer 8?

Following the introduction of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 in October 2006, and then in November 2006 and January 2007, concomitantly with the business and consumer launches of Windows Vista, Microsoft debuted the next stage into the evolution of IE. At this point in time, early builds of Internet Explorer 8 are being dogfooded internally at Microsoft, but the Redmond company failed to deliver even the most anodyne details related to the browser's evolution, outside of a general perspective over IE8 dropped at MIX07.

Still, there are bits and pieces that slip through, just crumbs from the Internet Explorer 8. In this context, John Hrvatin, Program Manager Internet Explorer, revealed that for IE8 Microsoft is focusing strongly on resolving the current memory leakage problems associated with IE7 and IE6. Measures have been taken to mitigate the problems in the currently available versions of the Microsoft proprietary browser, but there is room for improvement.

"These memory leaks often occur as a result of circular references between Jscript objects and objects within IE’s DOM (document object model). Since the Jscript engine and IE have independent memory management schemes, each side can’t see the entire cycle of these circular references. Internet Explorer 7 improved the situation by releasing all references to Jscript objects attached to the DOM tree when IE navigates away from that page. This allows the Jscript engine to then garbage collect those Jscript objects and recover that memory. We’ve also made the same changes in IE6 on Windows XP SP2," Hrvatin explained.

Despite the work poured into IE7 and IE6, the browser versions, taking down the markup still causes IE to drop anything that is not connected to the tree. Users might have experienced memory leaks with Internet Explorer when keeping websites opened for prolonged periods of time. If the website has not been optimized to steer clear of leak patterns, Internet Explorer will cause memory usage to grow and grow delivering a heavy impact on the overall performance of the machine. "So no, it’s not perfect, but we’re also continuing to invest in improvements for future versions of IE", Hrvatin promised.

But before Internet Explorer 8 drops, at this time it is expected in late 2008, early 2009, Microsoft recommended two tools designed to help developers deal with memory leaks. "Drip and sIEve (joint SourceFourge site) are two such tools. Many of you may already be familiar with them, but a little extra visibility never hurts. Both applications host Trident – IE’s rendering engine – and add detection of memory leak patterns. They let you track memory and DOM usage while using a site and then detect any leaks when you navigate away from that page. Drip is an open source project under the BSD license. Based on Drip, sIEve improves the usability in a few ways including non-modal dialogs and a real-time graph of DOM usage instead of memory usage", Hrvatin added.

Internet Explorer 8

Following the availability of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006 for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003, and together with Vista in November 2006 and January 2007, Microsoft debuted work on the next version of its proprietary browser. But at the same time, the Redmond company remained almost completely mute regarding the future of Internet Explorer. In early 2007, due to the scarce details from Microsoft, speculations pointed to both a 7.5 version and a 8.0. version, this is in fact being one of the issues that have been clarified at this point. The Redmond company will evolve Internet Explorer directly to version 8, and there will be no major interim updates. Early builds of IE8 are being dogfooded, but outside of Redmond, the browser version is as well as inexistent. Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager, confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 would succeed IE7 and that the browser was in the works, after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates mentioned it first.

"Just as he was the first to talk about IE7, Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at the Mix ‘n Mash event here on campus yesterday. Bill was talking to some bloggers about IE.Next and called it IE8, the same way we do here in the IE team hallway. So, yes, the version after IE7 is IE8. We looked at a lot of options for the product name. Among the names we considered and ruled out: IE 7+1; IE VIII; IE 1000 (think binary); IE Eight!; iIE; IE for Web 2.0 (Service Pack 2); IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (the marketing team really pushed for this one ;-) and Ie2.079 (we might still use this for the Math Major Edition)," Hachamovitch revealed.

Gates apparently had no idea of the secrecy surrounding Internet Explorer 8. "I'll have to ask Dean (Hachamovitch) what the hell is going on. I mean, we're not -- there's not like some deep secret about what we're doing with IE," he stated, as cited from a transcript of the meeting offered by LiveSide. "And so I don't know where Dean is in terms of if he's willing to commit what's in IE 8 and what's not in IE 8. In terms of standards support, he'll see that it's a glass half full. It adds a bunch of new stuff we didn't have before, it doesn't add everything that everybody wants us to do."

But still, at this point in time, all that Microsoft talked about was the fact that IE8 would succeed IE7. And nothing else. The company revealed after the release of IE7 that future versions of the browser would follow in no more than two tear time frames. In this context, IE8 will not drop any sooner than the end of 2008 or even early 2009. In the meantime, Mozilla has reached Beta 1 stage with Firefox 3.0 and is moving ahead into Beta 2 by the end of this month. In comparison, Microsoft is still not ready to breath any additional details about IE8.

"Of course, some people care about other aspects of IE8 much more than they care about the name. As I’ve walked different people through the plan, I’ve gotten "Does it have feature X?" "When is the beta?" "When does it release" and even the more thoughtful "What are you trying to accomplish with this release?" You will hear a lot more from us soon. In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction," Hachamovitch promised.

One Terabyte Drive, Small Enough to Fit Into Your Pocket

- The new solid-state memory type can be the basis for tomorrow's terabyte thumb drives

A group of scientists at Arizona State University have managed to obtain a new and efficient type of solid-state storage memory that is alleged to be not only cheaper but also much more efficient than the current NAND pieces. This memory storage is powered by an undisclosed type of nanotechnology, which allows the creation of extremely vast storage spaces that are cheap and very small-sized. The new type of memory has been named programmable metalization cell (PMC) and will be the cortnerstone of tomorrow's new and large portable storage.

The programmable metalization cell uses nanotechnology to charge the pure copper molecules in the alloy, with spectacular results as compared to the current flash storage technology. An energy-saving and pseudo-infinite solid-state memory drive will be the dream of any portable device owner.

Conventional flash memory uses electronic charges for information storage, but the PMC uses copper molecules to create nanowires. Information is stored in these nanowires as binary zeros and ones, and since it all happens on nano-scale, it's easy to imagine that a tiny space can contain an unimaginable amount of data. When the user needs to dispose of the old data, a positive charge would be passed through the memory, causing the nanowires to dissolve, just like the links in a chain.

"A thumb drive using our memory could store a terabyte of information", Michael Kozicki, director of ASU's Center for Applied Nanoionics, told Wired magazine. "All the current limitations in portable electronic storage could go away. You could record video of every event in your life and store it."

This might sound a little too fantastic, or too good to be true, but remember that flash-based memory density has halved, while the capacity has yearly doubled. Unfortunately, the flash memory is about to reach its physical limitations, and beyond this point, there's no way to expand it. Therefore, it's time to change it. We are living the solid-state storage boom, and the last months have shown us that size limitations are a time-overcoming obstacle. However, if capacities are continually increasing, their price would proportionally follow the same ascension. The new memory technology comes in handy for the next-generation of storage devices.

Director Michael Bay Lambastes Microsoft, HD DVD

Everyone knows (or at least suspects) that huge amounts of money are involved in just about every move in the movie industry, and even more so when we're talking about content distribution media, Blu-ray and HD DVD, to be more precise. However, it would seem that things might be a lot worse than we had imagined,at least if we were to believe that there's any truth in Michael Bay's latest statement (read rant) on this subject.Thus, after being questioned by a fan regarding the availability of his movies in the Blu-ray format on his personal "Ask Michael Bay" sub-forum , the director who brought us "Transformers" lost his temper and...well, see for yourselves what he had to say: "What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about.That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth."As some of you might know, this is not the first time when Bay has a bone to pick with HD DVD. Thus, back in August 2007, when Paramount announced that it had decided to go HD DVD only (a rather strange decision, engulfed in rumors regarding huge pay-offs), the director also had a brief moment of "insanity", when it lashed out against the deal and declared that he wanted all his movies in Blu-ray format as well. However, back then, he quickly retracted (or rather "sweetened") his statement, probably under pressure from the movie studio.But is there any truth to Bay's statement? Well, although the director has not provided any evidence to back-up his accusations, the truth of the matter is that his "conspiracy theory" might have some truth to it, if we take a look at the bigger picture. But on the other hand, this is a guy who made a movie about giant robots turning into cars, so you should really take it with a pinch of salt.