Category: Hardware News

Latest news from the World of Hardware

  • LCD In Display Fingerprint Scanner Arriving In Smartphones Next Year

    LCD In Display Fingerprint Scanner Arriving In Smartphones Next Year

    The in display fingerprint scanners for smartphones was first shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last year by Vivo. Few months after, the technology was made commercially available in the form of the Vivo X21 UD smartphone. Since then, many other major OEMs have started providing an in display fingerprint sensor on their devices.

    In Display Fingerprint Scanner
    OnePlus 6T

    Notably, the feature has been limited to smartphones that feature an OLED display. Mainly due to the reason that only an OLED display allows light to pass through; to authenticate a fingerprint via the underneath mounted sensor. While there are benefits to an OLED display, they are significantly expensive than LCD displays to be used in smartphones.

    Now, another Chinese display giant BOE; who is one of the world’s largest display suppliers has announced it has successfully developed the technology. The company plans on mass producing LCD displays with support for in display fingerprint scanners by the end of this year. This suggests handsets with the technology will be ready for primetime by early next year.

    What Makes It Groundbreaking?

    As mentioned above, traditional in display fingerprint scanners use light to authenticate and unlock the smartphone, like in the OnePlus 6T. These are called Optical fingerprint scanners. Samsung in its Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy S10 5G uses an ultrasonic in display fingerprint sensor. As opposed to optical ones, these use a sonic pulse wave to authenticate the user’s fingerprint and is claimed to be more secure than the former. In the past, both instances have used an OLED display to work because neither light nor a sonic pulse wave can pass through conventional LCD displays.

    As LCD displays are more affordable to manufacture and are found in abundance in budget and mid-range smartphones; an LCD in display fingerprint scanner is big news. This insinuates future budget devices may be featuring a fingerprint sensor inside the handset’s screen. Surprisingly, a senior executive at Xiaomi has already confirmed that smartphones with this feature will be released as early as the next year.

    In Display Fingerprint Scanner
    In Display Fingerprint Sensor

    Also read: Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 Leaked In Images

    Back in the month of April, a Chinese company Fortsense also announced; that it has successfully tested working in display fingerprint scanning technology for LCD displays. This news was considered a groundbreaking breakthrough, as Statistics have shown that LCD-screen models accounted for up to 85% of a total of 1.456 billion smartphones shipped worldwide in 2018. It also meant that if more major display makers follow suit, the technology would be available in major budget devices.

  • Samsung Collaborating With AMD For Radeon Graphics On Its Smartphones

    Samsung Collaborating With AMD For Radeon Graphics On Its Smartphones

    The gaming industry is currently valued at an estimated $93 Billion, with mobile gaming accounting for the largest piece of the pie. American chip manufacturer AMD and Samsung have announced their partnership for upcoming smartphone graphics. Looking at the pace at which the mobile gaming industry is growing, it was only a matter of time until tech giants like AMD had the aforementioned sector in their sights.

    Previously, the video game industry used to be a small part of the entertainment business but now, it is one of the major forefronts for digital media. In the year 2018, the gaming industry raked up the same amount of revenue as the US film industry. Unlike in the past when development teams and investment were low and the return profitable, now a dedicated highly qualified team works on a million-dollar project just for the sake of development.

    Samsung alongside AMD confirmed the joint venture in a common report. The partnership will see the development of a new ultra-low power high-performance graphics technology. AMD is confirmed to have licensed its proprietary graphical technology to Samsung for use in future mobile chipsets. The South Korean giant will reportedly pay for AMD’s brand new recently announced RDNA graphics architecture.

    This will mark a new market for AMD to capitalize on. The graphics technology from team Red will seek to replace the ARM-based Mali GPUs that are found in the Exynos chipsets. Samsung’s strategy to retail different chipsets in different countries may lead to certain countries not witnessing the aforementioned architecture. Most countries are receiving the Exynos chipset while US, Canada, China, Japan and Latin America receive the Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with Adreno GPUs. 

    Also ReadAs Apple Retires iTunes, Here Is How It Paved The Way For Modern Music Platforms

    It can be noted that AMD previously owned the Adreno GPU technology before it sold its graphics division to Qualcomm in 2009. Radeon graphics are renowned for its desktop GPU lineup and incorporation in game consoles like PS4 and Xbox One. Its architecture is also being optimized in upcoming Google Stadia, the cloud gaming service.

  • New Qualcomm Chips Will Reduce The Prices Of Windows ARM Laptops

    New Qualcomm Chips Will Reduce The Prices Of Windows ARM Laptops

    As per latest news, Chinese organization Lenovo unveiled a laptop running the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx chipset at the Computex 2019 event held in Taiwan. The market is still devoid of ARM-based laptops with Windows 10 or Chrome OS. However, as per the latest reports, Qualcomm is planning to introduce ARM processors from the Snapdragon series in upcoming notebook-cum-tablet series. Furthermore, they will bear a lower price tag than other ARM-based laptops in the market. 

    A senior executive at Qualcomm revealed that the company will launch new ARM chips designed especially for affordable devices. Doing so will help the company to enter the market segment currently dominated by Chromebooks. Consequently, the American chip manufacturer wants to increase its popularity amongst software providers to boost the number of Qualcomm devices in the market. 

    In the upcoming months, Qualcomm states that it will launch new platforms that will enable the production of efficient and inexpensive 2-in-1 tablet devices. The company will continue to treat the 8cx as the flagship chipset variant, however, it will also unveil more chipsets for devices in the $300-$800 price range. One such SoC is rumoured to be the Snapdragon 7cx. The hardware-based designs on affordable Snapdragon platforms will be equipped with both Windows and Chrome OS in the future. 

    Qualcomm Snapdragon
    Qualcomm Snapdragon Chipset

    Also Read: Samsung Launches The Notebook 7 and Notebook 7 Force Laptops With Intel 8th Generation Processors

    The Qualcomm Senior Executive further states that it is still highly unlikely that Google will release an official ChromeOS to support applications on ARM-based platforms. On the other hand, Microsoft is already trying to implement platform support for desktop Office applications on Snapdragon processors. Hopefully, Google will follow suit upon finding suitable incentive in ARM-based chipsets. The more affordable, efficient laptops/tablets running on the new chipsets by Qualcomm are expected to be of big help in the education sector. 

  • Apple iPhone XI 7 nm+ SOC Risk Production Started By TSMC

    Apple iPhone XI 7 nm+ SOC Risk Production Started By TSMC

    TSMC, a Taiwanese OEM that produces semiconductors and chipsets. Founded in the year 1987 the company currently holds the title for world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. Corporations including Apple, Qualcomm and AMD are one of the few customers of TSMC.

    The company has qualified a significant achievement in the field of chipset technology which is starting risk production of 5 nm chips. This step would allow the company to reduce the size of a given chipset by up to 45% in comparison to the current technology which is 7 nm. Furthermore, it will provide a performance boost of up to 15% in devices that incorporate the chipset. Even though the size of the foundation die has changed, the architecture of a particular chipset remains the same (eg: A73, Kryo 460). Accrediting to the size reduction, devices using the chipset manufactured using 5 nm process will be more power efficient. Therefore, proving for a longer battery backup on portable devices.

    Except for the 5 nm process node, TSMC is also working on the 5 nm+ technology which will push a chipsets performance even further. However, the risk production of chipsets with this fabrication process will reportedly begin next year and they will be production ready by Q1 of 2021. For chipsets originating later this year, the company has 7 nm+ process ready. It should offer 20 % higher transistor density and 6-12% reduction in power consumption.

    2019 iPhone Renders

    Also Read: Asus ZenFone 6 To Launch With Snapdragon 855

    Notable companies that are lined up for the 7 nm+ based chipsets manufactured by TSMC include Qualcomm and Apple. TSMC being the sole chip supplier for Apple, at least until now, will manufacture SoCs for 2019 iPhones. Consequently, the upcoming smartphones from Apple will be kitted with 7 nm+ based chipsets which is assumed to carry the A13 Bionic moniker. 

  • Samsung Introduces 64 Megapixel Camera Sensors For Smartphones

    Samsung Introduces 64 Megapixel Camera Sensors For Smartphones

    South Korean technology giant Samsung is planning to make a bigger impact on the smartphone camera market this year. On the 9th of May 2019, the company announced its upcoming 64 megapixel ISOCELL Image Sensors that will reportedly be the highest resolution sensor in a smartphone camera. As per the company, the new sensors will enable users to capture vibrant high-res images.

    Samsung ISOCELL GW1 Image Sensor Features

    Samsung Electronics introduced a total of two new 0.8? (micrometre) pixel image sensors. One is the 64 megapixel ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor and the other is the 48 megapixel ISOCELL Bright GM2. Samsung claims that its 0.8? (micrometre) pixel size is currently the smallest in the world, and this expansion in the lineup will also be incorporated in existing 20 megapixel sensors, all the way up to high-resolution 64 megapixel sensors. 

    As stated by the Executive VP of the company, Samsung’s new advanced pixel technologies will enable considerably thin devices to house top-of-the-line image sensors so as to enhance the level of photography. The South Korean company claims that its 64 megapixel image sensor features Tetracell technology (where four pixels are merged to work as one to increase light sensitivity) and the Remosiac algorithm (which is used to generate full resolution images in bright light conditions). Furthermore, the sensor is claimed to support HDR (High Dynamic Range) of up to 100 decibels. 

    Samsung ISOCELL GM2 Image Sensor Features

    As mentioned previously, the second announcement by the company is the ISOCELL Bright GM2 48 megapixel image sensor, which adopts similar technologies to the ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor. Additionally, both the sensors sport DCG (Dual Conversion Gain), which covers the light received into an electric signal which is dependant on the illumination of the surroundings. 

    Also Read: Asus Zenfone 6 Case Renders Surface Online With Dual Rear Cameras

    Samsung says that the ISOCELL Bright GW1 and GM2 are currently undergoing testing and will be available via mass production later in 2019. This implies that smartphones that launch in the early 2020s may boast of Samsung’s new sensors. 

  • AMD Marks 50th Anniversary With Limited Gold Edition CPUs And GPUs

    AMD Marks 50th Anniversary With Limited Gold Edition CPUs And GPUs

    On the 1st of May 2019, American chipmaker AMD will mark its 50th anniversary. To commemorate this significant feat, the company is offering limited Gold Edition versions of its high-end Ryzen 7 2700x CPU and the Radeon VII GPU. The PC parts will be offered across the globe between the 29th of April and 8th of June via select online and offline retailers. Additionally, some of AMD’s partner companies will also offer Gold Edition components like the motherboard during the sale.

    Noteworthy, the Gold Edition components are no different than the standard variants in terms of specifications rather they have a distinctive look. The Gold Edition Ryzen 7 2700x CPU has an AMD50 logo etched on top while the heat spreader that ships with it has an etched signature of company CEO Dr Lisa Su. On the other hand, the Radeon VII CPU has a Red Cooler shroud and redesigned packaging with AMD50 logo and gold accents.

    Talking about the specifications, the Ryzen 7 2700x is an Octa-Core CPU that has 16 threads. It has a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz and a maximum boost speed of 4.3 GHz. The chip has 768 kb of L1 cache, 4 MB of L2 cache, 16 MB of L3 cache and is manufactured using 12 nm FinFET technology. The Radeon VII is the world’s first GPU to be manufactured using a 7 nm fabrication process and is comprised of 13.2 billion transistors. It has 60 compute units and 3840 stream processors with 16 GB HMB2 RAM with 1 TB/S memory bandwidth.

    The Ryzen 7 2700x Gold Edition CPU carries a price tag of US $ 329 while the Radeon VII Gold Edition costs US $ 699. AMD is yet to disclose the price and availability of the components for the Indian market which might happen soon as the date of the anniversary is approaching fast.

    Also Read: Pixel 3a, 3a XL Get Bluetooth Certification Ahead Of Official Launch

    Besides the commercial availability of the limited edition parts, AMD will also be hosting an open house party at its office in Markham, Ontario, where fans and members of the public are invited to see a demonstration of products and interact with the staff.  

     

  • In Display Fingerprint Scanners For LCD Displays Are Now A Reality

    In Display Fingerprint Scanners For LCD Displays Are Now A Reality

    The in display fingerprint scanners for smartphones was first shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last year by Vivo. Few months after, the technology was made commercially available in the form of the Vivo X21 UD. Since then, many other major OEMs have started providing an in display fingerprint sensor in their devices. Notably, the feature is only limited to smartphones that feature an OLED display. Mainly due to the reason, only OLED display allowed light to pass through to authenticate a fingerprint via the underneath mounted sensor. That all changes now, as a Chinese company Fortsense has announced it has successfully developed in display fingerprint scanners for handsets with an LCD display.

    Why Is It Big News?
    Galaxy S10+

    As mentioned above, traditional in display fingerprint scanners use light to authenticate and unlock the smartphone, like in the OnePlus 6T. These are called Optical fingerprint scanners. Samsung in its Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy S10 5G uses an ultrasonic in display fingerprint sensor. As opposed to optical ones, these use a sonic pulse wave to authenticate the user’s fingerprint and is claimed to be more secure than the former. In the past, both instances have used an OLED display to work because neither light or a sonic pulse wave can pass through conventional LCD displays.

    As LCD displays are more affordable to manufacture and are found in abundance in budget and mid-range smartphones; an LCD in display fingerprint scanner is big news. This insinuates future budget devices may be featuring a fingerprint sensor inside the handset’s screen. Surprisingly, a senior executive at Xiaomi has already confirmed that smartphones with this feature will be released as early as the next year.

    How Does It Work?

    The R&D team of the Fortsense company claims to make the LCD in display fingerprint scanners work, it had to revise and improve the quality of the LCD backlight panel. It was achieved by enhancing the fingerprint optical path scheme of the display panel. The images from the announcement suggest the fingerprint sensor is an optical kind, but like them, a camera inside the screen is not visible. This might mean it is a completely different kind of technology. 

    Also read: Top Android And iOS Competitors That Got Lost In The Wheel Of Time

    Fortsense also claims to have adopted an algorithm based approach for its LCD in display fingerprint scanners. A combination of deep learning neural network algorithm for optimization and recognition of fingerprints quickly is used in the process. According to the company, the recognition speed is comparable to traditional fingerprint sensors.

  • Steam Survey Shows The NVIDIA GTX 1060 As The Most Popular Graphics Card

    Steam Survey Shows The NVIDIA GTX 1060 As The Most Popular Graphics Card

    Steam conducts a monthly survey which depicts the graphics card information from all the gamers across the world. As per a survey conducted in the month of February 2019, AMD was still found struggling for the top spots in the list of the most used graphics cards. Whereas NVIDIA has a strong grip on almost all top 15 slots in the list, AMD made its entry on the 17th spot in the list.

    The Statistics

    The RX 580 is AMD’s most popular graphics card, and yet only 0.94 % of the total Steam user base uses the aforementioned model. Even Intel HD Graphics 4000 is placed higher on the list, with a total of 0.96% of gamers relying on the inbuilt graphics module. AMD as a whole is just hanging by the ledge, with a total market share of a mere 0.50%, compared to NVIDIA’s mammoth share.

    Almost 16% of Steam gamers have the GTX 1060 as their primary graphics, clearly exhibiting the popularity of the mid-budget graphics card. The Pascal-based GTX 1050 Ti, 1050 and 1070 are next on the list with 9.83%, 5.34% and 4.48% market shares respectively. Surprisingly, the older Maxwell-based graphics cards, GTX 960 and GTX 970 maintain their share at 2.95% and 2.93% respectively. The top performer in the 10 series, the 1080 Ti makes the list at 1.62%

    Turing based cards were launched in the month of September 2018, and they have been steadily gaining popularity over time, as seen in the survey. The RTX 2070 is at 0.50%, whereas the RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 stand at 0.21 and 0.40 percent respectively. On the other hand, AMD’s top-of-the-line RX Vega graphics cards hold a minuscule share of 0.19%. AMD has released some really performance-worthy cards lately, but it is still having trouble competing against the well-established NVIDIA graphics cards. 

    AMD’s Strategy For Success

    Also Read: ASUS Launches New Ryzen Powered Gaming Laptops In India

    AMD is looking forward to launching the 7nm fabrication-based Navi GPUs in the second half of 2019, which may help the sinking shares of the company and propel it towards the higher spots. However, it is worth noting that even if AMD unveils a game-changing graphics card lineup, it may have trouble incorporating itself in the market owing to NVIDIA’s strong grip in that sector.

  • Intel May Introduce 9th Gen Core CPUs For High End Laptops Soon

    Intel May Introduce 9th Gen Core CPUs For High End Laptops Soon

    The Game Developer’s Conference held in San Francisco saw some interesting revelations being made, with Google unveiling its upcoming cloud gaming platform and Oculus’ new VR headset, the Rift S. The American multinational corporation, Intel also announced its 9th generation of CPUs for high-performance laptops.

    About The New Lineup

    Named “Coffee Lake”, the new lineup will primarily be targeted towards gaming and digital content creation. The new processors will enable users to play games and stream at high framerates and resolution without affecting the performance. Also, the 9th Gen Core CPUs will support Gigabit-class Wi-Fi 6 and Intel Optane Memory for improving communication latency and solving storage issues. The Intel Optane chip was launched in the year 2017 and is as fast as conventional RAMs while being inexpensive at the same time. It unifies the RAM chip and storage chip into a single module.

    Expected Specifications

    The company did not put forward any official specifications for the same, but as per leaks, Intel will introduce two new models in each of the Core i5, i7 and i9 CPUs. The Core i5-9400H is expected to have four cores running at 4.3 GHz, whereas the toned down i5-9300H will sport similar cores clocked at 4.1 GHz. The i7 lineup will be joined by the Core i7-9850H and Core i7-9750H, both with hexa cores clocked at 4.6 GHz and 4.5 GHz respectively. Lastly, the top-end Core i9 series is said to feature two new models, which are the i9-9980HK and the i9-9980H. Both the variants will expectedly have a total of 8 cores, with the clock speeds varying at 5 GHz and 4.8 GHz respectively. All the models are also speculated to sport Hyper Threading.

    Also Read: Netflix Starts Testing Rs. 250 Monthly Subscription Plan In India

    Furthermore, the company also teased its upcoming graphics card, code named Odyssey. Although Intel did not divulge any specifications or details regarding the same, spectators were thrilled to learn that Intel may release a variant from the Odyssey series soon. Additionally, the company also teased its new UI for GPU configuration, which is already available for selected beta testers.

    The Intel 9th Gen Core CPUs will be launched in the second Quarter of 2019.

     

  • Qualcomm Announces QCS400 SoCs series For Smart Speakers And Soundbars

    Qualcomm Announces QCS400 SoCs series For Smart Speakers And Soundbars

    The market for smart speakers and audio devices is gradually picking up the pace. Products ranging from Amazon Alexa to Google Home and Apple HomePod are in high demand due to their smart capabilities including voice-guided commands. The American chipmaker Qualcomm, on the 19th of March 2019 launched a new lineup of SoCs, the QCS400 which are developed to provide a unified and simplified user experience across a wide variety of audio devices. According to the company, the QCS400 SoCs are designed to underpin smart audio devices which can range from portable smart speakers to home assistants to a high-end audio/visual receiver (AVR). 

    Benefits Of The QCS400 SoCs

    It is obvious that a common chipset across several smart audio products will uncomplicate the process of its usage and operation. As per Qualcomm, the following are the reasons that lay the foundation of the QCS400 lineup of chipsets:

    • Improvement in the voice-guided user interface (UI) that has faster response times and enhanced sound pickup even in loud environments. 
    • Support for multiple channels- As the name suggests, this would allow users to connect various speakers together with extensive control over audio playback. The chipsets are designed to be highly power efficient and deliver reliable performance. 
    • Providing a cinema-like experience- The newly launched chipsets have built-in support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X that help in providing high-quality audio output from any device that incorporates the chips. 
    QCS400 Developer Board

    Initially, Qualcomm has launched four chipsets all of which fit the needs of distinct modern day audio products. The QCS403 and QCS404 chipsets are developed for smart speakers and smart assistant. Both the chipsets use Bluetooth 5.1 for connection and support Zigbee which is a high-level communication protocol developed by IEEE. Notably, the former comprises a dual-core CPU while the latter comprises of a quad-core CPU. Irrespective of the chipsets, CPU cores on the both are clocked at 1.4 GHz that. 

    Also Read: Redmi Note 7, Note 7 Pro To Go On Sale In India Once Again Today

    The QCS405 chipset is developed for soundbars and home theatres while the QCS407 is developed for AVRs (audio/video receivers). Both the chipsets have quad AIE CPU cores and Adreno 306 GPU. Another distinctive feature of these chipsets is the 2x Qualcomm Hexagon DSPs. Prominently, the QCS 407 is the only chipset out of the bunch that supports up to 32 audio channels while the rest max out at 12.

  • NVIDIA GTX 1660 With 6GB GDDR5 VRAM Launched In India

    NVIDIA GTX 1660 With 6GB GDDR5 VRAM Launched In India

    NVIDIA has launched the Turing-based GTX 1660 Graphics card in India. First announced in February 2019, the GPU chip has 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM and is a step up from the GTX 1060 GPU chip, which is based on the Pascal architecture. The 1660 series is targeted towards the mid-range GPU sector and will compete against graphics cards like AMD’s RX 580.

    GTX 1660 Features

    As mentioned before, the GTX 1660 is based on the 12th Generation Turning Architecture. The company claims that 1660’s architecture is much more power efficient than the standard Pascal architecture. The GPU chip requires 120 watts of power to operate optimally, which means that users with Generation 800 and 900 NVIDIA cards can upgrade to the GTX 1660 without upgrading their power supply unit. Taking increased power efficiency into consideration, NVIDIA claims that the GPU delivers the best performance per watt in its class.

    The GPU chip features a total of 1,408 Cuda cores with a base clock speed of 1.5 GHz and a boost clock speed of up to 1.8 GHz. NVIDIA claims that at 1080p, the chip is 35% faster than the Pascal-based GTX 1060 3GB and almost 130% faster than Maxwell-based GTX 960. The GPU packs 6 GB of GDDR5 memory with a transfer rate of up to 8 Gbps. Furthermore, NVIDIA states that the GTX 1660 is “built for streamers”, since it is optimized for Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), which is the most popular streaming software globally.

    With built-in NVIDIA Ansel, the 1660 enables users to capture high quality images in-game or create 360-degree photospheres of the same. Using NVIDIA Freestyle, gamers can use post-processing to customize the way their games look.

    Price And Availability

    Also Read: PUBG Lite For PC To Arrive Soon On Steam

    The GTX 1660 is expected to be available for purchase soon in India, however, no exact date has been stated by the company. The GTX 1660 GPU will retail Rs. 21,500 onwards.

  • USB 4 With Faster Speeds And Thunderbolt Support Announced

    USB 4 With Faster Speeds And Thunderbolt Support Announced

    USB or Universal Serial Bus is an industry standard that sets specifications for connectors, protocols and cables for communication and power supply between computing devices and their peripherals. USB, first introduced in the year 1996 has seen several iterations during the time of its existence. Its latest standard, the USB 4 has been freshly announced which is capable of transferring data up to 4 times faster than its predecessor. 

    How Fast Is USB 4?

    USB 3 certified devices usually have data transfer speeds of 5Gbps, 10 Gbps or 20 Gbps depending on its certification. Whereas USB 4 is capable of transferring data up to speeds of 40 Gbps which is a significant boost. This improvement in the speed of the new standard will open up new possibilities for devices with this port. Notably, it will allow the connection of multiple 4K monitors flawless.

    The new USB 4 standard will further advance docking stations that use a single port to connect to several peripherals including monitor, storage drives and network cables. Noteworthy, not all devices can transfer data at a rate of 40 Gbps. Distinctly, smartphones will support slower speed which is fine as they are not generally connected to multiple devices simultaneously like a couple of 4K monitors. 

    What Else Does USB 4 Offer?
    USB C Port On The Samsung Galaxy S10

    In addition to the highly appreciated speed boost, USB 4 will also incorporate Thunderbolt technology. Thunderbolt is a type of hardware interface which was developed by Intel in collaboration with Apple. Like the USB interface, it is also intended to allow connection between a computer and external peripherals. However, it is capable of transferring data at much higher rates than USB. Noteworthy, the Thunderbolt 3 standard which was previously announced shares the common connector as USB Type-C.

    USB Type-C Port On The Honor View 20

    The aforementioned port is the latest standard for physical ports for the USB interface. The USB Type-C port is much more versatile and convenient than both USB A ports which are present on computers/laptops and Micro USB ports which are present on older Android smartphones. Also, the new physical connector can carry heavier electrical loads in comparison to the previous generation. The USB 4 standard also improves the USB Power Delivery (USB PD) system which governs the amount of power to supply to a connected peripheral. 

    When Will USB 4 Make Its Way To Consumer Ready Products?

    Also Read: OnePlus 7 Listed Online Confirming Price & Specifications

    OEMs that take part in USB IF (USB Implementers Forum) are expected to release the details of USB 4 in the Q4 of 2019. The first consumer-ready device will take about 12 to 14 months to make its way to the market. Accordingly, the first commercially available device with USB 4 standard will be seen in the second half of the year 2020.

     

     

  • Qualcomm Quick Charge Is Now Qi Wireless Charging Compliant

    Qualcomm Quick Charge Is Now Qi Wireless Charging Compliant

    Qualcomm, the pioneer of mobile chipsets has made an announcement at the MWC 2019, according to which its Quick Charge standard will support Wireless Charging. This will ease the transition of devices from wired quick charging to wireless quick charging techniques. As per the American electronics company, the new technology will focus on fast and consistent charging for supported smartphones.

    The new Wireless Charging pads will be powered by Quick Charge and will be compatible with Quick Charge 2.0, 3.0, 4 and 4+ adapters. The comoany will soon expand testing to QuickCharge for Wireless power. Additional tests will be performed, which will ensure Quick Charge and Qi interoperability. This will aim to provide a consistent wireless charging experience between the devices. 

    About The WPC

    The WPC (Wireless Power Consortium) includes over 650 companies and more than 3,500 different products which comply with their standards. They were the original creators of the Qi Global Wireless Charging Standard. Future consumers can still look for the same Quick Charge branding. Doing so will ensure that their QuickCharge adapters have gone through necessary compliance tests, rendering them safe to use.

    Company Statement

    Qualcomm has reported that it is working with major retailers to get rid of non-compliant accessories from catalogs. George Paparrizos, senior director of product management for Qualcomm Technologies made a statement regarding the new technology. He believes that the consumers will feel safer now that Quick Charge enabled wireless power pads have passed rigorous tests which were established by both the organizations.

    Also Read: Samsung Announces The Galaxy A30 And A50 At MWC 2019

    As per the company, Quick Charge is the largest developing ecosystem which supports fast charging. What are your views on the wireless Quick Charge technology? Share them with us in the comments below.

  • JEDEC Announces LPDDR5 RAM For Mobile Computing Devices

    JEDEC Announces LPDDR5 RAM For Mobile Computing Devices

    JEDEC is a well known name in the microelectronics sector. JEDEC Solid State Technology Association announced the publication of the new JESD209 LPDDR5 RAM on February 21. LPDDR stands for Low Power Double Data Rate 5, implying that the RAM module is targeted towards mobile computing devices. LPDDR5 will run at 6400 MT/s I/O rate, which is almost 50% higher than the first iteration of the LPDDR4 mobile RAM. The increased transfer rate provided by LPDDR5 will notably give a boost to the efficiency and memory speed of the device. Devices that have low power consumption such as Notebooks, tablets and smartphones can especially benefit from the new module.

    Furthermore, LPDDR5 has some new components that are specifically designed for mission-critical applications. The original LPDDR5 architecture has been redesigned and now runs on a whole new 16Banks programmable structure with an integrated multi-clocking architecture. Also, the LPDDR5 documentation is available for download here.

    New Commands

    Two revamped command-based operations have been introduced to the new RAM module. They aim towards the improvement of system power consumption while reducing data transmission at the same time. Named Data-copy and Write-X, the operations will keep a check on the overall power consumption of smartphones and laptops.

    The Data-copy command will provide instructions to the LPDDR5 module to copy the data on a single I/O pin to the other I/O pins. This will ensure that data is not needlessly transmitted to the rest of the pins. On the other hand, the Write-X command will instruct the device to write all-ones or all-zeroes to a specific address, which will eliminate the need to transfer data from the chipset to the device itself.

    Other Features

    Also Read: Samsung Galaxy S10 And S10+ With Ultrasonic FingerPrint Sensor Launched

    Along with the announcement of the new module, LPDDR5 has included Link Error Correcting Code support for the SoC-DRAM interface. It helps boost higher data transfer rates between the components. Other features include Dynamic Frequency and Voltage Scaling for Core and I/O, selectable differential and single-ended CK, WCK, and RDQS, partial array self-refresh and auto-refresh, and low power read/write operation with Data-Copy and Write-X functions.

     

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Retail Packaging Images Surface Again

    Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Retail Packaging Images Surface Again

    As we approach the rumoured launch date of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660Ti, even more images of the graphics card retail packaging appear online. Sources claim that they captured images of retail packaging of the EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti XC, Palit GTX 1660 Ti StormX and Galax GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. And looking at the images, the pictures look like they’re very authentic.

    Rumoured Launch Dates

      All three cards look like the variants of the upcoming Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. The speculated graphics card is supposed to release on February 22. Previously, a launch date of February 15 was expected, but that has been postponed to exactly a week later.

    GeForce GTX 1660 Ti: Features

    The retail packaging images clearly show the presence of the much-speculated GPU’s Turning Shaders. It also shows that the 1660 Ti will have 6 gigs of GDDR6 memory. One thing to note here is that the absence of any Ray Tracing information on the retail box may mean that the 1660 series won’t support Ray tracing.

    Also Read: AMD Has Launched The World’s First 7nm Based GPU, Radeon VII In India

    Nothing has been announced by Nvidia so far, so we can consider all these reveals as leaks. But sources say that the rumoured launch date is already on the line. Hopefully, we’ll be able to believe in the 1660 Ti very soon?

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