Tag: arm

Sony Releases Next Gen PSP (called : NGP) with quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, quad-core GPU
Sony today announced the NEXT GENERATION PS PORTABLE (NGP) Specs include
- quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor
- 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution
- dual analog sticks (not nubs as on the current generation)
- 3G, WiFi, GPS
- rear-mounted touchpad
- the same accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing as in the Move
- electronic compass
- cameras front and back
The new console’s UI will be called LiveArea, which has a bunch of vertically navigable home screens and built-in social networking through PlayStation Network. You can jump between games and the LiveArea without losing your progress and comment on your buddies’ great feats of mobile gaming.

Sony trotted out Hideo Kojima to show off a cutscene from MGS 4 rendered in real time on the NGP. It was pulled directly from the PS3 version of the game and ran at 20fps.

Check out the Press Release

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES ITS NEXT GENERATION PORTABLE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

Ultimate Portable Entertainment System Makes Its Debut This Year,
Further Expanding the PlayStation® Business in the Portable Gaming Market

Tokyo, January 27, 2011– Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced its next generation portable entertainment system (codename: NGP), which delivers the ultimate portable entertainment experience. NGP will make its debut at the end of the year 2011.

NGP is designed to offer unparalleled interactive entertainment that is only possible on PlayStation®. This new system offers a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real world context, made possible by leveraging SCE’s experience from both PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) and PlayStation®3 (PS3®) entertainment systems.

Deep and immersive gaming is at the core of PlayStation’s DNA, and NGP is the latest embodiment of this vision. By having both Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity, together with various applications, NGP will enable infinite possibilities for users to “encounter,” “connect,” “discover,” “share” and “play” with friends wherever they are. Within the device are a range of features that provide a genuinely cutting-edge, next generation ultimate portable entertainment experience.
?Stunning OLED and Revolutionary User Interface

NGP incorporates a beautiful multi-touch 5-inch organic light emitting display (OLED) as the front display. A high-performance CPU / GPU combined with OLED enables rich, visually striking graphics never seen before on a portable entertainment system, for both games and other digital entertainment content. The new system also incorporates a unique multi-touch pad on the rear, and together with the front touch display, NGP offers new game play allowing users to interact directly with games in three dimension-like motion, through “touch, grab, trace, push and pull” moves of the fingers.
?Super Oval Design and Dual Analog Sticks

While succeeding the basic design philosophy of PSP, NGP adopts the Super Oval Design form factor, created to fit comfortably in users’ hands. For the first time, a portable entertainment system will feature two analog sticks, which enable a wider range of game genres to be brought into the portable experience.
?LiveArea™

Every game title for NGP will be provided with a space called “LiveArea™” where users can share the fun and excitement with other players. Users will have access to the latest information of games provided from SCE and 3rd party developers and publishers through PlayStation®Network. Additionally, NGP users will be able to view an “Activity” log that is constantly updated with accomplishments from users who are playing the same game, which in turn can trigger active real-time communication among users.
?Near

SCE will also provide location-based services on NGP as part of the basic features utilizing PlayStation Network. The new application called “Near,” developed specifically for this service and the network, will be pre-installed in the system to let users find out what their friends in the vicinity are playing now or what they were playing recently. Users can meet their friends and new players virtually, regardless of what games they are playing, simply by sharing their game information across different dimensions of time and distance.
?New Game Medium

NGP adopts a new game medium, a small flash memory based card, dedicated for NGP software titles. Taking advantage of the flash memory feature, this innovative card can store the full software titles plus add-on game content or the game save data directly on to the card. By adopting flash memory based card, SCE will be able to provide game cards with higher capacity in the future, allowing developers to store more game data to deliver rich and immersive games.

NGP will also come equipped with two cameras on its front and rear, as well as three motion sensors, gyroscope, accelerometer and electronic compass, all of which are designed to enable users to enjoy the world of entertainment that is linked with real life experiences.

PlayStation®Suite (PS Suite), announced today, will also closely coordinate with NGP. The newly developed and released game content for Android™ based portable devices can also be enjoyed on NGP. As a result, users will have access to not only the most leading-edge content, but also some of the more casual experiences that typify the mobile market place.

SCE will vigorously promote NGP towards the launch as the next generation portable entertainment platform and deploy various measures to further expand the portable gaming market.
January 27, 2011
IBM Partners with ARM to deliver next level of Mobile processors

IBM and ARM have been known to team up before, but this week both companies announced a new joint initiative to develop chips measuring 14nm. That is considerably smaller compared to the current gen 20nm chipsets. This means that in the upcoming generation, the processors will be faster smaller, yet more power efficient. Read the press release below,

IBM and ARM to Collaborate on Advanced Semiconductor Technology for Mobile Electronics

SANTA CLARA, CA – 17 Jan 2011: ARM® [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMH)] and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced an agreement between the two companies to extend their collaboration on advanced semiconductor technologies to enable the rapid development of next generation mobile products optimized for performance and power efficiency. The resulting technology will provide a suite of optimized physical and processor IP by ARM tuned to IBM’s advance manufacturing process down to 14nm; providing streamlined development and earlier introduction of advanced consumer electronics into the marketplace.

As the consumer’s requirements increase for high end features on mobile devices including; extended battery life, uninterrupted internet access, high end multimedia and secure transactions the chip design becomes increasingly more challenging. Designers must consider nanometer scale effects in terms of lithography, variability, and so on while simultaneously meeting performance, power and area (PPA) targets across hundreds of millions of transistors. This increased complexity potentially results in additional in-house design time.

Through this agreement ARM and IBM will collaboratively develop design platforms aligning the manufacturing process, microprocessor and physical IP design teams. This collaboration will minimize the risk and barriers to migrating to smaller geometries while enabling optimized density, performance, power and yield in advanced SoC designs; accelerating the introduction of advanced electronics into the marketplace.

“ARM’s Cortex processors have become the leadership platform for the majority of smart phones and many other emerging mobile devices,” said Michael Cadigan, general manager, IBM Microelectronics. “We plan to continue working closely with ARM and our foundry customers to speed the momentum of ARM technology by delivering highly advanced, low-power semiconductor technology for a variety of new communications and computing devices”

“IBM has a proven track record of delivering the core research and development that is relied upon by major semiconductor vendors worldwide for their advanced semiconductor devices. Their leadership of the ISDA alliance, which features a diverse set of top-tier companies as members, is growing in importance as consolidation trends in the semiconductor manufacturing industry continue” said Simon Segars, EVP and general manager, ARM physical IP division. “This agreement will ensure we are able to deliver highly tuned ARM Artisan Physical IP solutions on advanced ISDA process technologies to meet the early time-to-market our customers demand.”

Past collaboration with IBM and ARM on advanced geometries have been underway since 2008, resulting in the implementation of extensive process and physical IP refinements to improve SoC density, routability, manufacturability, power consumption, and performance. Moreover, through the previous collaboration on the 32nm and 28nm ARM has already delivered eleven test chips that provide concrete research structures and early silicon validation. In addition, ARM has developed specific optimizations targeting ARM processor cores including most recently a complete ARM Cortex-A9 processor core implemented on 32nm High-K Metal Gate technology.

Today’s agreement reinforces the aligned co-development of semiconductor process, foundation Physical IP building blocks, and microprocessor core optimization necessary to achieve market-leading system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. Furthermore, it extend access for ARM to continue this systematic test chip roadmap and assure early time-to-market readiness of the necessary platform of physical and processor IP solutions for nodes ranging from 20nm through 14nm.

For more information on IBM semiconductor technologies visit:

http://www-03.ibm.com/technology/?cm_re=masthead-_-products-_-chips

About ARM
ARM designs the technology that is at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 32-bit RISC microprocessors, graphics processors, video engines, enabling software, cell libraries, embedded memories, high-speed connectivity products, peripherals and development tools. Combined with comprehensive design services, training, support and maintenance, and the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies.

Source : IBM

January 20, 2011
The Apple iPad 2 – What we know So Far
Apple has its devices on a yearly refresh, every year around the same time, you get an upgraded version of the iPhone, the iPod, Macbooks etc. Just like that the iPad will also see a refresh. We started hearing rumors of iPad’s redesigned structure and obvious design changes in November 2010.

Now the iPad, was announced in the last week of Jan 2010, we can expect a similar time frame for a refresh of the Tablet. Something has to be new and the Rumor mill has been running haywire over it.

Here are a collection of images over the past month and our thoughts on what the new iPad may be like.

New Structure

Images like the one above are renders of the carbon fibre patent that Apple had filed on May 18, 2009. This incorporates a liquid metal structure with a carbon fibre back. This would not only make the iPad extremely nice looking, But, also give it a lighter yet solid construction, immensely improving the antenna.

The likes of this happening are however, very- very low. We still have our hopes up.

Cases

The second wave of iPad 2 rumors came with iPad 2 cases. These cases started showing up at manufacturers across the china market, showing cutouts for the back camera and an new speaker cutout.

This shows us that two things that might come are the Camera on the back and a improved speaker on the next gen iPad. We feel there is a very high chance of this happening.

Facetime and Retina Display

Since Apple has been adding front cameras and retina displays to all its products in 2010, it wouldn’t be false to guess that the iPad 2 will have at least a front facing camera and a higher res display, if not a retina display. The new iOS 4.3 beta revealed some interesting information on the next release. A bunch of people snooping around the new files found wallpapers for the iPad that have the resolution . – 1536 x 800px compared to the existing 768 x 400 px that is approximately 4x the resolution (2x both ways).

We also believe, looking at Apple’s trend that the new iPad will definitely have a front facing camera and a Higher resolution display.

Gizmodo posted a good sketch of what the iPad 2 may look like, including resolution enhancement.

Engadget got hold of a dummy of the iPad 2 during CES at one of the case manufacturers booths. this showed a new design- with a flat back and a potentially larger capacity – 128 GB to be precise. This would be just brilliant for the iPad

New Rumors

After a series of breakouts, a whole bunch of new information has come into light. There is news of a new A5 chip, this will be used in the new iPhone this year and apparently the new iPad as-well. Whats the A5 chip? well the heart of the A5 is the multi-core ARM Cortex A9. Which will also be the heart of Nvidia Tegra processors that will be in the series of Android devices slated for this year, along with the Ti-omap processor in the Blackberry Playbook.

AppleInsider claims that Apple is moving to dual-core SGX543 graphics, up from the A4’s single SGX535 GPU. This would enable it to process graphics at 4x times the capability – and the 4x resolution included. We can also expect 1080P hHD video output, and an improved experience along with higher ram and overall enhancement of hardware. But, hey that what we want anyway.

Some more interesting pictures of cases have also shown up. this ones have to new cut-out – claimed possibly for Sd-card slot and a display out. We are highly skeptical that Apple may add a memory card slot to increase memory size, may only act as a camera card reader, But, nonetheless the SD CARD slot would be a great addon. The Video out port may be a possibility, But, then again Apple can use the dock connector for that and dont really need a dedicated video out port, Unless its HDMI.

So here is a a Final List of features that may or may not come to the iPad
- Facetime Camera – High Possibility
- Rear Camera – High Possibility
- New Liquid Metal design + carbon fibre – Unlikely
- 4x Graphics – Possible
- More Ram – High Possibility (and much needed)
- New A5 Chip – High Possibility
- Sd Card Slot- Unlikely
- Mini Display Port – Unlikely
- Larger Capacity 128 gb – Possible
- Retina Display – High Res Display is more likely
- 4G – No rumors on that – our guess – Not happening
Sources : Engadget, Gizmodo, Mac-Rumors, MICGAdget, Apple- Insider , Twitter
January 19, 2011