How Laptops Work...

In a way, the skyrocketing popularity of laptop computers is ironic. They're completely portable, and they use less power and make less noise than desktop models. But, they're often a little slower and have less graphics and sound processing power, although these differences can be too small for most users to notice.Laptops are also more expensive than desktops. The price gap is closing, though -- laptop prices are falling faster than desktop prices, and laptop PCs actually outsold desktop models for the first time in May of 2005 [Source: Windows IT Pro].How can all the equipment found in a desktop tower fit into such a small package? And how can laptops be efficient enough to run on battery power alone? In this article, you'll discover the answers to these and other questions about laptops.­ Overall, lap­top and desktop computers are very similar. They have the same basic hardware, software and operating systems. The primary difference is how their components fit together. ­­A desktop computer includes a motherboard, video card, hard drive and other components in a large case. The monitor, keyboard, and other peripherals connect wirelessly or with cables. Whether the case sits vertically or horizontally, it has lots of space for add-in cards, cables and air circulation.
A laptop, however, is much smaller and lighter than even the most compact PC tower. Its screen is an integrated part of the unit, as is its keyboard. Instead of a spacious case with lots of room for air circulation, a laptop uses a small, flat design in which all the pieces fit together snugly.

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Fab 32 Interior....

An Intel manufacturing technician, shown here, uses a scanner to start the very first 45 nm production lot of 300 mm wafers inside of Fab 32 Intel's first high-volume 45nm chip factory in Chandler, Ariz. The new factory will produce millions of Intel's new 45nm high-k metal gate microprocessors, the first of which are scheduled to launch on Nov. 12.

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Intel's Transistor Technology Breakthrough Represents Biggest Change to Computer Chips In 40 Years..

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 27, 2007 – In one of the biggest advancements in fundamental transistor design, Intel Corporation today revealed that it is using two dramatically new materials to build the insulating walls and switching gates of its 45 nanometer (nm) transistors. Hundreds of millions of these microscopic transistors – or switches – will be inside the next generation Intel® Core™ 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Xeon® families of multi-core processors. The company also said it has five early-version products up and running -- the first of fifteen 45nm processor products planned from Intel.
The transistor feat allows the company to continue delivering record-breaking PC, laptop and server processor speeds, while reducing the amount of electrical leakage from transistors that can hamper chip and PC design, size, power consumption, noise and costs. It also ensures Moore's Law, a high-tech industry axiom that transistor counts double about every two years, thrives well into the next decade.
Intel believes it has extended its lead of more than a year over the rest of the semiconductor industry with the first working 45nm processors of its next-generation 45nm family of products – codenamed "Penryn." The early versions, which will be targeted at five different computer market segments, are running Windows* Vista*, Mac OS X*, Windows* XP and Linux operating systems, as well as various applications. The company remains on track for 45nm production in the second half of this year.
Intel's Transistors Get a "High-k and Metal Gate" Make-Over at 45nm
Intel is the first to implement an innovative combination of new materials that drastically reduces transistor leakage and increases performance in its 45nm process technology. The company will use a new material with a property called high-k, for the transistor gate dielectric, and a new combination of metal materials for the transistor gate electrode.
"The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s," said Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore.
Transistors are tiny switches that process the ones and zeroes of the digital world. The gate turns the transistor on and off and the gate dielectric is an insulator underneath it that separates it from the channel where current flows. The combination of the metal gates and the high-k gate dielectric leads to transistors with very low current leakage and record high performance.
"As more and more transistors are packed onto a single piece of silicon, the industry continues to research current leakage reduction solutions," said Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow. "Meanwhile our engineers and designers have achieved a remarkable accomplishment that ensures the leadership of Intel products and innovation. Our implementation of novel high-k and metal gate transistors for our 45nm process technology will help Intel deliver even faster, more energy efficient multi-core products that build upon our successful Intel Core 2 and Xeon family of processors, and extend Moore's Law well into the next decade."
For comparison, approximately 400 of Intel's 45nm transistors could fit on the surface of a single human red blood cell. Just a decade ago, the state-of-the-art process technology was 250nm, meaning transistor dimensions were approximately 5.5 times the size and 30 times the area of the technology announced today by Intel.
As the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years in accordance with Moore's Law, Intel is able to innovate and integrate, adding more features and computing processing cores, increasing performance, and decreasing manufacturing costs and cost per transistor. To maintain this pace of innovation, transistors must continue to shrink to ever-smaller sizes. However, using current materials, the ability to shrink transistors is reaching fundamental limits because of increased power and heat issues that develop as feature sizes reach atomic levels. As a result, implementing new materials is imperative to the future of Moore's Law and the economics of the information age.
Intel's High-k, Metal Gate Recipe for 45nm Process Technology
Silicon dioxide has been used to make the transistor gate dielectric for more than 40 years because of its manufacturability and ability to deliver continued transistor performance improvements as it has been made ever thinner. Intel has successfully shrunk the silicon dioxide gate dielectric to as little as 1.2nm thick – equal to five atomic layers – on our previous 65nm process technology, but the continued shrinking has led to increased current leakage through the gate dielectric, resulting in wasted electric current and unnecessary heat.
Transistor gate leakage associated with the ever-thinning silicon dioxide gate dielectric is recognized by the industry as one of the most formidable technical challenges facing Moore's Law. To solve this critical issue, Intel replaced the silicon dioxide with a thicker hafnium-based high-k material in the gate dielectric, reducing leakage by more than 10 times compared to the silicon dioxide used for more than four decades.
Because the high-k gate dielectric is not compatible with today's silicon gate electrode, the second part of Intel's 45nm transistor material recipe is the development of new metal gate materials. While the specific metals that Intel uses remains secret, the company will use a combination of different metal materials for the transistor gate electrodes.
The combination of the high-k gate dielectric with the metal gate for Intel's 45nm process technology provides more than a 20 percent increase in drive current, or higher transistor performance. Conversely it reduces source-drain leakage by more than five times, thus improving the energy efficiency of the transistor.
Intel's 45nm process technology also improves transistor density by approximately two times that of the previous generation, allowing the company to either increase the overall transistor count or to make processors smaller. Because the 45nm transistors are smaller than the previous generation, they take less energy to switch on and off, reducing active switching power by approximately 30 percent. Intel will use copper wires with a low-k dielectric for its 45nm interconnects for increased performance and lower power consumption. It will also use innovative design rules and advanced mask techniques to extend the use of 193nm dry lithography to manufacture its 45nm processors because of the cost advantages and high manufacturability it affords.
Penryn Family Will Bring More Energy Efficient Performance
The Penryn family of processors is a derivative of the Intel Core microarchitecture and marks the next step in Intel's rapid cadence of delivering a new process technology and new microarchitecture every other year. The combination of Intel's leading 45nm process technology, high-volume manufacturing capabilities, and leading microarchitecture design enabled the company to already develop its first working 45nm Penryn processors.
The company has more than 15 products based on 45nm in development across desktop, mobile, workstation and enterprise segments. With more than 400 million transistors for dual-core processors and more than 800 million for quad-core, the Penryn family of 45nm processors includes new microarchitecture features for greater performance and power management capabilities, as well as higher core speeds and larger caches. The Penryn family designs also bring approximately 50 new Intel SSE4 instructions that expand capabilities and performance for media and high-performance computing applications.

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Western Digital introduces 750GB and 1TB 2.5″ drives...

Solid-State drives may be gaining in performance, but standard hard drives are still pushing forwards in terms of how much data they can store. This week Western Digital has pushed the storage barrier up by managing to squeeze 1TB into a 2.5″ hard drive.
The WD Scorpio Blue comes in both 750GB and 1TB models with the latter squeezing 333GB per platter while maintaining a 3GB/s transfer speed through the SATA interface. Both drives spin at 5,200rpm, have an 8MB cache, and a latency of 5.5ms. Western Digital is using the new drives in a range of products as both an internal and external hard drive.
We can expect to see the Scorpio Blue being offered in laptops, nettops, and other small form-factor PCs, but Western Digital are also going to use them for portable hard drives. Two new models of the Western Digital My Passport Essential SE range have been announced using the Scorpio Blue drives, so that’s 750GB or 1TB in a 15 x 80 x 126mm package and powered over USB. Both new drives are available from the Western Digital online shop costing $199.99 (750GB) and $299.99 (1TB).
Jim Morris, senior vice president and general manager of client systems at WD said:
The convergence of the growing mobile computing and digital media trends produces demand for desktop-like capacities in portable devices …new WD Scorpio Blue drives enable people to take even more of their digital collections with them wherever they go and, realizing the value of their data, back up their notebooks on their My Passport drives.
Both new drives are shipped with WhisperDrive, ShockGuard, and SecurePark, offering users a very quiet, shock tolerant, and reliable hard drive regardless of what form you use it in....

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Tiny,6-chip open computer runs Linux....

Embedded designer Paul Thomas is showcasing a tiny, open-sourced computer at LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week. Would-be “Linuxstamp” enthusiasts can obtain pre-built boards for the hefty sum of $120 directly from Thomas, or they can download the design for free and build it themselves.The Linuxstamp is an extremely simple hardware design, consisting of six integrated circuits (processor, flash, RAM, serial-to-USB, ethernet PHY, and power conversion) plus a bunch of passives.
The Linuxstamp is built from just six ICs(Click to enlarge)
Thomas demonstrated the Linuxstamp in the “Garage” area of Linuxworld. The most eye-catching of his demos was a home-made robotic car, constructed with legos and moved around by a couple of wheels controlled by the Linuxstamp (see photos below). In this demo, the Linuxstamp operated untethered, thanks to wireless capability supplied by a USB/WiFi adapter plugged into the board’s USB host port.
Wireless Linuxstamp-powered robot demo at LinuxWorld(Click each image to enlarge)
The hardware
Despite its simplicity, the Linuxstamp’s features include:
Atmel AT91RM9200 processor (ARM9 core, includes MMU)
32MB SDRAM
8MB SPI flash memory
10/100 Ethernet (supplied by the Atmel processor)
USB host port (supplied by the Atmel processor)
USB device port (generated by a serial/USB converter)
SD card slot
USB debug port (via the USB device port)
JTAG port
Can be powered via POE
The board’s processor, a 180 MHz Atmel AT91RM9200 system-on-chip, integrates an ARM9 CPU core (with MMU) along with controllers for USB host and device ports, 10/100 Ethernet, MMC/SD card interface, sync/async serial ports, SPI (serial peripheral interface), and more.
Thomas was careful to keep the Linuxstamp’s design simple enough to allow for a two-layer PCB design, which minimizes costs and simplifies homebrew construction.
Another example of keeping things simple is the inclusion of a USB-based serial debug port, implemented via a serial/USB converter chip. Thanks to this feature, users of the board most likely won’t need to use the board’s JTAG debug port, according to Thomas.
Even initialization of the board’s low-level bootstrap loader is easy, Thomas adds, since the Atmel processor includes an innovative, built-in hardware bootstrap function that automatically attempts to load the onboard SPI flash via the serial debug port when a newly built board powers up for the first time.
Bootstrap loaders and Linux OS
Thomas notes that there are two levels of bootstrap loader: a tiny loader provided by Atmel initializes the processor and its interfaces, and then loads U-boot, which does the rest. This process is described in detail on the Linuxstamp’s wiki site.
As its name implies, the Linuxstamp runs Linux. At least two distributions are currently available: a minimal filesystem that boots and runs entirely from within the Linuxstamp’s 8MB flash and 32MB RAM memory; and a more complete, debian-based filesystem that requires an SD card to supplement the board’s on-board flash. In addition to the linux kernel, the minimal filesystem includes BusyBox and DropBear SSH (a small SSH client/server), among other basic system functions. The minimal system system allocates about 2MB of the 8MB available flash to linux and the boot-loaders, with the rest for the filesystem, according to Thomas.
Both OSes are based on kernel sources obtained from kernel.org and compiled specifically for the board’s hardware, Thomas says. The filesystem images, a cross compiler, bootstrap loader images, and sources are available from the Linuxstamp’s ftp site.
Availability
To purchase a ready-made Linuxstamp (priced at $120 plus shipping, as of this writing), visit TheLinuxStamp.com. For more technical details on the Linuxstamp and to obtain its “open source” design (it’s released under the GNU GPLv2), visit the Linuxstamp’s wiki.

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NEW chips...

The focus of computing may have shifted from PCs to notebooks but some people still need power, sometimes seemingly ridiculous amounts of it. Whether you are rendering 3D graphics or editing video or you just have a lot to do at once, the workstation is far from dead for you. With this in mind, as well as the ongoing commoditization of processing power, HP put a lot of effort into producing their new series of Z series workstations.
With so much of the computer simply being decided by what processor you are running and what graphics card(s) you have, companies like HP, Dell, and Lenovo are constantly searching for ways to compete. The obvious play for this is the price, but with slim margins and expensive components other battlegrounds must be found.
For this latest generation HP rolled out the Z series as the most attractive product in its class largely thanks to a new case design not available from the competition. Dell and Lenovo both released Nehalem-powered systems on the same day, powered by the same impossibly powerful Nvidia graphics cards but the Z series also had a custom case designed by BMW Designworks. In addition to being excellent eye candy, this case was designed to be easy to work on, completely tool-less, practically wireless, easy to carry, quieter, and cooler running than previous generations. A quick look at it (inside or out) will reveal how HP wanted to leave those other plain black boxes in the dust.

See the full gallery below
The Z600 is the mid-range model in HP’s lineup, between the entry-level Z400 and the high-end Z800. Each model can vary wildly in price based on the processor(s), video card(s), storage, and–mainly–the amount of memory used, so there is a lot of bleed over from one model to the other, especially once you factor in their relatively low starting prices of $929, $1589, and $1839 respectively. They have significant differences between them, but to simplify, the Z400 is the only model with a single processor and is very much like a high-end desktop, the Z600 has a slim design but can be quite capable, and the Z800 is the top-of-the-line. Both the Z600 and Z800 have one of the Z series’ best new features: a swappable power supply that can be pulled right out of the system with no tools or playing with wiring. (So if your workstation isn’t starting you can check and see if the power supply is the problem in under a minute.)
The build quality of the new chassis is as good as we expected. That is to say that is doesn’t just look nice, it’s put together well. It’s built strongly enough to hold up, including frequent moves, say from office to office, thanks to the built-in handles. The interior layout is optimized for quiet performance and great cooling. Also, it’s downright sturdy–our test unit arrived with a sizable dent on the front-left edge. This happened during shipping and it caused the aluminum panel on the side to bend in about a half inch (it must have been quite a collision–the aluminum is about 2mm thick). The rest of the case was not damaged and the hard drive that sits inches away was in perfect shape, as was its tool-less removable mechanism. The system fired up and ran perfectly.

Our test system came outfitted with two quad-core Intel Xeon L5520 processors (2.27GHz), 6GB ECC RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX 1800 graphics card, and Windows Vista 64-bit. It’s a serious setup, but the Z600 (not to mention the Z800, or even the Z400) can scale way past this point if you get better graphics and more RAM. If you want or need more power, you can upgrade the processor to dual 5570s, graphics to Nvidia’s Quadro CX or 3800, up to 24GB RAM, dual 1TB drives, Blu-ray, a RAID controller, and more. You can break that $13,000 mark if you want to max the Z600 out, but our system came out to about $4000.
So what does one do with a system like the Z600? The applications are practically limitless and almost anything that requires a lot of power and multi-core performance is going to be a good fit. Some software that would be at home on it could include:
Fluent
Solidworks
Autodesk (AutoCAD)
Adobe (CS4)
Bibble Labs
Toxic
Bunkspeed (Hypershot)
Catia v5
Elysium
3D via
So it’s well suited for digital media creation, engineering tasks, financial data work, 3D rendering, and so on. Just for reference, the Z800 is generally considered better suited for 2K and 4K video work as well as high-end media production and geological data work (think oil drilling) while the Z400 is great for your entry level tasks, like SD and HD video and digital media. The Elitebook 8730w is part of the matrix as well–it can handle on-location tasks like mobile video editing.
Working with the Z600’s case is a pleasure. The process is completely tool-less and generally can be done without even considering the wiring. Hard drives, cooling elements, and even the PSU can be removed without any tools which makes operating on the system painless. The ability to pull the PSU and test it and/or swap it in under 60 seconds is fantastic and it will be a major time saver for any IT staff member.
Now I didn’t have the need to calculate any geo-spatial solutions or chart data volumes of seismic activity, but I did run a few workstation tests to put the Z600 through its paces. These were mainly standard benchmarks (like Cinebench) and real-life tasks that I generally perform on my normal work computer (audio/video conversions, video rendering, etc.), the Z600 should just be able to handle them faster, and while doing other tasks more efficiently. (Readers should keep in mind that benchmarks are not completely representative because the Z600 can scale between $1600 and over $13,000. For some applications our test machine would be considered relatively modest, especially the graphics.) Here how it performed in two benchmarks:
Cinebench R10 64-bit
OpenGL: 5447
CPU Test, single processor: 3312
CPU Test multiprocessor: 20709
Multiprocessor speedup: 6.25x
Geekbench
Overall: 10205
Processor integer: 11637
Processor floating point: 14410
Memory performance: 3363
Memory bandwidth: 4161
Other tests I tried included Adobe CS4 tasks like a Soundbooth podcast render and a Media Encoder video conversion as well as DriverHeaven’s Photostop benchmark (the score was 325.7 seconds). These tests didn’t go particularly well, even though they should be the Z600’s strong suit. Now we know that the Z600 can perform well and other sites have(though that system costs twice as much as ours), but performance never seemed to reach the level that we expected from the system. I’m working with HP on this at the moment and we’ll update as soon as possible, but so far the system is workable, but not mindblowingly quick.

Conclusion
HP’s Z600 is in many ways a workstation for 2009. That is to say that it’s power-packed but also easy to use, with an incredible new chassis design and features to spare. The options can range from pedestrian (like our 250GB main disk) to downright impressive (like 24GB of RAM and dual video cards) depending on your needs. It can take advantage of technologies like SSD drives and Nvidia’s CUDA in order to maximize performance in ways that are more interesting (and often cost effective) than just getting more expensive processors. There are enterprise options available as well, like 15K SAS drives and RAID controllers.
At about $4000 (as tested) the Z600 is a formidable machine, but its much lower starting price means that the foundation is actually rather affordable… it’s really just the parts you need to concern yourself with. Being easy to work with and to upgrade, this could be an interesting proposal to some buyers. For professional users and corporations, it’s a different story–for them it’s about return on investment. The expensive asset to them is not the computer, it’s the operator. That means that a faster computer means a more efficient worker which then translates into a workstation that can often pay for itself in just a matter of weeks.
With the new Z series products HP wanted to differentiate their workstations from products from Lenovo and Dell that feature the same processors, video cards, and so on. The case was the primary recipient of the design upgrades and it shows. And, smartly, the components themselves were definitely considered as the move to the BMW Designworks case coincided with the upgrade to Intel’s Nehalem processors, which have made quite a splash as well. The only rub with our Z600 was the performance, which didn’t seem like it was getting everything it could out of the eight cores, 6GB of RAM, and the FX 1800. We’re working on that and there were moments of excellence when all that power shined through, making it clear why someone would still need a workstation.
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SHAP..

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