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A promising technology that involves controlling light with magnets could improve the speed and reduce the juice requirements of future computer chips. The technology, developed by researchers at the U.S. Navy Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada...

Intel will be eliminating a toxic heavy metal from its computer chip manufacturing It will begin using lead-free solder with next-generation 45nm Hi-k chips in the Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Xeon families, the company announced Wednesday. Lead has been a concern in computer manufacturing, as...

IBM has developed a method of assembling microchips using nanotechnology, the company stated Thursday, a potentially revolutionary process for insulating tiny wires by allowing them to assemble themselves around air gaps. This advance could make next-generation chips dramatically faster and more ene...

Tiny computer chips with myriad applications -- from scanning concert tickets to tracking the family dog to monitoring travelers as they cross international borders -- are shrinking, and have now have caught up with the imaginations of science fiction and spy novel writers. Japanese electronics make...

The PlayStation 3 consoles about to be sold in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australia will not be as compatible with PlayStation 2 games as those sold elsewhere. The news may bother many gamers, but it probably won't affect Sony's bottom line. "Whatever the game console manufacturers d...

Worries over the imminent death of Moore's Law have apparently been greatly exaggerated. At least that is the word following announcements on Saturday from both IBM and Intel that each has developed a new energy-saving microchip design. According to the two chip makers, the advance is the biggest br...

In an attempt to capitalize on the PlayStation 3's Cell Broadband Engine computer chip technology, Sony announced Wednesday that it has joined with Namco Bandai Holdings to form a new company to develop games for the console. The new company, dubbed "Cellius," will have Ken Kutaragi, widely consider...

Fierce price competition in the computer chip sector caused market leader Intel to see far lower profits in the fourth quarter, even though sales were up strongly. Intel said Wednesday that revenue for the quarter was $9.7 billion, 5 percent below the same quarter a year ago but up 11 percent from t...

Hewlett-Packard researchers announced Tuesday that they have developed technology that could significantly boost the performance capabilities of an array of computer chips, while cutting back on power consumption at the same time. If the research proves sound and makes it to market, its impact could...

The US$600 million deal disclosed by Intel to sell its mobile phone microprocessor unit to Marvell Technology Group may only have a "minor" impact on the computer chip industry. Intel was never able to grow its presence beyond mere applications processors for Personal Digital Assistants. Handset o...

It used to be that every few years, the business media would report on the latest "slump" in sales of flash memory semiconductors. This was a decades-long trend -- demand would "hot up," as the Brits say, when new PC sales soared, and drop as they dropped. The chipmakers' fortunes no longer parallel...

Identifying a paradigm shift is most easily done in hindsight because separating a fad from a long term trend is something that requires a bit of historical perspective to get right. About the only professionals who make it a habit of prognosticating about changing trends are economists and, as the...

Server computers used by businesses have certainly gotten slimmer, lighter and more energy efficient in recent years. So have notebook PCs. Now it's the desktop's turn, as AMD, Intel and other chipmakers roll out silicon for sleeker desktop designs. AMD this week unveiled its roadmap for more energy...

Intel used its Developer Forum event in San Francisco this week to debut new computer chip technology that the company said boasts energy efficiency alongside performance gains. Intel also unveiled a quad-core processor configuration that some have referred to as a processor with two dual-cores. The...

Big Blue is heading off the tiniest transistor boundaries with a new way of extending today's chip-manufacturing technology to generate smaller chip circuits, the company said this week. Indicating its technology may postpone a "high-risk" conversion to difficult and expensive alternatives for the s...