power consumption

Embedded chips to fuel Internet's growth

Judi Hasson — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:48:14 -0400

Intel believes the growth of the Internet will be fueled in the next few years by low-power embedded chips. Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president at Intel, said during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco that systems connected to the Internet will include infotainment systems in cars, navigation devices, and hardware associated with public places like health networks and traffic controls.

He said Intel is now developing embedded chips based on the Atom architecture for devices like mobile phones, set-top boxes and ATMs. Gelsinger, however, also said the company faces some challenges, including reliability, power consumption and life of those chips.

For more on insight into the future:
- see this PCWorld.com article

Intel unveils Centrino 2 platform

Paul Mah — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:03:45 -0400

In the latest salvo against arch-rival AMD, Intel is releasing a total of five new processors as part of its Centrino 2 platform that is designed to do tasks like high-definition video playback, yet deliver improved battery power. Clock speeds range between 2.26 GHz and 3.06 GHz for the five processors, with a trio of them running on 25 watts of power instead of the typical 35 watts. The new Centrino 2 platform itself consists of a package that includes a processor, a related chipset, and another chip for wireless communications.

Where power consumption is concerned, Intel has the upper hand as it has shifted over to manufacturing processes that lower both the cost and energy consumption per chip. In fact, it appears that Intel plans to unveil additional processors within the next 90 days, including the first ever quad-core offerings targeted at the mobile segment

For more on Intel's new Centrino 2 platform:
- check out this eWeek article

Google on power efficiency in servers

Paul Mah — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:19:06 -0400

A Google engineer who studies the power consumption of the servers in its data centers has thrown cold water on the current approach adopted by chip manufacturers trying to churn out more "low power" processors used by mobile gadgets for use in servers. Simply put, trying to port lessons gleaned from mobile computing over to the data center just won't cut it. Speaking at the O'Reilly Conference, Luis Barroso noted that the problem is that a mobile device experiences a completely different mode of operation compared with a typical server.

The reason is that the processor in a mobile device spends most of its time idling. On the other hand, a server in one of Google's data centers spends most of its time performing moderate processing with hardly any lull periods. Rather than focusing on chips that are efficient only during periods of low activity, the solution would be to create products that are able to dynamically scale their power demands in tandem with diminished processing.

For more on power efficiency in servers:
- check out this CNET News.com article

IBM turning to water for cooling its processors

Paul Mah — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:55:05 -0400

IBM, this week, demonstrated how it uses water to cool three-dimensional stacks of processors. While still years away from production, this technology could well be implemented for its multicore servers as early as 2013. This method is heralded as being able to reduce power consumption as well as dramatically improve performance, but brings along with it intractable heating and cooling issues. By creating 50-micron channels between stacked chips, IBM is able to cool down the stack at a rate of 180 watts per layer.

The company obviously believes that water cooling is the ideal solution to stacking processors together. In fact, IBM's paper on this topic, "Forced convective interlayer cooling in vertically integrated packages," received a Best Paper award at an IEEE conference.

For more on water-cooled processors:
- check out this The Register article

Via goes mainstream with new Isaiah processor

Paul Mah — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:24:56 -0400

Via Technologies is preparing its first high performance x86 chip, targeted squarely at the mainstream. Historically, Via focused in niches like that of ultra-compact PCs, or small mobile devices such as the OQO. Codenamed Isaiah, the new processor is thrifty in the area of power consumption, yet features superscalar, out-of-order execution on just 3.5 watts of power. Three years in the making, it is designed by Via subsidiary Centaur Technology and packs between two to four times the performance of Via's current C7 processor. The vice president of corporate marketing at Via, Richard Brown, noted that the Isaiah is "very, very close" to Intel's Core 2 Solo offering.

For more on Via Technologies:
- check out this CNET News article

AMD unveils low-powered Opterons

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., has unveiled five low-power quad-core server processors, hoping to attract the attention of IT executives concerned about power efficiency and conservation.

The x86 Opteron HE processors are designed to run in a 55-watt ACP thermal envelope and are available in the 2300 and 8300 series product lines for two, four and eight-way rack servers and blades.

"The issue around power efficiency and power consumption has really been gaining a lot of forward momentum in the server and data center space," said Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT Inc., in Hayward, CA.

For more on the next generation of processors:
- see this ComputerWorld.com article

SPOTLIGHT: Power strip doubles as energy monitor

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:48:11 -0400

Just how energy-efficient--or energy-hungry--is your computer, display, storage device, etc.? Here's one way to find out: The Cost Controller power strip, which gives you a readout of your gadget's power consumption on its built-in LCD display. Article

Floating data centers on the horizon?

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:59:57 -0500

What's that there on the horizon? The Loch Ness monster? The Spanish Armada? No--it's a floating data center! As far fetched as it might sound, one company is betting its future on the floating data center, which would use one of the earth's most plentiful resources as a natural cooling agent. A new startup going by the name of International Data Security (IDS) has announced plans to launch a fleet of cargo ships housing off-shore data-centers. Allegedly, the ships would not only sell SAN and NAS storage services but would also offer business amenities like "private offices, overnight accommodations, and galley services." The ships will use sea water to cool the servers, totally eliminating the need for external cooling systems and reducing the total power consumption of the data centers by as much as 30 percent. According to a press release, IDS plans to launch as many as 50 of these ships worldwide and says that the first such vessel will appear at San Francisco's Pier 50 in April. While we've seen some green data centers before, I've got to say, this is probably the most far-out idea I've seen yet. What say you, landlubbing commenters: is this a brilliant idea or a mere pirate fantasy?

For the full scoop:
- see this Ars Technica article

How to: Save battery life on a Linux laptop

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:59:52 -0500

Find yourself desperate to eke out those last few minutes of juice from your Linux lappie more often than you'd like? Check out this list of quick tips for reducing your power consumption when using Linux.

D-Link debuts 'green Ethernet' gear

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:59:57 -0400

This green IT trend shows no signs of slowing down and having already spread to the desktop and the data center, there are few places left to go aside from the network. To that end, D-Link has announced a line of green networking gear that will kick off with the DGS-2200 series multi-port desktop switches. What makes these switches green? In brief, power consumption. D-Link claims that the DGS-2200 series sips as much as 45 percent less power than similar, non-green switches. That's good news for the green-friendly enterprise, especially since there's even more green Ethernet gear on the horizon: D-Link plans to launch energy-efficient 16 and 24-port high performance rack mountable switches next month.

For more on the new kit:
- see this article from GoodCleanTech