Sunday, April 15, 2012

Update - 263



Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:01 AM PDT
Samsung-Galaxy-S3-Release-Date-Mockup
With dozens of supposed leaks, rumors, and speculations swirling around the Samsung Galaxy S3, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, the expectations that build up over the upcoming superphone are tremendous. Besides repeatedly negating the various rumors about the Galaxy S3, Samsung did little to feed the hype or to temper it down. All we've got was a vague assurance that the S3 will come in the first part of the year.
But now, we finally have official news from a high-powered Samsung executive (one with a name, unlike the many anonymous, yet chatty Samsung execs cited by the rumor mill so far) concerning the launch date of the Galaxy S3. More precisely, the Senior Vice President of Samsung China, Kim Young-Ha, told reporters that Samsung is considering moving the launch event of the Galaxy S3 from May to April.
Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date

Samsung Galaxy S3 launch event in April?

The Korean honcho made this affirmation in a discussion with the Chinese press, concerning the Korean's strategy in the largest mobile market of the world. By the way, Samsung is doing pretty well in China, boasting more than 24% market share, which is three times the share of arch-rival Apple.
Previously, Samsung has vigorously denied that the Samsung Galaxy S3 will be announced in April, and indeed, Kim Young-Ha told the press that the initial plan pegged a May launch event (which would be closer to the actual availability of the phone, the Koreans' publicly assumed goal).
Now, something seems to made the tech giant step up its game. We can only speculate what that factor (or factors) is. Perhaps, Samsung managed to conclude launch preparations sooner than it initially expected or the manufacturing process (always important, but crucial when dealing with a blockbuster like the upcoming Galaxy S3) has gone smoother than predicted.
Anyway, we now have a solid (finally!) piece of information on the release date of Galaxy S3: it will be in April, or, in the worst case (although unlikely, if the Samsung president felt he could speak publicly about it) in May.
So, gear up, folks, the Samsung Galaxy S3 may be just a month away.

This article, Samsung finally speaks on Galaxy S3: release date may be in April after all , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:13 AM PDT

In December last year, Sony announced that its entire 2011 Xperia portfolio would be receiving the ICS update. The update will first be available on the Xperia Art S, Neo V, and Xperia Ray in late March. In late April or early May, Xperia Arc, Play, Neo, Mini, Mini Pro, and Pro owners should expect 4.0, along with owners of Sony Live with Walkman.
Joining the already significant lineup of ICS phones soon to be released, Sony has announced the launch in China of the Xperia Neo L MT25i with Android 4.0 pre-loaded. This device is being billed as the successor to its Neo and Neo V handsets.
Neo L specs include:
  • 1 Ghz Qualcomm single core processor
  • 512 MB RAM
  • Android 4.0 OS
  • 4 – inch capacitive touch screen. 854×480 resolution
  • 1 GB internal storage, 32 GB expandable by MicroSD
  • 5MP rear camera, VGA front camera
  • 1500 mAH battery
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
The device also features the Sony xLoud audio enhancement technology, which is said to deliver a superior music experience, when compared to other similar smartphones. One notable characteristic of the Neo L is its thickness, which puts it against the trend of ultra thin smartphones, at 12.8 mm in thickness.
The specifications of the Xperia Neo L are decidedly mid range, which is very surprising considering this is Sony's first release with ICS built in. This might be because of the imminent rollout of Android 4.0 to all its mid to high-end devices already in the works. In a step away from Android, Sony is also in the process of developing a proprietary OS which will most likely feature in its future flagship devices.
No information on a release date or price is currently available. The Neo L has been announced for release only in China so far. It’s unknown whether there will a worldwide release, but that seems unlikely at this point.

This article, Sony Xperia Neo L with Android 4.0 announced in China , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 01:54 AM PDT

Before we get into this story, a caveat: April 1 is just 10 days away. So, the story of a Dutchman who supposedly flew with a flapping-wing contraption (controlled by an HTC Wildfire S) might well be one of the most elaborate hoaxes in recent memory. But again, part of me wants it to be true so hard that I can't help to run it.
The story has already garnished hundreds of pro and con commentaries on Gizmodo or Wired, plus a positive appreciation from head Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman. Plus, the part that interests the readers of AndroidAuthority – the use of an Android phone as a "brain" of the wingpack – is certainly feasible and reasonable.
But let's get on to the story. Here's the mind-blowing video of the supposed man-powered flight.

The backstory

A Dutch engineer named Jarno Smeets, which will refer henceforth as the Flying Dutchman, claims he has built a flapping-wing system that he successfully used to take off and fly like a bird. He documented his work on creating the device on his website, HumanBirdWings.net.
Apparently, it took Smeets, a mechanical engineer, 8 months to turn his dream into reality. Along the way, he recorded several videos that show him and his friends working on the flying apparatus, which you can check out for yourself on his YouTube channel.

An HTC Wildfire S, Wii remotes, plus some electric motors
Now, Smeets doesn't claim that he managed to take of solely on his own power. His flying device, which he calls a wingpack, uses servos and electric motors to augment his flapping movements and give the man+wings ensemble enough power to generate lift.
According to the Dutchman, he needed 2000 Watts of power to achieve lift off, of which his body only provided about 5%. The rest came from two Turnigy motors, powered by lithium-ion batteries. In a way, the concept is similar to the exoskeletons developed by the US Army that let soldiers carry huge loads or run for miles without tiring. Totally sci-fi stuff, totally real.


On to the Android part. To control the wingpack and coordinate the moves of the 17 m2 wings, Smeets says he used an HTC Wildfire S (fitted with an accelerometer), as well as two Wii Motion Plus controllers and a Wii Nunchuck. The Android phone is effectively the brain of the apparatus, which it controls via an $80 Seeduino ADK microcontroller (very similar to Google's Android Open Accessory Kit for Developers). If my understanding is correct, the phone presumably calculates the parameters required to move the wings in a coordinate fashion.
The video shows Smeets flapping his arms, which causes the motorized wings to produce a bird-like movement. The result is visible in the video, so I won't debate any further. Fake or real, the video sure made me gasp, which, in the age of the Internet, is definitely an achievement.

More than meets the eye

I am not going to discuss whether the Flying Dutchman is a real visionary that managed to turn a centuries-old dream into reality or just a very patient hoaxer with an appetite for publicity. I'll let you decide that for yourself.
Although it may all be a big April Fools' Day joke, the concept behind might be closer to reality than you think. We've already seen how movement augmentation technology turns sci-fi into reality, and it's not absurd to believe that, one day, technology will advance enough to create real bird-like flying machines.
And it's nice to think that Android may power the whole thing. What do you think?

This article, Man flies like a bird, uses Android to control his wings. Can it be true? , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 12:23 AM PDT

Facebook has become the social networking hub of many users these days and since its mainstream launch way back in 2006–2007, many users have already considered it a place to call online home. Today, Facebook hosts about 600 million active accounts ranging from mid-teen users to adults.
Throughout Facebook's lifespan, the social networking site has made numerous changes and upgrades, the most notable of which is the Timeline feature.  Facebook has already captured the hearts of many of its users with its most memorable updates and photos. And, with the Timeline feature being implemented, many users have found themselves in awkward situations, as some of their past, embarrassing status updates have been dug up and are neatly displayed in an orderly fashion on the Timeline. What turns out to be a safe haven to express your thoughts and share updates of your life may turn out to be your worst nightmare.
Luckily, there is now a way to delete those embarrassing status updates of yore with a simple application known as Exfoliate for Facebook.  The application works like a charm in wiping out all traces of past status updates, not just on your own page but also on your friends’ profiles.

Setting the application is easy. All you need is to log-in to your Facebook account and give Exfoliate permission to access your Facebook data so it can start with the cleaning process.
The application lets you choose what data to delete and the type of posts you want to get rid of.  Posts may range from comments, likes, photos, and status updates. All you need to do is set the preferences and indicate the age of the items that you wish to be removed.

Exfoliate acts like a web transaction that accesses your Facebook profile and purges unwanted content. To do this, the app needs you to login with your Facebook credentials. The login is not accessible to any other application, as it is solely used to delete content that matches your chosen preferences. Exfoliate works by communicating with your Facebook account and deleting the unwanted content that you have specified.
Exfoliate can eradicate almost all items that match your preferences, saving you time from manually deleting them one post at a time.
Also, if you're running the Exfoliate application on a Wi-Fi or home network, then you're in luck as the application performs well in those environments. For users on the go, Exfoliate runs when background data is enabled, so it is highly advisable that you set your Android device for a much smoother process.
Don't expect Exfoliate to delete posts in an instant.  It may take time to clean unwanted data. Cleaning entire posts that you’ve accumulated throughout the years can be a tedious process and Exfoliate runs one clean sweep of the area you have selected. So, as more content is added by the minute, you may want to run Exfoliate another time to clean up the latest posts. Also, the new added Timeline feature may take some time as the app still needs to adapt to the new Timeline feature.
Thinking it’s time to prune your old Facebook posts?  Try this app.  Get Exfoliate for Facebook free from the Google Play Store.

This article, Exfoliate for Facebook: Tool for pruning old Facebook posts on Android , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 03:56 PM PDT
huawei-mytouch1
Back at the start of the month, we've covered Pockenow's claim that T-Mobile has decided on Huawei as the manufacturer for the next smartphone in the mid-range T-Mobile myTouch series. Obviously, under these conditions, the leak of a couple of pics of the keyboard-less version (one with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard is also planned) is not exactly the most unexpected news. It is nice to catch a glimpse of the actual device though, as most couldn't make much of the renders we had last time when we covered the subject. As it turns out, the myTouch Huawei smartphone looks a lot like the HTC Desire-based Google Nexus One. Here are the two, side by side! Notice the likeliness?
Huawei Nexus One
Unfortunately for Android fans interested in top-tech, the similarities between the two smartphones don't end here, as the rumored specs show that the Nexus One and the Huawei myTouch will also share the resolution of their displays: 480 by 800 pixels (WVGA). Although the Nexus One definitely showcased decent specs when it came out more than two years ago (back in January 2010), at today's standards, those specs make a smartphone movies obsolete. As you can notice, the display on the Huawei myTouch seems 'crisp-less' enough that the rumored specs might turn out to be real.
t-mobile huawei mytouch
The two versions of the Huawei myTouch are expected to launch this spring (Pocketnow suggests that they will be released at the end of May) and will land with Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
This will be Huawei's first major attempt to gain traction in the US smartphone market, but it does feel like they could have made a better name for themselves if they would have first offered some of top-end smartphones they've recently revealed. For instance, why not throw their quad-core Ascend D Quad XL into the scene? Featuring a SoC built in-house by Huawei, the Quad XL was recently reported as the fastest smartphone in the world, according to a couple of benchmarks.
It's a shame for Huawei if they make a bad first impression (and I personally think they will) with this low-spec myTouch smartphone, considering the fact that they've got some really impressive (and probably competitively-priced) devices up the pipe. Feel free to disagree with me in the comment section below!

This article, T-Mobile’s upcoming Huawei myTouch smartphone captured in the wild , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 02:37 PM PDT

movies android
You love movies. Moreover, you are also an obsessive-compulsive collector of videos. Just about any category, from action movies to chick flicks, you are crazy about them. But there is one problem – videos consume way too much storage space. The solution? The cloud! Thanks to the cloud, local storage is heading the way of VCRs, to be replaced by streaming on-demand video services, the current "finger-lickin' good" option for movie buffs.
Unless you intend to horde gargantuan amounts of data on your Android smartphone or tablet, on-demand video streaming apps are the best way to watch your favorite TV shows, movies, and just about any video, while on the go. Of course, that's provided you have a capable and steady Internet connection.
Without further ado, today, we bring you the best Android apps for streaming on-demand videos. Take a seat and grab some popcorn, okay?

Netflix


Netflix has been around for some time now, and it's undoubtedly one of the best Android apps you can find for watching movies and TV shows. Netflix has the largest catalog of movies and TV shows for your viewing pleasure. Then, there is the nifty resume feature that lets you get back to previously watched videos precisely from where you left them. You can also share videos with your friends on Facebook and check out what movies and shows are popular with your buddies, as well. Although some are ambivalent about this app, we just can't afford the luxury of excluding Netflix from our list. We just love it.

Crunchyroll


If you love watching Anime, like Naruto and Bleach, or the latest Japanese dramas, then Crunchyroll is definitely the best app around. With Crunchyroll, you will get access to the latest subbed or dubbed Anime and drama series, plus lots of extra content, all available with a subscription to this paid service. However, some of the video content is locked geographically, meaning that the selection of shows you can watch will depend heavily on where you are on the globe. But boy, just for giving you access to top Anime series such as Bleach, Beelzebub, and, everyone's favorite, Naruto, Crunchyroll is definitely an answered prayer and an Android app well worth keeping.

Vimeo


Vimeo is definitely catching up to YouTube, with the video service putting at your disposal lots of high-quality content that you cannot find on YouTube or on Dailymotion. The Android app brings everything that Vimeo has to offer to Android users. By that we mean all-out access to Vimeo's rich and awesome content. You can upload videos to your own account, comment on other people's videos, and browse through the huge collection of videos in the Vimeo library. We have to admit that, most of the time, watching videos on Vimeo is more enjoyable than streaming on YouTube, especially if you have a good device with very high screen resolution.

 TED


ted android app
Who doesn't love watching TED videos? With a huge number of cool and amazing presentations from some of the brightest minds in the world, the official TED app will make any geek very,very happy. Technology, Entertainment, and Design — that’s what TED is all about. And because ideas are worth spreading, TED has subtitles available for over 80 languages, which should appeal to anyone restricted by the language barrier. You can also download content straight to your Android smartphone or tablet, to view it later, or perhaps, just to share it with your friends. Cool, isn’t it?

Movies by Flixster


Flixster, the highly popular social movie site, is now available in Google Play. Now there are many things that we love about this app, first of all being the fact that it’s free. With Movies by Flixster, for Android you can watch movie trailers, get a list of the best movie theatres in town, and read helpful reviews from film critics and experts. The Flixter app will certainly help you make up your mind whether you want to buy the latest DVDs and Blu-rays on sale or not. Very similar to IMDB, Flixter for Android offers additional features, such as movie tickets purchasing or managing your Netflix account – all within the app itself. The bottom line: a great app for movie buffs.

Crackle


One of our favorites Android apps for video streaming is Crackle. Although Crackle is currently available only in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia, it’s definitely poised to take to the mainstream this year. Crackle lets you view full-length movies and TV shows straight from your Android tab. You can browse through Crackle’s wide library of flicks, ranging from comedy to drama, and from horror to action. It’s also important to note that Crackle uploads at least 20 new movies each month to ensure you’re duly updated with fresh content. If you are looking for a good on-demand video streaming app, Crackle is definitely an option to consider.

HBO GO


Watch the latest and greatest HBO shows, like “The Pacific” and “Game of Thrones” from your mobile device, with HBO GO. HBO Go is a new streaming service app that lets you access all of HBO's excellent shows, both old and new, at spectacular resolutions. Personally, we love the “Watchlist” feature that updates you with the latest available episodes of your bookmarked shows. What’s more amazing is the set of bonus features and special behind-the-scenes features, which provide you the ultimate viewing experience. The app is known to have some minor issues with older devices, so we recommend that you check out for compatibility issues before trying this app. But overall, it works fine and it should help you keep track of the latest episodes of True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Entourage, and many more.

VEVO HD


Last but definitely not least is Vevo HD. Vevo HD is all about free entertainment and HD videos. Vevo HD for Android lets you watch the latest music videos from its huge pool of YouTube channels, with artists overflowing to the brim. We’re talking about 50 channels in one app, which will be enough to keep you busy for many days. If that's not enough, we actually wonder if you're human at all. As a side note, some videos are region-locked, which makes using the app irritating at times. But in regards to the video quality, Vevo HD is absolutely top-notch. And yes, it’s free.
This concludes our list of the best Android apps for streaming on-demand videos. We hope that you find it useful! Let us know which one is your favorite, and if we missed any good streaming app for Android.

This article, Best Android apps for streaming on demand video , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 02:06 PM PDT

You know those free apps that you prefer over the paid ones because they are, umm, free? Well, not only do they force you to look at mobile ads every second or two, but, according to a team of researchers, they also take a high toll on your Android smartphone’s battery. The researchers analysed how Android apps use the battery and concluded that the ad-serving processes that run in the background are responsible for heavy battery drainage.
The research, a joint effort between Purdue University and Microsoft, was conducted in order to answer the elusive question of exactly how energy is spent by apps. An energy profiler named Eprof was developed to measure the energy consumption of applications running on Android smartphones.
Testing five popular Android apps, which include the Android browser, Angry Birds, Free Chess, NYTimes, and Mapquest, the team found that the apps continue draining the battery, even after they are closed. What's more, a 30-second run of an ad-supported app can drain 0.35 – 0.75% of a fully-charged battery, which is enough to completely discharge the battery within a couple of hours if the process is repeated.
The researchers concluded that most free Android apps are not optimized and are too complex. Each tested app was found to invoke between 29 and 37 threads within half-minute of utilization, many of the threads belonging to third-party modules. For example, 70% of the energy that that was consumed on one level of Angry Birds went to the uploading of user information metrics and displaying adverts, with only 30% consumed by the game itself.
The team said that the Eprof energy monitor will be made available under an open-source license, in order to help developers create apps that are more efficient and consume less energy.

This article, Research: Ad-supported Android apps drain your battery faster , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 02:04 PM PDT
qualcomm-nvidiaWhen it comes to today's smartphones, there’s a lot of interest around what devices are getting what SoC (System on a Chip). Many expected 2012 to be the year of the quad-core smartphone, but it's much more likely that dual-core processors will still continue to show up in flagship superphones and attract a lot of customers from the substantial mid-end market.
The five major tech companies that dominate smartphone processor sales currently are Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, Samsung, and –don't you know it- Apple. Since the latter two make processors almost exclusively for their own smartphones, and with Texas Instruments not releasing a new processor until Q4 2012, it seems likely the 2012 smartphone processors race will be won by either Qualcomm or NVIDIA, and the two companies have taken very different approaches to their technology. But who knows, right?

The NVIDIA Tegra 3 Approach


Already popular by now, the NVIDIA Tegra 3 was first released on the ASUS Transformer Prime. As many expected, benchmark results were quick to show that its quad core processing abilities provide more raw processing power than that supplied by its older, dual-core brother, the Tegra 2. Still, with this in mind, it was not the kind of performance boost many were hoping to see. However, it was foreseeable that, being based on the older Cortex-A9, the 4 cores simply were not able to provide completely mind blowing performance. Referring to the Tegra 3's graphical performance though, it is certainly worth mentioning that NVIDIA is the number one GPU producer in the world, something that is surely proven by the improved 12 core ULP GeForce GPU. Additionally, it’s truly remarkable how power efficient the quad core Tegra 3 is. Despite all the conjecture that is thrown around on a daily basis, the Tegra 3 processor still provides excellent performance, and is a battery sipper, and not a guzzler, under most use-cases.
The video below demonstrates the multitasking capabilities of the Tegra 3 SoC on the Transformer Prime. 

The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Approach


Qualcomm has announced that their star for 2012 will be dubbed the Snapdragon S4 (Krait). The processor sports only a couple of cores running at 1.5GHz, so it should be slower than the Tegra 3 right? Wrong, for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that most of today's applications are not optimized to properly run on double-core processors, let alone use the third and the fourth. Add the fact that the two cores on the S4 are based on an entirely new (and faster) architecture, one very much akin to the ARM Cortex-A15, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that preliminary benchmarks showed the S4 to be faster than the NVIDIA Tegra 3 when dealing with single and dual-core tasks. The Adreno 225 GPU provides less performance than the one built into the Tegra 3 SoC, but you wouldn't expect NVIDIA to be lacking in that department, would you? Still, for most use cases, the difference between the two will be negligible, and as more apps are optimized for more cores, it’s likely that the Tegra 3 quad core SoC will be the winner down the line. Additionally, very few legitimate comparisons have been done between the two, and should be taken with little credibility. That is until S4 powered devices come to market in a short while.

The LTE Issue


Although there will be a balance between the multi-threaded performance offered by the Tegra 3 and the single+dual-core speeds of the S4, it seems like Qualcomm's S4 has one major advantage up its sleeve that has nothing to do with performance at all: the S4 has a built-in LTE modem, so all mobile devices that will sport the S4 will come with out-of-the box LTE compatibility, something a lot of carriers from the US (as well as those from other markets where LTE coverage continues to be introduced) really want to see. For instance, the first Tegra 3 smartphone, the HTC One X, will reach AT&T's LTE network but with a Snapdragon S4 inside.
This is obviously a delicate situation for Nvidia, but one that is subject to change over the following months, as NVIDIA has announced a couple of partnerships with companies that can provide LTE radios. In addition, NVIDIA has recently bought UK modem producers Icera, and announced before MWC 2012 that they will start producing their own LTE modems sometime before the second half of this year.
Judging on these criterion, some tech journalists were very quick to declare 2012 as a year that will be dominated by Qualcomm. Some were even foolish enough to assume that Tegra 3 will never get LTE support. Even if that was a remote possibility – which it is not – you still have to consider that only 6% of US smartphones purchased during the last quarter were LTE compatible. Granted, the market is destined to grow substantially during 2012, but it does show that most customers aren't always looking for blazing data speeds.
Obviously, once Nvidia sorts out its Tegra 3 LTE issues, the company will definitely become a very fierce competitor in the LTE market as well, all due to one basic concept: quad-core is probably one of the most loaded terms to have in a mobile devices marketers universe, and carriers a lot of clout. “Hey man, yo’ this phone is, like, quad core, man.” Yes, yes it is, sir.
What do you guys think? Will the S4 be a better choice than the Tegra 3? Are four cores necessary and/or useful? Tell us what you think in the comment section below!

This article, Qualcomm vs NVIDIA: a tight battle for the #1 spot in 2012 , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 11:26 AM PDT

When Jimmy Iovine isn't busy mentoring American Idol hopefuls, the music mogul, who founded and spearheaded Beats Audio, now partly owned by HTC, is hard at work to expand the company's reach in the industry. According to reports from Business Insider, Beats Audio  is but a step away from acquiring a lesser known music subscription service known as Mog.
Rumors have actually been circulating for months how Mog was looking for a potential buyer. Mog CEO David Hyman even admitted that the fledgling music subscription service had been in talks with potential buyers, but also categorically denied that the company was for sale. It appears that the stars have aligned between the two companies, as one source confirmed to Business Insider that the deal was already signed last week.
Mog claims that it has a catalog of over 14 million tracks that subscribers can listen to anywhere – computer, iOS and Android devices – once they sign up for the service. Premium users get the unlimited download option to mobile devices, while the basic service is only available for desktop player.
What could Beats Audio, and ultimately HTC, gain from the Mog acquisition? For starters, since its inception in 2009, the service has racked up 500,000 active users. It is unclear, however, how many of those are premium users; or people who pay 10$/month to use the service. Comparing this to Spotify, which has more than 3 million paying members and 10 million active users — it does seem that Beats Audio and Mog have a lot of catching up to do. But any number is a good number rather than starting from scratch.
As part of HTC's new strategy to put the spotlight on the audio features of their smartphones, the company is looking to introduce a music streaming service to complement the Beats Audio enhancement software. At one point, it was rumored that such service was to be introduced back at Mobile World Congress. This, of course, didn't come into fruition.
We are curious to see how the deal will pan out and how HTC is going to integrate the service into their new HTC One Series and other devices going forward. While it'd be ideal for the Taiwanese company to run after Spotify instead, the Mog acquisition, if true, is still a step in the right direction.
Is there more room in your smartphone for competing music services? How do you get your music?

This article, HTC and Beats Audio set to acquire music subscription service Mog? , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:34 AM PDT
silicon-wafer
[Updated] Fixed incorrect information about Tegra 3 manufacturing process.
I'm not going to bore you with all the technical details, but a quick primer is required in this context: die shrinking is the process that basically allows for more processor dies to be produced on the same wafer. A lot of geeks (me included) get
super
hyped up when chip manufacturers announce that they are developing technology to shrink the dies even further. And all the enthusiasm is for good reason, as die shrinking brings both greater performance and decreased production costs per chip, since more chips can be cut out of a single wafer. The magic combo, if you will!
For your reference, the Clarkdale Core i5 and Core i7 processors, released by Intel in 2010, are manufactured using the 32nm process, while one of the most popular chips in today’s mobile industry, the quad-core Tegra 3, is manufactured using the 40nm process. The main competitor for NVIDIA’s Tegra series is Qualcomm’s S4 chip, that uses a 28nm process.
Roughly, the main advantages of the 28 nm manufacturing process over the 40nm one are:
  • An approximately 20% performance boost (in the same class)
  • Lower power consumption, translating into longer battery life
  • Less heat and noise
If the explanations above caught your interest, you’ll be glad to learn that both Samsung and IBM are already producing test wafers based on the 20nm technology, estimated to reach the consumer market over the next couple of years. Even further, both tech giants have recently showcased wafers produced using the 14nm technology. Unfortunately, Samsung and IBM were reluctant in providing the full specs, so we have no way of knowing how what level of performance boost will the new manufacturing process produce. It's a good thing to know they are coming, although I wouldn't get all hyped up before we get some benchmark results first.
IBM_14nm_wafer
Samsung_20nm_wafer
Note: If you are curious to know why die wafers are round and not square (as many would expect them to be), here is a very useful article on the topic.
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