IBM and Intel to open up blade specifications
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With today's expected announcement, hardware vendors will get access to the BladeCenter specifications by signing a seven-page licensing agreement, which grants users the right to license the specifications for certain types of products.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM announced an upgraded version of itsÂ blade server based on the Cell processorÂ on Wednesday, adding memory and data throughput for better performance on high-end applications, such as graphics and finance. IBM also shaved the size of the server so users can fit 14 of the new IBM BladeCenter QS21s into each chassis, compared to seven units of its predecessor, the QS20. The new version can also function in a diverse blade environment, working alongside computers based on the x86 or PowerPC chip architecture to assign workloads to the most efficient platform, said Paula Richards, product line manager for Cell systems at IBM. "We're seeing many applications where users want to actually marry a quad-core Intel or AMD blade with a Cell blade, so they can use the standard blade for basic workloads, then push their mission-critical, exotic applications off to the Cell platform," Richards said. IBM will begin selling the QS21 in October to users in industries that need to run visual computing tasks, such as 3D rendering, and time-critical jobs like compression and encryption.Â The system relies on the Cell Broadband Engine processor, created for Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3 gaming system by the consortium of IBM, Sony, and Toshiba. The QS21 features two 3.2 GHz Cell processors, dual Gigabit Ethernet networking, and Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 5.1 OS. At its maximum density in high-performance computing clusters, the system can run as fast as 6.4 TFLOPS (tera floating point operations per second) in a BladeCenter H chassis, or 25.8 TFLOPS in a 42U rack. "We're not trying to be a general purpose platform here. If you want to run your monthly statements or ERP, that's not what this is about," said Richards. "This is for time-critical, highly intense workloads like financial applications, digital video surveillance, medical imaging, or even digital media and entertainment. Jobs where time is money." The product will supplement IBM's lineup of blade servers, which also includes products running on IBM's PowerPC chips, Intel's Xeon or Core 2 Duo chips, andÂ AMD's Opteron processor. By upgrading the performance of the Cell version of the BladeCenter, IBM will be able to reach more corners of the highly specialized field of high-performance computing, one analyst said. Users buy the Xeon and Opteron BladeCenters for general purpose computing, the PowerPC BladeCenter for jobs in a Unix environment, and the Cell BladeCenter for compute-intensive applications like signal processing and image analysis, including designs from Mercury Computer Systems, a military and aerospace industry contractor, said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight 64. "They all do different things, so this is a technology update instead of a big change in positioning," Brookwood said. In concert with the QS21, IBM announced version 3.0 of its SDK for Multicore Acceleration, designed to streamline the process of application development for the new platform. IBM will launch the SDK for Multicore Acceleration on October 19, and launch the QS21 on October 26.
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InfoWorld - IBM announced an upgraded version of its&#160;blade server based on the Cell processor&#160;on Wednesday, adding memory and data throughput for better performance on high-end applications, such as graphics and finance.
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Chipmaker announces new chipset and reference design for consumer devices and PCs.
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AMD and IBM said today they will begin using a strained-silicon transistor technology designed to augment processor performance and power efficiency.
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IBM is now offering enterprises the ability to add two small form-factor SCSI drives internally to the five new HS20 models of BladeCenter systems, which are based on the 2.8 GHz to 3.6 GHz Intel Xeon-processor with 64 bit extensions.
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International Data Machines Corp. (IBM) reported that it will release the design of its blade servers openly to potentional consumers.
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Intel Corp  said on  Tuesday it would be able to mass-produce computer processors  with features one-third smaller than the current cutting edge  within two years, placing it well at the front of the  semiconductor industry.
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New York, November 29: International Business Machines Corp is set to introduce a new chip to be used in consumer products that it has developed with Sony Corp and Toshiba Corp, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
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By Subashini Selvaratnam  INTEL Corp is working on a new 45-nanometre (nm) transistor technology which will boost the processing speeds in personal computers (PCs), laptops and servers.
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This week's Intel Developer Forum should reveal more about quad-core processor designs and plans for mobile and server chips.
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Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are revving up for what they see as the next big step in the evolution of x86 processorsâthe introduction of dual processing cores.
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InfoWorld - IBM Corp. is adding to its blade server line with an upcoming model targeted at small-to-medium-sized businesses.
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IDF Fall '04 As Intel prepares to detail its own multi-core chips
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AMD and Intel processor road maps for 2007 show both companies are on the move to address these issues.
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Intel Corp.  said on Thursday it  plans to start shipping new processors for desktop and laptop  computers in August.
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The new set of extensions to the x86 instruction set used by both AMD and Intel's chips would give software developers new tools to develop future applications.