Wednesday May 07, 2008

- 450mm Waffer by 2012 - Lionel - 16:14:40

Source : Intel

Processors are produced from large silicon waffers that are currently 300mm wide, with each CPU engraved next to each other. Hereafter is a 300mm waffer with Penryn CPUs.



To produce always more CPUs per waffer, and consequently decrease production costs, founders have 2 possibilities : use thinner engraving process and/or increase the size of the waffer.
Despite what one could think, the second option is very complex, and if Intel or IBM are using 300 mm waffer in most of its manufacturing plants, many other founders are still using 200 mm wafers.

To develop the production on 450 mm wafers, several competing companies decided to join their forces to reach this goal: Intel, Samsung and TSMC entered a strategic partnership to share their knowledge in this field. Once fully validated, one would be able to engrave 2 t o3 times more CPU on those larger waffers. In the meantime, engraving process will be below 30 nm and yield should then be even higher.

[translation by Linathael]

- NBC: on Zune Store in US, on iTS in UK - Lionel - 12:16:02

While NBC left the iTunes Store US to enter a partnership with Microsoft and its Zune, US TV channel shows are still available on the iTS UK.
The reason might well be that NBC own online site, Hulu.com is not available outside USA, the company has to find other distribution channels outside America.
Rumors indicate that Hulu.com might be available in EU in near future.

[translation by Linathael]

- iPhone 3G on June 15th in USA - Lionel - 12:11:05

According to http://www.boygeniusreport.com, Apple might be almost ready to release the iPhone 3G, thanks to a rumor originating from AT&T. Indeed, it seems that the carrier has sent letter to its employees asking to reschedule holidays in order to have as mush task force available from June 15 to July 12:

To: All Employees

Last year at this time we asked that all vacations be scheduled before June 15 or after July 15, to ensure adequate store staffing and to give everyone an equal opportunity to benefit from an exciting product launch. Thanks to your hard work, we experienced excellent sales during the mid-summer period. This year, the numbers you produced in 2007 will be hard to beat; but as a business, we must rise to the challenge, and make every effort to exceed last year’s sales results. Your management team is counting on you!

We’ll meet the challenge "head-on" by providing an exciting Summer Promotional Launch to enable your sales to soar. We again anticipate heavier than normal customer traffic in our stores, providing an excellent earning opportunity for every front line retail sales consultant (RSC) in company owned retail stores.

To ensure proper staffing during this period, Sales personnel planning to take approved time off are encouraged to schedule their vacations before June 15 or after July 12 to participate in the heavy selling period

Previously approved vacation will be allowed where voluntary rescheduling is not feasible

No additional vacation will be approved for 6/15 – 7/12

So the scenario would then be, announcement of the iPhone 3G during the WWDC, then subsequent launch in USA from June 15, then later on in August in Europe and probably in other countries where carriers can offer reliable 3G services.


[translation by Linathael]