TSMC’s 28-nanometer process pays off as it rakes in $1.68 billion profit in Q3

TSMC's 28nanometer process is paying off as it rakes in $168 billion profit in Q3

Everything is relative, so when a chip foundry like TSMC (which produces gear for the likes of NVIDIA) has a bad quarter, that means it only made a $1 billion in profit. Today's numbers reveal that the company has managed to rescue its halting fortunes after turning over $4.8 billion and making a tidy $1.68 billion in profit. The cause of this upswing was that orders for its coveted 28-nanometer process doubled in the period -- repaying some of the $8.5 billion spent developing it and keeping profits just a little over that of its close pal, Qualcomm.

Continue reading TSMC's 28-nanometer process pays off as it rakes in $1.68 billion profit in Q3

Filed under: ,

TSMC's 28-nanometer process pays off as it rakes in $1.68 billion profit in Q3 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 05:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Reuters  |   | Email this | Comments

MediaTek plans for quad-core chips in budget smartphones by early 2013

MediaTek chip

As much as MediaTek is known for powering budget smartphones, the company is keen to make a fast track into the big leagues. Or bigger, at any rate. General manager Xie Qingjiang explains to China Times that MediaTek should have a quad-core, 28-nanometer mobile processor in production between the fall and the very start of 2013 -- not bad for a firm that just introduced a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 design this summer. Smartphones built around the new part should arrive before the first quarter of 2013 is over. Details aren't available for the processor in question, although it's reasonable to say that MediaTek is more likely to serve a cost-conscious crowd than to compete in the lofty realms of the similarly 28nm Snapdragon S4 Pro. The move to quad-core could nonetheless be a welcome spike in performance for an audience that often has to settle for old technology.

Filed under: ,

MediaTek plans for quad-core chips in budget smartphones by early 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Unwired View  |  sourceChina Times (translated)  | Email this | Comments

Qualcomm building babel-fish chip to support multiple LTE bands

Qualcomm building babelfish chip to support multiple LTE bands

Qualcomm has revealed that it's developing a new mobile radio that'll operate across multiple LTE bands. While dreams of a cross-network standard were burned to the ground last July, the chip company revealed that the MSM-8960 will connect to three frequencies below 1GHz and four above. Qualcomm has said that the hardware will make its way into handsets by the end of the year at the same time it voiced opposition to the FCC's plan to standardize the lower 700MHz band -- something the smaller networks feel is necessary to prevent them being squeezed out by the big three.

Qualcomm building babel-fish chip to support multiple LTE bands originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phone Arena, Fierce Wireless  |  sourceFCC (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

NVIDIA unleashes GeForce GTX 690 graphics card, loads it with dual Kepler GPUs, charges $1k

ImageWould you look at that? NVIDIA hinted it would be coming today, and it looks like the tease is living up to the hype. The company stormed into the weekend at its Shanghai Game Festival by unleashing its latest offering, the GeForce GTX 690 -- and oh yeah, it's packing two 28nm Kepler GPUs! Trumping the recently released GTX 680 as the "worlds fastest graphics card," it's loaded with a whopping 3,072 Cuda cores. The outer frame is made from trivalent chromium-plated aluminum, while you'll find thixomolded magnesium alloy around the fan for vibration reduction and added cooling. Aiding in cooling even further, the unit also sports a dual vapor chamber and center-mounted fan. It'll cost you a spendy $1,000 to pick up one of these puppies come May 3rd, and you'll likely be tempted to double up -- two can run together in SLI as an effective quad-core card. With that said, NVIDIA claims that a single 690 runs 4dB quieter and handles about twice the framerate as a duo of GTX 680s in SLI -- impressive, but we'll reserve judgement until we see it for ourselves. Check out the press release after the break if you'd like more information in the meantime (...and yes, it runs Crysis -- 2 Ultra to be exact -- at 57.8fps, according to NVIDIA).

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading NVIDIA unleashes GeForce GTX 690 graphics card, loads it with dual Kepler GPUs, charges $1k

NVIDIA unleashes GeForce GTX 690 graphics card, loads it with dual Kepler GPUs, charges $1k originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments