AMD announces Conesus netbook platform, ATI Stream brand, Fusion processor delay

We already got word of AMD's new 45nm Shanghai Opterons this morning, but it looks like that was only just the beginning of a deluge of news out of the slightly troubled company today, which includes the expected announcement of its netbook platform, the introduction of its new ATI Stream brand, and word of a delay to its much-vaunted Fusion platform. On the netbook front, AMD is hoping that its "Conesus" processor will prove to be a formidable competitor to Intel's Atom, with it apparently existing only in a 45nm, dual-core version that includes 1MB of cache and support for DDR2 RAM. Look for it to roll out in the first half of 2009. Coming ahead of that is AMD's new ATI Stream brand, which encompasses a number of the company's different stream and GPU computing initiatives and attempts to make them more attractive to both consumer and enterprise markets. To that end, AMD will be adding Stream support to its next Catalyst update (due in December), which will apparently let folks easily run stream applications that make use of your graphics card's GPU for some added computing power. It's not all high-fives around AMD, however, as the company has also let out word that its Fusion platform based around the dual CPU / GPU "Shrike" processor will be delayed until sometime in 2011, a full year later than originally planned. As if that wasn't enough, it's also shaken up the rest of its processor roadmap a bit, although it's entirely possible that it'll fluctuate a bit further before things really settle down. Hit up the links below to break all that down piece by piece.
[Via: Engadget ] [Tag: amd, ati, ati stream, AtiStream, breaking news, BreakingNews, conesus, fusion, netbook, shrike ]

Qualcomm throws in the towel on UMB, 4G race down to LTE and WiMAX

Realistically, the death knell tolled long ago for Qualcomm's stillborn Ultra Mobile Broadband initiative, its own special flavor of 4G and the logical next step in the CDMA2000 family of technologies. To make things nice and official, though, they went ahead and officially announced that they've halted development on the spec during an analysts' meeting earlier today, throwing support behind the competing LTE standard -- one of the two remaining techs vying for the hearts and minds of the world's 4G-wanting public. So where's one of the world's great patent enforcers going to collect cash now? Oh, don't worry about little ol' Qualcomm; the company claims it has plenty of 4G-relevant intellectual property that'll keep its bankrolls full for years to come.
[Via: dailywireless.org ] [Tag: 4g, breaking news, BreakingNews, lte, qualcomm, ultra mobile broadband, UltraMobileBroadband, umb ]

Rambus takes aim at NVIDIA over alleged patent infringement, again

While there still doesn't seem to have been any developments in the lawsuit Rambus filed against NVIDIA earlier this year, that doesn't seem to be stopping the company from opening up another front against its would-be arch rival, and it's now taken its case to the International Trade Commission. As before, Rambus is alleging that NVIDIA and its partner companies are infringing on a whole slew of its memory-related patents, and it's asking for a ban on all imports and sales of NVIDIA products that include DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, GDDR, GDDR2, and GDDR3 memory controllers -- or anything with an NVIDIA logo on it, basically. For its part, NVIDIA doesn't seem to be commenting on the matter just yet, but Rambus said in a statement that it believes the action was "necessary given NVIDIA's continued willful infringement of our patents." Look for the ITC to make a decision on whether to start an investigation into the matter or not within the next 30 days, and you can keep tabs on any future Rambus litigation on the Litigation Update section of its website which, yes, actually exists.
[Via: The Inquirer ] [Tag: ITC, litigation, nvidia, patent, patent infringement, PatentInfringement, rambus ]