IBM, Intel Start $4.4 Billion Chip Venture in New York

Kudos to IBM, Intel and New York state for putting together a deal that will make upstate New York the center of R&D work for chip production on 450-mm and the development of 22- and 14-nm process technology for IBM's so-called "fab club," the Common Platform Alliance. According to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the deal, which involves $4.4 billion of investment, will create about 4,400 jobs and help the region retain another 2,500. Many of those jobs might just have easily have ended up in Taiwan, South Korea, Abu Dhabi or elsewhere. The deal is a coup for New York, which is presumably offering the companies tax breaks or other incentives to locate the projects there. (New York state itself is kicking in some $400 million over five years, but Gov. Cuomo made it clear in a statement announcing the projects that no private company will receive any state funds as part of the agreement.) Albany, already home to the semiconductor research consortium Sematech, the Albany Nanotech Complex and, soon, the Global 450 Consortium, increasingly appears to have surpassed the Silicon Valley as the place to be for semiconductor industry R&D. [More]

Accelerate product development through codevelopment of Hardware and Software

Rising product complexity and intense market pressures present major challenges to designers of electronic systems. To stay competitive, tight coordination between processes used by hardware and software engineers is critical to optimize product quality. This is especially true while controlling costs and meeting tight timelines.

This whitepaper discusses key elements of development and explores how the use of shared processes between hardware and software disciplines enable teams to develop products more quickly. Once shared processes are established, common tools can drive the next level of efficiency. It also highlights how how IBM has successfully used these techniques across a 25,000+ user base to significantly reduce development costs, increase reuse, and improve quality.

This paper is sponsored by IBM

Four key strategies for enabling innovation in the age of smart

On a smarter planet, intelligence is infused into the products,systems and processes that comprise the modern world. These include the delivery of services; the development, manufacturing, buying and selling of physical goods; and the way people actually work and live. No where may this transformation be more evident than in the creation of smarter products.

Improve Project Success with Better Information

Are we on target? Are we within budget? Are my projects contributing effectively to my operational objectives? How well are these operational objectives helping to satisfy our business goals? Can we easily demonstrate compliance to customer requirements or industry standards? Are we ready to ship? This white paper discusses the difficulties organizations face as they gather critical information, and explores the use of automation to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of reporting and measurement. It also introduces IBM Rational solutions that can help organizations automate reporting and measurement to improve project, program and organizational management and decision makers' abilities to influence positive outcomes.

Intel meets its match in IBM

In this article by Brooke Crothers, the news is out that IBM has announced it new high performance power7 chip technology.By the time Intel had introduced its latest processor for servers, the Itanium 9300, on Monday, IBM had already stolen Intel's thunder with its new Power7 chip technology.According to reports, the Power7 is impressive. It has eight cores, while Intel's Itanium 9300 (PDF) has four. And each of the Power7's cores is capable of four threads, or tasks, compared to Itanium's two per core.Although both companies are touting dozens of other features--for example, better thread performance and improved scaling of workloads--IBM is taking a lead in marquee features for the lucrative high-end server market.