LSI Corporation announced that it is demonstrating to OEM customers the TrueStore RC5100 read channel for hard disk drives (HDD). The RC5100 is the industry's first 28nm read channel and features a new low-density parity check (LDPC) iterative decoding architecture, which enables HDD manufacturers to achieve increased areal density, higher yield and lower power consumption for HDDs.A critical piece of technology for increasing the capacity of hard drives, a read channel translates the magnetically encoded information on the hard disk drive to electronic signals that can be understood by the host computer."The amount of digital data being generated worldwide continues to grow at an exponential rate, creating new storage challenges for client and enterprise customers alike," said Phil Brace, senior vice president and general manager, Storage Peripherals Division, LSI. "We pride ourselves on being first to market with new process technology that extends HDD capacity, accelerates performance and provides our HDD OEM customers with a time-to-market advantage."The RC5100 is designed to support notebook, desktop and enterprise HDDs. It supports low power management features, which are critical to extending battery life in notebooks and to reducing energy costs in datacenters. The RC5100 also supports advanced new technologies such as shingled magnetic recording (SMR), a key technology for achieving next-generation areal density points."LSI has a consistent history of innovation," said Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America. "This 28nm collaboration with TSMC is a continuation of that proud lineage."The RC5100 is the latest addition to the LSI TrueStore family of ICs for hard disk, solid-state disk and tape devices, including highly integrated storage system-on-a-chip (SoC), read channels, preamplifiers, serial PHYs and hard disk drive controller IP. Together with TrueStore preamplifiers and serial PHYs, the RC5100 creates a complete data path solution for HDD manufacturers.The TrueStore RC5100 is expected to be available to OEM customers in the first calendar quarter of 2012.

VIA Technologies has announced the VIA VB7009 embedded Mini-ITX motherboard. Measuring only 17x17cm, the VIA VB7009 Mini-ITX is a flexible embedded board for POS and kiosks.The VIA VB7009 is a solution offering a range of power efficient VIA CPU choices, including the dual core VIA Nano X2 processor, providing superior flexibility to match customers' embedded computing needs. Paired with the VIA VX900 unified all-in-one media system processor, the VIA VB7009 Mini-ITX embedded board delivers a platform supporting video resolutions of up to 1080p.The VIA VB7009 Mini-ITX embedded board offers a variety of CPU choices ranging from a fanless 1.0GHz VIA C7 to either a 1.6GHz VIA C7-D or 1.2GHz dual core VIA Nano X2 processor. In addition to enabling support for up to 4GB of DDR3 system memory, the VIA VX900 MSP features the VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor.Rear I/O includes one VGA port, four USB 2.0 ports, one COM port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one PS/2 keyboard/mouse port and three audio jacks for line-in/out and mic-in. Onboard pin headers provide support for an additional four USB 2.0 ports, three COM pin headers, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, and LVDS. The VIA VB7009 is fully compatible with Microsoft and the most popular Linux operating systems and is available in a variety of configurations.VIA VB7009 embedded Mini-ITX motherboardPhoto: Company

MIPS Technologies, a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital home, networking and mobile applications, has announced that Android 4.0.3, the latest release of the Android 4.0 platform also known as "Ice Cream Sandwich," is now available for the MIPS architecture.The MIPS port was completed within 24 hours of being released by Google into open source on December 16. The Android 4.0.3 code for MIPS is available for download at http://developer.mips.com/.In January, an Android 4.0.3 over-the air (OTA) update will be available at http://www.ainovo.com/ for existing MIPS-Based Android tablets from Ainol Electronics and will also be pre-installed on tablets that begin shipping as of that time.In addition, the open source release of Android 4.0.3 from Google contains support for MIPS' LLVM technology. Over the past year, MIPS Technologies developed this technology based on its belief that the LLVM open source compiler infrastructure will continue to gain acceptance across the industry as a basis for application portability. Already, LLVM is an underpinning for key Android facilities such as the Renderscript applications programming interface (API). MIPS contributed its technology to the official Android source tree because of its strategic importance for application developers."Following our recent announcement with our customer Ingenic about availability of the world's first Android 4.0 tablet, we are pleased to enable all MIPS licensees to bring the latest release of Android to their consumer devices such as DTVs, set-top boxes, automotive infotainment and service gateways, as well as MIPS-Based smartphones and tablets," said Gideon Intrater, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies.

NTI announced today "NTI Cloud", a simple solution to establish a multifunctional online storage. NTI Cloud debuts intuitive GUIs on PC platform through a secured login domain (www.NTIcloud.com) and the App made available for Android and iOS devices. For as little as $4.99 a month, users can enjoy the fun and convenience of storing data in their own personal cloud and the peace of mind with access to their data anytime, anywhere they are internet connected."While personal cloud service is getting more popular today, the users would never get to find one that does it all." said Bill Yao, President/CEO of NTI. "What makes NTI Cloud outstanding from the competitions is not only the simplicity we were able to create for the users, but also our unique experience in backup methodology; our users can rest assured that their data is just as safe as stored in their own PC hard disks".Main features of NTI Cloud:• Ease of Use: NTI Cloud offers a simple and intuitive user interface in 27 different languages.• Platform Compatibility: NTI Cloud is compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and a wide range of mobile platforms and browsers.• Compatible with NTI Software: NTI Cloud works in conjunction with latest version of NTI Backup Now EZ, an award winning data backup software for PC. It is also currently featured as bundled utility software in Toshiba's Canvio 3.0 Portable HDD.• Access via Mobile Devices: NTI Cloud App is available free for Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad, and all Android OS compatible devices. Users are able to upload, download and share files, access to personal photo albums, play music or videos right at their fingertips.Pricing and availability:NTI Cloud starts online storage with a free 30-day trial with 1GB storage, and $4.99/month for 5GB or $7.99/month for 10GB. Users are offered the option to dynamically grow the online portion up to 1TB (1,024GB) as needed.NTI Cloud can be signed upfrom the web login domain (www.NTIcloud.com). For mobile users, NTI Cloud App can be downloaded from Android Market (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ntius.app) for Android devices and Apple App Store for iPhone, iPod or iPad.NTI Cloud is also available in 27 languages including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Chinese and many more.

AMD has launched the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card for desktop PCs, a GPU based on 28nm production technology. With the arrival of the AMD Radeon HD 7970, AMD has unleashed its new Graphics Core Next Architecture that enables new levels of gaming and compute capabilities - realizing an improvement of over 150% in performance/square mm over the prior generation.The AMD Radeon HD 7970, through AMD App Acceleration, enables high-definition video images and performance improvements for everyday applications. Advancements with AMD Eyefinity technology enable gamers and desktop enthusiasts to connect up to six displays to one graphics card, delivering 3D experiences and 16,000 x 16,000 display resolutions.It is also armed with the latest PCI Express 3.0 standard to enable image quality, and is additionally equipped with GDDR5 memory, enabling accelerated GPU performance. Through its AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power technologies, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 enables higher performance levels while maximizing power efficiencies, the vendor said.The AMD Radeon HD 7970 is available January 9, 2012 from retailers worldwide, with select models starting at US$549.AMD Radeon Photo: Company

MUZEE, leading cloud multimedia solution provider in Taiwan has just announced that its MUZEE.iRadio. Free app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad is currently available for free on the Apple App Store. With this new app, users will be able to tune into over 20,000 radio stations online, based on their genre or even language preference.The Muzee.iRadio app collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated music sources from various online radio stations. With MUZEE.iRadio, no need to waste time on searching music online. You will get the most comprehensive guide that quickly matches your needs. All the users can enjoy non-stop online entertainment and the service with lifetime updates.Key features•Listen to favorite real-time programs of celebrity interviews, world news, fashion updates, talk shows, etc….•Run this app in the background while checking e-mails, texting, chatting or running other apps•Able to connect with social networks, you can share the station you're listening with your friends via mailing them or posting on your Facebook•Unique Internet photo gallery allows you to enjoy watching pictures of your own and 100,000+ fantastic pictures from Internet while listening to the radio•Personalize your own list of favorite radio stations as "My favorites", never miss the hottest hits & new release songs•Check recently played radio stations in "Recent" page•Search for radio stations by simply key-in any word of a station name•Browse organized stations by "genre" or "region", the quickest way to learn new languages and cultures•Recommended local top hit stations•See what's playing right now•Top 100 stations recommended by all the listeners. You may rate stations and share your comments too•Support multitasking with iOS4.0 or above•View station schedules if available•Choose an alternative stream or bit rate if available•Works with either Wi-Fi or 3G networks•Automatically memorize your last playing station•Support iPad and iPhone 4 Retina display•Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPadFor more information and to download the MUZEE.iRadio. Free, please visit http://itunes.apple.com/app/muzee.iradio.free/id473186008?mt=8

Micro-Star International (MSI) has announced its latest gaming notebook - GT780DX, featuring quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU and the latest Nvidia GeForce GTX 570M discrete graphics card that is equipped with 3GB of GDDR5 display memory.The machine is also equipped with 32GB of DDR3 memory and RAID 0-based accelerated dual hard disk architecture for its hard drive system to allow storage capacity to double and read-write speed to increase by 70%, the vendor said.Meanwhile, MSI also adds its Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) technology to the machine to ramp up its overall performance. To quickly cool down the system to maintain its stability, MSI also has Cooler Boost technology. MSI GT780DX notebook specifications Item Detail CPU Intel Core i7 processor OS Windows 7 Ultimate/Professional/Home Premium Memory DDR3 up to 32GB Display 17.3-inch Full HD Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 570M / 3GB GDDR5 Video Output 1x HDMI, 1x VGA HDD 750GB SATA 7200rpm + Intel 120GB SSD or 500GB SATA 7200rpm + Intel 120GB SSD or 750GB (4K sector) x2 or 750GB SATA 7200rpm x2 or 500GB SATA 7200/5400rpm x2 ODD Blu-ray / DVD Super Multi Interfaces 2x USB 3.0, 3x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA, SD(XC/HC)/MMC/MS(PRO)/xD card reader Sound Sound by Dynaudio, THX TruStudio Pro Dimension (WxDxH) 428 x 288 x 55mm Weight 3.9Kg (w/ Battery) Other Features Keyboard by SteelSeries TDE (Turbo Drive Engine) Cooler Boost Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, December 2012MSI GT780DX notebookPhoto: Company

Few of the tourists and faithful who gather in Uspenski Cathedral in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, are aware that banks of servers are whirring away in an underground cavern just beneath them. Academica, the information technology service company that owns the data center, is particularly proud of this facility, though not because of its unusual location."The data center in Katajanokka is the most energy efficient in the world," said Marko Vanninen, the company's chief executive officer.Using sea water and heat exchangers to cool the servers, Academica's data center uses 80 percent less energy for cooling than centers that rely on traditional methods. The heat that is produced by the servers is fed into the municipal heating network.The data center also uses power distribution units (PDUs) from ABB. These units enable effective management of the energy consumption of the servers and improve the reliability of electrical distribution in the center.Data centers worldwide used 80 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2010, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, equivalent to 1½ times the annual power consumption of New York City. A data center on average uses 100 times more power than an office building of the same size, making energy efficiency an important factor in data center profitability."ABB's PDU solutions help to more effectively manage the data center's capacity, and the energy consumption of the servers and of the cooling systems," said Academica's Vanninen.The ABB power distribution units report when they require maintenance, which helps to reduce the number of interventions made. They can also be kept in operation while maintenance is performed, a feature that significantly reduces operational costs. Energy consumption is monitored in real time so that this can also be optimized."Our international experience in critical power distribution is based on decades of active development related to products, systems and services around energy efficiency," said Timo Kontturi, ABB's Sales Manager for data center industry in Finland.ABB's offering for data centers includes motors and drives for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, which account for about half of the energy consumed in data centers. In addition, ABB has recently acquired a controlling interest in US-based Validus DC Systems, a leading provider of direct current (DC) power infrastructure equipment for energy-intensive data centers, as well as a stake in Power Assure, a developer of power management and optimization software for data centers.

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won an order worth about $11 million from Facebook Inc.'s subsidiary Pinnacle Sweden, to power its first server facility outside the United States. ABB will build two high- and medium-voltage air- and gas-insulated switchgear substations that will supply power to a data center being built in Luleå, a coastal town in northern Sweden. The data center will be the largest of its kind in Europe."The substations are designed to handle the high electricity demand of such facilities" said Peter Leupp, head of ABB's Power Systems division. "They will provide reliable and quality power supply to the server buildings."The construction of Facebook's data center will be carried out in three phases. The facility will consist of three server buildings with a total area of 84,000 square meters, equivalent to 11 full-sized soccer fields. The first building is scheduled to become operational in December 2012, and will have a substantial need for electrical energy to power and cool its servers.Located near the Arctic Circle, Luleå's cold climate is well suited for the natural cooling of server buildings. This, along with a stable supply of clean energy from renewable sources as well as reliable communications and electricity networks, paved the way for the choice of Luleå as a location for its new center, making it a European node for Facebook's data traffic.ABB will also install substation automation systems compliant with the global IEC 61850 standard and equipped with the latest protection and control products. The installed capacity of the substations will exceed the city's normal consumption on cold winter days.ABB is the world's leading supplier of turnkey air-insulated, gas-insulated and hybrid substations with voltage levels up to 1,100 kilovolts (kV). These substations facilitate the efficient and reliable transmission and distribution of electricity with minimum environmental impact, serving utility, industry and commercial customers as well as sectors like railways, urban transportation and renewables.There is a YouTube video from ABB on data centers available here: http://www.youtube.com/abb#p/c/F012FD98B8428AD1/28/uM8QwVW0JxM

As a founding member of the UEFI Forum, US-based Phoenix Technologies, in order to help its partners quickly transition from Legacy BIOS to UEFI firmware, hosted a product launch conference, "Phoenix SCT for Intelligent Computing," with secured connectivity and mobility as its theme at Grand Victoria Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan on December 2, 2011. At the event, the company had its Senior Vice President of Field Operations David Everett analyze the current market status as well as announcing Phoenix SecureCore Technology 2.2 (SCT 2.2) that supports the new-generation UEFI standards, and detailing the latest status of the company's related development toolkits.Kelly Wu, Corporate VP and GM of Greater China, pointed out, "Our newly-launched Phoenix SCT 2.2 not only meets the latest UEFI standards and comes with powerful features; its user interface is also very friendly, allowing developers to easily customize firmware that meet the demand in the market without issues arising from the switch to a new silicon platform." Since Phoenix has close partnerships with Intel and Microsoft, the company can help OEMs, ODMs, Server and Embedded customers quickly switch to the UEFI BIOS platform.Because of the impact from mobile devices' fast growing popularity, the PC market has become a very complicated one. Although Windows and the x86 architecture are still the mainstream, Google's strong promotion has widened the application of its Android operating system, and allowed it to become a favorite for many product developers. Furthermore, as the speed of data processing under the ARM structure grows faster and faster, it promises to break the limitations of it being only able to support mobile devices, and stands a good chance of running the more complex Windows operation system in the future. Many system developers will have to obtain the capabilities to develop products for different platforms to satisfy demand from different market segments."Phoenix has been working in the BIOS sector for over three decades and its R&D team's pursuit for technological excellence has helped the company accumulate an impressive amount of patent assets," said Everett. "Our newly-launched Phoenix SCT 2.2 completely meets the latest industry specifications, such as UEFI, TCP/TPM and ACPI, and can be paired with different development and testing toolkits, making it the best solution currently available on the current market."Full spectrum of UEFI product offerings to satisfy customer needsAlthough Phoenix just consolidated its engineering focus on the embedded system and server sectors in 2010 in addition to its client computing core busines, the company has managed to achieve impressive results in a very short time, not only because its outstanding products have won recognition from its global partners, but also because it has a complete product lineup to meet partners' needs for future product development. For example, when Phoenix launched SCT 2.1 last year, the solution only offered a choice of six different platforms. But after only one year, the newly-launched SCT 2.2 already supports products of 16 different platforms, attesting to the company's strong R&D capability.Director of Product Marketing Juliet Chen explained, "One of Phoenix SCT's major characteristics is its cross-platform feature. In addition to supporting the latest products from Intel and AMD, Phoenix plans to launch SCT 3 in 2012 that is also compatible with EDK1117, EDKII and ARM structures in line with SCT's design concept of modularization to accelerate product development." Apart from launching the new product, Phoenix also released two toolkits, Tool Development Kit (TDK) and Phoenix Core Architect (PCA5), to help reduce the time required for firmware development and debugging.In fact, SCT 2.2 supports more than 16 different platforms, catering to nine major categories with more than 60 different new features. In addition to satisfying the needs related to Windows 8, the company also has made improvements to the user interface to provide three extra boot-up modes and strengthen the security functions of servers and embedded systems. On the other hand, addressing the maintenance and upgrade needs of OEMs and ODMs, Phoenix provides easy-to-use development and debugging tools to effectively reduce maintenance cost and time."Phoenix SCT 2.2's design is based on EDK 1117, and it meets not only the UEFI 2.3.1 specifications, but also the ACPI 5.0 standards," said Senior Director of Engineering Terry Chen. "Within the Windows 8 framework, reducing boot-up time is one of the major requirements, and the time is required to be at least seven seconds faster than that of Windows 7. Therefore, BIOS must now offer the option of faster boot-up time." In addition, since Windows 8 also provides a new Windows to Go function to allow consumers to install the operating system from a USB flash drive, it has also become a function that the new generation of BIOS platforms must carry.Development and testing tools PCA5 and TDK help simplify firmware developmentTo simplify the process of follow-up product testing, Phoenix provides easy-to-use development and debugging toolkits. In addition to the latest version of PCA 5, the company also has launched another toolkit, Tools Development Kit (TDK), for use by its partners. The major features of the toolkit are its adoption of standard C language, cross-platform support and user-friendliness. The toolkit can simultaneously support firmware tool development under four major environments – Windows, Linux, DOS and Shell. Engineers at the production lines, basing on the changes of the testing environment, can develop more suitable software to meet actual needs and identify any potential problems.Senior Development Manager Jack Wang pointed out, "PCA 5 is a very complete firmware toolkit that is tightly integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio. Apart from reducing the difficulty in using the tool through its single interface, it also provides several choices of templates and supports development and debugging of firmware that is based on Phoenix SCT, Intel BLDK or EDKII, with its stability and scope of application both outperforming its predecessor."With the competition in the global PC market growing fiercer and fiercer, R&D teams are facing pressures not only from shorter product development time, but also from the need to improve the products' stability and quality, in order to win consumers' recognition. However, previous methods of manual testing were not only time consuming, but also unable to collect large amounts of testing data for future reference. Therefore, Phoenix has raced ahead of other industry players by adopting automation for quality control and testing. The new method allows parameter adjustments based on the environment, and reduces testing time by more than 50% with great improvements in testing reliability."The biggest advantage of automated testing is that it is not limited by time and can run around the clock," noted Manager of Quality Assurance Richard Lai. "During the testing, all kinds of data can be collected and all along analyses can be conducted to identify potential problems through a web-based interface management platform. These features can reduce the high manpower costs."Kelly Wu, Corporate VP and GM of Greater China at Phoenix, points out that the newly-launched Phoenix SCT 2.2 can help partners to quickly switch to UEFI BIOS.Phoenix Senior Director of Engineering Terry Chen notes that under the Windows 8 framework, boot-up time must be at least seven seconds faster than Windows 7, and it is a major task for BIOS.