Nvidia has unveiled GeForce GTX 660 Ti GPU, powered by Kepler architecture and is available starting at only US$299. Supporting resolution of 1080p, the GTX 660 Ti is 41% faster on average than the GTX 560 Ti from 2011, and 58% faster on average than the GTX 470 from 2010, the vendor said. The GTX 660 Ti features full support for DirectX 11 tessellation, TXAA, and PhysX technologies and the ability to drive a 3+1 display configuration from a single card.

Elpida Memory has developed 4Gb next-generation mobile memory chips for smartphones, tablet PCs and other mobile devices. The new DRAM achieves compliance with the "Wide IO" international standard for mobile memory and has a data transfer rate that is four times faster than current mobile memory chips. The new Wide IO Mobile RAMTM uses a 30nm manufacturing process. Sample shipments will begin in December 2011 and volume production is likely to start in 2012, the vendor said. Also, sample shipments of a four-layer 16-gigabit product are scheduled to begin in March 2012. The newly-developed DRAM achieves a data transfer rate of 12.8 gigabytes per second (12.8 GB/s) that is four times faster than LPDDR2, the current leading DRAM preference for mobile devices. When compared with LPDDR2 based on equivalent data transfer rates, the new DRAM consumes roughly 50% less power. Wide IO Mobile RAM has around 1200 interface pins, including 512 I/O (Input/Output) pins, to enable SoC connections. TSV technology that can stack together multiple chips in a vertical configuration is necessary to meet the demand for higher memory density. At present Elpida is developing a 16-gigabit DRAM based on stacking four 4-gigabit Wide IO Mobile RAM chips. Compared with existing PoP products, the 16-gigabit DRAM is expected to be thinner and smaller by using TSV. The current memory package for mobile devices (SoC plus a 4-layer PoP) has a height of 1.4mm. However, Elpida's TSV technology package (SoC plus a 4-layer TSV) has a height of 1.0mm, which makes it about 30% thinner.

Atmel has announced maXStylus, an active stylus solution for tablets and smartphones. Combined with Atmel's maXTouch solutions, the maXStylus family offers simultaneous touch and stylus functionality. Referred to as multiSense functionality, this feature enables advanced gesturing such as zooming in/out while writing and scrolling; page flipping while scrolling; and selecting a tool or content. The maXStylus family is designed to provide precise, high-resolution writing experience with a narrow 1mm tip, accuracy and linearity of +/- 0.25mm, advanced gesturing, palm rejection and pressure sensing capability with 256 pressure levels. The family also supports dual mechanical buttons for customizable features tailored for the end customer. The Atmel mXTS100 is the first solution sampling in this family and works with the maXTouch E series and future maXTouch solutions, the vendor said. Traditional solutions today require two separate sensors to enable both stylus and finger touch functionality. With Atmel maXStylus solutions, OEMs can use just one sensor to implement both a stylus and touch simultaneously to simplify system design and reduce overall system cost. The new family also reduces the overall time-to-market for adding touch and stylus features to a design using maXTouch technology. The maXStylus family also leverages Atmel's eco-system and software partners. As a co-engineering partner to Microsoft, the mXTS100 supports Windows 8 and the recently launched Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Atmel mXTS100 is sampling to lead customers in November 2011. Production quantities are expected to ship in the first quarter of the company's fiscal 2012.