#ALGORITHMS: "IBM Sends Watson to College"

IBM's Watson cluster supercomputer has already conquered the game-show Jeopardy by beating the human champions, has already advising doctors for more accurate diagnoses and is advising traders on which stocks to pick--all that without going to college. However, now that Watson has enrolled in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) researchers there promise to expand its field of applications as well as teach how to do "deeper thinking" than it does today: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

A more general-purpose version of IBM's artificially intelligent (AI) cluster supercomputer called Watson will be be installed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where it will be used by researchers there to deepen the AI's cognitive abilities as well as to explore new application areas.
Further Reading

#CHIPS: "Parallel Processor Now Rule, Rather than Exception"

Parallel processors were once exotic hardware programmed only by the most elite software gurus using black magic conjured from decades of experience. Today, however, almost all new microprocessors are multi-core, and parallel programming techniques are now in the toolkit of every working programmer. Intel, for instance, now has four lines of processors--Atom, Core, Xeon and Xeon Phi--all of which have multiple cores that excel at parallel processing: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

All of Intel's modern processor families today are parallel processors, from the tiny low-power Atom to mainstay Core i3, i5 and i7, to the Xeon for servers and the many-integrated-core (MIC) Xeon Phi coprocessor.
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#ENERGY: "TI Unveils New Smart Grid SoCs"

Texas Instruments (TI) has unveiled dozens of new smart meter systems-on-chip (SoCs) for the burgeoning market for upgrading the power grids worldwide. Smart grids will cut energy consumption by matching usage patterns to electricity generation capabilities, but needs smart meters to work--and TI has an SoC for every smart grid app: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

TI's smart grid SoCs, software and reference designs enable in-home displays to equip consumers with information that enables them to control of their energy usage.
Further Reading

#CHIPS: "E.U.'s $2B Emerging Technologies initiative"

The European Union has funded a 10-year $2 billion Future and Emerging Technologies initiative that will develop microchips modeled on the human brain--the Human Brain Project--as well as graphene semiconductors aiming to replace silicon--the Graphene Flagship project. The long-range research will coordinate hundreds of European researchers and academic institutions toward the common goals of brain-like computers using lightweight super-fast carbon-based circuitry: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Further Reading

#CHIPS: "Water Cooled Supercomputers Proliferate in Russia"

Russia is trying to catch up in supercomputing by adopting the water-cooling technique invented by the RSC Group (Moscow), which is current installing Intel Xeon Phi accelerated supercomputers at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the South Ural State University (SUSU), the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometerorology and Environmental Monitoring: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Further Reading

#CHIPS: "Broadcom Cements Lead in Network Switches"

Broadcom claims that 99.98 percent of all network data traffic crosses one of its chips, but its aim is 100 percent with its new portfolio of switch system-on-chips (SoCs) which provide gigabit performance for every network level--from the wiring closet to the datacenter: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Broadcom offers smart switching system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for every level of networking--from the wiring closet to the enterprise datacenter.
Further Reading

#CHIPS: "Russia Adopts Intel's Xeon-Phi Supercomputer"

Russia may not be allowing the U.S. to adopt its babies anymore, but it is allowing its fledgling supercomputer facilities to adopt Intel's Xeon Phi. The Russian Academy of Science, for instance, is planning a 10 petaFLOPS supercomputer using Xeon Phi cores, ramping up from its 580 teraFLOP prototype today: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

RSC'S Tornado architecture provides direct liquid cooling to the Xeon and Xeon Phi processors (bottom) enabling the Russian Joint Supercomputer Center to lay claim to the world's densest array of parallel processors. SOURCE: RSC
Further Reading

#DESIGNCON: "Behavioral Modeling Streamlines Analog Design"

Behavioral modeling allows engineers to streamline their design flow by mixing up device-level and high-level simulations, using the former for critical loops and the latter to speed-up the development effort: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Spice and Verilog simulators uncover timing skews at both the block and chip levels.
Source: Synopsys Inc.

Learn all the ins and outs of behavioral modeling at DesignCon 2013 in the session Behavioral Modeling for Analog, Mixed-Signal, and RF: What is the Best Approach Today? on Tuesday, January 29, at 3:45 in Ballroom E.
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