Denali is the sponsor of MEMCON 2009, which going on this week in Santa Clara.   I spoke with David Lin at Denali regarding the conference and what some of the announcements will be.  In particular we talked about the DDR-PHY Interface (DFI) spec version 2.1  (at the www.ddr-phy.org wb-site).   It includes low-power features supporting DDR3 and the newly released LP-DDR2 memory technologies from JEDEC.   As well, at MEMCON, is a track  on “Beyond Flash – Defining Storage Class Memories (SCM),” sponsored by Web-Feet Research (now that’s a name you can remember!).

You can here the entire interview at:  “MEMCON News”, Dave Lin, VP of Marketing, Denali

What I found most interesting about Storage Class Memories is that the vision for the future is to have a memory system that has a file interface but with the speed and performance of fast silicon.   Smaller system stacks and lower power are some of the claimed benefits.

If you couldn’t attend the conference, you can see the picture gallery of the exhibits and luncheon at:  MEMCON Exhibits.

Mark Gogolewski, Denali CTO  gave one of the keynotes at MEMCON.  You can see a short clip at:  Mark Gogolewski MEMCON 2009 Keynote Clip

+Graham

Atom processors from Intel are defining the new “netbook” slice of the personal computer market.   They are very popular with ‘power’ users, who want to have another computer to use because of the convenient size and almost disposable cost.  Ultimately targeted for the smaller platforms such as smart phones, Atom-based computers are surprisingly powerful.   If an Atom notebook PC has everything I need to do my day-to-day job then maybe it will begin to steal market share from the traditional notebook market.   Another trend that may accelerate this shift is the use of  ‘cloud computing’ where data is stored in the cloud (some server farm on the net).   Cloud computing reduces further the need for a local high-performance CPU.

Even Intel insiders are wondering what will be the business  impact  caused by the success of the Atom processor.   Will it poison their traditional microprocessor franchise?  Let me know your thoughts!

+Graham

I heard about WolframAlpha.com last week.  It is a search engine that does all the calculations it can think of for an entry.   It works with Math (it uses the Mathematica engine from Wolfram Research) History, Chemistry, Music, Astronomy, etc.  They have lots of great examples.

I happened to have a fondness for super massive black holes that are at the center of galaxies.  If you enter “18 billion solar masses black hole” then WoflframAlpha spits back lots of data, including the radius.   This happens to be the biggest hole so far according to Wikipedia.   If you note down the radius 10^13 meters, and then enter “Pluto” and “Sedna” as your next search items, you quickly find out that this humongous black hole is bigger than our solar system.  It is over 8 light-hours across!

Check it out…You will be glad you did.

+Graham

EDACafe will again be interivewing exhibitors, executives and analysts from the floor of the Design Automation Conference in San Francisco on July 27-29.   There is no charge for the video interviews which will are posted on our web-site.  This month (June) we are taking appointments from our current clients and members.  In July, we will be making appointments for other companies that would like to be a part of the buzz of DAC.

To see what an interview is like check-out our DATE Conference Video page from April.  You can see it at

http://www10.edacafe.com/video/display_media.php?category_id=10154

+Graham