Toshiba has officially recalled select Sandy Bridge based notebooks, after Intel admitted a silicon flaw in the 6 Series Cougar Point chipset could lead to degradation of SATA 3Gbps connectivity. Over thirty Toshiba SKUs – across the Satellite, Portege and Qosmio lines – have been affected, with the company asking customers to “return the product to the place of purchase for a full refund.” Meanwhile, HP has delayed a new product launch because of the issue.
According to a statement from the company’s PR company, HP “are postponing the business notebooks briefing on Feb. 10 as the availability of HP products will be impacted.” Intel has increased its estimate on how much the Cougar Point problem might cost to remedy, with the figure now hitting $1bn in missed sales and fixing costs.
Samsung and NEC have also been affected, with Samsung saying it will offer refunds on certain machines and NEC delaying releases of four new models. The full list of Toshiba models affected can be found below:
Satellite A660 See note below
Satellite A665 S5176, S5177, S5182, S5183, S5184, S5185, S5187, S5189, S6100
Satellite A665 3D Edition 3DV10, 3DV11, 3DV12
Satellite E305 S1990
Satellite L655 S5161, S5161BN, S5161RD, S5161WH, S5162, S5166, S5166BN, S5166RD, S5166WH, S5167
Satellite M645 S4116, S4118
Portege R835 P50, P55, P56
Qosmio X500 Q930
Qosmio X505 Q8100, Q8102, Q8104
Note: If you purchased a Satellite A660 from Toshiba Direct, with a Core i7 2630QM quad-core processor, you will be contacted directly by Toshiba.
Intel has finished the purchasing process of Infineon’s Wireless Business and that means problems for everyone making processor chips for mobile devices. The industry giant has so much clout that when it tells the rest of its competitors to jump, they reply with “how high?” Well, not really, but Intel does have enough power that when they make a move the rest of the industry follows its lead.
Intel wasn’t always in this prestigious position as only a few years ago it was getting beaten handedly by chief competitor AMD. That is until Intel corrected its processor architecture to use less power and coupled that with its massive manufacturing capacity to relegate AMD to its lower status. The new competitor Intel now looks to have set its eyes on is British company ARM, leader in processor chips in mobile phones and tablets.
The problem Intel had was that it could produce chips that had the sufficient processing power and energy efficiency but they didn’t have any experience in wireless radio technologies like GSM, UMTS, HSPA, and LTE. Intel’s acquisition of Infineon solves this and allows them to offer manufacturers processors that will combine Intel’s expertise in processing speed and power with wireless connectivity. Everyone get ready to hear Intel’s “BUUUM bum-bum bum bum” for a long time.
Yesterday, Intel stopped shipments of its 6 Series support chip, used in personal computers, because of a design flaw. Today, Samsung announced it will issue refunds or exchange for products containing the chipset. Intel will be paying for the refunds and replacements, so the move will not affect Samsung financially.
The faulty chipset affects the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD drives. The chipset is used in PCs with Intel’s latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, aka Sandy Bridge.
There is one PC lineup affected by this chip in the US, and 6 in South Korea.
could in turn affect the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD drives. The chipset will be used in PCs with Intel’s latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, also known as Sandy Bridge.
Yesterday Intel stepped forward and announced that it had found a flaw in the chipsets that go along with the Sandy Bridge platform. The flaw requires a silicon fix, which amounts to a design change to remedy. The machines on the market already with the design flaw will see their IO performance degrade over time but the machines will continue to function.
If you have been wondering what the computer makers that sold machines using the affected mainboard were going to do, Puget Systems has issued a statement telling exactly what it intends to do. The company uses three of the affected Asus mainboards in its offerings. The boards include the Asus P8P67-M Pro, the P8P67 Pro, and the P8H67-M EVO. Puget points out that not all the SATA ports on the board are affected, any ports run by an onboard controller for RAID and other functions are fine.
That means some affected machines will have SATA ports inside that will be just fine. Puget says that it will allow the user to return their computers in March when the new hardware shows up for a mainboard replacement if they want. The other option is that Puget will ship a PCI-E SATA controller card to put into the machine, replacing the bad ports. If you had a machine on order that uses an affected board, Puget will ship it to you, despite the issue of you want or hold until March when the new hardware comes in.
Intel has announced a “chipset design error” affecting its 6 Series Cougar Point chipsets, found accompanying Sandy Bridge processors, which could see an ongoing degradation of the SATA ports and an ensuring impact on HDD and optical drive performance. The solution, unfortunately for Intel, is a silicon fix that will require newly manufactured versions of the chip that should begin arriving with customers in late February.
Full volume recovery, meanwhile, isn’t expected until April, though since Core i5 and quad-core Core i7 systems using the 6 Series chipset have only been on sale since January 9 2011, Intel says it expects “relatively few customers” to be affected. Still, they’ll be alerted to the issue and offered support in getting their systems fixed with the updated version, while Intel works with OEMs to address manufactured motherboards.
The Sandy Bridge CPUs themselves are unaffected, and Intel says owners can continue to use their PCs without concern and simply wait to hear what exactly they need to do for a long term fix. Intel expects the whole chipset issue to cost $300m to their Q1 2011 revenue.
Updates Outlook to Incorporate Effects of Error, Infineon Acquisition and Expected McAfee Acquisition
Chipset circuit design issue identified, fix implemented, customers being notified
Infineon Technologies AG Wireless Solutions business (WLS) acquisition closed Jan. 31
McAfee, Inc. (MFE) acquisition expected to close by the end of the first quarter
Fourth-quarter, first-quarter and full-year outlook revised to reflect impact of chipset issue, WLS closure, expected MFE closure by the end of the first quarter
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2011 – As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel® 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel’s latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue.
The company expects to begin delivering the updated version of the chipset to customers in late February and expects full volume recovery in April. Intel stands behind its products and is committed to product quality. For computer makers and other Intel customers that have bought potentially affected chipsets or systems, Intel will work with its OEM partners to accept the return of the affected chipsets, and plans to support modifications or replacements needed on motherboards or systems. The systems with the affected support chips have only been shipping since January 9th and the company believes that relatively few consumers are impacted by this issue. The only systems sold to an end customer potentially impacted are Second Generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad core based systems. Intel believes that consumers can continue to use their systems with confidence, while working with their computer manufacturer for a permanent solution. For further information consumers should contact Intel at www.intel.com on the support page or contact their OEM manufacturer.
For the first quarter of 2011, Intel expects this issue to reduce revenue by approximately $300 million as the company discontinues production of the current version of the chipset and begins manufacturing the new version. Full-year revenue is not expected to be materially affected by the issue. Total cost to repair and replace affected materials and systems in the market is estimated to be $700 million. Since this issue affected some of the chipset units shipped and produced in the fourth quarter of 2010, the company will take a charge against cost of goods sold, which is expected to reduce the fourth quarter gross margin percentage by approximately 4 percentage points from the previously reported 67.5 percent. The company will also take a charge in the first quarter of 2011which will lower the previously communicated gross margin percentage by 2 percentage points and the full-year gross margin percentage by one percentage point.
Updated 2011 First Quarter and Full Year Outlook
Separately, Intel recently announced that it had completed the acquisition of the Infineon Technologies AG Wireless Solutions business, which will now operate as the Intel Mobile Communications group. The company also expects to complete the acquisition of McAfee by the end of the first quarter.
The effects of the chipset issue and these transactions are incorporated into the company’s revised outlook. The company now expects first-quarter revenue to be $11.7 billion, plus or minus $400 million, compared to the previous expectation of $11.5 billion, plus or minus $400 million. Gross margin percentage is now expected to be 61 percent, plus or minus a couple percentage points, compared to the previous expectation of 64 percent, plus or minus a couple percentage points. Spending (R&D plus MG&A) is now expected to be approximately $3.6 billion, compared to the previous expectation of approximately $3.4 billion.
The full-year revenue growth percentage is now expected to be in the mid-to high teens, compared to the company’s prior expectation of approximately 10 percent. Full-year gross margin is now expected to be 63 percent, plus or minus a few percentage points, compared to the previous expectation of 65 percent, plus or minus a few percentage points. Spending (R&D plus MG&A) is now expected to be $15.7 billion, plus or minus $200 million, compared to the company’s previous expectation of $13.9 billion, plus or minus $200 million. Research and development (R&D) spending is now expected to be approximately $8.2 billion, compared to the previous forecast of $7.3 billion.
All other expectations for the first-quarter and full-year remain unchanged. With the exception of McAfee, the outlook for the first quarter and full year do not include the effect of any acquisitions, divestitures or similar transactions that may be completed after Jan. 31. The acquisition of McAfee is subject to customary closing conditions.
Intel promised way back in 2009 that we’d be seeing Medfield-based smartphones in 2011, and it looks like those have now gotten one step closer to reality. While there’s unfortunately few details to be had, that’s apparently a Medfield-based smartphone of some sort in the hand of Intel’s Anand Chandrasekher above, who apparently showed off the phone (possibly a prototype) ever so briefly at the company’s sales and marketing conference last week. Could it be a sign of things to come at MWC next month? Maybe, maybe not, but we’ll be there to find out.
Squint, or you’ll miss it. The tiny slab of shininess clutched in the hands of Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group, is apparently a Medfield based smartphone that, according to the Maemo forums, was shown off at an Intel sales conference last week.
Details on the handset are almost entirely unknown, bar the chipset, but Intel hasn’t been shy with its Medfield expectations. Back in August 2010 the company promised to match ARM’s chipsets – currently the popular favorite in mobile devies like smartphones – for active power consumption with the new Medfield processors, which are expected to debut in shipping devices later this year.
At least one of those devices, so the rumors would have it, will be from Nokia’s stable and run MeeGo, the two companies’ collaborative open-source OS. Leaks earlier this month suggested the Nokia N9 had been reworked using a 1.2GHz Medfield processor and dropping the hardware keyboard, and would be shown off at MWC 2011 next month.
Welcome to this week’s edition of the SlashGear Week in Review! If you are a PC hardware geek an AMD spokesman causally showed off an unannounced video card on Monday called the HD 6990. The card has dual GPUs and should be very fast. We heard a bit of early detail on the PSP2 from Nikkei that claimed the new portable would have an OLED touchscreen, 3G and a new CPU. That would make for a very impressive portable indeed.
NVIDIA will be sampling its new Tegra 3 T30/AP30 mobile quad core processors by the end of 2011. These things will bring a whole new breed of portable devices and more with loads of power. One of the coolest DIY projects I saw last week was the pedal-powered snowplow that a guy built. He used a couple old bikes and some wood to build the plow that appears to work pretty well.
The 10 billionth app was downloaded last weekend and Apple called the person who made the download to give the $10k gift card price that was offered. The catch was that the winner hung up on them. Luckily for her an Apple rep called again and she ended up with her gift. Samsung conducted a strange experiment early in the week where they launched a bunch of paper airplanes in space. They launched 200 paper planes from 36,500 meters above Berlin and each plane had a card with a text message that the folks who found it could enter online for others to read.
The Verizon iPhone 4 will cost the off-contract user $50 more on Verizon that it does on AT&T. The upside is that that extra $50 should let you talk without your call dropping if you hold your face wrong. The Acer Aspire One E100 Android netbook turned up this week and the thing dual boots Android and Windows. The netbook has a 10.1-inchscreen and is your basic netbook.
Notion Ink issued an update for the Adam tablet that was bricking some of the tablets that installed the update. The update was later pulled and only a few users were affected. It was confirmed this week that Verizon will offer a $30 unlimited data plan for the iPhone 4. The catch is that it’s a limited time offer and will go back to the normal tiered plan after a while.
NVIDIA unveiled a new video card this week called the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. The card promises to be 46% faster than the Radeon HD 6950 that is already on the market and the new GTX 560 Ti sells for about $250. Ben Heck took a flashlight with a crank, a USB charger, and some geek mojo to create a cool kinetic charger. The charger puts power into the battery of your phone as you turn the crank.
The tiny Compulab Trim Slice nettop turned up this week with Tegra 2 inside for desktop PC use. This thing would make a really good HTPC; it looks more like a memory card reader than a computer to me. Details on several new Samsung smartphones turned up this week including the Samsung Galaxy Ace, Fit, Gio, and Mini. The Ace is the coolest of them all with a 3.5-inch screen, 800MHz processor and more.
The HTC Facebook phone that we keep hearing about has been tipped to land at MWC next month. The phone will reportedly use the Facebook color scheme, branding, and push the Facebook news feed. An awesome 12-foot long DIY LED matrix display turned up mid-week. The thing is really cool and uses 512 blue LEDs to show your text message.
A Verizon BlackBerry outage rolled on mid-week and to start with the blame was placed on an update by Verizon. Apparently the outage spanned a number of states and users that were affected only received email in batches an hour or so apart. The Sony Xperia Play was the subject of a pre-release preview video this week. This is the PlayStation phone and the thing looks really cool.
Thursday the Sony PlayStation Suite and PS Store for Android devices landed. The store is for Android 2.3 and up devices and has a lot of cool games for mobile gamers to download and enjoy. The Sony NGP “Next Generation Portable” went official this week. The device is the PSP2 we have been hearing about for a while and has an ARM Cortex A9 processor, 5-inch OLED screen, and a lot more. This should be one seriously cool portable game console.
A “secret” AT&T unlimited data plan is available to keep iPhone users from migrating to Verizon. One user is claiming that when he called AT&T and threatened to go to Verizon they moved him to an unlimited data plan. Hulu is reportedly in talks within the video streaming site to change from a free offering that it is right now to a virtual cable operator where we would all have to pay to use the streaming service.
Scosche shipped its new version of the flipSYNC called the flipSYNC II this week. It is available for USB charging devices and Apple gear for about $20 and the new version has a larger USB plug. The dorkiest iPad accessory ever turned up late in the week called the Assero Defender. It’s like one of those reverse backpacks parents use to carry babies, but the Defender is for your iPad.
Details for pre-orders of the Verizon iPhone 4 were offered Thursday. Verizon is going for AT&T’s throat and is offering some big discounts if you trade in an AT&T iPhone. A 16GB iPhone 4 from AT&T will get you $280 off your Verizon iPhone. Thursday we heard that the Sony NGP console would come in both 3G and WiFi only versions. That is good news since many people have no desire for 3G if they will only use it in the house.
The FCC posted up the teardown pics of the Notion Ink Adam Friday. The Adam the FCC had used what appear to be handmade connections leading some to wonder about build quality. We know the specs on the Sony NPG, but we still don’t know the price. Some speculation has been that the console might cost around $600. Sony has said the NGP won’t be $599, but still hasn’t offered pricing yet.
Microsoft is reportedly working towards 16-core Atom processors. The 16-core Atom would apparently be an alternative to traditional CPUs inside servers. Thanks for reading this week’s edition, see you next time!
Microsoft is reportedly pestering Intel for a 16-core version of its Atom processor, which would provide a low-power alternative to mainstream chips for use in data servers. Dileep Bhandarkar, an engineer at Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services, suggested that higher-power Intel chips more commonly positioned for servers, such as the Xeon, demand too much power and active cooling in return for their higher clock speeds, PC World reports, and that there is a “huge opportunity” for a different strategy to data center processing.
“When you look at these tiny cores, another way of making them work in a very efficient way is [not to] surround them with a whole bunch of south bridges and network controllers. … Essentially, the tiny cores and systems-on-chip should go together” Dileep Bhandarkar, Microsoft
Global Foundation Services is the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the hosting of Bing, Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, together with Sharepoint and Exchange installations for businesses. Bhandarkar said that ARM’s work on server processors was interesting but unproven, however it “lights a fire under Intel and AMD to deliver more effective x86 solutions.”
For its part, Intel said it had “no announcements to make” regarding new Atom chips, but did point to the fact that its existing processors are already found in at least one HP Windows Home Server model.
Nokia needs to “change faster” to keep up with the cellphone market, CEO Stephen Elop has admitted, but it’s his ecosystem comments during the company’s financial results call that have tongues wagging. The Nokia/Android/Windows Phone 7 speculation has proven sturdily resilient to common sense and the Finns’ own denials, and Elop’s suggestion that Nokia “must build, catalyse or join a competitive ecosystem” is unlikely to do much bar fueling the rumors.
“Nokia must compete on ecosystem to ecosystem basis. In addition to great device experiences we must build, catalyse or join a competitive ecosystem. And the ecosystem approach we select must be comprehensive and cover a wide range of utilities and services that customers expect today and anticipate in the future” Stephen Elop, CEO, Nokia
At face value, that could certainly be interpreted as a sign that Nokia might consider lending its much-appreciated hardware skills to producing a device running something other than Symbian or MeeGo. The CEO’s specific focus on the US market, meanwhile, could also lend weight to that. ”Whatever the strategy is we outline on February 11,” Elop continued, “we very clearly [must ensure] that it will give us the opportunity to reopen markets such as the U.S. and some others, where we have not recently been present.”
For a company that strives to be so self-contained, though, persisting with Symbian while readying MeeGo devices still looks the most likely route. Nokia’s “competitive ecosystem” could well refer to Intel’s low-power Atom platform, or a more general indication that it intends to compete in the smartphone chipset arms-race which currently dictates the US handset market. We’ve already seen suggestions that the company is working on a high-powered MeeGo tablet based on dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processors; that would give the company an admirable spec-sheet that could take on any rival.
Intel has announced a “chipset design error” affecting its 6 Series Cougar Point chipsets, found accompanying 
