ASML says chip makers face a two year shortage of key machinery

DutchNews, March 21, 2022 

An ASML cleanroom where a euv machine is being assembled. Photo: ASML 

Semiconductor makers face a two-year shortage of critical equipment because Dutch chip machinery maker ASML is unable to meet demand fast enough, the company’s chief executive Peter Wennink has told the Financial Times. 

ASML, based in Veldhoven, is a key player in the global chip industry, producing machines which Intel, Samsung and TSMC all use to make advanced semiconductors. The company also has a monopoly in the field of EUV, or extreme ultra violet, based lithography machines.

‘Next year and the year after there will be shortages,’ Wennink told the paper. ‘We’re going to ship more machines this year than last year and . . . more machines next year than this year. But it will not be enough if we look at the demand curve. We really need to step up our capacity significantly more than 50%. That will take time.’ 

The FT said Wennink’s comments come as the semiconductor industry is speeding up investment in new production to meet a global shortage of chips, and that analysts expect the market to double to $1 tn by 2030.

Dutch researchers find major vulnerability in Intel chips

DutchNews, May 15, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Researchers at Amsterdam’s VU university have discovered a major leak in Intel microchips which make it possible to get hold of passwords and other sensitive information. 

The vulnerability, named Rogue In-Flight Data Load, was discovered a year ago but only just made public to give Intel time to develop an acceptable fix. 

The leak covered all Intel processors made since 2008 and would have been extremely easy to abuse, the researchers say. 

‘Even if home users used their browsers to visit a website with an advert or other content with a malware Java programme, the hacker could still steal information,’ the researchers say. There were also problems with cloud services. 

However, Herbert Bos, who was in charge of the research, told broadcaster RTL Z that most consumers should not immediately be very concerned and that specific targets, such as senior employees of a company or senior government officials, were more likely to have been victims. 

Intel has now taken steps to close the leaks and protect users, who are now being recommended to update their processors and software.

Chip machinery maker ASML wins first order from China

DutchNews, May 16, 2018

Photo: ASML 

Chipmachine marker ASML of Veldhoven has won its first-ever order from China, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Wednesday. 

The paper said Chinese Semiconductor Manufacturing International has ordered a $120m extreme ultraviolet lithography machine from ASML which never identifies its customers. Citing Nikkei Asian Review the FD said this is the latest in a series of orders for the EUV machines from ASML. 

Taiwan-based TSMC has ordered eight of the EUV machines, Samsung six and Intel three while GlobalFoundries of the US has ordered one. At the presentation of first-quarter figures in April, ASML said it had booked orders for 20 of the machines. 

EUV technology allows the industry to continue to print smaller features onto ever-more complex chips. It is carried out in a vacuum using a plasma to produce EUV light using highly sophisticated mirrors instead of lenses to project the circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. 

Today’s silicon chips have features as small as 40 nanometers – less than a few hundred atoms across – and ASML says EUV lithography tools will be used to print even smaller 

Using EUV to print transistors this small is equivalent to printing an image the size of a human eye on the surface of the earth from a space shuttle . . . and then printing another image on top of the first one with perfect alignment, the company says.

New security flaw detected in Intel hardware

Finnish cybersecurity specialist F-Secure has reported another serious flaw in Intel hardware. It has nothing to do with the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, but has a huge "destructive potential" too.

Deutsche Welle, 12 January 2018

F-Secure said Friday it had found a serious flaw in Intel hardware which could enable hackers to access corporate laptops remotely.

It said it detected an issue within Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) "which is commonly found in most corporate laptops and allows attackers to take complete control over a user's device in a matter of seconds."

"The issue potentially affects millions of laptops globally," said F-Secure consultant Harry Sintonen, who discovered the flaw. "It's of an almost shocking simplicity, but its destructive potential is unbelievable."

Loss of confidentiality

F-Secure said once an attacker had the chance to reconfigure AMT (for which he would initially need physical access to the device in question), the device could be fully controlled remotely by connecting to the same wireless or wired network as the user.

"No other security measures like full-disk encryption, local firewall, anti-malware software or VPN technology are able to prevent exploitation of this issue," Sintonen warned.

A successful attack would lead to complete loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability, with the attacker able to read and modify all of the data and applications users have access to on their computers, even at the firmware level.

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Flawed computer chips and how to fix them

Flawed computer chips and how to fix them

Digital Journal – AFP, 5 January 2018

As tech giants race against the clock to fix major security flaws in microprocessors, many users are wondering what lurks behind unsettling names like "Spectre" or "Meltdown" and what can be done about this latest IT scare.

What is Meltdown? And Spectre?

These are the names given to two flaws which have been detected in most of the micro processors in use today, be it on computers, tablets, smartphones or game consoles. They are among the first flaws ever found to affect the running of every IT system in the world.

Meltdown appears for now to affect mostly chips built by US giant Intel, according to sector specialists Kaspersky Labs and Symantec.

The flaw could allow attackers to break down the barrier between user apps and the heart of the operating system, according to Kaspersky Labs, "enabling them to potentially steal data from the memory of running apps".

Anybody exploiting the flaw would get access to a complete cartography of all the files present in the device's memory at the time of the attack, by hijacking a process that was originally designed to optimize processor performance.

The Spectre threat is potentially even bigger because it concerns all chip makers: AMD and AMR as well as Intel.

What is a micro processor?

It's the central element of computers, smartphones and other digital devices, allowing them to function by carrying out instructions and handling programme data.

A processor is made up of a number of transistors. The more transistors there are, the higher the chip's capacity to handle data.

These chips are called micro-processors because processor sizes have come down significantly to integrate them into small devices. Processor power is measured in bits, a gauge of how many pieces of information a processor can handle at any one time.

What are the dangers?

Potentially they are enormous. Hackers who know what they're doing could, for example, use Meltdown to gain access to all information stored on a remote server, or cloud, so long as they rent space on the same server.

The stakes are highest for the protection of sensitive data such as passwords, pictures, personal documents and e-mails.

Cloud storage sites represent a particularly grave risk because once such a server is vulnerable, so are all data hosted there.

This is why Microsoft, Amazon or OVH have been scrambling to install updates to restore data protection on their servers.

This is one way of dealing with the threat, but chip maker patches may also 

do the trick LEON NEAL, AFP

Experts point out, however, that it takes a very high level of technical skill to exploit the Spectre and Meltdown flaws, limiting the risks somewhat.

Michael Schwartz, an IT expert quoted in German daily Tagesspiegel Friday, said that a hacker must find out which programmes are currently running before triggering an assault, "which is why it's not that easy to launch mass attacks".

What possible protection?

For now, the only way to beef up defences is to install the security updates offered by the chip makers themselves, or by the operating systems providers: Microsoft for Windows, Apple for iOS and Google for Android and Linux.

These updates for now mostly concern Meltdown. Spectre appears, for now, to be more difficult to patch.

Either way, these updates are little more than tinkering. The safest solution would be to upgrade to a last-generation processor, a switch that will take much longer to implement because it only happens when users buy new devices.

In the meantime retail users, said Schwartz, "shouldn't panic and just behave as they would normally.

"If you follow the usual security recommendations and don't open unknown attachments or click on strange links, then you are in no immediate danger." 

Intel invests €45m in Delft University quantum computer centre

DutchNews, September 3, 2015 

US chip maker Intel is investing almost €45m on a joint project with Delft University of Technology and the TNO research group to accelerate advancements in quantum computing. 

The 10 year agreement will see Intel providing ‘significant’ engineering resources for Delft’s quantum research institute QuTech as well as on and off site support. 

Experts predict that quantum computing – a much faster computing method using quantum bits rather than binary digits – could be available and ready for use in the next 12 years.

‘A fully functioning quantum computer is at least a dozen years away, but the practical and theoretical research efforts we’re announcing today mark an important milestone in the journey to bring it closer to reality,’ said Mike Mayberry, Intel vice president and managing director of Intel Labs, in a statement. 

Microsoft and Google are also working to develop quantum computers.

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"THE BIGGEST FILTER OF ALL" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"... The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.

This bias is the same for almost all industry, too. A computer scientist loves the advancements - all happening so fast! In his case, he expects things from what he has seen only in the past few years. Therefore, he will predict what is going to happen using a model of what has happened so far, such as better electronics for increasing speeds in processing, size and memory capacity. Let me give you a hint of where it's going, which he has no model for in his short history. Fifty years from now, there will still be computers, but they will be completely and totally different. Instead of changing electronic chips, you will change life chips. There will be parts of computing that must have life to work. Bio-computing is the wave of the future. By the way, this gives a whole new meaning to your computer catching a virus. [Laughter] It's coming; it has to.

There will be a combination of circuitry and live, reproducing biology that is grown on a chip. This will enhance computing power and memory and what you think of as a "computer" will be very different. What you ask a computer to do today will be laughed at compared to what you ask for it to do in 50 years. You may actually name a computer in the future, as you now do a pet! You will have to "feed" it! But the computer will still exist. You don't know what you don't know so, therefore, it's Human nature to take what you do know and extrapolate what to expect. ..."

Nokia and Intel merge high-end software

Reuters, Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:58am EST

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Nokia and Intel will merge their top-end smartphone software as they face increasing pressure from cellphone industry newcomers Google and Apple.

The world's top cellphone maker Nokia said on Monday it will merge its Linux Maemo software platform, used in its flagship N900 phone, with Intel's Moblin, also a version of Linux.

The deal is set to boost Intel's chances to get its chips into the cellphones of the Finnish company, which controls around 40 percent of the global phone market.

The new software platform, called Meego, will be hosted by Linux foundation, the companies said.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Hans Peters)

One Laptop for One Teacher, One Step Ahead in Indonesia?

Kompas, MONDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2009 | 12:11 PM

KGI will endeavor for an affordable laptop for every teacher (installed with teaching programs) and to give computer trainings to teachers

SURABAYA, KOMPAS.com — East Java has been chosen for the "One Laptop for One Teacher" piloting program. If successful the program will be applied to all teachers in Indonesia.

Intel Indonesia Manager Budi Wahyu Jati stated, Sunday, Surabaya, that Intel is cooperating with several parties to execute the program. East Java has been chosen for piloting because the idea originally came from the teachers and education office from East Java.

"In Indonesia, Intel is cooperating with Tera data Indonesia, the distributor of Axioo, to provide laptops to every teacher. If we're successful here, then the program will be applied nationally."

In East java the project's name has been shortened (in Indonesian) to 'Sagusala'. The Indonesian Teachers' Club (KGI) that came up with the program endeavors to provide an affordable laptop for each teacher.

"But quality must be maintained," said Budi. Tera Data Indonusa CEO Singgih Halim stated that his company will cooperate with a bank to provide computer credits.

The credit will be given collectively. "The bank will provide cheap credit if there are many buyers. We will follow the bank's scheme."

For optimal usage, the computers will be equipped with some programs. The teachers can utilize them for teaching purposes.

KGI head Satria Dharma stated that so far there are a number of teaching programs that are ready to be installed into the teachers' computers. The teacher can choose the appropriate program according to needs. KGI wil also do routine trainings so that the teachers can use the laptops optimally.

Intel to shut sites and cut up to 6,000 jobs

By Ritsuko Ando, Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:02am EST  

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) said on Wednesday it would close manufacturing plants in Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as its only remaining factory in Silicon Valley, cutting as many as 6,000 jobs. 

The announcement comes a day after the world's largest maker of microprocessors used in personal computers slashed prices on a number of its chips and a week after it reported a decline in fourth-quarter revenue. 

Intel said it would close two assembly test facilities in Penang, Malaysia, and one in Cavite, Philippines. 

It will also halt production at a wafer fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, as well as its Santa Clara, California plant -- a factory connected to its headquarters and the only one left in Silicon Valley. 

The actions will result in a reduction of 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, Intel said. It ended 2008 with around 84,000 employees. 

Not all cuts at the affected plants will lead to job losses and some workers will be offered positions at other facilities, it said, adding that the restructuring will take place between now and the end of 2009. 

"It's not a surprise given that their first quarter is probably going to be challenging, and they're trying to do what they can to cut costs in places that make sense," said Taunya Sell, an analyst at Ragen Mackenzie, a division of Wells Fargo. 

Intel said it was not halting production at any of its more advanced factories. 

Intel shares rose about 1 percent to $13.40 in after-hours trading, after rising 3.11 percent to close at $13.26 on the Nasdaq stock market. 

Last week, Intel said its fourth-quarter revenue fell 23 percent from the year-ago period and profit tumbled 90 percent. It also held back on giving detailed quarterly forecasts, citing economic uncertainty. 

Analysts have been wary about Intel's outlook for the year as chip sales slide. PC makers and other technology companies have been trimming inventory and cutting back on purchases. 

Intel also faces competition from new, cheaper chips made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N). 

On Tuesday, Intel said it was lowering prices on some of its processors, including price cuts of up to 40 percent on some of its higher-powered, faster quad-core chips. 

AMD said earlier this month that it expected to post additional restructuring charges for fiscal 2008 and 2009. 

(Additional reporting by Robert MacMillan; Editing by Andre Grenon)

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Revving China's auto industry

Cars leave me cold, but not the BYD F3DM. I drove it the other day, and it really is remarkable.

By Peter Day, Global business correspondent, BBC News

In one way, it is a rather ordinary compact saloon car, though it did have exceptional acceleration when I put my foot down zooming round the factory grounds in Shenzhen, the vast new Chinese city just north of Hong Kong. 

This is a plug-in electric car, hence the acceleration, but when the electric battery runs out after 80 miles (128km), the petrol engine switches in seamlessly. 

"Oh, just like one of those new eco-friendly hybrid cars," you may think. 

But the makers argue that hybrids are more gas-guzzler than battery driven, whereas this model tries to be half and half. 

And the makers? Well they are called BYD, a Chinese company which has been in existence for a bare 13 years, and which only recently started making any kind of car at all. 

This new dual mode rechargeable car makes its launch appearance in China on 15 December, but BYD's Paul Lin let me have my test drive the other day. 

And then when he showed me the company museum, he really set me thinking.

What is a business only 13 years old doing with a museum anyway? 

Because the company has such enormous ambitions it wants to tell the world how far it has come and how much further it intends to go. 

Rapid growth 

Paul Lin showed me how BYD has evolved, starting with rechargeable batteries that soon became standard parts for one third of all the world's mobile phones, following the research speciality of the founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu. 

And the modest battery making company grew and grew. 

Wang Chuanfu soon saw that battery powered cars might be the future. 

BYD knew a lot about batteries, and it was not daunted by the complexities of car-making either. 

Six years ago, it bought two established Chinese car firms, and now BYD has seven huge plants with 130,000 employees. 

The car I drove is made at the new headquarters factory - a giant one in Shenzhen, a city which was just a fishing town 30 years ago, with some 70,000 inhabitants. 

Thanks to China's rush to modernise, Shenzhen is now part of the global manufacturing powerhouse in the Pearl River Delta, with an estimated population of 14m. 

Wheel of modernization 

BYD's vast new factory did not exist 15 months ago, and they had to level several hills and fill in several lakes to create the site. 

The workers mostly live in vast dormitories close by. 

Like most of the Shenzhen workforce, they have migrated into the city from distant country places, moving from poverty in search of the fabled better life, spinning the great wheel of China's modernisation.

The size and scale of what BYD has already achieved is breathtaking, but that is nothing compared to its ambition. 

This company has already made public its aim to be the number one car firm in China by the year 2015, and then - deep breath - number one in the whole world in 2025. 

Despite my scepticism, Paul Lin had no doubt about this. The current fate of the American car industry suggests there may be room at the top some time before that date. 

But to Paul Lin and the company he is part of, this ambition is entirely natural. 

Car making is less difficult than high technology, they argue, and many of the techniques they have learned in high tech can now be applied to the automobile. 

Remarkable endorsement 

I put my foot down and revved almost silently across the factory campus in my (sample) new car, and wondered about the future. 

As an exporter, China is going to be badly hit by the global recession, but already the best factories are evolving up the technology chain in much the same way as BYD has transformed itself from a supplier of other people's mobile phone batteries into a car maker with its own name on the front. 

Critics say this is a copycat car, but that is how the Japanese auto industry started. 

And in September there was a remarkable endorsement of BYD when even as global stock markets were plunging, the canniest American investor of them all, Warren Buffet of Omaha, Nebraska, paid $230m (£155m) for a 10% stake in the Chinese company. 

Mr Buffett is a quite notorious investor for the long-term, not the quick buck, so he must recognise something in those initials BYD. 

The company says they stand for "Build Your Dream", but they could mean absolutely anything.

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Intel works on tiny devices for eco-technology

Some of Intel Corp.'s tiny devices could one day have a big impact on the environment. 

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer, Friday, December 5, 2008 

The computer chipmaker on Friday offered reporters a glimpse of its research into products such as chip-size sensors that monitor air quality while riding piggyback on street-sweepers. Or cell phones that recharge themselves with energy "scavenged" from the environment. 

Sensing 

Intel has designed tiny sensors that can continuously analyze pollution. The company has tested a version of this technology in San Francisco, putting the sensors in small boxes attached to street-sweeping machines. A transmitter connected to the sensor relays the data to whoever needs it. Distributed around the globe, these devices could give scientists up-to-the-minute details of air quality worldwide. "We could, in fact, litter the planet with these things," Rattner said. "Why can't we have these sensors on your cell phones?" 

'Free' energy 

Intel is developing devices that can tap the energy in the environment around them. Sunlight is one possibility, but so are television signals, cell phone towers and body heat. The amounts of energy captured at any one time would be very small, so the devices would need to act as "scavengers," storing up energy until they had enough to perform a specific task. 

Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform (WISP) 

This concept merges sensing and energy scavenging. Intel is researching sensors that would store up energy until they had enough to run a built-in data transmitter. Again, because the amount of power involved would be small, the transmitter would have very limited range. But it could still be useful. Rattner gave an example of a medical implant monitoring a patient's health and transmitting data to a doctor by shipping that data to a cell phone near the implant. 

Adaptive power 

Energy demand in a computer or a data center isn't constant - it increases or decreases depending on what tasks the gear is performing. Intel is trying to develop processors that can follow changes in energy demand microsecond by microsecond (one millionth of a second), minimizing the amount of electricity lost to idling. 

E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.

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As Intel Nears 40, Technologist Offers His Look Into Future

By DON CLARK, The Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO -- A top Intel Corp. technologist used the company's impending 40th anniversary as an opportunity to make four broad predictions about the future of the chip industry. Not surprisingly, he sees the company's products evolving rapidly and spreading into many new places.

Patrick Gelsinger, a senior vice president who has served as Intel's chief technology officer, told reporters at a briefing here to expect a sharp acceleration in the number of computing engines packed on each chip. While today's personal computers have chips with the core circuitry of one to four microprocessors, Intel is laying the groundwork for the "many core" era -- products featuring tens to hundreds of electronic brains.

That won't help with today's common computing jobs, like running word processors and spreadsheets, but Mr. Gelsinger predicted programmers will find many new ways to take advantage of the added processing power.

Medical images that take hours to process will become instantly available and interactive, speeding diagnoses, he said. Accurate speech recognition will replace typing input, and the basic interface software that controls the look and feel of computers will dramatically evolve to better interpret what users want. "It becomes immersive, intuitive and interactive," said Mr. Gelsinger, who is general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group.

As with some of Mr. Gelsinger's other predictions -- which amplify broad themes the company has sounded before -- there is a catch with many-core computing: It will require the development of new programming languages, tools and techniques, he said.

Another prediction is that the company's underlying chip design -- often called x86, but also labeled IA, for Intel architecture -- will push into cellphones, consumer products and other applications where it is not now commonplace. The biggest obstacles in cellphones include power consumption -- even Intel's latest Atom chip draws too much power -- and a stable of companies use an energy-efficient design from ARM Holdings PLC.

Intel's Atom chips are suited for ultra-small portable computers, and Mr. Gelsinger said the company is committed in the next version to target the cellphone market. The company's x86 technology also could bring huge software advantages, he said, as thousands of companies that make programs for PCs using the technology add products for handsets.

A third prediction concerns an even broader vision of ubiquity for Intel chips: that computing and Internet capability will become available to every person on the planet, 24 hours a day, Mr. Gelsinger said. That vision implies combinations of microprocessors, sensors and other devices that further enhance the capabilities of products such as automatic teller machines, cars and door locks. "You will be interacting with the computing experience without ever thinking of it."

A fourth prediction concerns Moore's Law, the oft-quoted prediction by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore about how the industry doubles the capabilities of chips every year or two. In particular, Intel is betting heavily that the industry will move to a new generation of the silicon wafers that serve as a substrate for chip manufacturing.

By moving to 450-millimeter wafers -- up from 300 millimeter wafers today -- the average cost of producing each chip can be driven down by 40%, Mr. Gelsinger noted. Assuming that happens, he predicted more chip makers that can't or don't want to put up the billions of dollars required to use 450-millimeter wafers will drop out of the industry.

Intel cheap laptops expanding to U.S., Europe

Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:13pm EDT

By Jim Finkle and Duncan Martell

BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday sub-$300 laptops initially designed for poor children will soon be available to U.S. and European consumers in a move that could further push down computer prices.

Craig Barrett (C), chairman of Intel, looks on as a student of Gwarinpa secondary school uses a laptop computer in Abuja, Nigeria, October 31, 2007.

PC makers in the United States and in Europe will sell a yet-to-be-unveiled, second-generation version of the Intel-designed Classmate PC for $250 to $350, said Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel's emerging market platform's group, in an interview with Reuters.

"This is a very big deal," said Laura Didio, an analyst with Yankee Group who follows the personal computer industry.

While the machines are intended for children, analysts said the launch will add momentum to the low-cost computing movement -- and will likely mean this year's bargain-basement laptops will have more power than in previous years.

"Particularly in a recession year, quality low-cost products are going to move well," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "But the key is for them to be quality."

He said while he hasn't yet seen the machines that will be on sale this Christmas, he suspects consumers will be able to get "a pretty decent" laptop for less than $600 and perhaps for less than $500.

Didio said retailers might throw in another $50 to $100 in rebates or other incentives.

Laptop prices have been under extra pressure since last year, when Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc (2357.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) introduced the $399 Eee PC, which has flown off store shelves from Asia to North America.

The machine runs on the Linux operating system, and people used to Microsoft's (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Windows and Apple's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Mac OS X operating systems have had trouble adapting to the system, Enderle said.

The new, cheap laptops being developed from Intel's technology will likely run on Windows, he added.

The movement toward low-cost computing was also spurred by the XO laptop, the brainchild of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

The foundation began producing a laptop running on Linux at a cost of $188 in November. They sold them in the United States and in Canada for $400 through a charity drive that also provided one machine to a poor child overseas.

The chipmaker has conducted pilot tests of the Classmate PC at schools in Texas, Oregon and California, along with some schools in Australia, said Intel spokeswoman Agnes Kwan.

Intel said manufacturers in India, Mexico and Indonesia already have begun selling Classmate PC laptops on the retail market.

To date, Intel has sold fewer than 100,000 of the Classmate PCs, but plans to ramp up production in 2008.

Intel declined to identify the PC makers or discuss the features of the second-generation machine, which has not yet been released in developing markets, at the request of the companies.

It has already begun work on a third model, the Classmate 3, said Ibrahim.

The second- and third-generation models of the Classmate PC design give manufacturers flexibility to build a range of laptops with different memory configurations, screen sizes and peripheral devices including cameras, Ibrahim said.

Inventor Mary Lou Jepsen, a scientist who developed the XO Laptop, resigned from the One Laptop Per Child Foundation at the end of last year and started her own company Pixel Qi with the goal of building a $75 laptop by 2010.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Duncan Martell in San Francisco; editing by Carol Bishopric/Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Surf the net while surfing waves

BBC News,

For a decade, "surfing" has come to mean browsing the net rather than riding ocean waves on a plank.

But a surfboard has now been developed that lets surfers surf while surfing. The prototype board has been built by Devon "shaper" Jools Matthews.

It houses a laptop, solar panels, and video camera, and is to launch at the Intel GoldCoast Oceanfest on 18 June.

The world's first wi-fi board uses a high-speed net connection point - hotspot - positioned on the beach.

Chip makers Intel has commissioned the unusual surfboard as part of the free sports and music festival in North Devon to show off how technology can be brought to the sea and sand.

The board will have its maiden outing on the waves when it is used by international pro surfer Duncan Scott at the event.

Ride with the best

"As a professional surfer, explorer, writer, film producer and world traveller, being able to communicate quickly and effectively is critical to my success," said Mr Scott, who also advised on the board's design.

"In the near future," he added, "via wireless real-time streaming, it could be possible that observers will, for the first time, actually be able to 'ride' a wave with the best surfers in the world."

The board itself is 9ft 4 inch long board, ideally suited to the particular waves found along the UK's "Surfers' Paradise" in North Devon.

The technology, supplied by Intel, is tucked away neatly in the board, inside a specially designed waterproof casing.

The casing is made of a tough but lightweight tray, and has a silicone seal, a crystal PVC cover and an aluminium gasket.

The tablet laptop has a wireless chip, a 1.7Ghz processor and a 80Gb hard drive.

Power comes from the solar panels fitted onto the board, and it also has a video camera which can store 64Mb worth of wave-catching action.

Serious side

But even though it is all a bit of fun, serious efforts have been made to ensure the technology did not interfere with the ride and feel of the board, said Intel.

The laptop weighs in at 2.3kg and its position in the board was careful calculated to maintain the desired balance for surfers.

"It's all about giving people the freedom to get online when and where they want - and this technology demonstrates that with a bit of imagination you can do just that," said Tim Hatch, Intel's consumer marketing manager.

The GoldCoast Oceanfest takes place from 18 to 20 June at Croyde beach in North Devon.

SAP unveils Google-inspired software, iPhone program

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - SAP unveiled on Tuesday the first in a new generation of business software products that focus on ease of use, borrowing tools that have drawn hundreds of millions of users to Google.

The German company is the world's biggest maker of business management software and, while analysts generally praise its broad line of products for their deep functionality and analytical abilities, they say they are difficult to use.

SAP Vice President Ian Kimbell demonstrated the first in a new line of software dubbed SAP CRM 2007 at a conference attended by some 500 industry analysts and customers in Boston.

"It didn't look like SAP," said Daryl Ganas, director of sales and marketing operations for Intel, one of several companies that has helped SAP test the software.

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Asian Governments Promote Open Source Development

Government support for open source is helping Red Hat grow its business in the Asia-Pacific region.

PCWorld

John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

Saturday, October 27, 2007 5:00 PM PDT

Asian governments are pivotal to Red Hat Inc.'s goal of earning 60 percent of its revenue from outside the US by the end of 2009, said Matthew Szulik, the company's chairman, chief executive officer, and president, in a conference call on Thursday.

Governments in the region are beginning to see open source as a boost for their economies and a way to increase technological innovation in the region, Szulik said. The governments of South Korea, Japan, Australia, and China have been "positive spokespeople" for the growing adoption of Linux and open source software in the region, he added.

Most of the business for Red Hat in the region, as in the rest of the world, is in the transition from Unix and legacy systems to the Linux operating system. Customers are typically in the financial services, telecommunications, technology and the government sector, Szulik said.

At the end of August, Red Hat's revenue for the first six months of its fiscal year was US$246 million [m], up 34 percent from the previous year. About 85 percent of its revenue came from software subscriptions with the balance coming from services like consulting and training. The company does not break out revenue by regions.

Red Hat also had $33 million in operating income for the six months period, up 48 percent from the same period in the previous year. The company has over $1.3 billion in cash on its balance sheet, said Charlie Peters, Red Hat's chief financial officer.

Apart from continuing opportunities in the market for replacement of the Unix operating system with Linux, Red Hat is also seeing revenue coming in from middleware, Peters said. The company acquired JBoss Inc., a vendor of open-source middleware, in June 2006.

Red Hat plans to roll out new technologies in the coming months that will help customers build global virtualized computing infrastructure, Szulik said. The company introduced server, storage, and desktop virtualization as part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 earlier this year.

An increase in availability of third-party applications around Linux helped boost demand, as Linux has been expanding its share of servers based on Intel Corp.'s x86 architecture and IBM Corp.'s mainframe and server environments, Szulik said. In addition, there has been an increase of technically trained staff with Linux and open-source skills, he added.