graphics processors

The Khronos Group on Monday announced that its OpenCL 1.0 specification has been ratified and publicly released. Apple proposed the spec six months ago.

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is the first open, royalty-free standard for cross-platform, parallel programming of modern processors found in personal computers, servers and handheld/embedded devices.

When Apple released its MacBook Pro laptop, reviewers called it an evolutionary improvement and touted its new GeForce 8600 GT mobile graphics processor, made by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia. Now some models may have faulty chips.

After months of speculation that the MacBook Pro included failing Nvidia chips, Apple finally said Thursday that three MacBook Pro models manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008, including the 15-inch, 17-inch and Early 2008, may have faulty chips.

Intel revealed details Monday about its upcoming family of graphics processors with multiple cores, code-named Larrabee. The new processors are expected to compete with market leaders NVIDIA and AMD's ATI division.

Details unveiled in an Intel-authored paper include a new approach to rendering 3-D, a programming model and performance analysis for several applications, and multiple processor engines. Intel plans to present its plan at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles on Aug. 12.

Rambus has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California accusing Nvidia of infringing on its high-speed memory designs. Rambus claims that graphics processors and chipsets in six different Nvidia product lines infringe on 17 Rambus memory technology patents.

Leading graphics chipmaker Nvidia on Monday introduced its new lineup of GeForce GTX 200 graphics processors. They are expected to be available in graphics cards later this month.

The GTX 200 GPU, according to Nvidia, "is the most advanced GPU ever built." Instead of requiring more than five hours to convert a video for an iPod, the new GPU needs only about half an hour.

High Resolution

The next version of Apple's OS X operating system will include breakthroughs in programming parallel processors, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told The New York Times in an interview after this week's Worldwide Developers Conference.

"The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things," Jobs said. "I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it."

The next version of Apple's OS X operating system will include breakthroughs in programming parallel processors, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told The New York Times in an interview after this week's Worldwide Developers Conference.

"The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things," Jobs said. "I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it."