Highlights On Eve Of Intel Developer Forum 2007

Highlights On Eve Of Intel Developer Forum 2007

On the eve of the Intel Developer Forum, Sept. 18-20, 2007, Intel held briefings focused on research, software solutions and Intel Capital. Below are summaries of each presentation and the major news disclosed during the day.

Recent Breakthroughs in Silicon Photonics
Dr. Mario Pannicia
Intel Fellow, Director Photonics Technology Lab

Pannicia presented the silicon photonics vision and discussed Intel's recent breakthrough - a silicon laser modulator that can encode data at 40Gbps - and described new advances in silicon photo-detectors for fast and ultra-sensitive optical receivers.

* Latest Breakthrough in Silicon Photonics: Pannicia presented Intel's latest breakthrough - a silicon and germanium based photo-detector that can detect laser light signals at speeds of over 40 billion bits per second.

Helping Software Developers Programming for Multi-core
James Reinders
Director of Sales and Marketing, Technical Evangelist, Software Development Products

James Reinders spoke about the state of parallel programming and what Intel is doing to help software developers prepare for this new world of software development. Reinders reviewed current challenges, discussed Intel products to help software developers and gave an update on Intel Threading Building Blocks. 

* Whatif.intel.com:  Reinders launched whatif.intel.com, a vehicle for software developers to experience and help shape the future of software. It offers the opportunity to discuss and offer feedback on promising software technology from Intel, interaction with Intel researchers, product designers and software professionals, and easy and free access to the Intel STM Compiler, a Mixed Mode Debugger and a new Performance Tuning Tool - all three were announced and released with the launch of Whatif.intel.com.

* Availability of a prototype C / C++ compiler implementing software transactional memory: Reinders disclosed the immediate availability of a prototype version of Intel's widely used compiler, which implements Transactional Memory (TM) as an extension to the C and C++ languages. The availability of such a prototype compiler allows unprecedented exploration by C / C++ software developers of a promising technique to make programming for multi-core easier. 

* Update on Intel Threading Building Blocks: Reinders shared the news from Autodesk that their latest version of the Academy Award winning Autodesk Maya product used Intel Threading Building Blocks to realize 7X gains on a dual quad-core machine. This version of Maya started to ship in August. James also reported that contributors have helped additional ports be available for TBB, in addition to the significant number of users which the project has attracted.

* Update on Intel Software College and Higher Education Programmes:  Reinders said two additional full courses are added this month to professionals through training centres. Making material available to professors allowed the programme to also reach 7,000 undergraduates in 40 universities in 2006, and this year will exceed 25,000 students in well over 300 universities (280 by this month, estimated 400 by the end of the year).

Tera-scale software research: Programming 10s-100s of cores
Jerry Bautista
Co-Director of Intel Tera-scale Computing Research

Bautista explained how Intel researchers are working to translate and extend supercomputing expertise into future mainstream platforms by enhancing architectures, language extensions and software stacks and developing new tools and techniques. Bautista detailed three research projects promising to help make programming easier for data parallel applications, integrated accelerator cores and shared memory management.

Investing for Global Impact
Arvind Sodhani
President Intel Capital

Sodhani presented Intel Capital's global investment strategy, including its technology and geographic focus areas, while offering insight on international investment trends. He discussed Intel Capital's recent investment data and examples of company-building activities. Lisa Lambert, Managing Director of the Software and Solutions Group, discussed Intel Capital's strategy and recent investments in the software space including innovative Web 2.0 portfolio companies.

* News: Intel Capital and MCI recently invested in Bulgarian WiMAX operator Nexcom, an alternative telecommunications operator which is currently constructing a nationwide WiMAX network.

* News: Intel Capital recently invested in Nascentric, an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company focused on providing innovative Fast-SPICE simulation and analysis tools.

Extending Energy Efficiency from Silicon to the Platform and Beyond
Raj Hazra
Director Systems Technology Lab

Hazra reviewed the issues around power delivery and power management across different computing platforms. He explored what Intel researchers are doing to improve power delivery and management on Intel platforms and beyond as well as Intel's role in driving industry initiatives to improve energy efficiency.

About Intel

Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live.

ENDS

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