Latest Trends In Printing Technology

The emergence of digital and Internet technologies in recent years have brought about new printing trends that will forever change the printing industry. These printing industry trends have changed the way companies do business from the design to the printing phase of operations.
In Australia, the printing industry has met these new printing trends with open arms as many have updated their workflow and production strategies to meet the changing demands. On the other hand, many of those who never made these important changes have struggled because of the growing competition by non-print and online media.
According to the Rochester Institute of Technology School of Print Media, there has been a growing media competition considering the fact that print advertising is driven by newspaper, magazine and periodical revenues while "the Internet is chipping away at traditional media usage and communication."
The recent developments in the printing industry can be attributed to several printing trends:

Workflow Digitisation
• One of the most important printing industry trends has been the electronic delivery of files as desktop publishing takes full control of the printing process.
• There is an emerging need for the electronic delivery of graphics and images, which has made film media process obsolete.
• The industry has adopted automated workflow processes that would link customers, printing systems and services like never before.

Technology Integration
• Printing trends are gearing towards full workflow automation with the development of computer-to-plate imaging technologies that allow desktop publishing applications to output directly to a printing plate.
• Many printing presses are integrating "hybrid" printing by combining different reproduction processes since many print jobs are complex with specialised coating or printing requirements.
• There is a growing trend in cross media conversion from one file to any information distribution and electronic publishing methods.
• The advancement of digital technologies such as Direct Imaging offset presses and Inkjet printers have made colour printing cost effective.

Changing Demands
• Printing trends have also pointed towards shorter production runs and schedules in an effort to compete with digital printing.
• Printing production now shifts closer to the point of distribution as printing trends move away from being press-centric to printer-centric.
• A greater volume of printing jobs has moved away from printing companies to those produced by desktop printing and offshore printing firms.

The implementation of new printing industry trends such as the workflow digitisation, technology integration and changing demands have transformed companies into more efficient and effective businesses. However, some niche pre-print operations are now rendered obsolete because desktop publishing has eliminated the need for pre-press and film-based processes. The implementation of a digitised workflow has further automated the printing process and at the same time freed the operation from labour-intensive tasks that may hamper production schedules. Despite the growing significance of online-based services, the printing industry remains strong and enduring as it adopts new strategies to achieve success in the future.

Penfold Research is an industry leader in office products market, printing trends and stationery market research.

Storage Technology

Over the past few years, the means by which we access our data has changed dramatically. No longer are we encumbered with floppy disks and CDs. With the emergence of cloud computing and USB technology, data storage has changed quite a bit.

Where to Put Data

As the cost of storing digital data goes lower and lower, new storage solutions emerge and become viable. Long gone are the floppy disks of the 80s and 90s. The CD is old news, and the DVD is more of the same. USB keys were hot a few years ago, and still enjoy popularity, but the real trend is the move towards online storage; putting your data "in the cloud."
Gmail
Google presents Gmail as the end-all email solution. Never again delete an email, because every passing day brings additional storage space. It currently offers over 7 GB of free storage (and counting), far more than the typical user expects to accumulate, considering most emails are a few kilobytes in size.
Decorative USB Keys
Also called "flash drives", these little cases of plastic and metal have outgrown their utilitarian beginnings to become fashion accessories in their own right. They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, made to look like sushi, teddy bears, sports accessories, or whatever you're interested in. Modern flash drives typically carry 1GB or more of data, and have become increasingly affordable, some costing as little as $10.
External Hard Drives
External hard drives have become smaller and more stylish. Now sporting shiny enclosures and thin form factors, they're portable enough to fit into a laptop bag and allow you to not worry about running out of storage space when you're on a photo shoot, vacation, or business trip.
Optical Media
DVD burners and rewritable DVD media have become affordable enough to equip most new PCs with the drives. Standard density DVDs can store up to 4.7 GB of data, roughly seven times as much as CDs of the previous generation. With bulk DVDs costing less than $1 each, the possibility of backing up all your favorite movies is finally a reality.
Blu-Ray has also come to the forefront of digital storage options. For storing high-quality video, it's the best option, though the cost has not yet dropped far enough to reach mainstream consumers.

Trends In Memory

Memory Trends 2010

October and November are perhaps the best time to look at memory trend for the coming New Year. At this point, the Christmas electronic production rush is probably over. New consumer electronics have already been introduced for the Christmas Season. However, we must caution that the 2009 year end sales Season will be different. This is due to the Lunar New Year falling on February 14, 2010 of the Western calendar.

Together with the economic progression in China and the recovery of the Pacific Rim economy, the Lunar New Year pre-holiday market cannot be ignored. I am, therefore, predicting that the year end electronic market will carry into January and even early February of 2010. As with demand in electronics, the need for memory, a key component, will also be increased.

DDR2 to DDR3 change over.

History have taught us that technology alone did not turn people to new generation of memory, it was price parity that prompted the consumer to change. DDR3 memory has been in the laboring stage for the last two years. Manufacturer over capacity had kept DDR2 prices down. Consumer has no incentive to switch to DDR3 memory. Memory price depression persisted until summer of 2009 when inventory finally tightened and DDR2 prices went from $0.80 to over $2.65 on 1 Gb devices (See DXI index). DDR2 prices had finally surpassed DDR3 in October 2009. 

I see this price trend will continue until after the Lunar New Year when demand subsides.

Window 7 creates demand for PC memory

Window 7, the new Microsoft OS system, was introduced on October 22, 2009. Early report indicates market acceptance double that of Windows Vista. Consumers like the ease-of-use and less intimidation. Considering the fact that majority Corporate USA has not upgraded their OS for 5 years already, PC shipment rate will probably increase. With price parity between DDR2 and DDR3, DDR3 will be adopted very fast. I can see 30% DDR3 by summer 2010 and 50% adoption rate by year end 2010. This would help the DRAM industry to rebuild.

Notebook Memory to dominate

As for home PC users, 2010 would be the year to convert from desktop to laptop. We can see that laptops are already outselling desktops in the home computing market. Together with the attractive prices of Netbook and Media Computers, portability will be the seller. With the prices of Netbook at under $200, I am also seeing the computer penetration into the grass root of emerging countries like China and India. We should see PC adaptation rate to grow exponentially in many parts of the world. SODIMM memory module will be the favorite.

Mobile Memory

Smart Phones will create a new demand for memory. Apple iPhone and RIM Blackberry had set the stage and standard for smart phones, Android phones will open the flood gate. 2010 will be the year that smart phones can take hold and become a household necessity. New smart phones use low power LPDDR DRAM for operational memory and NAND Flash for storage memory. Memory consumption will be big and getting bigger. Memory will come in the form of MCP (multi-chip package). That means Nand Flash would be physically stacked over LPDRAM in a complex package. Standards will emerge for these MCP’s to drive costs down.  

Small geometry and multi-levels NAND

Nand flash geometry is at 32nm going to 22nm. Levels per cell is going from 2 levels to 3 levels and moving towards 4 levels. That means some general purpose USB stick and SD card prices will be reduced. This would generate mass adoption beyond what we have today. Due to the lower reliability of the 3 level and 4 level cells, they will be promoted as the Kodak film equivalent. They will be limited to small re-write cycles or one time usage applications.

During 2010, SSD (solid state drive) will progress but would not take quantum laps. This is due to the inherent write reliability issue. Although advance in controller technology has overcome part of the problem, yet it is still expensive and short of perfection. Enterprise systems will use SSD for storage caching to increase access speed and take advantage of this “mostly read” situation.   

Server Memory will increase

 In 2010, server memory configuration will still be the FB-DIMM. More server and greater memory capacity will be demanded by ISP and data operators. On the other hand, they are becoming more power conscious. The new slogan is to drive server and data centers “green”. International standards for power saving servers will be set and adopted.

As in increase in server capacity, “cloud computing” push will resurface. Some corporations will go for terminal link to central computing to avoid software maintenance and cost. The result is a new demand for  low power, high speed and high capacity memory modules designed especially for servers.  

We will see DDR3 memory to go from 1.5Volt power supply to 1.35Volt power. The norm for high capacity server modules will be 4 ranks and either 8GB or 16GB per module. DDR3 multi-rank Registered DIMM will fill the demand for first part of 2010. The new LR-DIMM (load reduced DIMM) will surface at the end of the year replacing the FB-DIMM. This LR-DIMM is different from FB-DIMM by the signal input structure. While the FB-DIMM uses serial protocol, the LR-DIMM uses the stable parallel protocol and thus achieves higher operational frequency while maintaining the same memory density.

Conclusion

Although we are just climbing out of a memory depression, the year of 2010 promised to be positive in all aspects. PC volume will grow. Laptops will flourish, Nand flash will find new application while servers will take a new dimension in memory. 2010 is looking to be a good year for the memory industry.

Intel Core i7 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Core i7 Core i7 920 quad front and back.jpg Produced From 2008 Common manufacturer(s) * Intel Max. CPU clock rate 1.6 GHz to 3.33 GHz QPI speeds 4.8 GT/s to 6.4 GT/s Min. feature size 32 nm to 45 nm Instruction set x86, x86-64, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES-NI (Gulftown only) Microarchitecture Nehalem Cores 2-6 (6 in the Gulftown 9x0X Extreme versions) Socket(s) * LGA 1366 LGA 1156 µPGA-988 BGA-1288 Core name(s) * Bloomfield Lynnfield Clarksfield Clarksfield XM Intel Core i7 is an Intel brand name for several families of desktop and laptop 64-bit x86-64 processors using the Nehalem, Westmere, and upcoming Sandy Bridge microarchitectures. The "Core i7" brand is marketed for the business and high-end consumer markets and is intended to differentiate these processors from Core i5 processors intended for the main-stream consumer market and Core i3 processors intended for the entry-level consumer market. "Core i7" is a successor to the Intel Core 2 brand.[1][2][3][4] The Core i7 identifier was first applied to the initial family of processors[5][6] codenamed Bloomfield introduced in 2008. In 2009 the name was applied to Lynnfield and Clarksfield models.[7] Prior to 2010, all models were quad-core processors. In 2010, the name was applied to dual-core Arrandale models, and the Gulftown Core i7-980X Extreme processor which has six hyperthreaded cores. Intel representatives state that the moniker Core i7 is meant to help consumers decide which processor to purchase as the newer Nehalem-based products are released in the future.[8] The name continues the use of the Intel Core brand.[9] Core i7, first assembled in Costa Rica,[10] was officially launched on November 17, 2008[11] and is manufactured in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon, though the Oregon (PTD, Fab D1D) plant has moved to the next generation 32 nm process. Contents [hide] * 1 Processor cores o 1.1 Specifications * 2 See also * 3 References * 4 External links [edit] Processor cores Main articles: Bloomfield (microprocessor), Lynnfield (microprocessor), Clarksfield (microprocessor), Arrandale (microprocessor), and Gulftown (microprocessor) The initial Core i7 processors released were codenamed Bloomfield, branded as Core i7-9xx along with their Xeon 3500-series counterparts. As of 2009, they are Intel's high-end Desktop processors, sharing the Socket 1366 platform with the single and dual-processor server processors. Lynnfield is the second processor sold under the Core i7 brand, while at the same time being sold as Core i5. Unlike Bloomfield, it does not have a QPI interface but directly connects to a southbridge using a 2.5 GT/s Direct Media Interface and to other devices using PCI Express links in its Socket 1156. Core i7 processors based on Lynnfield have Hyper-Threading, which is disabled in Lynnfield-based Core i5 processors. Clarksfield is the mobile version of Lynnfield and available under the Core i7 Mobile brand, as part of the Calpella platform. It was released at the Intel Developer Forum on September 23, 2009.[12] The second mobile Core i7 processor family will be Arrandale, sold as the Core i7-6xx processors and featuring an integrated graphics processing unit but only two processor cores, half of Clarksfield. Clarkdale, the desktop version of Arrandale, will not be sold as Core i7, but only as Core i3 and Core i5. All support Intel's Hyper Threading (HT). Gulftown is the Extreme Edition version of the Core i7, featuring 6 cores, 32 nm process, Hyper-Threading (for a total of 12 logical threads), 12 MB of cache, Turbo Boost and Intel QuickPath connection bus.[13][14][15] [edit] Specifications Codename (main article) Logo New Logo Brand name (list) Cores L3 Cache Socket TDP Min. feature size I/O Bus Release Date Gulftown Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition logo as of 2009 Core i7-980X Extreme Edition 6 12 MB LGA 1366 130 W 32 nm QuickPath Mar 2010 Core i7-970 Jul 2010 Bloomfield Core i7-9xx Extreme Edition 4 8 MB 45 nm Nov 2008 Intel Core i7 Intel Core i7 logo as of 2009 Core i7-9xx Lynnfield Core i7-8xx LGA 1156 95 W Direct Media Interface Sep 2009 Core i7-8xxS 82 W Jan 2010 Clarksfield Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition logo as of 2009 Core i7-9xxXM Extreme Edition µPGA-989 55 W Sep 2009 Intel Core i7 Intel Core i7 logo as of 2009 Core i7-8xxQM 45 W Core i7-7xxQM 6 MB Arrandale Core i7-6xxM 2 4 MB 35 W 32 nm Direct Media Interface, Integrated GPU Jan 2010 Core i7-6xxLM 25 W

 

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Intel Core i7

Core i7

Produced	From 2008
Common manufacturer(s)	Intel
Max. CPU clock rate	1.6 GHz to 3.33 GHz
QPI speeds	4.8 GT/s to 6.4 GT/s
Min. feature size	32 nm to 45 nm
Instruction set	x86, x86-64, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES-NIGulftown ( only)
Microarchitecture	Nehalem
Cores	2-6 (6 in the Gulftown 9x0X Extreme versions)
Socket(s)	LGA 1366 LGA 1156 µPGA-988 BGA-1288
Core name(s)	Bloomfield Lynnfield Clarksfield Clarksfield XM

Intel Core i7 is an Intel brand name for several families of desktop and laptop 64-bit x86-64 processors using the Nehalem, Westmere, and upcoming Sandy Bridge microarchitectures. The "Core i7" brand is marketed for the business and high-end consumer markets and is intended to differentiate these processors from Core i5 processors intended for the main-stream consumer market and Core i3 processors intended for the entry-level consumer market.

"Core i7" is a successor to the Intel Core 2 brand.^[1][2][3][4] The Core i7 identifier was first applied to the initial family of processors^[5][6] codenamed Bloomfield introduced in 2008. In 2009 the name was applied to Lynnfield and Clarksfield models.^[7] Prior to 2010, all models were quad-core processors. In 2010, the name was applied to dual-core Arrandale models, and the Gulftown Core i7-980X Extreme processor which has six hyperthreaded cores.

Intel representatives state that the moniker Core i7 is meant to help consumers decide which processor to purchase as the newer Nehalem-based products are released in the future.^[8] The name continues the use of the Intel Core brand.^[9] Core i7, first assembled in Costa Rica,^[10] was officially launched on November 17, 2008^[11] and is manufactured in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon, though the Oregon (PTD, Fab D1D) plant has moved to the next generation 32 nm process.

Processor cores

Main articles: Bloomfield (microprocessor), Lynnfield (microprocessor), Clarksfield (microprocessor), Arrandale (microprocessor), and Gulftown (microprocessor)

The initial Core i7 processors released were codenamed Bloomfield, branded as Core i7-9xx along with their Xeon 3500-series counterparts. As of 2009, they are Intel's high-end Desktop processors, sharing the Socket 1366 platform with the single and dual-processor server processors.

Lynnfield is the second processor sold under the Core i7 brand, while at the same time being sold as Core i5. Unlike Bloomfield, it does not have a QPI interface but directly connects to a southbridge using a 2.5 GT/s Direct Media Interface and to other devices using PCI Express links in its Socket 1156. Core i7 processors based on Lynnfield have Hyper-Threading, which is disabled in Lynnfield-based Core i5 processors.

Clarksfield is the mobile version of Lynnfield and available under the Core i7 Mobile brand, as part of the Calpella platform. It was released at the Intel Developer Forum on September 23, 2009.^[12]

The second mobile Core i7 processor family will be Arrandale, sold as the Core i7-6xx processors and featuring an integrated graphics processing unit but only two processor cores, half of Clarksfield. Clarkdale, the desktop version of Arrandale, will not be sold as Core i7, but only as Core i3 and Core i5. All support Intel's Hyper Threading (HT).

Gulftown is the Extreme Edition version of the Core i7, featuring 6 cores, 32 nm process, Hyper-Threading (for a total of 12 logical threads), 12 MB of cache, Turbo Boost and Intel QuickPath connection bus.^[13][14][15]

Specifications

Codename (main article)	Logo	New Logo	Brand name (list)	Cores	L3 Cache	Socket	TDP	Min. feature size	I/O Bus	Release Date
Gulftown			Core i7-980X Extreme Edition	6	12 MB	LGA 1366	130 W	32 nm	QuickPath	Mar 2010
			Core i7-970							Jul 2010
Bloomfield			Core i7-9xx Extreme Edition	4	8 MB			45 nm		Nov 2008
			Core i7-9xx
Lynnfield			Core i7-8xx			LGA 1156	95 W		Direct Media Interface	Sep 2009
			Core i7-8xxS				82 W			Jan 2010
Clarksfield			Core i7-9xxXM Extreme Edition			µPGA-989	55 W			Sep 2009
			Core i7-8xxQM				45 W
			Core i7-7xxQM		6 MB
Arrandale			Core i7-6xxM	2	4 MB		35 W	32 nm	Direct Media Interface, Integrated GPU	Jan 2010
			Core i7-6xxLM				25 W