Intel Takes Home Two 2006 PC Magazine Technical Excellence Awards
Two Intel technologies have been chosen by PC Magazine for Awards for Technical Excellence for 2006. The 23rd annual awards celebrate the best technology achievements of the year. The magazine's editors and PC Magazine Labs teams selected the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture and a hybrid silicon laser invented by Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
In the December 26, 2006 issue of PC Magazine, editors recognize Intel with two innovation awards for the added features and benefits the company is building into these technologies. "Each of the Technical Excellence Award winners has developed technology that is sure to become tomorrow's gold standard" said PC Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jim Louderback.
"Winning the PC Magazine technical excellence award validates the hard work and dedication of the many Intel engineers around the world who devoted themselves to the task of making Intel Core microarchitecture the best in the world for personal computers," said David (Dadi) Perlmutter, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group. "Intel® Core™2 Duo puts us in a leadership position, and our strong future roadmap in tandem with our one year leadership in process technology will help us keep and increase our leadership."
Processors—Intel® Core™ microarchitecture
Intel Core microarchitecture earned the technical excellence award in the Processors category. PC Magazine calls the new architecture "a radical shift" and notes that "[Intel Core 2 Duo], the first desktop product, proved 20 to 60 percent faster than AMD's top-of-the-line Athlon 64 FX-62*" and that "the mobile Core 2 Duo has been included in nearly every laptop released over the past few months."
"Having Intel Core microarchitecture win the PC Magazine award is a sweet ending for four years of work," said Ron Friedman, vice president of the Intel Mobility Group and general manager of the Mobile Microprocessor Group, whose teams spearheaded the design efforts. "Developing CPUs is hard work, with long design processes and many unforeseen issues to overcome along the way. Moments like winning this award make it all worthwhile and give us a huge sense of accomplishment and great team pride."
Semiconductors—hybrid silicon laser
In the Semiconductors category, hybrid silicon lasers developed from research jointly conducted by Intel's Silicon Photonics Lab and the University of California at Santa Barbara took home the technical excellence award. The technology, based on silicon photonics, could enable future computers to transmit data far more quickly. PC Magazine notes that the new technology "integrates silicon and a light-emitting indium phosphide compound to create an inexpensive laser that bridges electron computing with the faster and cooler world of photons."
"This award is a testament to the talent, hard work and teamwork of the teams from Intel and UC Santa Barbara," said Mario Paniccia, Intel Fellow and director, Photonics Technology Lab. "The hybrid silicon laser technology will be a key step toward enabling optical interconnects on our future platforms that operate at one tera-bit per second or greater."
