Chips A-Hoy

Two power-houses in the chip-making industry are announcing more progress in their exploits. Intel (INTC) will spin-off their flash memory unit to focus on their microprocessor line. "By merging the two units, the companies will realize cost savings that should boost profit margins. Intel should see its profit margins immediately expand. Gross margin, which was 51.4% last year, should improve by two percentage points."
Meanwhile, IBM has released its POWER6 microprocessor, which they claim is the world's fastest chip with twice the clock speed of their previous generation while consuming roughly the same amount of power. "The POWER6 chip, which operates at 4.7 gigahertz, will allow businesses to consolidate servers and handle substantially larger workloads, doubling the speed of the previous generation POWER5 chip while using the same amount of electricity for running and cooling. This means customers can use the new processor either to increase their performance by 100% or cut their power consumption in half. POWER6 also claims to be nearly three times faster than the latest HP Itanium processor that runs HP's server line." The Singularity is Near!