SiliconBeat

Chip industry watchers have been eagerly awaiting news about the progress of Intel’s graphics-oriented chip, dubbed Larrabee, which has been under development for what seems like ages.

Intel executives hope Larrabee will help them compete with the highly popular graphic chips offered by Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

But when Intel gave a little demonstration of its chip last week during the Santa Clara company’s annual San Francisco event for people working on Intel-related products, the reaction among some analysts was less than awestruck.

“The 3D graphics were underwhelming” compared with those offered by Nvidia’s and AMD’s chips, wrote Global Crown Research in a note to its clients.

In its own note, Raymond James called Intel’s unveiling of Larrabee “surprisingly pedestrian” and noted that “the sad demo tells us the project is in trouble.”

Ouch!

As a service to our loyal readers who are weary of the relentless parade of negative news offered up these days by various media outlets, those of us at SiliconBeat periodically wish to provide a bit of cheery relief.

Which brings us to this item about LSI.

The Milpitas chip-maker is in the process of distributing free backpacks and school supplies to about 12,000 underprivileged K-12 students around the world in communities where its employees live and work.

Last year, the company said it contributed more than 9,000 backpacks to primary and secondary schools in Asia, Europe and the United States. The backpacks are filled with notebooks, pens, calculators and dictionaries donated by LSI employees.

“As a U.S.-based company that operates globally, LSI understands that investment in local education is an investment in a better world,” said the company’s CEO, Abhi Talwalkar, in a prepared statement.

Advanced Micro Devices generally left Wall Street displeased when it reported its 11th consecutive quarterly loss earlier this week. But the Sunnyvale chip maker offered one tantalizing tidbit about its recently spun-off manufacturing arm.

GlobalFoundries, the manufacturing unit that AMD and Abu Dhabi investors set up as a separate business in March, is expected to announce in coming weeks that it has its first customer other than AMD.

Since AMD still receives revenue from GlobalFoundries, having more money flowing into the manufacturing operation should help AMD. Moreover, the ability of GlobalFoundries to attract other customers should reduce AMD’s expenses, said company spokesman Drew Prairie.

“Right now, since we are the only customer, we are shouldering the costs of underutilization charges” associated with GlobalFoundries, he said. “As they add more customers, we will move to a traditional founry model,” where AMD only pays for chips it buys from the manufacturing operation.

We here at SiliconBeat always keep our eyes open for uplifting news, so we felt compelled to pass on this item about microchip-maker Rambus.

The Los Altos firm has been awarded the Pathways Hospice Foundation Frances C. Arrillaga Humanitarian Award for 2009, the first time a company has received that distinction.

The award honors Rambus for its leadership in philanthropic efforts, inspiration to the community and the generous support it has given to Pathways, a non-profit organization that offers home health and hospice care.

This year’s global fall-off in shipments of graphics-oriented microchips is likely to be the worst ever tracked by Jon Peddie Research.

The Tiburon-based consulting firm estimates that graphic-chip shipments will drop 12 percent this year compared with 2008. That’s a nasty change, since shipments have seen double-digit increases every year since 2002, except for 2008 when they rose only about 6 percent.

Still, Peddie predicts a big turnaround next year, when graphic-chip shipments are expected to surge by nearly 22 percent.

“Taking together our data, interviews with suppliers and world economic forecast models, we believe the worst is over and Q3 will show recovery leading all the way through 2010, subject to seasonal adjustments,” it noted in a recent press release.

That should be good news for Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia, two Silicon Valley companies that specialize in graphic chips.

More bad news for Spansion, the Sunnyvale flash memory chip maker that filed for bankruptcy protection on March 1.

The company disclosed in a federal regulatory filing today that it will be delisted from the Nasdaq stock market on Monday July 20.

The stock exchange had previously notified the company that it was considering the action, prompting a request by Spansion to have the matter reviewed by a hearing panel. But the panel decided Spansion didn’t warrant being listed and trading in the company’s stock was halted on May 7.

Intel just gained ground on its longtime-microprocessor rival, Advanced Micro Devices, in the world of high-performance computers.

The latest edition of the TOP500 list, a widely watched compilation of the 500 most powerful computer systems, found Intel’s chips were in 399, or nearly 80 percent, of the supercomputers.

That’s an increase from six months ago when the Santa Clara company’s chips were in 379 or about 76 percent of the top computers.

AMD’s chips were in 43 supercomputers (about 8.6 percent), which was down from 59 six months ago.

Get ready for some gut-busting laughs, thanks to those crazy guys and gals over at Intel.

The Santa Clara computer-chip giant has signed on as a sponsor of “The Tonight Show with comedian Conan O’Brien.” According to the company, “this partnership leverages O’Brien’s unique ability to humorously convey to his viewers Intel’s unique personality, cutting-edge technology and futuristic innovations.”

Wait. Stop yukking. We haven’t gotten to the punch line yet.

While the chipmaker is passionate about technology, it notes in a press release, “there is also a funny, quirky side to Intel people - and we want to share that.”

Grab some chips and dip, set up the TV trays and turn on the tube to the silly side of Silicon Valley. Imagine what fun Conan could have with Intel’s 8-MB smart caches, SSE4 instruction sets and processor prefetching algorithms. Sounds like a real knee-slappin good time.

Silicon Valley chip competitors, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, sure don’t seem to see eye to eye on much.

The companies have been squabbling for years over AMD’s claim that Intel has monopolized the microprocessor market. And they don’t share the same view about the economic state of the semiconductor industry.

Last month, Intel CEO Paul Otellini declared that the personal-computer sales slump had “bottomed out.”

But in an interview this week with Dow Jones Newswires, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer said not so fast.

“It’s still too early to definitely say we’ve hit bottom,” Meyer advised. “You can only point to the bottom once you’ve passed it, and I can’t say we’re past it.”

Will these two chip-makers every get on the same page? .

For those of you who think of the semiconductor business as a young tech industry, consider this sobering fact:

Santa Clara-based National Semiconductor today announced it is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

That’s half a century, for those of you who, like many of us at SiliconBeat, flunked basic math.

The company, which was founded in 1959, notes that it developed the first integrated voltage regulator, the first modern operational amplifier and the first 32-bit microprocessor, among other things.

National has been hammered recently by the recession. But it still posted sales of nearly $2 billion for fiscal 2008. And as it expands into the green-energy business, who’s willing to bet it won’t be around for another 50 years?