Triplesourced

Intel claims its taking an “aggressive stance” towards the use of lead in its chips and has committed to removing its entire 45nm Hi-k family which includes the Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors.

Judging by the length of the accompanying press release – Intel seems to be taking the issue seriously - well, the PR department certainly is anyway - here's an excerpt:

The Road to Lead-Free?
For many decades lead has been used in electronics because of its electrical and mechanical properties, making the search for replacement materials that meet performance and reliability requirements a significant scientific and technical challenge.
Due to lead's potential impact to the environment and public health, Intel has worked for years with its suppliers and other companies in the semiconductor and electronics industry to develop lead-free solutions as part of its long-standing commitment to environmental practices. In 2002, Intel produced its first lead-free flash memory products. In 2004, the company began shipping products with 95 percent less lead than previous microprocessor and chipset packages.

To replace the remaining 5 percent (about .02 grams) of lead solder historically found in the first-level interconnect -- the solder joint that connects the silicon die to the package substrate -- in processor packages, Intel will use a tin/silver/copper alloy. It is the way in which Intel will implement these new materials to replace the tin/lead solder that is the "secret sauce" of the company's solution. Because of the complex interconnect structure of Intel's advanced silicon technologies, a great deal of engineering work was required to remove the remaining lead in Intel's processor packages and integrate a new solder alloy system.

Intel engineers developed the assembly manufacturing processes involving the new solder alloys, and were able to accomplish this while still demonstrating the high level of performance, quality and reliability expected of Intel components.

Environmental Sustainability -- From Transistors to Factories?
Intel has a long history of commitment to the environment, a philosophy that began with its founder Gordon Moore. In addition to eliminating the use of lead in its products, Intel has developed a number of environmental best-practices in its factories and operations. It is also designing and building energy efficiency into everything it does, from the smallest 45nm transistors in its forthcoming lead-free processors and today's high-performance Intel Core 2 Duo processors that consume up to 40 percent less energy to broad support for industry standards and strong public policies. Among many examples:

Earlier this year Intel transitioned its Intel® StrataFlash® Cellular Memory packages to halogen-free technology. The company is currently evaluating the use of halogen-free flame retardants in its CPU package technologies.

In 1996, Intel led an industry-wide agreement to reduce global warming gas emissions in semiconductor manufacturing, and today is working with the European Union (EU) to discuss how the technology sector can help meet the EU's target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

Intel is focused on reducing the natural resource use and waste by products of its manufacturing process. In the past 3 years, the company has saved more than 9 billion gallons of fresh water through conservation measures, and reduced its global warming gas emissions by the equivalent of removing 50,000 automobiles from the road.
It has reduced hazardous materials in its products and recycles more than 70 percent of its chemical and solid wastes.
Intel makes renewable energy a priority. The company is the single-largest purchaser of wind power in Oregon and the largest industrial consumer of renewable energy in New Mexico.
Through Intel's ongoing conversion from 200mm to 300mm wafers, it has been able to reduce water consumption by approximately 40 percent for each square centimeter of silicon produced.
Intel has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its work on Energy Star* and employee commuter programs.

For additional information about Intel's commitment to the environment, visit www.intel.com/go/responsibility.

In a furious piece of image-management, Novell seems to be trying to undo some of the damage it has done itself in the eyes of the open source community through its partnership with Microsoft, by announcing another alliance – this time with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF has a good rep in the open source world – being against all curbs on free and open information and software (the clues in the name) – and has come out against DRM, and US government attempts to monitor air passenger information. So why they have decided to tie-up with Novell – the company that recently jumped into bed with Microsoft in deal that was underpinned by patent manoeuvrings that will never see the light of day, is a bit of a mystery. We'll rattle some cages tomorrow for you and see if the EFF has a convincing answer.

It's all fun and games for the One Laptop per Child project. It seems that Chairman Nicholas Negroponte is not happy that Intel is trying to muscle into his organisation's plans to launch a $100 PC for the developing world. Intel has its own cheap PC called the Classmate which Negroponte claimed, in an interview with CBS, has hurt OLPC's plans "enormously".

Negroponte has even alleged that Intel has distributed marketing pamphlets to governments which detail why the OLPC machines are not as effective as the classmate.

Intel's apparent aggressive tactics are all bound up in its ongoing struggle against market rival AMD – which just happens to make the chips for the OLPC machine, according to Negroponte. But OLPC is not the only organisation to be bound-up in this face-off between the chip companies; Linux specialist Red Hat is caught in the middle too but rather than being squeezed between the chip behemoths is doing a good job of benefiting from the convergent strategies.

Red Hat has got a lot of kudos from the supposedly altruistic work it has done for OLPC – donating hundreds of man hours with no real reward in sight but helping the poor children of the world. Now, it emerged at the company's annual user conference
last week that Red Hat is planning to develop a desktop OS .
aimed at the developing world which will be geared, and indeed only available, on machines such as Intel's Classmate.

However, the new OS will borrow heavily from the work done on the OLPC project – up to 85 percent according to Red Hat execs. I wonder how Mr Negroponte feels about a supposed ally who he has praised in the past, teaming up with his major competitor? I have mailed him and will keep you updated with any reply I get.

As is usual with these kind of events, there has to be the obligatory end of show party – and this year Red Hat chose San Diego's Air and Space museum. The venue was pretty impressive but unfortunately the turn out for the party from the 1400 delegates wasn't as great. This may have actually worked out in Red Hat's favour as I am not sure what would have happened if the party had really got going with the vast amounts of free-booze around and military hardware.

This has just been announced in San Diego - you can expect the full story soon:

Sybase and Red Hat have announced an expansion of their partnership which will include the launch of a virtual software appliance which combines the business applications specialist's database product with Red Hat's Linux operating system.

Launched on Thursday, at the Red Hat Summit in San Diego, the pricing for the database appliance won't be available until later this year when the product is actually released, the companies claim.

Rather than spend time on knitting together their own instances of the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) running on Red Hat's Linux operating system, customers can now buy a pre-integrated "appliance" which vastly reduces the complexity of setting up a virtual environment, according to Tim Yeaton, senior vice president of Enterprise Solutions at Red Hat.

The companies refused to comment at this time on whether the virtual appliance would be a cheaper option for customers than choosing to purchase RHEL 5 and ASE separately and handle the integration and virtualisation themselves in-house.