Intel and Micron have long partnered on NAND flash production, under the joint company Intel Micron Flash Technologies (IMFT.) Previously, the companies had enjoyed a half-and-half split, but the announcement of Intel’s withdrawal from manufacturing leaves Micron holding a far bigger slice of the pie.

Under the terms of the revised agreement, Intel is to peddle its shares in twain wafer factories to Micron for $600 million. Half of that will be provided to Intel in the compose of bloodless tough cash, while the remaining $300 million is to be left in Micron’s hands as an proceed deposit on Intel’s future NAND flash purchases.

It’s clear to see where Intel is going here: it’s looking to decrease its exposure in the NAND flash market while still ensuring it has an adequate supply of cutting-edge chips for its undertaking and consumer grade solid-state hobble (SSD) products.

Micron, meanwhile, gets a near-guarantee of $300 million of future commerce as well as sole control of the Intel Micron Flash Singapore and Intel Micron Flash Technologies US assets. The jointly-owned manufacturing plant in Utah, meanwhile, will remain as-is with minimal changes to its ongoing production of 20nm-based NAND flash products.

‘Micron’s joint venture NAND development efforts with Intel are a mannequin of innovation, productivity and effectiveness,’ claimed Micron’s chief executive Mark Durcan. ‘With IM Flash and its associated programs, our companies have become leaders in the NAND flash arena. These modern agreements construct on that success.’

‘The Intel-Micron partnership has created industry-leading NAND flash memory technology and developed a robust global manufacturing network. The modern NAND flash supply accord with Micron gives Intel better flexibility to meet growing beseech for SSDs and other products,’ claimed Robert Crooke, general manager of the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group at Intel.

Gateway has outed its updated ID and NV notebook ranges, offering Sandy Bridge processors, USB 3.0 and – on select models – NVIDIA Optimus graphics switching. The Gateway ID47 series is particularly slick, using new LCD display technology to fit a 14-inch edge-to-edge panel into a notebook you’d more commonly find with a 13.3-inch screen.

The Gateway ID47H02u has a Core i5-2410M 2.3GHz processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 500GB 5,400rpm hard-drive, DVD burner and Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU, and is priced at $699.99. If you don’t mind taking a trip to Canada, however, and spending CA$799, you can get the ID47H03h, which has the same CPU but throws in 6GB of DDR3 memory, a 750GB hard-drive and NVIDIA GeForce TG 540M graphics with 1GB of video RAM and Optimus auto-switching. Canadians will also get the CA$899 ID57H03h, with a 15.6-inch display and 8GB of DDR3 memory, along with the same GPU and HDD as the ID47H03h.

In the US, the 15.6-inch segment is catered for by the NV55S05u, a $629.99 notebook with an AMD A8-3500M quadcore 1.5GHz APU (that can overclock to 2.4GHz), AMD Radeon HD 6620G graphics, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, a 640GB hard-drive and DVD burner. All of the models have an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, WiFi b/g/n, stereo speakers and a copy of Windows 7.

Battery life on the 14-inchers is up to 8hrs, while the ID57H03h can also run at up to 8hrs. The AMD-based NV55S05u can go for up to 4hrs, and has a smaller battery as standard. All of the new ID and NV models are on sale now.

That Blu-ray drive is capable of burning the new, super-capacious 128GB disks, as well as playing 2D or 3D Blu-ray movies and upscaling 2D DVDs into 3D. There’s also a 640GB 5,400rpm hard-drive, Harman Kardon speakers, HDMI port, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0+HS and a memory card reader, while ports include three USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0.

Toshiba’s eye-tracking system uses the HD-resolution webcam to identify the user’s face and then tweak the positioning of the left/right-eye pixels behind the lenticular film, twisting the 3D image to suit their position. It’s also capable of showing 2D and 3D images simultaneously, so that you can have a 3D movie playing in one window and a 2D spreadsheet opened in another. On the downside, it’s only intended for one viewer, since the tracking system can’t handle multiple viewpoints.

The Toshiba Qosmio F750 3D will go on sale in the UK from early August 2011, priced at around £1,300. US pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed.

It’s also a great time to build an Intel-based computer. The successor to LGA 1155 (the Sandy Bridge socket), LGA 2011, is not due out until late this year, and looks to supersede LGA 1366 at Intel’s highest-end of the desktop CPU spectrum. Other than supporting Sandy Bridge-E CPUs, LGA 2011 will offer PCIe 3 (which current GPUs can’t take advantage of) and native USB 3.0 (even though third-party USB 3.0 controllers are already shipping on many Intel and AMD motherboards). Considering how capable the Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K are today, it’s unlikely Sandy Bridge-E will field any model that’s astonishingly faster than what’s already available. Thus, if you buy a Core i7-2600K now, you’ll be at the near pinnacle of desktop computing for at least 5-6 months. I think there are times to buy and times to wait. It’s a bad idea to buy right before a lineup refresh (as is the case with AMD today), but it’s also unwise to delay building a system to hold out for the next big thing when that’s half a year away and unlikely to be that much better!