From PC World: We don't normally get excited about modem chips, but Intel's new Puma 7 is worth noting because of what it portends: more Internet bandwidth.
Puma 7 is Intel's first DOCSIS 3.1 chip, launched Thursday on the eve of a compatibility “plugfest” that represents the next step toward deploying multi-gigabit cable modems based on the standard by early next year.
Another interesting tidbit about the Puma 7 chip: It’s fabricated on the same 14-nm process as Intel’s latest 'Skylake' Core chips. That might not give the Puma 7 any performance edge, but it should allow it to run cool in fanless designs—as cable modems are, anyway.
Inside it is a dual-core Atom chip, Intel said, without specifying which architecture it was built upon. It can, however, run Linux or another OS through a virtualization feature. Other features include support a packet accelerator, support for third-party 4x4 MIMO Wi-Fi and even voice recognition modules, the company said. Finally, the Puma 7 supports what Intel calls HyperScan, which is a way for the chip to do some on-the-fly scanning for malware or potential hackers.
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