Tag: chip
Angelina Jolie, Chip and Joanna Gaines join Bidens for South Korean state dinner
Dow Jones Newswires: Samsung Electronics’ net profit plunges 86% in first quarter amid chip downturn
Samsung Faces Weakest Quarter Since 2009 As Memory Chip Market In ‘Worst Slump In Decades’
Samsung is the world’s largest maker of memory chips, which go into everything from PCs to servers in data centers. During the height of the pandemic, demand for consumer electronics was high, as people stayed home. Electronics companies piled up chips to go into these products. But buyers are now cutting back on purchases of these goods due to inflation and macroeconomic concerns, leading to somewhat of a memory chip glut.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Arm reportedly set to make prototype chip ahead of IPO
UK-based semiconductor design company Arm is reportedly looking to team up with manufacturing partners to develop its own prototype semiconductor, targeted for use in mobile devices, laptops and other electronics.
The prototype chips are meant to showcase advances that the company is making, in an attempt to increase the company’s value and attract new customers ahead of its expected IPO later this year, according to a report in the Financial Times, citing multiple sources at the company
Arm has created a new solutions engineering team to lead the development of the new prototype chips, according to the report. The team will be headed up by Kevork Kechichian, who joined Arm in February and who previously oversaw the development of the Snapdragon chip at Qualcomm.
Arm is Developing Its Own Advanced Chip
The company will team up with manufacturing partners to develop the new chip, according to people briefed on the move who describe it as the most advanced chipmaking effort the Cambridge-headquartered group has ever embarked upon. The effort comes just as SoftBank seeks to drive up Arm’s profits and attract investors to a planned listing on New York’s Nasdaq exchange… The hope is that the prototype will allow it to demonstrate the power and capabilities of its designs to the wider market.
Arm has previously built some test chips with partners including Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, largely aimed at enabling software developers to gain familiarity with new products. However, multiple industry executives told the FT that its newest chip — on which it started work in the past six months — is “more advanced” than ever before. Arm has also formed a bigger team that will execute the effort and is targeting the product at chip manufacturers more than software developers, they said…
Rumblings about Arm’s chipmaking moves have stoked fears in the semiconductor industry that if it makes a good enough chip, it could seek to sell it in the future and thereby become a competitor to some of its biggest customers, such as MediaTek or Qualcomm. People close to Arm insist there are no plans to sell or license the product and that it is only working on a prototype. Arm declined to comment.
The article cites “people briefed on the move” as saying that Arm plans to build prototype chips for laptops, mobile devices, and other electronics. “The team will also expand on Arm’s existing efforts to enhance the performance and security of designs, as well as bolster developer access to its products. ”
The article points out that the head of Arm’s engineering team previously oversaw the development of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ARM is reportedly building a chip to show off what its designs can do
ARM is reportedly building its own chip. According to the Financial Times, the company has tasked its newly formed “solutions engineering” team, led by former Qualcomm executive and Snapdragon designer Kevork Kechichian, with producing a semiconductor to showcase the capabilities of its products. ARM’s apparent goal with the project is to attract new customers ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering later this year.
The Times reports the company began work on the prototype about six months ago. Multiple industry executives told the outlet the resulting design is “more advanced” than any semiconductor produced in the past. The fact numerous sources outside of ARM spoke to The Times about the in-house chip would suggest the prototype is something of an open secret within the chip industry.
ARM declined to comment. According to The Times, the firm does not plan to sell or license the design of the prototype to other companies. That’s easy to believe. It would be out of character for ARM to do otherwise. The company’s business model is built around licensing its architecture to other firms. More than 500 companies, including Apple, MediaTek and Qualcomm, employ ARM-designed components in their semiconductors.
There are parts of the market where ARM could make inroads. With PCs, for instance, ARM components are rare outside of recent Mac computers. As The Times notes, the company last week warned investors of a “significant concentration” risk to its business. In 2022, ARM’s 20 most important customers accounted for 86 percent of its revenues. “The loss of a small number of key customers could significantly impact the group’s growth,” the firm told analysts.
Separately, the project could be a good thing for consumers. According to The Times, ARM’s solutions engineering team is also working on improving the performance and security of the company’s designs. That work will likely trickle down to the devices you use daily.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/arm-is-reportedly-building-a-chip-to-show-off-what-its-designs-can-do-193232317.html?src=rss
Latest Cadence tools bring generative AI to chip and system design
The latest version of the Cadence’s Virtuoso Studio brings new capabilities to analog, RF and custom silicon designs that leverage generative AI principles. Among several other enhancements, Virtuoso Studio incorporates the ability to move existing chip designs and IP from one generation of semiconductor manufacturing process to another via trained…
Kuo: M3 Chip Still Months Away, Entering Mass Production in Second Half of 2023
In a tweet, Kuo said M3 chip production will begin “slightly ahead” of the M3 Pro and M3 Max. Apple should use the M3 chip for future models of the 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, 24-inch iMac, and Mac mini, while the higher-end M3 Pro and M3 Max chips are destined for the next 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, which Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman expects to be released in the first half of 2024.
The M3 chip is expected to be manufactured based on Apple chipmaking partner TSMC’s latest 3nm process, compared to 5nm for the M2 chip. As a 3nm chip, the M3 should offer significant performance and power efficiency improvements.
As for the long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, Kuo said the laptop will be equipped with the M2 chip. Back in June 2022, Kuo predicted that the 15-inch model would also be available with the M2 Pro chip, but he no longer expects this.
The key takeaway from Kuo’s latest information is that the first Macs with the M3 chip are likely still months away from launching. This makes sense given that the next Mac Pro desktop tower is rumored to feature the M2 Ultra chip, and it is likely that Apple would finish its rollout of the M2 series of chips before announcing the M3 chip.
This article, “Kuo: M3 Chip Still Months Away, Entering Mass Production in Second Half of 2023” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Kuo: 15-Inch MacBook Air to Offer Two M2 Chip Options, No M2 Pro Configuration
In a tweet shared earlier today, Kuo said that he expects the new MacBook Air to be available with two M2 chip options that have different numbers of cores like the existing 13-inch model. The news comes as a revision of Kuo’s previous forecast, which predicted that the 15-inch MacBook Pro could be configurable with either the M2 or M2 Pro chip.
The 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip that Apple launched last year is available in 8- and 10-core GPU variants, and the M1 model from 2020 was available in 7- and 8-core GPU options. The 15-inch MacBook Air is therefore likely to mirror the 13-inch model in terms of chip specifications.
Kuo also affirmed that the new model will explicitly be branded as a 15-inch MacBook Air, rather than a new product line. He expects the device to reach five to six million unit shipments in 2023. Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman recently reported that the 15-inch MacBook Air will be announced at WWDC in June.
This article, “Kuo: 15-Inch MacBook Air to Offer Two M2 Chip Options, No M2 Pro Configuration” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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