AMD's Radeon RX product stack refresh for Spring-Summer, is reportedly set to launch on May 10, 2022. Here's the first picture of what a reference-design RX 6950 XT flagship, RX 6750 XT, and the mid-range RX 6650 XT, could look like. These reference board designs are essentially identical to the original RX 6000 made-by-AMD (MBA) reference designs, but ditch the two-tone silver+black color-scheme for an all-black scheme with some diamond-cut edges around the fan vents, and some piano-black accents.

At this point it is not known if this refresh sees the Navi 20-series ASICs optically-shrunk to the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication node, or if it's the existing 7 nm ASICs with their total graphics power (TGP) values dialed up to make room for increased engine clocks, and faster 18 Gbps-rated GDDR6 memory chips. It's interesting to see the RX 6750 XT now come with a triple-fan cooler that resembles the RX 6800 (non-XT) cooler in design, if not color. We're not sure if the RX 6650 XT reference design will ever make it to the real-world, or if it's just a concept, and the SKU is an AIB-exclusive (custom-designs only).

Some interesting technical specifications of the elusive two GPUs behind the Intel Arc "Alchemist" series surfaced. The larger DG2-512 silicon in particular, which forms the base for the Arc 5 and Arc 7 series, is interesting, in that it is larger in every way than the performance-segment ASICs from both NVIDIA and AMD. The table below compares the physical specs of the DG2-512, with the NVIDIA GA104, and the AMD Navi 22. This segment of GPUs has fairly powerful use-cases, including native 1440p gameplay, or playing at 4K with a performance enhancement—something Intel has, in the form of the XeSS.

The DG2-512 is built on the 6 nm TSMC N6 foundry node, the most advanced node among the three GPUs in this class. It has the highest transistor density of 53.4 mTr/mm², and the largest die-area of 406 mm², and the highest transistor-count of 21.7 billion. The Xe-HPG graphics architecture is designed for full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature support, and the DG2-512 dedicated hardware for ray tracing, as well as AI acceleration. The Arc A770M is the fastest product based on this silicon, however, it is a mobile GPU with aggressive power-management characteristic to the form-factor it serves. Here, the DG2-512 has an FP32 throughput of 13.5 TFLOPs, compared to 13.2 TFLOPs of the Navi 22 on the Radeon RX 6700 XT desktop graphics card, and the 21.7 TFLOPs of the GA104 that's maxed out on the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti desktop graphics card.

The output value of the world's top 10 foundries in 4Q21 reached US$29.55 billion, or 8.3% growth QoQ, according to TrendForce's research. This is due to the interaction of two major factors. One is limited growth in overall production capacity. At present, the shortage of certain components for TVs and laptops has eased but there are other peripheral materials derived from mature process such as PMIC, Wi-Fi, and MCU that are still in short supply, precipitating continued fully loaded foundry capacity. Second is rising average selling price (ASP). In the fourth quarter, more expensive wafers were produced in succession led by TSMC and foundries continued to adjust their product mix to increase ASP. In terms of changes in this quarter's top 10 ranking, Nexchip overtook incumbent DB Hitek to clinch 10th place.

TrendForce believes that the output value of the world's top ten foundries will maintain a growth trend in 1Q22 but appreciation in ASP will still be the primary driver of said growth. However, since there are fewer first quarter working days in the Greater China Area due to the Lunar New Year holiday and this is the time when some foundries schedule an annual maintenance period, 1Q22 growth rate will be down slightly compared to 4Q21.

MediaTek today launched the Dimensity 8100 and Dimensity 8000 system-on-chips (SoCs) to bring flagship level technology - connectivity, displays, gaming, multimedia and imaging features - to premium 5G smartphones. Both chips borrow the advanced technology from MediaTek's powerful flagship Dimensity 9000 platform and package it into the new Dimensity 8000 series which is built on the ultra-efficient TSMC 5 nm production process with an octa-core CPU. The Dimensity 8100 integrates four premium Arm Cortex-A78 cores with speeds reaching 2.85 GHz, and the Dimensity 8000 has four Cortex-A78 cores operating at up to 2.75 GHz.

"You could say the MediaTek Dimensity 8000 series is the little brother to our flagship Dimensity 9000 chip. Meaning it brings flagship grade features and next level energy efficiency to the premium smartphone market," said CH Chen, Deputy General Manager of MediaTek's Wireless Communications Business Unit. Both chips combine an Arm Mali-G610 MC6 GPU with MediaTek's HyperEngine 5.0 gaming technologies for exceptional power-efficiency that extends play time, and best-in-class frame rates - 170fps for the Dimensity 8100 and 140fps for the Dimensity 8000. Quad-channel LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.1 storage ensure ultra-fast data streams.

AMD's final refresh of the RDNA2 graphics architecture, the Radeon RX 6x50 series, could debut in June or July 2022, according to Greymon55, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The final refresh of RDNA2 could see AMD use faster 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory across the board, and eke out higher engine clocks on existing silicon IP. At this point it's not known if these new chips will be built on the same 7 nm process, or are an optical shrink to 6 nm (TSMC N6). Such a shrink to a node that offers 18% higher transistor density, would have significant payoffs with clock-speed headroom. AMD's RDNA3-based 5 nm GPUs could debut only toward the end of the year.

In related news, AMD is preparing to launch another entry-level SKU within the RX 6000 series; the Radeon RX 6500 (non-XT). Based on the same 6 nm Navi 24 silicon as the RX 6500 XT, this SKU could have a core-configuration that's in-between the RX 6500 XT and the RX 6400, in featuring 768 stream processors across 12 compute units; and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is similar to the RX 6400, but with higher engine clocks. The RX 6500 is targeting a $150 (MSRP) price-point.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 of $4.8 billion, operating income of $1.2 billion, net income of $974 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.80. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $1.3 billion, net income was $1.1 billion and diluted earnings per share was $0.92. For full year 2021, the company reported revenue of $16.4 billion, operating income of $3.6 billion, net income of $3.2 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.57. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $4.1 billion, net income was $3.4 billion and diluted earnings per share was $2.79.

"2021 was an outstanding year for AMD with record annual revenue and profitability," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "Each of our businesses performed extremely well, with data center revenue doubling year-over-year driven by growing adoption of AMD EPYC processors across cloud and enterprise customers. We expect another year of significant growth in 2022 as we ramp our current portfolio and launch our next generation of PC, gaming and data center products."

Raja Koduri, Intel's Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, has responded via Twitter to an open letter from PC Gamer that addressed the nightmare-like state for GPU pricing and availability, classifying it as "a huge issue for PC gamers and the industry at large". Intel says they are looking to put millions of Arc GPUs into PC Gamer's hands as the company fast approaches the end of the reaffirmed Q1 launch window for its new high-performance discrete graphics products. The reading on this is that Intel plans to add to the available mass of GPUs that consumers can buy, thus alleviating the strain from overwhelming consumer demand, and bringing about a much healthier market - with real and acceptable pricing for graphics products.

That Intel plans to ship millions of Arc GPUs to consumers is no surprise; the company definitely wants to recoup its investment in developing consumer-oriented, high-performance graphics architectures. However, any claims or expectations of improved GPU supply in the market should be taken with a grain of salt, as the bottleneck for graphics products stands not at the GPU design level, but at the semiconductor manufacturing one: namely, there are only so many GPU wafers that graphics chips designers can secure from foundry company TSMC, which also serves customers like Apple, Qualcomm, and other technology industry giants.

AMD announced the Radeon RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 at CES just a few days ago. These new entry-level cards debut the company's first 6 nm GPU, codenamed "Navi 24"—the smallest chip from the RDNA2 family. Navi 24 is barely the size of a motherboard chipset, roughly 100 mm² in die size. The chip only features a 64-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, needing just two memory chips to achieve 4 GB of memory size. While AMD has been fairly quiet about it, people quickly found out that the Navi 24 GPU only uses a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface. While the physical connector is x16, there is only enough signal traces for x4.Even the most updated 2.43.0 public version of GPU-Z misreports the bus interface as PCIe x16 4.0 though, which will certainly lead to confusion in the reviewer community who trust GPU-Z to report the correct specs and speeds for their articles. Maybe that's the reason why AMD has decided to not send us a sample this time—a first in 15 years.

Update Jan 20th: GPU-Z 2.44.0 has been released, which properly reports the PCIe bus configuration of RX 6500 XT.

AMD is preparing a round of updates to its desktop Radeon RX 6000 series in the wake of RTX 30-series models by NVIDIA, according to Greymon55, a reliable source with GPU rumors. The company could be leveraging faster 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips for the task. This wouldn't be the first RX 6000 series products with 18 Gbps memory, as the liquid-cooled MBA (made-by-AMD) RX 6900 XT that's exclusive to OEMs, already comes with 18 Gbps memory clocks.

Mass-production of JEDEC-standard GDDR6 memory chips with data-rates as high as 20 Gbps and 24 Gbps by Samsung is expected to get underway later this year. The company is already sampling these chips, and it's likely that they may feature in the next round of product-stack updates by AMD and NVIDIA. In the run up to its next-gen RDNA3 graphics architecture, AMD is rumored to be working on a refresh of RDNA2 on the new TSMC N6 (6 nm) foundry node that it already leverages for the entry-level "Navi 24" ASIC. This is expected to open up headroom to dial up engine clocks, and possibly support faster memory. As for this latest refresh with 18 Gbps memory, if AMD's naming convention for its mobile RX 6850M is anything to go by, the new SKUs could feature a similar "xx50" model numbering.

AMD this CES announced the Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card, its product to debut on the TSMC-N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process. Armed with just 4 GB of memory, the card is launched with an SEP of $199, although its real-world pricing tells a different story, according to retail prices leaked of two upcoming ASUS-branded custom-design RX 6500 XT cards.

The ASUS TUF Gaming RX 6500 XT is priced around 340€ including taxes, while the DUAL RX 6500 XT goes for 299€; a far-cry from the roughly 220€ pricing. The RX 6500 XT is purported as an entry-mid category product, designed for 1080p AAA gaming with Fidelity FX Super Resolution unlocking some more eye-candy. It is based on the same RDNA2 graphics architecture as the rest of the RX 6000 series.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, today announced the new Phantom Gaming and Challenger series graphics cards based on AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT GPUs.

Built on the 6 nm manufacturing process and the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, the new ASRock graphics cards are designed to make incredible 1080p gaming experiences for popular AAA and e-sports titles accessible to more gamers. They offer high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache and high-speed 4 GB GDDR6 memory. They also support Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD Smart Access Memory technology, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling technology and other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.

AMD is planning to crash Intel's big 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-P" mobile processor launch with its own next-gen launch, the Ryzen 6000 mobile processor series. These chips are the company's first built on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process, and combine up to 8 "Zen 3+" CPU cores, with a next-generation iGPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture. The company has given the Media CoreNext and Video CoreNext engines incremental updates, according to a leaked slide scored by VideoCardz.

Ryzen 6000 "Rembrandt" processors come with hardware-accelerated decode of the AV1 video format. The Display CoreNext (display I/O engine) now supports DisplayPort 2.0, complete with DSC, UHBR10, HDR10+, and variable refresh-rate. The HDR pipeline has awareness for the various display panel types, including OLED and mini-LED. The iGPU on "Rembrandt" features up to 12 compute units (768 stream processors). It remains to be seen if Ray Accelerators are featured, as that would make this the first iGPU (on the PC platform) with DirectX 12 Ultimate support.

AMD's first GPU built on the N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process isn't some big RX 7000 series behemoth, but the smallest chip from the Navi 2x GPU family, codenamed Navi 24. Based on the same RDNA2 graphics architecture as the rest of the RX 6000 series, the Navi 24 physically packs 1,024 stream processors across 16 compute units (8 WGPs), and on the RX 6500 XT, reportedly comes with 4 GB of memory across a 64-bit wide memory bus. The chip also packs a tiny 16 MB Infinity Cache. VideoCardz scored the first renders of the upcoming Radeon RX 6500 XT and RX 6400, which are based on the Navi 24. The RX 6500 XT features a full-height, 2-slot board design that uses a simple aluminium monoblock fan-heatsink. The RX 6400, on the other hand, is not just low-profile (half-height), but also single-slot.

Update Dec 28th: Unless we're mistaken, the SMDs near the PCIe interface in those renders seem to suggest that the GPU features a PCIe x4 interface. This should offer sufficient bandwidth for a GPU in this segment, and should help lower the pin-count of the GPU, as well as board costs.

AMD's next generation Radeon "Navi 3x" line of GPUs could see a 50% increase in shaders and a doubling Infinity Cache memory size, according to some educated-guesswork and intelligence by Greymon55, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The Navi 31, Navi 32, and Navi 33 chips are expected to debut the new RDNA3 graphics architecture, and succeed the 6 nm optical-shrinks of existing Navi 2x chips that AMD is rumored to be working on.

The top Navi 31 part allegedly features 60 workgroup processors (WGPs), or 120 compute units. Assuming an RDNA3 CU still holds 64 stream processors, you're looking at 7,680 stream processors, a 50% increase over Navi 21. The Navi 32 silicon features 40 WGPs, and exactly the same number of shaders as the current Navi 21, at 5,120. The smallest of the three, the Navi 33, packs 16 WGPs, or 2,048 shaders. There is a generational doubling in cache memory, with 256 MB on the Navi 31, 192 MB on the Navi 32, and 64 MB on the Navi 33. Interestingly, the memory sizes and bus widths are unchanged, but AMD could leverage faster GDDR6 memory types. 2022 will see the likes of Samsung ship GDDR6 chips with data-rates as high as 24 Gbps.

NVIDIA has reportedly pushed midlife refreshes to its GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" graphics card family to beyond January, according to a report by Igor's Lab. The company was supposed to launch as many as three high-end graphics card SKUs in early-Q1, which include a 16 GB variant of the RTX 3070 Ti, which maxes out the GA104 silicon, a refreshed RTX 3080 12 GB variant, which keeps the CUDA core count of the original RTX 3080, but maxes out the 384-bit memory bus width of the GA102; and the RTX 3090 Ti, which maxes out both memory and CUDA cores on the GA102.

It's being reported that while the RTX 3090 Ti launch is on schedule, with announcements slated for NVIDIA's 2022 International CES presentation; the RTX 3070 Ti 16 GB and RTX 3080 12 GB could be launched only after the Chinese New Year (at least mid-February). The three SKUs, we predict, are designed to calibrate NVIDIA's lineup against a possible refresh of AMD's RDNA2 graphics architecture on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) node, which could allow the company to dial up engine clocks across the board, along with faster 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory, to better compete against the RTX 30-series. AMD is expected to announce these 6 nm GPUs in its CES presentation.

During the annual Snapdragon Tech Summit, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. expanded the portfolio of solutions for Always On, Always Connected PCs with the introduction of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform, designed to deliver the performance and exceptional experiences users deserve in premium ultra-slim and fanless laptops. To strengthen the entry-tier Windows PC and Chromebook ecosystems with robust 5G connectivity and advanced AI experiences, the Company also unveiled the Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 Compute Platform. Both platforms utilize smart, connected technology to modernize PC experiences and redefine mobile computing for end users.

"Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 builds on the technology that has transformed the PC industry, delivering premium experiences with breakthrough performance per watt, immersive camera and audio with enhanced AI-acceleration, lightning-fast 5G connectivity, and chip-to-cloud security in thin, fanless systems," says Miguel Nunes, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "With Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3, we are raising the bar in the entry-tier by extending 5G mobile computing across ecosystems. Whether for consumers, business, or education, Snapdragon compute platforms deliver the capabilities and experiences that our ecosystem customers and end users need."

Prominent chip designers like AMD and NVIDIA could bless consumers with a broader offering of their new products as soon as CES 2022 arrives. AMD should present its rumored Rembrandt-H lineup of processors based on the enhanced Zen 3 core, sometimes referred to as Zen 3+. According to the latest report coming from MyLaptopsGuide, Bluetooth SIG has some data entry about ASUS'es upcoming ROG Zephyrus Duo GX650 laptop that integrates AMD Rembrandt-H processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series graphics. As the website claims, the heart of this laptop will be AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor built on TSMC's 6 nm manufacturing process. We don't know much about this model, but we expect it to refine the previous Ryzen 9 5900HX.

We again see the rumored NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card for mobile, powering the graphics side of things. This model is supposedly based on GA103S GPU SKU, which is likely tailor-made for laptops in mind and exclusive to them. ASUS has also paired 16 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM with an AMD Ryzen processor, suggesting that Rembrandt-H has a new memory controller in place. This laptop model also has a 16-inch 300 Hz Full HD screen with anti-glare; however, the amount of information ended there. We have to wait for CES 2022 launch to find out more.

AMD later this month is preparing to address investors as part of a yet-unknown event. The company typically hosts Financial Analyst Day events around Q1-Q2, and goes to the investors with substantial material on the current state of the organization, the products on offer, what's on the horizon, and how it could impact the company's financials. An alleged presentation related to the November 2021 event was leaked to the web. The presentation provides a guided tour of the entire product portfolio of the company, spanning server processors, compute accelerators, consumer graphics, some client processors, and the semi-custom business.

The presentation outlines that the company has so far successfully executed its roadmaps for the client-CPU, server-CPU, graphics, and compute-accelerator segments. In the client CPU segment, it shows a successful execution up to 2021 with the "Zen 3" microarchitecture. In the server space, it mentions successful execution for its EPYC processors up to "Zen 3" with its "Milan" processors, and confirms that its next-generation "Zen 4" microarchitecture, and its sister-architecture, the "Zen 4c," will be built on the 5 nm silicon fabrication node (likely TSMC N5). The presentation also details the recently announced "Milan-X" processor for existing SP3 platforms, which debuts the 3D Vertical Cache technology, bringing up to 96 MB of L3 cache per CCD, and up to 768 MB of L3 cache (804 MB L1+L2+L3 cache) per socket.Update 10:54 UTC: The presentation can now be found on the AMD Investor Relations website.

TSMC will commercialize its N3 (3 nm) EUV silicon fabrication node in 2022, with volume production set to commence in the second half of the year. The company is looking to maximize capacity on its current N5 (5 nm) node, which already serves major customers such as Apple. AMD is expected to utilize N5 allocation going into 2022 as its next-generation "Zen 4" processors are expected to leverage the node to drive up CPU core counts and caches. The company is also utilizing N6 (6 nm) for its CDNA2 compute accelerator logic dies. N5 could also power mobile application processors from several manufacturers.

AMD today announced the debut of its 6 nm CDNA2 (Compute-DNA) architecture in the form of the MI200 family. The new, dual-GPU chiplet accelerator aims to lead AMD into a new era of High Performance Computing (HPC) applications, the high margin territory it needs to compete in for continued, sustainable growth. To that end, AMD has further improved on a matured, compute-oriented architecture born with Graphics Core Next (GCN) - and managed to improve performance while reducing total die size compared to its MI100 family.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. introduced four new mobile platforms - Snapdragon 778G Plus 5G, 695 5G, 480 Plus 5G, and 680 4G - to enable increased performance and capabilities across our high-, mid-, and entry-tiers. These 5G and 4G mobile platforms enable increased performance and capabilities to provide OEMs with additional options to help meet the existing demand.

There is significant traction and momentum across all Snapdragon tiers. By bringing cutting-edge features from the Snapdragon 8-series into the 7-, 6-, and 4-series, it is contributing to the growing demand across each Snapdragon series. The Snapdragon 7-series has grown by 44% in the last year alone due to tremendous high-tier demand. In the 6-series, consumer trends are emerging that show mid-tier smartphones will be the main driver for 5G adoption especially in emerging regions. Additionally, after less than one year, there have been more than 85 devices announced or in development based on the Snapdragon 480.

According to Nikkei, TSMC is set to start building a new fab in Kaohsiung, which is Taiwan's third largest city and located in the south of the island. It's also where ASE Technology Holding is located, which is the world's largest chip packaging and testing contractor. So far, TSMC doesn't have any fabs this far south in Taiwan, but it's not without its challenges.

The new fab is said to be designed to build chips on TSMC's 6 and 7 nm nodes, which are currently their most popular nodes, although this is likely to change as their 5 nm node begins to ramp up production. That said, there will still continue to be a huge demand for 6 and 7 nm parts, as these nodes transition to become mainstream production nodes.

Microsoft is potentially looking to refresh the Xbox Series S in late 2022 with an upgraded 6 nm AMD APU according to Moore's Law is Dead. The upgraded processor would be manufactured on TSMC's 6N process which boasts higher yields and could allow Microsoft to enable all 24 Compute Units on the APU compared to the 20 they currently enable. This increase in Compute Units and a clock speed boost could potentially increase the console's performance by 50%. This updated model would come in at close to 350 USD representing a 50 USD premium however the existing model would be retained and see a price cut to 189-249 USD. The rumor also claims that Microsoft will refresh the Xbox Series X in 2023 or later.

The panic buying of chips persisted in 2Q21 owing to factors such as post-pandemic demand, industry-wide shift to 5G telecom technology, geopolitical tensions, and chronic chip shortages, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Chip demand from ODMs/OEMs remained high, as they were unable to meet shipment targets for various end-products due to the shortage of foundry capacities. In addition, wafers inputted in 1Q21 underwent a price hike and were subsequently outputted in 2Q21. Foundry revenue for the quarter reached US$24.407 billion, representing a 6.2% QoQ increase and yet another record high for the eighth consecutive quarter since 3Q19.

It's happening, Intel is taking a very pointy stab at the AAA gaming graphics market, taking the fight to NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon. The Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPU implements the Xe HPG (high performance gaming) graphics architecture, and offers full DirectX 12 Ultimate compatibility. It also offers contemporary features gamers want, such as XeSS, an AI-supersampling feature rivaling DLSS and FSR. There's a lot more to the Xe HPG architecture than being a simple a scale-up from the Xe LP-based iGPUs found in today's "Tiger Lake" processors.

Just like Compute Units on AMD GPUs, and Streaming Multiprocessors on NVIDIA, Intel designed a scalable hierarchical compute hardware structure for Xe HPG. It begins with the Xe-core, an indivisible compute building block that contains 16 each of 256-bit vector engines and 1024-bit matrix engines. combined with basic load/store hardware and an L1 cache. The vector unit here is interchangeable with the execution unit, and the Xe-core contains 16 of these. The Render Slice is a collective of four Xe-cores, four Raytracing Units; and other common fixed-function hardware that include the geometry pipeline, rasterization pipeline, samplers, and pixel-backends. The Raytracing Units contain fixed-function hardware for bounding-box intersection, ray traversal, and triangle intersection.