Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corporation announced today that their joint venture Fab 7 manufacturing facility at Yokkaichi Plant has been approved to receive up to 92.9 billion yen subsidy from the Japanese government. The subsidy will be granted under a designated government program aimed at facilitating corporate investment in cutting-edge semiconductor production facilities and securing stable production of semiconductors in Japan.

Leveraging their 20-year joint venture partnership, Kioxia and Western Digital will continue to accelerate the development and production of cutting-edge flash memory at the Yokkaichi Plant, the largest semiconductor plant in Japan. In addition, the two companies will contribute to the development of semiconductor-related industries and talent.

JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer, will be hosted by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany. Exascale supercomputers are systems capable of performing more than a billion billion calculations per second and represent a significant milestone for Europe. By supporting the development of high-precision models of complex systems, they will have a major impact on European scientific excellence.

The US Government reinstated over 350 products to a list of exclusions to American import tariffs that were in place in January 2021. This would exclude "printed circuit boards," which is an oversimplified classification of motherboards and graphics cards, along with a range of other PC components that appear like PCBs. The US-China trade-war had caused a curious situation of pre-built computers (such as notebooks, desktops, and workstations) enjoying lower prices than import of their various components. This has had a direct impact on prices of motherboards and graphics cards. Whatever the geopolitical motive behind the move, it should certainly take the pressure off pricing, which have been affected not just by the tariffs, but also component shortages, and spikes in material prices, as well as logistics costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the situation in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. Department of Defense, through the NSTXL consortium-based S2MARTS OTA, has awarded Intel an agreement to provide commercial foundry services in the first phase of its multi-phase Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes - Commercial (RAMP-C) program. The RAMP-C program was created to facilitate the use of a U.S.-based commercial semiconductor foundry ecosystem to fabricate the assured leading-edge custom and integrated circuits and commercial products required for critical Department of Defense systems. Intel Foundry Services, Intel's dedicated foundry business launched this year, will lead the work.

"One of the most profound lessons of the past year is the strategic importance of semiconductors, and the value to the United States of having a strong domestic semiconductor industry. Intel is the sole American company both designing and manufacturing logic semiconductors at the leading edge of technology. When we launched Intel Foundry Services earlier this year, we were excited to have the opportunity to make our capabilities available to a wider range of partners, including in the U.S. government, and it is great to see that potential being fulfilled through programs like RAMP-C." -Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO.

Perhaps the most controversial system requirement of the upcoming Windows 11 operating system is the need for a hardware trusted platform module that meets TPM 2.0 specs. Most modern computers fulfill this requirement using fTPM (firmware TPM) solutions built into their processors; and those that don't, have TPM headers for add-on TPMs, which scalpers have their eye on. It turns out, that Microsoft is designing special variants of Windows 11 for special contracts Microsoft will execute.

Computers sold under the scheme will be marked "special purpose systems," and the Windows 11 version running them will do away with the TPM 2.0 requirement. These systems are very likely to be Government or Military; or perhaps even variants Microsoft exports to countries like China and Russia, which have their own specialized cybersecurity policies and dictate software to be written a certain way to be sold in the country.

The US Government, specifically the Department of Defense (DoD), has under the Trump administration blacklisted the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. This was a way to impose sanctions on the Chinese company as it was believed that Xiaomi was involved with the Chinese military, thus the Trump organization had problems having US investors taking a share of it. However, the company has issued legal proceedings against the US government for making such claims, and now the US govt., administrated by the President Joe Biden, has reached an agreement with the company. Xiaomi managed to prove that it is not owned or controlled by the Chinese military, so the US DoD has removed the company from its blacklist.

This has caused the company shares to soar on the Hong Kong stock exchange by as much as 6.7% after the news appeared. "The Biden Administration is deeply concerned about potential U.S. investments in companies linked to the Chinese military and fully committed to keeping up pressure on such companies", said Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.

The United States Department of Commerce is reportedly pressing TSMC to meet chip orders by automobile manufacturers. The ongoing chip shortage threatens to derail production of automobiles by leading car makers, and is a major source of worry for one of America's largest manufacturing industries. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that the Department has asked TSMC to prioritize orders by U.S. automobile companies in the near-term.

Secretary Raimondo, speaking at the Council of the Americas event on Tuesday, said that critical supply chains of the semiconductor industry required "re-shoring" (return of manufacturing to the US soil). "We're working hard to see if we can get the Taiwanese and TSMC, which is a big company there, to, you know, prioritize the needs of our auto companies since there's so many American jobs on the line," she said, responding to a question by a General Motors executive. Later on Wednesday, TSMC responded, stating "TSMC has been working with all parties to alleviate the automotive chip supply shortage, we understand it is a shared concern of the worldwide automotive industry."

The U.S. government announced advanced measures that make it harder for foreign companies, such as Taiwan's TSMC, to supply chips to Chinese telecom hardware giant Huawei. Foreign companies that use American chipmaking equipment, are required to obtain a license from the U.S. before supplying certain chips to Huawei. Sources comment that the new rule was tailor-made to curb TSMC fabricating smartphone SoCs for Huawei's HiSilicon subsidiary.

Mainland Chinese semiconductor companies are still behind Samsung and TSMC in 7 nm-class fab technologies, forcing HiSilicon to source from the latter. 7 nm fabrication is a key requirement for SoCs and modem chips capable of 5G. The high data transceiving rates of 5G requires a certain amount of compute power that can fit into smartphone-level power-envelopes only with the help of 7 nm, at least for premium smartphone form-factors. Same applies to 5G infrastructure equipment. This is hence perceived as a means for the U.S. to clamp brakes on Huawei's plans of playing a big role in 5G tech rollouts around the world, buying western 5G tech suppliers such as Nokia time to catch up. Huawei has been a flashpoint for a bitter political spat between the U.S. and China, with the Chinese press even threatening that the matter could hamper medical supplies to the U.S. to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Taiwan (ROC) Government announced a ban on the entry of all foreign visitors into the country until further notice. The ban takes effect from Thursday, March 19, in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives worldwide. All foreign arrivals already on their way will be placed in a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Exceptions to the ban include ARC (alien resident certificate) holders, diplomatic passport holders, and businesspersons with special entry permits issued by the government (these are not the same as business visas), although even these persons must subject themselves to the quarantine. The ban is expected to force most commercial airlines to reduce or suspend their services to the country. The travel ban to Taiwan puts Computex 2020 in jeopardy. Although held in June, preparations for the show typically begin as early as April, with foreign exhibitors preparing to import their exhibits, organizing their booths, arranging logistics, etc.

US Government, precisely the Trump administration, is considering placing a ban on chip export from TSMC to Huawei. With Huawei being in the middle between the US and China fight for global technology dominance, the Trump administration is seeking to limit the progress of foreign forces trying to match or beat US technology. There were previous efforts by the US government to influence Huawei's fate, with them claiming that Huawei 5G equipment is capable of supplying China with intelligence, meaning that China tries to spy on US citizens. While those claims were later disregarded by Huawei, the Trump administration managed to do some damage to the face of the company.

The TSMC representative who spoke to Reuters about the potential ban said that the company (TSMC) does not answer hypothetical questions and that they don't talk about their customers. To achieve more control over the China semiconductor manufacturing, the US government plans to place a licensing model on all of their US-made semiconductor equipment, meaning that all the production lines are possibly in danger if the US doesn't approve shipments of their machines to other countries.

Zhaoxin is a brand that makes multi-core 64-bit x86 processors primarily for use in Chinese state IT infrastructure. It's part of the Chinese Government's ambitious plan to make its IT hardware completely indigenous. Zhaoxin's x86-64 CPU cores are co-developed by licensee VIA, specifically its CenTaur subsidiary that's making NCORE AI-enabled x86 processors. The company's KaiXian KX-6780A processor is now commercially available in China to the DIY market in the form of motherboards with embedded processors.

The KaiXian KX-6780A features an 8-core/8-thread x86-64 CPU clocked up to 2.70 GHz, 8 MB of last-level cache, a dual-channel DDR4-3200 integrated memory controller, a PCI-Express gen 3.0 root-complex, and an iGPU possibly designed by VIA's S3 Graphics division, which supports basic display and DirectX 11.1 readiness. The CPU features modern ISA, with instruction sets that include AVX, AES-NI, SHA-NI, and VT-x comparable virtualization extensions. The chip has been fabricated on TSMC 16 nm FinFET process.

Some of the recent news from China is the stuff of science fiction, with the Central Government there locking down entire cities to contain the deadly Coronavirus outbreak there. When cities with 10+ million populations are under lock-down, it's only natural for factories to run out of workforce. According to a ZeroHedge report, the government has reportedly shut down factories owned or operated by big names in the technology and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) industries.

Among these are the ubiquitous Foxconn, which has manufacturing contracts with the biggest silicon valley tech firms for contract-manufacturing their hard-product - including the Apple iPhone; and Samsung Electronics, which makes consumer electronics, home appliances, and certain semiconductor products in China. A third big name in the report is the FMCG and pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. The closure of factories could wreck tech stocks in the coming trading sessions, not to mention possible impact on prices of electronics. As of now, the closure is stipulated for the next 1-2 weeks.

Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), a Chinese state-backed semiconductor company founded in 2016 as part of the Chinese Government's tech-independence push, has commenced mass-production of 64-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips, at a rate of 100,000 to 150,000 wafers per month leading into 2020. The 64-layer 3D NAND chips are based on YMTC's "in-house" Xtracking architecture. The company is already developing a 128-layer 3D NAND flash chip, and is skipping 96-layer along the way.

YMTC's capacity will be augmented by a new fab being built by its parent company, Tsinghua Unigroup. Tsinghua is a state-owned company which holds a controlling 51 percent stake in YMTC, and is a beneficiary of China's National Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund. When it goes online in 2021-22, the new Tsinghua fab, located in Chengdu, will augment YMTC's capacity by an additional 100,000 12-inch wafers per month. Its existing fab in Nanjing will also receive a capacity expansion.

Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Julie Brill in a blog post this Monday shared her - and Microsoft's - thoughts on regulation and its relationship to the tech sector. Julie Brill commented on the GDPR implementation originating in Europe, and how that could and should serve as a de facto standard of regulation that forces companies to steer away from the self-accountability on which they have remained for so long - and on which, paraphrasing Apple's own Tim Cook, "There are now too many examples where the no rails have resulted in great damage to society."

Microsoft feels that if left to self-regulation, companies won't do as mucha s they could in the pursuit of privacy and their consumers' rights as they would with a strong enforcement regime being planned and implemented at the governmental level. Of course, I think most of us agree with this at a fundamental level. However, there should also exist some defensive measures around the design and implementation of such governmental measures, such as, for one, no interference from corporations in the regulatory process. These should only serve as consultants, to prevent any ideas of bending the regulations in their behalf, and a pervasive strategy that accounts for both small businesses and huge corporation should also be key. We should remember that while the likes of Microsoft Apple, for example, should have relative ease in updating their practices and implementing regulation-required systems, other, smaller players could either live or die in their capability to quickly adapt to the new requirements. Snuffing out competition to the big companies by enforcing heavy penalties might not be the best road. What do you think? More regulation or self-regulation?

Intel Corporation released model legislation designed to inform policymakers and spur discussion on personal data privacy. Prompted by the rapid rise of new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), Intel's model bill is open for review and comment from privacy experts and the public on an interactive website. The bill's language and comments received should provide useful insight for those interested in meaningful data privacy legislation.

"The collection of personal information is a growing concern. The US needs a privacy law that both protects consumer privacy and creates a framework in which important new industries can prosper. Our model bill is designed to spur discussion that helps inspire meaningful privacy legislation," said David Hoffman, Intel associate general counsel and global privacy officer.

Data are the lifeblood for many critical new industries, including precision medicine, automated driving, workplace safety, smart cities and others. But the growing amount of personal data collected, sometimes without consumers' awareness, raises serious privacy concerns.

British Channel BBC has decided to make available to the public their entire archive on their Computer Literacy Project, a special education program for the populace which lasted from 1982 through 1989. The program was planned between 1979 and 1982, and spanned almost all forms of then-widely used media: television series, radio broadcasts, books, linked courses, software, advice services and the BBC Microcomputer system - a specially-designed computer system, which became the most popular machine in the British Government's "Computers for Schools" program.

Users can now watch the entirety of the 146 original Computer Literacy Project programs, plus 121 related programs, broken down into 2,509 categorized, searchable clips. It's a great remembrance project for the shock and awe these systems inspired at the time - even as we know hold in our pockets systems that are far more advanced and powerful than those that put the man on the Moon. Ingenuity revisited.

The Israeli Government revealed that chipmaker Intel plans to expand its presence in the country for manufacturing and R&D. The company is reportedly preparing an ILS 18 billion (around USD $5 billion) investment toward expanding its Kiryat Gat manufacturing facility in southern Israel. The expansion will also include an ILS 3 billion expenditure by Intel on local suppliers. In return, Israel is giving Intel tax-breaks running up to 2027, where the company will be taxed at a reduced rate of 5 percent. The Government is also considering an ILS 700 million grant to the company. Intel is one of the largest employers and manufacturers in Israel. The company exported $3.5 billion worth goods and services from the country in 2017.

34 different companies (which include Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Nokia, and Oracle) signed the Cybesecurity Tech Accord this week. The Accord, which is being hailed as the "Digital Geneva Accord", ratifies a new era of corporations' protection of customers, and a new way to engage and protect from cyberattacks. The biggest part of this? The pledge not to aid governments in performing any type of cyberattacks against customers. The usage of the word customers isn't an innocent one: a consumer is such in any part of the world, regardless of any given countries' definition.

The idea behind the Accord is to allow "public commitment among 34 global companies to protect and empower civilians online and to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace." This is an effort from tech companies to distance themselves from all manner of centralized government power, and to place themselves in a new, customer-protective light. At the same time, companies are looking to engender a coordinated response to global-scale ransomware attacks, such as last years' WannaCry and NotPetya events. "The devastating attacks from the past year demonstrate that cybersecurity is not just about what any single company can do but also about what we can all do together." said Microsoft President Brad Smith. "This tech sector accord will help us take a principled path towards more effective steps to work together and defend customers around the world." You can read the entire post on the mission and signing of the Accord after the break.

Potentially thousands of websites operated by various government ministries, departments, and statutory agencies, of the United States and the United Kingdom, could be infected with crypto-currency mining malware. The already infamously slow government websites, often crippled with bandwidth and hosting deficiencies, not to mention webpage design that's often behind web standards, are now embedded with crypto-miners thanks to outdated accessibility software.

Most government websites implement a web-based text-to-speech software called Browsealoud. Outdated versions of the software can be surreptitiously infected with crypto-mining scripts, by exploiting a vulnerability in the way the software dials home to the text-to-speech server. The scripts slow down computers by forcing them to mine crypto-currency for unauthorized people. Browsealoud has been developed by British software company Texthelp, which is reaching out to all its customers to update to the latest version of their software. It's always handy to have mining script blocking browser extensions.

It's no surprise that leading Chinese tech companies have close associations with the Chinese Government and the PLA. Intel has waded into controversial waters as reports point to the chipmaker sharing information about its products' vulnerability to Meltdown and Spectre with Chinese tech companies before warning the United States Government, potentially giving the Chinese government either a head-start into securing its IT infrastructure, or exploiting that of a foreign government.

Lenovo and Alibaba were among the first big tech companies to be informed about Meltdown and Spectre; Lenovo is Intel's biggest PC OEM customer, while Alibaba is the world's largest e-commerce platform and cloud-computing service provider. Both companies are known to have close associations with the Chinese government. The United States Government was not part of the first group of companies informed about the deadly vulnerabilities.

Remember that piece regarding Microsoft's Windows 10 for the chinese government? Well, Microsoft has just officially announced it in its Shanghai presentation today. In a joint-venture with China's government, CETC (China Electronics Technology Group), CMIT (a conglomerate of China-based manufacturers), and Lenovo, the Redmond-based company has apparently managed to deliver what they themselves thought impossible: a version of their operating system that doesn't spy on its users. Lenovo, as you might have guessed already, will be one of the first OEM partners to preinstall Windows 10 China Government Edition on new devices.

Based on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, the Windows 10 China Government Edition ironically ticks all the boxes for what enthusiasts would like to see from their OS: it's a modular approach to Windows, where users (read, in this case, government entities) can remove features they aren't looking to take advantage of (like OneDrive), whilst giving the capability to "manage all telemetry and updates." Aren't those just great features to have?

Reports have started coming in that Microsoft has finalized its special, "non-spying" edition of Windows 10 for the Chinese government. In a joint-venture with China's own CTEC (China Electronics Technology Group), the Redmond-based company has apparently managed to deliver what they themselves thought impossible: a version of their operating system that doesn't spy on its users.

China's government previously banned Windows 8 and its derivatives, citing security concerns, and later launched an anti-monopoly probe against Microsoft. This meant that Microsoft was largely left out of China's huge state-backed enterprises in China - and one can imagine how lucrative a market this one is. Microsoft surely wouldn't be willing to allow such a chance of revenue to just jostle over to the Linux field, following the Chinese government's attempts to craft a custom OS (Kylin, which failed) and recent efforts with new NeoKylin initiative. Microsoft isn't willing to relent so as to what and how were features cut from their Windows 10 version that leads it to continue normal functions even without the heavily baked-in, essential, flaunted telemetry features. What is true, though, is that the company did say telemetry and data collection was so deeply embedded on their operating system that removing them would break it at a fundamental level which is, apparently, only the case if you don't have the money (or potential revenue) to pony up for a custom edition.

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the MQ01ABUxxxBW series, a mobile-grade thin 7mm hard disk drive (HDD) with self-encrypting technology, including Toshiba's unique wipe technology, which automatically erases data when an HDD is accessed by an unregistered system, has achieved validation to U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 (FIPS 140-2). The MQ01ABUxxxBW series is the first Toshiba self-encrypting drive (SED) validated to the FIPS 140-2 standard. Toshiba's SED models are designed to the Trusted Computing Group's (TCG) industry-standard "Opal" Security Sub-Classification. This globally accepted standard implements protocols created to help IT managers, security management application providers and client security professionals to better manage data security and to help prevent potentially damaging and costly breaches to sensitive information. The FIPS-validated model also provides tamper-evident labeling for additional security, with a resulting validation to Level Two of the FIPS 140-2 standard.

The 7mm mobile thin SED series underwent rigorous cryptographic module validation testing by a U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-certified testing laboratory in order to be validated by the U.S. Federal Information Processing standard. As a result of this validation, this Toshiba HDD series is now available for use in highly regulated and security-sensitive storage applications, such as government systems. The combination of support for ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) Enhanced Secure Cryptographic Erase function, the TCG-Opal SSC (Security Subsystem Class) protocols, the Toshiba wipe technology extensions of the Opal protocols, and the FIPS 140-2 module level validation makes the MQ01ABUxxxBW series suitable for encrypting confidential data stored on client-grade mobile and desktop computers protected by security management applications.

American Industrial Systems Inc. (AIS) is an International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) accredited supplier and manufacturer of cost-effective Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) military grade rugged touch computers and displays for government, aerospace, and defense entities. Facing tight budgets, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Defense agencies are looking for solutions that withstand the test of time while meeting stringent performance, maintainability and reparability, Size, Weight and Power (SWaP), Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) requirements. AIS MIL-STD and MIL-SPEC compact ruggedized touch computers and displays are designed, manufactured and qualified to pass MIL-STD-810 and MIL-STD-461. All units are tested for drop-shock, moisture, dust and vibration resistance and temperature extremes for military, aerospace and government applications.

With the U.S. Government increasingly using high- performance computing (HPC) to address current and future national challenges, Intel Corporation today announced it has been awarded two subcontracts totaling $19 million with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). As part of these two awards, Intel Federal LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary, will be a major participant in the Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) managed Extreme-Scale Computing Research and Development "FastForward" program aimed at driving advancements in exascale computing.

The DOE has been a leading developer of supercomputing technology for a broad range of critical applications in the space of national security, economy, energy resources and consumption. The "FastForward" program will harness the talents of the national laboratories, academia and U.S. industry to develop the next generation of HPC technologies.