Linksys, a global innovator in WiFi technology, today announces the latest addition to its WiFi 6E product portfolio - the Linksys Velop Pro 6E, first of its new Designer Series using the "nature inspired" droplet design, along with advanced features that provide the ultimate WiFi 6E experience at an affordable price point.

WiFi 6E offers an extra 6 GHz band connection that helps cut down on interference and improves speeds to your connected devices. Powered by the Qualcomm Immersive Home 316 Platform, the Linksys Velop Pro 6E brings incredible range and coverage with WiFi 6E, enabling users to stream, download, or work with a faster and wider connection, and more devices on their network. Each tri-band node has one 1 Gbps Ethernet LAN port for connecting wired devices to wireless networks. With the latest Linksys Mobile App, the Velop Pro 6E is easily set up in under 10 minutes, and managed remotely with security and other useful features such as guest access, parental controls, and more.

New research from Omdia reveals that the semiconductor market declined in revenue for a fifth straight quarter in the first quarter of 2023. This is the longest recorded period of decline since Omdia began tracking the market in 2002. Revenue in 1Q23 settled at $120.5B, down 9% from 4Q22. The semiconductor market is cyclical, and this prolonged decline follows the upsurge as the market grew to record revenues in each quarter between 4Q20 through 4Q21 following increased demand from the global pandemic.

The memory and MPU market are major areas of the semiconductor market that are contributing to the decline. The MPU market in 1Q23 was $13.1B, just 65% of its size in 1Q22 when it was $20B. The memory market fared worse, with 1Q23 coming in at $19.3B, just 44% of the market in 1Q22 when it was $43.6B. The combined MPU and memory markets declined 19% in 1Q23, dragging the market down to the 9% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) decline.

Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd. today unveiled an addition to the Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 Sound platform portfolio. This newly enhanced solution is optimized for gaming. It combines Snapdragon Sound and LE Audio to deliver ultra-low latency of less than 20 ms for lag-free wireless audio with voice back-channel for in-game chat. When delivering game audio only, the latency is further reduced.

The solution will also support the latest LE Audio Auracast broadcast capabilities for dongles and adapters, which can transform devices such as TVs, phones, laptops, PCs, consoles and a wide range of other audio equipment into premium broadcast platforms. For music listening, 24-bit 96 kHz high-resolution Bluetooth streaming is supported using Snapdragon Sound and Qualcomm aptX Adaptive audio technology. Snapdragon Sound allows for premium music playback, so listeners can hear every detail of their music just as the artist intended it to be heard.

Zebra Technologies Corporation, a leading digital solution provider enabling businesses to intelligently connect data, assets, and people, today announced the launch of the ET6x series of rugged Android tablets. Designed to help front-line workers in warehouses, manufacturing plants, ports, yards, field service and emergency medical environments be more productive and efficient, the ET6x series debuts the industry's only heated touch screen and vehicle dock for forklifts and other material handling vehicles.

The ET60 and ET65 are Zebra's first 2-in-1 Android tablets with a friction-hinge keyboard that transforms the tablets into a laptop to make heavy data entry easy in the office and in the field. The products feature consumer styling that can handle harsh indoor and outdoor environments from sub-zero cold to extreme heat. The tablets are dustproof, corrosion proof and tested for vibration, thermal shock, and solar radiation. Two of the most vulnerable tablet elements - the display and optional scanner exit window - are protected with shatter-and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass.

TrendForce reports that inventory reduction in Q1 fell short of expectations and coincided with the industry's traditional off-season, leading to overall subdued demand. However, due to new product release and a surge in urgent orders for specialized specifications, Q1 revenue of the global top ten IC design houses remained on par with 4Q22, with a modest QoQ increase of 0.1% for a total revenue of US$33.86 billion. Changes in ranking included Cirrus Logic slipping from the top ten as well as the ninth and tenth positions being replaced by WillSemi and MPS, respectively. The rest of the rankings remained unchanged.

The smartphone supply continues to grapple with overstock, but AI applications are entering a period of rapid growth
Qualcomm witnessed an uptick in its revenue, largely attributed to the launch and subsequent shipments of its latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8Gen2. The company saw 6.1% in QoQ growth in its smartphone business, which effectively offset the downturn from its automotive and IoT sectors. As a result, Qualcomm's Q1 revenue increased marginally by 0.6%, cementing its position at the top of the pack with a market share of 23.5%.

NETGEAR, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR), the leading provider of award-winning connected products designed to simplify and improve people's lives, today launched a powerful addition to its unlocked 5G mobile hotspot lineup. At a time when access to fast, secure and reliable internet is more important than ever, the NETGEAR Nighthawk M6 Mobile Hotspot Router (MR6150) raises the mobile broadband experience to new heights by upping the maximum 5G speed that can be supported and adding 160 MHz capability to connect with the latest WiFi 6 client devices.

NETGEAR launched the world's first unlocked 5G hotspot in 2021 with the award-winning Nighthawk M5. Now the company is building on that achievement with the M6, which is 20 percent faster than the M5 at 2.5 Gbps over 5G and has the capacity to hit a maximum combined WiFi speed of up to 3.6 Gbps when connecting to 160 MHz WiFi 6 devices. Additionally, the M6 comes with In-Home Performance Mode which boosts WiFi coverage up to 1,000 square feet when the device is plugged in, and the battery is removed.

Mark Zuckerberg just announced Meta Quest 3, our next-generation virtual and mixed reality headset, which launches later this year. It features higher resolution, stronger performance, breakthrough Meta Reality technology, and a slimmer, more comfortable form factor. Quest 3 will ship in all countries where Meta Quest is currently supported this fall. The 128 GB headset starts at $499.99 USD, and we'll offer an additional storage option for those who want some extra space. Mark your calendars because we'll have lots more to share at Meta Connect, which returns this year on September 27.

Quest 3 is the supercharged all-in-one headset you've been waiting for—no wires required. Sign up to be the first to learn about Meta Quest 3.

Ethernovia, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based startup, today announced that it has completed its A-round financing of $64 million. The funding round consists of multiple investors, including Porsche Automobile Holding SE (Porsche SE), Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, AMD Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Fall Line Capital, Taiwania Capital, ENEA Capital and others.

As vehicle architectures evolve from domain-centric controllers, networking solutions must concurrently evolve to support higher data rates of advanced vehicle applications while meeting demand for improved reliability and security. Such advanced applications include Advanced Driver-Assisted Systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD) and a rich ecosystem of customer software delivered Over the Air (OTA).

According to Tom's Hardware, Microsoft is busy hiring engineers to help the company design its own Arm based SoC for Windows 12. Based on job listings, Microsoft is adding people to its "Silicon team," which is currently involved in designing products for Microsoft's Azure, Xbox Surface and HoloLens products. That said, the specific job listings mentioned by Tom's Hardware mentions "optimizing Windows 12 for Silicon-ARM architecture" suggesting we're looking at a custom Arm SoC, with others mentioning "internally developed silicon components" and "building complex, state-of-the-art SOCs using leading silicon technology nodes and will collaborate closely with internal customers and partners."

That said, Microsoft is currently working with Qualcomm and the Microsoft SQ3 found in the Surface Pro 9 is the latest result of that partnership. This brings the question if Microsoft has decided to make its own chip to compete with the Apple M-series of silicon, or if Microsoft is simply looking at working closer with Qualcomm by hiring inhouse talent that can help tweak the Qualcomm silicon to better suit its needs. With Windows 12 scheduled for a 2024 release, it looks like we'll have to wait a while longer to find out what Microsoft is cooking up, but regardless of what it is, it looks like Windows on Arm isn't going anywhere.

It appears it's not only AMD that is eyeing a move to Samsung, when it comes to fabricating upcoming chips, as reports are now suggesting that Qualcomm is considering a second attempt at making flagship mobile SoCs at Samsung's foundry. However, in this case, we're talking 3 nm chips in the shape of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which is expected to launch in devices sometime in 2024. This is said to be Qualcomm's first chip based on cores built by Nuvia, a company that Qualcomm acquired in 2021.

That said, Qualcomm will apparently not rely on Samsung alone, but will also be making the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 at TSMC. This might be because of past experience with Samsung, but the report out of Taiwan, suggests that the chips made by Samsung's foundry business will be used in Samsung branded phones, whereas the TSMC made chips might end up in devices by Qualcomm's other customers. It could also be a bet for Qualcomm to try and get better pricing by both foundries or a means of hedging their bets, to see which foundry produces the better chips. Then there's the situation between the PRC and the ROC, which could potentially put Qualcomm in a situation where it has no chips, so going with Samsung could be a means of covering for all potential risk scenarios.

Boox is happy to introduce the Tab Ultra C: a 10.3" ePaper Tablet PC endowed with pastel colors. We are excited to announce the launch of Tab Ultra C, our latest color E Ink device in 2023, following the successful release of our iF Design Award winning Tab Ultra last year. In this article, you will discover the unique features that make Tab Ultra C a standout device for work and productivity.

State-of-the-art Color E Ink Screen
Tab Ultra C represents a significant milestone as our first device with the cutting-edge Kaleido 3 color E Ink screen technology, delivering a high resolution of 300 PPI for black and white, and 150 PPI for displaying an extensive palette of 4,096 colors. The screen also features the innovative E Ink ComfortGaze front light technology, designed to optimize viewing comfort during both daytime and nighttime use.

The global economy has faced increased inflation risks and downstream inventory corrections in 2H22, which have affected IC design houses faster than wafer foundries, as they are far more sensitive and responsive to market reversals. TrendForce reports that adverse factors such as weak overall consumption, restrictions from China, and the slowdown of corporate IT spending and CSP demand have impacted the revenue performance of the world's top 10 IC design houses in 4Q22, leading to a QoQ decline of 9.2%, or approximately US$33.96 billion.

TrendForce predicts that the revenue of these top 10 companies keep declining—though with a slight convergence—into 1Q23, owing to ongoing inventory corrections across the entire supply chain as well as Q1 being the traditional off-season for consumer demand. Demand will continue to be weak despite new product launches and inventory replenishment in the supply chain.

Samsung's unannounced Exynos 2400 mobile chipset has been linked to the upcoming Galaxy S24 smartphone family, but internet tipsters have speculated that the in-house SoC will be reserved for the baseline model only. The more expensive Plus and Ultra variants could be the main targets for flagship smartphone fetishists - it is possible that Qualcomm's upper echelon Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset is set to feature within these premium devices. Samsung's Exynos processors are not considered to be fan favorites, but industry insiders reckon that the latest performance figures indicate that Samsung's up-and-comer has the potential to turn some heads. Exact specifications for the Exynos 2400 are not public knowledge - one of the tipsters suggests that a 10-core layout has been settled on by Samsung, as well as a recent bump up in GPU core count - from 6 to 12. The company's own 4 nm SF4P process is the apparent choice set for production line.

A leaker has posted benchmark scores generated by an unknown device that was running an Exynos 2400 SoC - the Geekbench 5 results indicate an average single-core score of 1530 with a peak of 1711. The multi-core average score is shown to be 6210, and the highest number achieved is 6967. Therefore the Exynos 2400 is 31% percent faster (in multi-core performance) than the refreshed Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 variant currently found in Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphones, but the divide between the two in terms of single-core performance is not so great. The 2400 manages to outpace (by 30%) Apple's present generation Bionic A16's average multi-core score, although the latter beats the presumed engineering sample's single-core result by 20%. The Exynos 2400 will face a new lineup of rival mobile processors in 2024 - namely Apple's next generation Bionic A17 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so it is difficult to extrapolate today's leaked figures into a future scenario.

A technology tipster has been dropping multiple tidbits this week about Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset - this follows a leak (from a different source, going back to mid-April) about the next generation Adreno 750 GPU getting tuned up for a battle against Apple's Bionic A17 in terms of graphics benchmarks. The latest leak points to the GPU being clocked at 900 MHz, rather than the rumored higher figure of 1.0 GHz speed (garnered from tests at Qualcomm's labs). The focus has now turned to the next generation flagship Snapdragon's CPU aspect, with information emerging about core clock speeds and multiple cluster configurations.

Revegnus suggests that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (SD8G3) chipset will be packing a large primary core in the shape of Arm's Cortex-X4 CPU with a reported maximum clock speed of 3.40 GHz. Leaks from the past have posited that the SD8G3 would feature a fairly standard 1x Large + 5x Big + 2x Small CPU core layout (with clocks predicted to be: large Cortex X4 at 3.2 GHz, big Cortex-A720 at 3.0 GHz, and small Cortex-A520 at 2.0 GHz). An insider source has provided Revegnus with additional information about two different CPU core configurations - 1+5+2 and 2+4+2 - it is theorized that smartphone manufacturers will be offered the latter layout as an exclusive option for special edition flagship phones. The more powerful 2+4+2 variant is said to sacrifice a big core (A720) in favor of a dual Cortex X4 headliner, although the resultant thermal output of twin large cores could prove to be problematic.

Early details of MediaTek's next generation mobile chipset have emerged this week, courtesy of renowned leaker Digital Chat Station via their blog on Weibo. The successor to MediaTek's current flagship Dimensity 9200 mobile chipset will likely be called "Dimensity 9300" - a very imaginative bump up in numbering - with smartphone brand Vivo involved as a collaborator. The tipster thinks that the fabless semiconductor company has contracted with TSMC for fabrication of the Dimensity 9300 chipset - and the foundry's N4P process has been selected by MediaTek, which could provide a bump in generational performance when compared to the older 4 nm and 5 nm standards used for past Dimensity SoC ranges. It should be noted that the current generation Dimensity 9200 chipset is presently manufactured via TSMC's N4P process.

MediaTek is seeking to turnaround its fortunes in the area of flagship mobile chipsets - industry watchdogs have cited a limited uptake of the Taiwanese company's Dimensity 9200 SoC as a motivating factor in the creation of a very powerful successor. Digital Chat Station suggests that the upcoming 9300 model will pack enough of a hardware punch to rival Qualcomm's forthcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC - both chipsets are touted to release within the same time period of late 2023. According to previous speculation, Qualcomm has also contracted with TSMC's factory to pump out the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 via the N4P (4 nm) process.

An online tipster, posting on the Chinese blog site Weibo, has let slip that Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset is touted to pack some hefty graphical capabilities. The suggested Adreno "750" smartphone and tablet GPU is touted to offer a 50% increase over the present generation Adreno 740 - as featured on the recently released and cutting-edge Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. The current generation top-of-the-range Snapdragon is no slouch when it comes to graphics benchmarks, where it outperforms Apple's prime contender - the Bionic A16 SoC.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC is expected to launch in the last quarter of 2023, but details of the flagship devices that it will power are non-existent at the time of writing. The tipster suggests that Qualcomm has decided to remain on TSMC's 4 nm process for its next generation mobile chipset - perhaps an all too safe decision when you consider that Apple has upped the stakes with the approach of its Bionic A17 SoC. It has been reported that the Cupertino, California-based company has chosen to fabricate via TSMC's 3 nm process, although the Taiwanese foundry is said to be struggling with its N3 production line. The engineers at Qualcomm's San Diego headquarters are alleged to be experimenting with increased clock speeds running on the next gen Adreno GPU - as high as 1.0 GHz - in order to eke out as much performance as possible, in anticipation of besting the Bionic A17 in graphics benchmarks. The tipster theorizes that Qualcomm will still have a hard time matching Apple in terms of pure CPU throughput, so the consolation prize will lie with a superior GPU getting rigged onto the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the all-new ROG Phone 7 series of gaming smartphones at its For Those Who Dare virtual launch event. The ROG Phone 7 series includes the ROG Phone 7 and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate models and is the latest step in the high-performance evolution of the world's greatest gaming phone. This futuristically-styled phone—which sports a new two-tone design—combines the game-winning power of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform with the advanced GameCool 7 thermal system and special ROG tuning to deliver a truly breathtaking mobile gaming experience—and impressively low power consumption. The key to this power efficiency is the revolutionary new rapid-cycle vapor chamber design, which increases heat dissipation efficiency by up to 168%, allowing the ROG Phone 7 series to run games at full speed while maintaining low temperatures.

To make ROG Phone 7 a powerful and portable theater, we've increased the effective volume of the ROG Phone 7 series' speakers by 50% and tuned the system in cooperation with audio specialists Dirac. ROG Phone 7 series now delivers amazing 2.1-channel sound when the new AeroActive Cooler 7 accessory—which houses a powerful subwoofer—is attached.

On Wednesday, the MLCommons team released the MLPerf 3.0 Inference numbers, and there was an exciting submission from NVIDIA. Reportedly, NVIDIA has used software optimization to improve the already staggering performance of its latest H100 GPU by up to 54%. For reference, NVIDIA's H100 GPU first appeared on MLPerf 2.1 back in September of 2022. In just six months, NVIDIA engineers worked on AI optimizations for the MLPerf 3.0 release to find that basic software optimization can catalyze performance increases anywhere from 7-54%. The workloads for measuring the inferencing speed suite included RNN-T speech recognition, 3D U-Net medical imaging, RetinaNet object detection, ResNet-50 object classification, DLRM recommendation, and BERT 99/99.9% natural language processing.

What is interesting is that NVIDIA's submission is a bit modified. There are open and closed categories that vendors have to compete in, where closed is the mathematical equivalent of a neural network. In contrast, the open category is flexible and allows vendors to submit results based on optimizations for their hardware. The closed submission aims to provide an "apples-to-apples" hardware comparison. Given that NVIDIA opted to use the closed category, performance optimization of other vendors such as Intel and Qualcomm are not accounted for here. Still, it is interesting that optimization can lead to a performance increase of up to 54% in NVIDIA's case with its H100 GPU. Another interesting takeaway is that some comparable hardware, like Qualcomm Cloud AI 100, Intel Xeon Platinum 8480+, and NeuChips's ReccAccel N3000, failed to finish all the workloads. This is shown as "X" on the slides made by NVIDIA, stressing the need for proper ML system software support, which is NVIDIA's strength and an extensive marketing claim.

Benchmark results for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 SoC appeared on Geekbench Browser early yesterday morning, under the designation Snapdragon 8cx Next Gen. This chipset is tipped to be a successor to the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which was launched at the end of 2021 as the world's first 5 nm Arm-based SoC for Windows laptops. A tipster on Twitter has highlighted the very underwhelming results posted by the next gen chipset, and these figures would indicate that an engineering sample was the test subject, not final silicon. The 8-core Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is shown to outperform its supposed successor, and the clock frequencies for the latter appear to be lower than anticipated.

The Geekbench 5 database entry for Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 also reveals details about its specifications - a 12-core configuration that is split into eight performance cores and four power-efficiency ones. The base core frequency is listed as being 2.38 GHz, and the benchmark was completed under a Balanced Power plan in Windows 11 Home Insider Preview. 16 GB of RAM was used in the test kit, although earlier leaks have indicated that the chipset can support up to a maximum of 64 GB LPDDR5 RAM.

Softbank, the owner of Arm Ltd., is preparing everything it can to ensure a successful initial public offering (IPO) of Arm. However, ahead of the IPO, we have more information about Arm's plans to change its licensing and pricing structures to collect more royalties and ensure higher cash flow for future investors. Currently, Arm licenses technology in the form of intellectual property (IP), usually in different flavors of Cortex-A CPU cores that go inside processors for phones and laptops. Chipmakers that use the IP have additional expenses such as Arm ISA license fee and per-chip royalty, which is based on the chip's average selling price.

However, according to Financial Times, we have a new pricing structure that changes how Arm bills its partners and customers. From now on, Arm will grant licenses to chipmakers and ask them to only ship to device makers with an agreement with Arm. Additionally, these device makers now pay per-device royalty based on the device's average selling price (ASP). This ensures that Arm's fee applies to the higher margin product, which means that ultimately Arm will collect more cash flow from its customers and partners. Currently, the old model charges around 1-2 percents per chip in each smartphone, considering the ASP of smartphone chips to be $40 for Qualcomm, $17 for MediaTek, and $6 for Unisoc. However, taking the ASP of a mobile phone at $335, as recorded in 2022, the fee would be much higher. People familiar with the matter noted that Arm will apply this pricing structure as early as 2024. Apple and Samsung are not impacted by this change, as both companies enjoy their own agreements with Arm.

Jabra, leader in personal sound and hybrid work solutions, today launched the Elite 4, the latest addition to its flagship Elite lineup. Following in the footsteps of the entry-level Elite 3, the new true wireless earbuds offer an elevated experience from its predecessor, ideal for the modern earbud user seeking advanced features at an affordable price.

The Elite 4 has been tailored to provide comfort, optimal sound and convenience. For users that need to connect to two different devices simultaneously, the Jabra Elite 4 offers Bluetooth Multipoint, facilitating smooth and stress-free switching, without skipping a beat. The initial pairing of earbuds to a device is simple, with Fast Pair connecting instantly to a mobile device and Swift Pair linking straight to a laptop or computer.

IBASE Technology Inc., a global leader in the manufacture of embedded computing products, has launched the new RM-QCS610 SMARC 2.1 compliant module powered by an Octa-core Qualcomm QCS610 SoC and designed for the creation of devices with edge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities such as vision-enhanced drones, advanced intelligent conferencing cameras, and smart robots.

"The low cost, low power RM-QCS610 offers high performance for devices with edge AI capabilities that have grown in popularity in the last few years," explained Albert Lee, Executive Vice President at IBASE. "The module is our first Qualcomm-based platform. It provides flexible I/O interfaces and brings powerful visual edge computing to accelerate AI across devices with sensors or cameras to collect and process information, make decisions, and perform tasks in the same location in applications including traffic data collection and analysis, computer vision in manufacturing, and automated security validation."

One of the biggest issues with TWS and any other kind of wireless headphones for that matter, is limited support for various audio codecs, where many rely on the not so great SBC codec or AAC, simply because these are two codes that are supported by most of the devices that the headphones would be connected to. When it comes to smartphones, Qualcomm is by far the biggest chipset provider and as it happens, Qualcomm is also the owner of the various aptX audio codecs that many headphones support. Up until very recently, the phone makers had to pay a royalty fee to include support for the aptX codecs even if they used Qualcomm's chips in their phones and thus some companies—Samsung for example—decided not to include support for aptX.

Now it has come to light that just like Sony with its LDAC codec, Qualcomm has decided to add support for aptX to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which means all Android devices can support aptX as well as aptX HD without paying any royalty fees. However, more advanced versions of aptX, such as aptX Adaptive and the rarely used low latency version of aptX are not included. That said, headphone makers will still have to pay a royalty fee to Qualcomm, although there doesn't appear to be any headphones on the market that support aptX that aren't based on a Qualcomm or one of the older CSR chipsets from the time before Qualcomm acquired them. On the other hand, Sony's LDAC codec is used by a wide range of headphones, of which none rely on a Sony chipset. Regardless, this should be good news for consumers, who will be the ones reaping the benefits from this change in the long term.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Mobile Platform—delivering premium experiences brand new to the Snapdragon 7-series. Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 provides exceptional CPU and GPU performance fueling swift, nonstop gaming, dynamic low-light photography and 4K HDR videography, AI-enhanced experiences and high-speed 5G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

"Snapdragon is synonymous with premium mobile experiences. Today's launch of the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 illustrates our ability to bring some of the most in-demand flagship features to our Snapdragon-7 series—making them accessible to more people," said Christopher Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We are committed to delivering the most innovative solutions to meet the needs of consumers, our customers, and the industry at large."

It's been a busy week for embedded computers and SBCs with Embedded World 2023 going on. While a lot of larger brands have taken the focus during this time there has also been activity at the hobbyist level, specifically in the realm of Raspberry Pi clones. One of these that looks to be something of a novelty is the ThunderBERRY5 from French company MakeMyBOARD. This SBC claims to be, "the first Raspberry Pi-like SBC based on Qualcomm AI-CPU," and it features a combination of Qualcomm's 8-core QCS610 SoC and an RP2040 microcontroller. MakeMyBOARD's AI claims stem from the Qualcomm SoC's built-in Hexagon 685 DSP which supports dual vector extensions for their Neural Processing SDK and deep neural network models. The previously mentioned RP2040 fits to the board via the USB2 root and hosts the 40-pin HAT connector as well as an auxiliary debugging header.

Unlike most Pi clones on the market utilizing low-cost, lower performing processors, the ThunderBERRY5 looks like it may trounce the Pi 4 B in raw CPU power as the QCS610's Kryo 460 processor features a 2+6 core configuration: two "Gold" cores at 2.2 GHz and six "SIlver" cores at 1.8 GHz. On paper this looks to have quite the advantage over the aging Pi 4 B's 1.8 GHz quad-core Broadcom BCM2711. More important than beating the Pi 4 in performance would be beating it in availability as the tiny SBC is as hard to find in stock as it is ubiquitous even many years later. On this front there is little info from MakeMyBOARD as no availability date or price information has yet been released. Still, if you were hoping for a higher performance Pi-like SBC with AI acceleration capabilities and features, this may be something to keep an eye on.