Growth rates remained strong in the enterprise segment of the wireless local area networking (WLAN) market in the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21) as the market increased 22.4% on a year-over-year basis to $1.7 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN Tracker. In the consumer segment of the WLAN market, revenues declined 5.7% in the quarter to $2.3 billion, giving the combined enterprise and consumer WLAN markets year-over-year growth of 4.6% in 2Q21.

The growth in the enterprise-class segment of the market builds on a strong first quarter of 2021 when revenues increased 24.6% year over year. For the first half of 2021, the market increased 23.5% compared to first two quarters of 2020. Compared to the second quarter of 2019, 2Q21 revenues increased 10.8%, indicating that demand in the enterprise WLAN is strong.

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.

According to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, worldwide shipments of PCs are expected to grow 14.2% to 347 million units in 2021. This is down from IDC's May forecast of 18% growth with continued supply chain and logistical challenges cited as the main reasons. The Tablet market is also expected to grow in 2021 but at a much slower pace of 3.4%.

"We continue to believe the PC and tablet markets are supply constrained and that demand is still there," said Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "The lengthening of the supply shortages combined with on-going logistical issues are presenting the industry with some big challenges. However, we believe the vast majority of PC demand is non-perishable, especially from the business and education sectors."

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported record revenue for the second quarter ended August 1, 2021, of $6.51 billion, up 68 percent from a year earlier and up 15 percent from the previous quarter, with record revenue from the company's Gaming, Data Center and Professional Visualization platforms. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.94, up 276 percent from a year ago and up 24 percent from the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.04, up 89 percent from a year ago and up 14 percent from the previous quarter.

"NVIDIA's pioneering work in accelerated computing continues to advance graphics, scientific computing and AI," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Enabled by the NVIDIA platform, developers are creating the most impactful technologies of our time - from natural language understanding and recommender systems, to autonomous vehicles and logistic centers, to digital biology and climate science, to metaverse worlds that obey the laws of physics.

Since the end of 2020, TEAMGROUP has been at the forefront of next-generation DDR5 development, working closely with motherboard manufacturers to perform extensive validation testing. Whether it is the testing and research of DDR5's new PMIC architecture or XMP overclocking parameters, the company has achieved very fruitful results. Today TEAMGROUP is launching its brand new DELTA DDR5 Memory Series, the first DDR5 modules to be equipped with RGB lighting effect, providing gamers who enjoy visual flair with both next-level speed and eye-pleasing illumination.

The T-FORCE DELTA RGB DDR5 continues the design language of the DELTA DDR4 Series by maintaining the ultra-large spreader with wide-angled RGB edges and a minimalist geometrical surface. The overall look is further enhanced by its sleek stealth-fighter-inspired design. In addition, the color and flashing speed of each RGB LED used in DELTA RGB DDR5 can be independently controlled, offering more freedom to customize lighting effects than a typical RGB DDR4 memory. Currently samples have been sent to ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASROCK, BIOSTAR and other motherboard manufacturers for lighting tests. Players will be able to easily customize their own dazzling RGB effects through the manufacturers' lighting software.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA and a trailblazer in building accelerated computing platforms, is the 2021 recipient of the industry's highest honor, the Robert N. Noyce Award. SIA presents the Noyce Award annually in recognition of a leader who has made outstanding contributions to the semiconductor industry in technology or public policy. Huang will accept the award at the SIA Awards Dinner on Nov. 18, 2021.

"Jensen Huang's extraordinary vision and tireless execution have greatly strengthened our industry, revolutionized computing, and advanced artificial intelligence," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Jensen's accomplishments have fueled countless innovations—from gaming to scientific computing to self-driving cars—and he continues to advance technologies that will transform our industry and the world. We're pleased to recognize Jensen with the 2021 Robert N. Noyce Award for his many achievements in advancing semiconductor technology."

At the end of July, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced the specifications and guidelines for expanding the console's built-in internal storage and confirmed that the PlayStation 5 (PS5) will now support M.2 SSDs for users to expand storage for game files and applications on the PS5. Today, TEAMGROUP's gaming brand, T-FORCE, is unveiling the T-FORCE CARDEA A440 Pro Special Series M.2 PCIe SSD with the industry's first-ever white graphene heat sink. The latest M.2 SSD, made specifically for expanding storage and will be available for gamers around the world on major e-commerce platforms in October, 2021.

The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 Pro Special Series M.2 SSD is being announced today by TEAMGROUP and is equipped with the industry's first-ever white graphene heat sink. The M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD, created specifically to expand PS5 storage, can reach read/write speeds of up to 7,400/7,000 MB/s and offers storage capacities of up to 8 TB. The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 Pro Special Series M.2 SSD meets the specifications for the PS5 in heat sink size, read/write speeds, and supported capacities, allowing PS5 gamers to install it easily and get the storage they need instantly.

While the server industry transitions to the latest generation of processors based on the x86 platform, the Intel Ice Lake and AMD Milan CPUs entered mass production earlier this year and were shipped to certain customers, such as North American CSPs and telecommunication companies, at a low volume in 1Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. These processors are expected to begin seeing widespread adoption in the server market in 3Q21. TrendForce believes that Ice Lake represents a step-up in computing performance from the previous generation due to its higher scalability and support for more memory channels. On the other hand, the new normal that emerged in the post-pandemic era is expected to drive clients in the server sector to partially migrate to the Ice Lake platform, whose share in the server market is expected to surpass 30% in 4Q21.

Epic Games Store, one of the many products of the Epic Games company, is the current number one contender of Steam game store, which used to be Valve's monopoly in the gaming market. Having another contender is nice and competition is always welcome, however, it doesn't seem like running a games store is a cheap venture. In the recent legal dispute between Apple and Epic in California state, we have discovered some interesting details about Epic Games Store (EGS) and its financial background. According to the documents appearing in the court, EGS is not considered profitable until 2027, at least.

Apple has told the court that "Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic is projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with 'significant' growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021." This information shows that Epic has sunk a lot of cash in the store, however, the company expects EGS to become profitable at some point, where the original investment will be returned.

It is often a dilemma for business users to choose between performance and portability when buying a laptop, but MSI is now offering the best of both worlds. If you're looking for a commercial laptop that is convertible, with pen support, and has excellent graphics, MSI Summit E16 Flip may be the solution for someone like you who demand performance on the go.

After its announcement in CES 2021, MSI Summit E16 Flip, this powerful yet beautifully-designed laptop, is finally on the market. Not only has it exemplified the law of "Golden Ratio" with the 16:10 QHD+ Display, the performance will not disappoint mobile commercial users. Moreover, the Dynamic Cooler Boost design will help users to distribute its CPU and GPU performance to the tasks accordingly. If you are engineer, architect, designer, or even startup ownerwho needs to pitch and show proposals, you will no longer have to struggle with loading and editing the files on the spot with the 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics.Along with the support of the MSI Pen, the first award-winning stylus on 2021 CES, it will be a booster for your productivity and allows you to work more modernly with its low latency, stable connection, long battery life, and customizable functions.

Worldwide revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware, and services, is estimated to grow 15.2% year over year in 2021 to $341.8 billion, according to the latest release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker. The market is forecast to accelerate further in 2022 with 18.8% growth and remain on track to break the $500 billion mark by 2024. Among the three technology categories, AI Software occupied 88% of the overall AI market. However, in terms of growth, AI Hardware is estimated to grow the fastest in the next several years. From 2023 onwards, AI Services is forecast to become the fastest growing category.

Within the AI Software category, AI Applications has the lion's share at nearly 50% of revenues. In terms of growth, AI Platforms is the strongest with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.2%. The slowest will be AI System Infrastructure Software with a five-year CAGR of 14.4% while accounting for roughly 35% of all AI Software revenues. Within the AI Applications market, AI ERM is expected to grow slightly stronger than AI CRM over the next five years. Meanwhile, AI Lifecycle Software is forecast to grow the fastest among the markets within AI Platforms.

The massive rise in market demand for notebook computers in response to distance learning needs and WFH applications from 2020 to 2021 has generated not only a double-digit growth in notebook panel shipment, but also a price hike of more than 40% for notebook panels, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. As various suppliers subsequently scramble to manufacture OLED, LTPS, and oxide panels, TrendForce forecasts these high-end notebook panels to reach a 17.8% market share in 2021 and 21.4% in 2022.

Panels based on OLED technology are primarily supplied by SDC, whose OLED notebook panel shipment for 2020 reached 800,000 pcs. SDC is expected to ship more than four million pcs of OLED notebook panels in 2021, with room for further growth in 2022. In addition to SDC, EDO is also expected to begin mass producing OLED notebook panels in 2H21-1H22. As such, TrendForce expects OLED panels to reach a 1.3% penetration rate in the overall notebook panel market this year. Although BOE and CSOT are currently fully engaged in Hybrid OLED development, Hybrid OLED panels will not enter mass production until 2023 due to technological and cost-related bottlenecks that are yet to be resolved.

According to NPD data, Xbox just set a new hardware sales record the past month of June in the U.S., outselling PlayStation to the tune of a cool $200 million. The Xbox division cumulatively brought in a total $401 million dollars in the past month of June, marking a year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth to the tune of 112%. That large, $401 million number also marks a new record for Xbox and its Microsoft parent - the previous revenue record for the Xbox division was set way back in 2011. ten years later, it can be said that Xbox is better than ever before.

That same $401 million revenue from Xbox hardware clearly puts Sony's PlayStation in the rear-view mirror, as the company "only" achieved a $207 million revenue for June 2021 - a 1% decline YoY. That Microsoft managed to pull this off in the hardware shortage scenario we currently live in is impressive; and it does speak to the amount of pent-up demand that's still vying to enter the company's coffers. The record comes a month after Microsoft announced the deployment of Xbox Series X server blades to its xCloud programme, which occurred on June 26th. It appears likely that the company was distributing its Series X production capabilities between the retail sector and its own xCloud service before June 26th (with the additional time required for installation and all that entails), which would explain the sudden record in June. As Microsoft freed xCloud-bound capacity to the retail sector, the record thus ensued.

While the stay-at-home economy generated high demand for notebook computers from distance learning and WFH applications last year, global notebook shipment for 2020 underwent a nearly 26% YoY increase, which represented a significant departure from the cyclical 3% YoY increase/decrease that had historically taken place each year, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. The uptrend in notebook demand is expected to persist in 2021, during which notebook shipment will likely reach 236 million units, a 15% YoY increase. In particular, thanks to the surging demand for education notebooks, Chromebooks will become the primary growth driver in the notebook market. Regarding the shipment performance of various brands, Samsung and Apple will register the highest growths, with the former having Chromebooks account for nearly 50% of its total notebook shipment this year and the latter continuing to release MacBooks equipped with the M1 chip.

The surge in PC demand continued through the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21) despite global component shortages and logistics issues. Worldwide shipments of Traditional PCs, inclusive of desktops, notebooks, and workstations, reached 83.6 million units in 2Q21, up 13.2% from the second quarter of 2020, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Elevated demand for PCs combined with shortages that greatly impacted the supply of notebooks led to desktop growth outpacing that of notebooks during the quarter.

"The PC market's hot streak continued to drive heavy investments from the supply side including the entry of new vendors as well as additional spend from underdogs," said Jitesh Ubrani research manager for IDC's Mobile and Consumer Device Trackers. "And while the top 5 continue to drive volume, the smaller vendors have helped drive growth by offering unique features or niche designs."

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced an intent to form the Open 3D Foundation to accelerate developer collaboration on 3D game and simulation technology. The Open 3D Foundation will support open source projects that advance capabilities related to 3D graphics, rendering, authoring, and development. As the first project governed by the new foundation, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is contributing an updated version of the Amazon Lumberyard game engine as the Open 3D Engine (O3DE), under the permissive Apache 2.0 license. The Open 3D Engine enables developers and content creators to build 3D experiences unencumbered by commercial terms and will provide the support and infrastructure of an open source community through forums, code repositories, and developer events. A developer preview of O3DE is available on GitHub today. For more information and/or to contribute, please visit: https://o3de.org

3D engines are used to create a range of virtual experiences, including games and simulations, by providing capabilities such as 3D rendering, content authoring tools, animation, physics systems, and asset processing. Many developers are seeking ways to build their intellectual property on top of an open source engine where the roadmap is highly visible, openly governed, and collaborative to the community as a whole. More developers look to be able to create or augment their current technological foundations with highly collaborative solutions that can be used in any development environment. O3DE introduces a new ecosystem for developers and content creators to innovate, build, share, and distribute immersive 3D worlds that will inspire their users with rich experiences that bring the imaginations of their creators to life.

During this year's ISC 2021 event, as a part of the company's exhibition portfolio, NVIDIA has decided to launch an updated version of the A100 accelerator. A couple of months ago, in November, NVIDIA launched an 80 GB HBM2E version of the A100 accelerator, on the SXM2 proprietary form-factor. Today, we are getting the same upgraded GPU in the more standard dual-slot PCIe type of card. Featuring a GA100 GPU built on TSMC's 7 nm process, this SKU has 6192 CUDA cores present. To pair with the beefy amount of computing, the GPU needs appropriate memory. This time, there is as much as 80 GB of HBM2E memory. The memory achieves a bandwidth of 2039 GB/s, with memory dies running at an effective speed of 3186 Gbps. An important note is that the TDP of the GPU has been lowered to 250 Watts, compared to the 400 Watt SXM2 solution.

To pair with the new upgrade, NVIDIA made another announcement today and that is an enterprise version of Microsoft's DirectStorage, called NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage. It represents a way of allowing applications to access the massive memory pool built on the GPU, with 80 GB of super-fast HBM2E memory.

Chinese semiconductor production is hitting new all-time highs. According to the report coming from South China Morning Post, citing the source over at the National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese semiconductor production has grown 37.6% in May of 2021, compared to the same month in 2020. The total chip output resulted in 29.9 billion chips in May, which is quite an impressive growth. In the first five months of this year, Chinese chipmakers have produced an amazing 139.9 billion chips, meaning that at the time of writing that number is much greater. If we compare the same five-month period of 2020, we can see that the chip output has grown 48.3% this year.

While the number of chips produced is not an ideal metric to monitor the growth of semiconductors in China, it is an indication of just how much the Chinese semiconductor industry is growing. The 48.3% growth in chip output is not small by any means, and we can't wait to see the report for the whole year.

Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most hyped AAA game releases in 2020, has been out for a while now. However, not too long ago, Sony, the maker of PlayStation, has pulled the game from its PlayStation Store amidst negative reviews and criticism that the game received. This has resulted in significantly lower sales of the game, as millions of potential buyers were left without an option to purchase it. But not everything is too dark. In the announcement made by CD Projekt RED, the game developer behind Cyberpunk 2077, things are looking bright for the game as Cyberpunk 2077 is returning to the PlayStation store on June 21st. You can see the quote from CDPR below.

CD Projekt REDIn relation to Current Report no. 66/2020 of 18 December 2020, the Management Board of CD PROJEKT S.A. with a registered office in Warsaw hereby publicly discloses the decision by Sony Interactive Entertainment to reinstate the availability of the digital edition of Cyberpunk 2077 on PlayStation Store, effective on 21 June 2021.

Xbox had a bit of an unusual announcement to make. If you have ever felt the need for a cool drink in your long gaming sessions, the folks over at Xbox got you covered. Today, the company has unveiled its Xbox Mini Fridge, which is basically what it is called - a mini-fridge. What is so special about you might wonder? Well, for starters, it is not just a regular cooling device. It has the aesthetics of the Xbox Series X console and even features a cool green and black painting, with a green coat inside. It is the ultimate device for Xbox and chill, coming your way in holiday 2021. The pricing and capacity of this mini-fridge are unknown, but it should handle a few soda cans and ice cream just fine.Check out the YouTube premiere below.

TrendForce's latest investigations find considerable discrepancy between prices for graphics DRAM products in the contract market and in the spot market. Quotes for graphics DRAM products continue to rise in the contract market as the severe undersupply situation persists. Furthermore, the supply fulfillment rates for orders from some medium- and small-size clients have been hovering around 30%. This undersupply situation is expected to persist through 3Q21, during which graphics DRAM contract prices are expected to rise by 8-13% QoQ. Regarding the spot market, on the other hand, the value of ETH experienced continued uptrend from the start of 2021 until May, thereby driving up the demand for graphics cards, regardless of them belonging to the newer or older series. At the height of the graphics card boom, spot prices of graphics DRAM products were up to 200% higher than contract prices. Demand from miners for graphics cards are expected to be relatively muted before cryptocurrencies return to their previous bullish trends, and the gap between the spot and contract prices of graphics DRAM products will likely narrow in 3Q21 as a result.

Valve, the company behind the Steam gaming platform, will be making an appearance at this year's E3 gaming event. The E3 is taking a form of a virtual trade event this year, which is standard for all of the previous events we had in the past, like Computex 2021. The special appearance this year will come from Valve. According to PC Gamer, Valve will have something to share, more specifically a "message regarding Steam". Usually, Valve doesn't make a lot of appearances at E3 and is not considered a regular there, so this year's E3 show will have the honor to host the company at the PC Gaming Show. This means that we are getting a possibly big announcement from Valve.

The current rumors are suggesting that the company wants to present the SteamPal, a Switch-like portable gaming console that aims to bring gaming on the go, powered by Valve. The exact details of what is to be presented will be unveiled on Sunday, June 13 at 2:30 PM PST / 5:30 PM EST and we will be sure to report about the happenings at E3, so stay tuned for more details.

Today, Valve has updated its Steam Hardware Survey with the latest information about the market share of different processors. Steam Hardware Survey is a very good indicator of market movements, as it surveys users that are spread across millions of gaming systems that use Valve's Steam gaming platform. As Valve processes information, it reports it back to the public in a form of market share of different processors. Today, in the Steam Hardware Survey for May 2021, we got some interesting data to look at. Most notably, AMD has gained 0.65% CPU market share, increasing it from the previous 29.48% to 30.13%. This represents a major move for the company, which didn't own more than 30% market share with its CPUs on Steam Survey in years.

As the Steam Survey tracks even the market share of graphics cards, we got to see a slight change there as well. As far as GPUs go, AMD now holds 16.2% of the market share, which is a decrease from the previous 16.3%. For more details about Steam Hardware Survey for May 2021, please check out Steam's website here.

Micron, the US-based manufacturer of various kinds of memory technologies, has today announced some quite interesting products at its Computex 2021 keynote. For starters, the company has announced a new portfolio of products based on 176-layer NAND. There are currently two products listed that use this new technology and those are the Micron 3400 and 2450 M.2 NVMe SSDs. Based on the PCIe 4.0 interface, the 2450 SSD lineup is designed as a value-oriented solution that comes in M.2-2280, M.2-2242, and M.2-2230 sizes. It ranges from 256 GB to 1 TB in capacities, which are supposed to be priced as a value purchase.

In a contrast, the 3400 SSD is M.2-2280 design, meant for only the highest performance. The sequential read speeds go up to 6600 MB/s, while the sequential writes go up to 5000 MB/s (in the case of the 2 TB model). Capacities range from 512 GB to 2 TB and only the 1 TB and 2 TB variants have the 5000 MB/s write speeds, while the 512 GB version is capped at 3600 MB/s speed. Both SSD models are featuring a heat spreader on top of NAND chips and spot an in-house and Micron-developed NVMe 1.4 SSD controller. However, Micron does note that the company is free to use any 3rd party SSD controller as we are deep in component shortages with high demand for SSDs. You can get an in-depth look at the 2450 and 3400 M.2 SSDs from Micron's website.

XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces that it will launch its new DDR5 gaming memory modules in Q3 2021. The new product series will be known as the CASTER series. The modules will deliever frequencies ranging from 6000 to 7400 MHz and come with capacities of 8, 16, or 32 GB. XPG has been working closely with its motherboard partners, including GIGABYTE, MSI, ASUS, and ASRock, to ensure the highest level of compatibility and ability to realize extreme overclocking performance.

The new DDR5 modules will come in two variants, with and without RGB. Despite this difference, they share a cohesive industrial design. The products' designs convey an understated sense of depth and textural contrast with the use of two surface treatments, one glossy and one matte. For added depth, the matte surface of the modules are beveled for an additional textural element and futuristic look. To communicate the XPG brand, the modules sport diagonal intersecting lines and grooves that form geometric forms and X shapes that play off the XPG brand name and visual identity.