OPENEDGES Technology, Inc., the leading provider of memory subsystem intellectual property (IP), today announced the launch of the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) Controller IP, named OUC. UCIe is an open industry standard for a die-to-die interconnect, and co-developed by industry giants including AMD, Arm, ASE Group, Google Cloud, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung. UCIe is becoming a new trend in the semiconductor industry due to its advantages, such as increased semiconductor circuit integration, reduced production costs, and higher yields. OPENEDGES is contributing to UCIe consortium as a contributing member.

The OUC, deriving its name from OPENEDGES UCIe Controller, is tailored for highly customizable, package-level integration, facilitating die-to-die interconnect and protocol connections. It creates an interoperable, multi-vendor ecosystem set to revolutionize chip integration methodologies across the industry.

Akeana, the company committed to driving dramatic change in semiconductor IP innovation and performance, has announced its official company launch approximately three years after its foundation, having raised over $100 million in capital, with support from A-list investors including Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, and Fidelity. Today's launch marks the formal availability of the company's expansive line of IP solutions that are uniquely customizable for any workload or application.

Formed by the same team that designed Marvell's ThunderX2 server chips, Akeana offers a variety of IP solutions, including microcontrollers, Android clusters, AI vector cores and subsystems, and compute clusters for networking and data centers. Akeana moves the industry beyond the status quo of legacy vendors and architectures, like Arm, with equitable licensing options and processors that fill and exceed current performance gaps.

Intel today announced that its lead products on Intel 18A, Panther Lake (AI PC client processor) and Clearwater Forest (server processor), are out of the fab and have powered-on and booted operating systems. These milestones were achieved less than two quarters after tape-out, with both products on track to start production in 2025. The company also announced that the first external customer is expected to tape out on Intel 18A in the first half of next year.

"We are pioneering multiple systems foundry technologies for the AI era and delivering a full stack of innovation that's essential to the next generation of products for Intel and our foundry customers. We are encouraged by our progress and are working closely with customers to bring Intel 18A to market in 2025." -Kevin O'Buckley, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Foundry Services

According to The Information, OpenAI is reportedly in talks with Broadcom about developing a custom AI accelerator to power OpenAI's growing demand for high-performance solutions. Broadcom is a fabless chip designer known for a wide range of silicon solutions spanning from networking, PCIe, SSD controllers, and PHYs all the way up to custom ASICs. The latter part is what OpenAI wants to focus on, but all the aforementioned IP developed by Broadcom is of use in a data center. Suppose OpenAI decides to use Broadcom's solutions. In that case, the fabless silicon designer offers a complete vertical stack of products for inter-system communication using various protocols such as PCIe, system-to-system communication using Ethernet networking with Broadcom Tomahawk 6 and future revisions, alongside storage solutions and many other complimentary elements of a data center.

As a company skilled in making various IPs, it also makes ASIC solutions for other companies and has assisted Google in the making of its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which is now in its sixth generation. Google TPUs are massively successful as Google deploys millions of them and provides AI solutions to billions of users across the globe. Now, OpenAI wants to be part of the AI chip game, and Broadcom could come to the rescue with its already-established AI success and various other data center componentry to help make a custom AI accelerator to power OpenAI's infrastructure needed for the next generation of AI models. With each new AI model released by OpenAI, compute demand spikes by several orders of magnitude, and having an AI accelerator that exactly matches their need will help the company move faster and run even bigger AI models.

Qualitas Semiconductor Co., Ltd. has developed a new PCIe 6.0 PHY IP, marking a significant advance in computer interconnect technology. This new product, created using advanced 5 nm process technology is designed to meet the high-speed data transfer needs of the AI era. The Qualitas' PCIe PHY IP using 5 nm FinFet CMOS technology consists of hardmacro PMA and PCS compliant to PCIe Base 6.0 specification.

The PCIe 6.0 PHY IP can achieve transmission speeds up to 64GT/s per lane. When using all 16 lanes, it can transfer data at rates up to 256 GB/s. These speeds make it well-suited for data centers and self-driving car technologies, where rapid data processing is essential. Qualitas achieved this performance by implementing 100G PAM4 signaling technology. Highlighting the importance of the new IP, Qualitas CEO Dr. Duho Kim signaled the company's intent to continue pushing boundaries in semiconductor technology.

South Korean startup Panmnesia has unveiled an interesting solution to address the memory limitations of modern GPUs. The company has developed a low-latency Compute Express Link (CXL) IP that could help expand GPU memory with external add-in card. Current GPU-accelerated applications in AI and HPC are constrained by the set amount of memory built into GPUs. With data sizes growing by 3x yearly, GPU networks must keep getting larger just to fit the application in the local memory, benefiting latency and token generation. Panmnesia's proposed approach to fix this leverages the CXL protocol to expand GPU memory capacity using PCIe-connected DRAM or even SSDs. The company has overcome significant technical hurdles, including the absence of CXL logic fabric in GPUs and the limitations of existing unified virtual memory (UVM) systems.

At the heart of Panmnesia's solution is a CXL 3.1-compliant root complex with multiple root ports and a host bridge featuring a host-managed device memory (HDM) decoder. This sophisticated system effectively tricks the GPU's memory subsystem into treating PCIe-connected memory as native system memory. Extensive testing has demonstrated impressive results. Panmnesia's CXL solution, CXL-Opt, achieved two-digit nanosecond round-trip latency, significantly outperforming both UVM and earlier CXL prototypes. In GPU kernel execution tests, CXL-Opt showed execution times up to 3.22 times faster than UVM. Older CXL memory extenders recorded around 250 nanoseconds round trip latency, with CXL-Opt potentially achieving less than 80 nanoseconds. As with CXL, the problem is usually that the memory pools add up latency and performance degrades, while these CXL extenders tend to add to the cost model as well. However, the Panmnesia CXL-Opt could find a use case, and we are waiting to see if anyone adopts this in their infrastructure.Below are some benchmarks by Panmnesia, as well as the architecture of the CXL-Opt.

Mimir IP, a South Korean patent management company, bought around 1,500 chip-related patents from SK hynix in May. They have now filed a lawsuit against the U.S. memory company Micron, accusing it of using these patents without permission, TrendForce reported. If Mimir wins, they could get up to USD 480 million in damages. The lawsuit, filed on June 3, also targets Tesla, Dell, HP, and Lenovo for using Micron's products. The patents in question are related to circuits, voltage measurement devices, and non-volatile memory devices.

The case is being heard in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the US International Trade Commission. This is the first time a South Korean company that acquired patents from domestic chipmakers has filed a lawsuit against a US semiconductor company. Officials from the involved companies have not commented. Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix have been changing how they deal with their patents recently, so this is not really a surprise move. In March 2023, Micron transferred over 400 chip-related patents to Lodestar Licensing Group. In June 2023, Samsung transferred 96 US chip patents, including the right to file patent infringement complaints, to IKT, an affiliate of Samsung Display.

At Computex 2024, QNAP drew attendees' attention with their booth showcasing the QSW-M3224-24T 1U rackmount Ethernet network switch. Designed as a cost-effective solution, this switch boasts an impressive array of 24 10G Ethernet RJ45 ports, specifically catering to storage nodes like NAS that need to be connected to it. QNAP's emphasis on providing a comprehensive networking solution was evident from the switch's support for a suite of their proprietary technologies.

One of the key features highlighted was the QSS Pro 4.0.0 L3 Lite system management software, which streamlines network administration tasks. Additionally, the switch offers IGMP snooping capabilities, enabling efficient handling of AV-over-IP configurations. QNAP's Qfinder Pro utility further simplifies network management by allowing administrators to easily locate locally attached QNAP devices by their IP addresses. Notably, the QSW-M3224-24T also supports multi-chassis link aggregation group (MC-LAG) technology, ensuring network redundancy and enhancing overall reliability.

Today, in advance of ISC High Performance 2024, SpiNNcloud Systems announced the commercial availability of its SpiNNaker2 platform, a supercomputer-level hybrid AI high-performance computer system based on principles of the human brain. Pioneered by Steve Furber, designer of the original ARM and SpiNNaker1 architectures, the SpiNNaker2 supercomputing platform uses a large number of low-power processors for efficiently computing AI and other workloads.

First-generation SpiNNaker1 architecture is currently used in dozens of research groups across 23 countries worldwide. Sandia National Laboratories, Technical University of München and Universität Göttingen are among the first customers placing orders for SpiNNaker2, which was developed around commercialized IP invented in the Human Brain Project, a billion-euro research project funded by the European Union to design intelligent, efficient artificial systems.

While we are all used to having a system with a CPU, GPU, and, recently, NPU—X-Silicon Inc. (XSi), a startup founded by former Silicon Valley veterans—has unveiled an interesting RISC-V processor that can simultaneously handle CPU, GPU, and NPU workloads in a chip. This innovative chip architecture, which will be open-source, aims to provide a flexible and efficient solution for a wide range of applications, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, automotive systems, and IoT devices. The new microprocessor combines a RISC-V CPU core with vector capabilities and GPU acceleration into a single chip, creating a versatile all-in-one processor. By integrating the functionality of a CPU and GPU into a single core, X-Silicon's design offers several advantages over traditional architectures. The chip utilizes the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) for both CPU and GPU operations, running a single instruction stream. This approach promises lower memory footprint execution and improved efficiency, as there is no need to copy data between separate CPU and GPU memory spaces.

Called the C-GPU architecture, X-Silicon uses RISC-V Vector Core, which has 16 32-bit FPUs and a Scaler ALU for processing regular integers as well as floating point instructions. A unified instruction decoder feeds the cores, which are connected to a thread scheduler, texture unit, rasterizer, clipping engine, neural engine, and pixel processors. All is fed into a frame buffer, which feeds the video engine for video output. The setup of the cores allows the users to program each core individually for HPC, AI, video, or graphics workloads. Without software, there is no usable chip, which prompts X-Silicon to work on OpenGL ES, Vulkan, Mesa, and OpenCL APIs. Additionally, the company plans to release a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for direct chip programming. According to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry has been seeking an open-standard GPU that is flexible and scalable enough to support various markets. X-Silicon's CPU/GPU hybrid chip aims to address this need by providing manufacturers with a single, open-chip design that can handle any desired workload. The XSi gave no timeline, but it has plans to distribute the IP to OEMs and hyperscalers, so the first silicon is still away.

Embracer Group has entered (as of March 28) into an agreement to divest Gearbox Entertainment, for a consideration of USD 460 million (SEK 4.9 billion) to Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. ("Take-Two"). The proceeds from the deal will, upon closing, significantly reduce net debt, earnout obligations and capex. Embracer retains selected companies, including Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (to be renamed), with the publishing rights to the Remnant franchise, the upcoming Hyper Light Breaker and other notable unannounced game releases.

"Yesterday's announcement marks the result of the final structured divestment process and is an important step in transforming Embracer into the future with notably lower net debt and improved free cash flow. Through the transaction, we lower business risk and improve profitability as we transition to becoming a leaner and more focused company. After evaluating several options for Gearbox, I am happy that we have reached a solution that is in the best interest of all stakeholders. Randy and the team have been great team members throughout the past years, and I would like to thank them all for that. As one of the world's greatest games developers, I am confident that Gearbox will continue to innovate and thrive in their new home within Take-Two," says Lars Wingefors, co-founder and CEO of Embracer.

Xbox and Fallout fans, rejoice! Today, we are thrilled to announce a striking collaboration between Xbox and new series on Prime Video "Fallout", premiering on April 11. Introducing the Xbox and Fallout Vault Box—a custom collaboration that combines the rugged essence of the Fallout universe with the unparalleled security of a Fort Knox vault. Based on one of the greatest video game series of all time, "Fallout" is the story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there's almost nothing left to have. Two-hundred years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind—and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird, and highly violent universe waiting for them.

The series comes from Kilter Films and executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Nolan directed the first three episodes. Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner serve as executive producers, writers and co-showrunners. The series stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Aaron Moten (Emancipation) and Walton Goggins (The Hateful Eight). Athena Wickham of Kilter Films also executive produces along with Todd Howard for Bethesda Game Studios and James Altman for Bethesda Softworks. Amazon MGM Studios and Kilter Films produce in association with Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks.

Chinese e-commerce and cloud giant Alibaba announced its plans to launch a server-grade RISC-V processor later this year, and it showcased a RISC-V-powered laptop running an open-source operating system. The announcements were made by Alibaba's research division, the Damo Academy, at the recent Xuantie RISC-V Ecological Conference in Shenzhen. The upcoming server-class processor called the Xuantie C930, is expected to be launched by the end of 2024. While specific details about the chip have not been disclosed, it is anticipated to cater to AI and server workloads. This development is part of Alibaba's ongoing efforts to expand its RISC-V portfolio and reduce reliance on foreign chip technologies amidst US export restrictions. To complement the C930, Alibaba is also preparing a Xuantie 907 matrix processing unit for AI, which could be an IP block inside an SoC like the C930 or an SoC of its own.

In addition to the C930, Alibaba showcased the RuyiBOOK, a laptop powered by the company's existing T-Head C910 processor. The C910, previously designed for edge servers, AI, and telecommunications applications, has been adapted for use in laptops. Strangely, the RuyiBOOK laptop runs on the openEuler operating system, an open-source version of Huawei's EulerOS, which is based on Red Hat Linux. The laptop also features Alibaba's collaboration suite, Ding Talk, and the open-source office software Libre Office, demonstrating its potential to cater to the needs of Chinese knowledge workers and consumers without relying on foreign software. Zhang Jianfeng, president of the Damo Academy, emphasized the increasing demand for new computing power and the potential for RISC-V to enter a period of "application explosion." Alibaba plans to continue investing in RISC-V research and development and fostering collaboration within the industry to promote innovation and growth in the RISC-V ecosystem, lessening reliance on US-sourced technology.

Sony is preparing to launch its next-generation PlayStation 5 Pro console in the Fall of 2024, right around the holidays. We previously covered a few graphics details about the console. However, today, we get more details about the CPU and the overall system, thanks to the exclusive information from Insider Gaming. Starting off, the sources indicate that PS5 Pro system memory will get a 28% bump in bandwidth, where the standard PS5 console had 448 GB/s, and the upgraded PS5 Pro will get 576 GB/s. Apparently, the memory system is more efficient, likely coming from an upgrade in memory from the GDDR6 SDRAM of the regular PS5. The next upgrade is the CPU, which has special modes for the main processor. The CPU uArch is likely the same, with clocks pushed to 3.85 GHz, resulting in a 10% frequency increase.

However, this is only achieved in the "High CPU Frequency Mode," which steals the SoC's power from the GPU and downclocks it slightly to allocate more power to the CPU in highly CPU-intense settings. The GPU we discussed here is an RDNA 3 IP with up to 45% faster graphics rendering. The ray tracing performance can be up to four times higher than the regular PS5, while the entire GPU delivers 33.5 TeraFLOPS of FP32 single-precision computing. This comes from 30 WGP running BVH8 shaders vs the 18 WGPs running BVH4 shaders on the regular PS5. There are PSSR upscalers present, and the GPU can output 8K resolution, which will come with future software updates. Last but not least, the AI front also has a custom AI accelerator capable of 300 8-bit INT8 TOPS and 67 16-bit FP16 TeraFLOPS. Audio codecs are getting some love, as well, with ACV running up to 35% faster.

According to the latest report by Reuters, the US government is preparing to announce a multi-billion dollar grant for Intel's chip manufacturing operations in Arizona next week, possibly worth more than $10 billion. US President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will make the announcement, which is part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act aimed at expanding US chip production and reducing dependence on China and Taiwan manufacturing. The exact amount of the grant has yet to be confirmed, but rumors suggest it could exceed $10 billion, making it the most significant award yet under the CHIPS Act. The funding will include grants and loans to bolster Intel's competitive position and support the company's US semiconductor manufacturing expansion plans. This comes as a surprise just a day after the Pentagon reportedly refused to invest $2.5 billion in Intel as a part of a secret defense grant.

Intel has been investing significantly in its US expansion, recently opening a $3.5 billion advanced packaging facility in New Mexico, supposed to create extravagant packaging technology like Foveros and EMIB. The chipmaker is also expanding its semiconductor manufacturing capacity in Arizona, with plans to build new fabs in the state. Arizona is quickly becoming a significant hub for semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. In addition to Intel's expansion, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is also building new fabs in the state, attracting supply partners to the region. CHIPS Act has a total funding capacity of $39 billion allocated for semiconductor production and $11 billion for research and development. The Intel grant will likely cover the production part, as Team Blue has been reshaping its business units with the Intel Product and Intel Foundry segments.

Tenstorrent and MosChip Technologies announced today that they are partnering on design for Tenstorrent's cutting-edge RISC-V solutions. In selecting MosChip Technologies, Tenstorrent stands to strongly advance both its own and its customers' development of RISC-V solutions as they work together on Physical Design, DFT, Verification, and RTL Design services.

"MosChip Technologies is special in that they have unparalleled tape out expertise in design services, with more than 200 multi-million gate ASICs under their belt", said David Bennett, CCO of Tenstorrent. "Partnering with MosChip enables us to design the strongest RISC-V solution we can to serve ourselves, our partners, and our customers alike."

Electronic Arts revealed a workforce reduction program last week—reportedly impacting around 670 employees—alongside announcements regarding a number of major development project cancellations and reassignments. Laura Miele, President of EA Entertainment and Technology, disclosed that Respawn Entertainment's mysterious "Star Wars FPS Action game" had been axed, with staffers moving onto "new projects based on our owned brands" instead of licensed material. Industry insider reports suggested that an internal Respawn team—not assigned to a "Star Wars: Jedi" sequel—had started work on a Mandalorian/bounty hunter-themed first-person shooter IP. The official announcement of a renewed focus on Respawn's "rich library of owned brands" has generated plenty of internet speculation—Titanfall franchise fans have long demanded a proper third entry in the series. Studio boss, Vince Zampella, has teased revisits in the past—an Axios interview revealed that veteran Titanfall game director, Steve Fukuda, was incubating "something new" with a very small skunkworks-type team.

Earlier this week, Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb addressed rumored goings-on at Respawn. His "Game Mess Mornings 03/04/24" videocast—co-hosted by Emma Fyffe—included a segment dedicated to EA's adjusted development strategies. Grubb reiterated insider information about "Titanfall Legends" getting canned early on last year—allegedly a single-player Apex/Titanfall crossover experience. Giant Bomb's News Editor has reached out to his network of moles—he shared this inside info during Monday's broadcast: "They're not making Titanfall 3. They just straight up aren't. They do have another team that has been kicking around a project that is very early. There's been a very small team in the prototyping phase and now they're going to go to wider. This is a real project now, but still in the prototyping phase. This game, as it stands today, as far as I understand, is a Titanfall game. It's in the Titanfall universe. But everyone I talk to keeps saying, don't get in your mind that it's Titanfall 3, a game with online multiplayer and a single player campaign."

We're thrilled to announce that Toys for Bob is spinning off as an independent game development studio! Over the years, we've inspired love, joy, and laughter for the inner child in all gamers. We pioneered new IP and hardware technologies in Skylanders. We raised the bar for best-in-class remasters in Spyro Reignited Trilogy. We've taken Crash Bandicoot to innovative, critically acclaimed new heights.

With the same enthusiasm and passion, we believe that now is the time to take the studio and our future games to the next level. This opportunity allows us to return to our roots of being a small and nimble studio. To make this news even more exciting, we're exploring a possible partnership between our new studio and Microsoft. And while we're in the early days of developing our next new game and a ways away from making any announcements, our team is excited to develop new stories, new characters, and new gameplay experiences.

Yesterday, Remedy Entertainment Plc ("Remedy") and 505 Games S.p.A. ("505 Games") announce a transaction upon which all publishing, distribution, marketing and other rights to Control, codename Condor, Control 2, and all future Control products will revert to Remedy. The Control franchise is in the core of Remedy. Having acquired the full rights to Control, Condor and Control 2, Remedy is now in a position to make the right product and business decisions focusing on long-term franchise growth.

The transaction has no immediate effect on the income statement, while we see attractive growth opportunities arising in the mid-to-long term. This transaction will enable us to negotiate better deals for current and future Control games. We can now weigh up the options between self-publishing and a new publishing partner for Condor and Control 2. At the same time, we are in a better negotiating position than before as Control is an established brand and Alan Wake 2 has been successful. We are confident that these factors combined will enable us to get the right partner, deal structure and risk-reward profile that benefit Remedy and are the best fit for the Control franchise. We will evaluate and negotiate with potential future partners over the coming months.

Intel Corp. today launched Intel Foundry as a more sustainable systems foundry business designed for the AI era and announced an expanded process roadmap designed to establish leadership into the latter part of this decade. The company also highlighted customer momentum and support from ecosystem partners - including Synopsys, Cadence, Siemens and Ansys - who outlined their readiness to accelerate Intel Foundry customers' chip designs with tools, design flows and IP portfolios validated for Intel's advanced packaging and Intel 18A process technologies.

The announcements were made at Intel's first foundry event, Intel Foundry Direct Connect, where the company gathered customers, ecosystem companies and leaders from across the industry. Among the participants and speakers were U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Arm CEO Rene Haas, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced a collaboration to deliver optimized next generation Arm Cortex -X CPU developed on Samsung Foundry's latest Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technology. This initiative is built on years of partnership with millions of devices shipped with Arm CPU intellectual property (IP) on various process nodes offered by Samsung Foundry.

This collaboration sets the stage for a series of announcements and planned innovation between Samsung and Arm. The companies have bold plans to reinvent 2-nanometer (nm) GAA for next-generation data center and infrastructure custom silicon, and a groundbreaking AI chiplet solution that will revolutionize the future generative artificial intelligence (AI) mobile computing market.

Phoronix head honcho, Michael Larabel, has noticed another set of interesting updates for AMD Graphics on Linux—albeit in preparation for next generation solutions: "engineers on Monday (February 5) posted a few new patch series for enabling some updated IP (intellectual property) blocks within their open-source AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver. This new IP is presumably part of the ongoing hardware enablement work for their next-gen RDNA 4 graphics." Team Red GitHub patches for "GFX12" targets appeared online last November, again highlighted by Larabel's investigative work—AMD engineers appear to be quite determined with their open-source software endeavors, as seen in LLVM-Project notes regarding GFX1200's enablement.

The new "IP block" updates included patches for the enabling ATHUB 4.1, LSDMA 7.0, IH 7.0, and HDP 7.0—presumably for next generation Radeon graphics solutions. Larabel provided a quick breakdown of these components: "ATHUB 4.1 is needed for clock-gating / power management features, LSDMA 7.0 is the latest IP for Light SDMA for general purpose System DMA (SDMA) on the GPU, IH 7.0 for the Interrupt Handler on the GPU, and HDP 7.0 for the Host Data Path support for CPU accessing the GPU device memory via the PCI BAR. As far as code changes, the big chunks of the work are from the auto-generated header files." He believes that AMD's engineers have largely moved on from current generation tasks: "The big version bumps for these IP blocks all the more are likely indicative of these bits being for next-gen RDNA 4 as opposed to further iterating on RDNA3 or similar." The patches could be merged into the upcoming Linux 6.9 release, possibly coinciding with a Radeon RX 8000 series rollout.

According to Financial Times, a regional court in Düsseldorf, Germany, created a significant setback for Intel on Wednesday, issuing an injunction prohibiting sales of some of its processors due to allegations they infringe on a patent held by R2 Semiconductor. R2, a technology firm based in Palo Alto, California, accused Intel of violating its patent related to processor voltage regulation. The ruling applies to Intel's 10th, 11th, and 12th generation Core processors, known as Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, and Alder Lake, as well as its Ice Lake Xeon server SKUs. Newer processors generations (13th, 14th, etc.) don't infringe the patent. Even though Intel noted that it plans to appeal the decision, the ramifications could extend beyond the company itself. Industry experts warn the court order could lead to a sweeping ban on products containing the disputed Intel chips, including laptops and pre-built PCs from major manufacturers like HP and Dell. R2 has waged an ongoing legal fight across multiple jurisdictions to defend its intellectual property.

After initially filing suit against Intel in the United States, R2 shifted its efforts to Germany and other European countries after its patent was invalidated stateside. Intel strongly denied R2's patent infringement claims, alleging the company's entire business model relies on extracting legal settlements through serial litigation. Intel believes the injunction serves only R2's financial interests while harming consumers, businesses, and the economy. The two firms traded barbs in official statements about the case. R2's CEO, David Fisher, rebuffed Intel's characterization of his company, saying it has only targeted Intel for infringement of its clear IP rights. As the war of words continues, the practical impact of the German court's decision remains uncertain, pending Intel's appeal. However, the preliminary injunction demonstrates the massive financial consequences at stake in battles over technological patents.

Faraday Technology Corporation, a Taiwanese silicon IP designer, has announced plans to develop a new 64-core system-on-chip (SoC) utilizing Intel's most advanced 18A process technology. The Arm-based SoC will integrate Arm Neoverse compute subsystems (CSS) to deliver high performance and efficiency for data centers, infrastructure edge, and 5G networks. This collaboration brings together Faraday, Arm, and Intel Foundry Services. Faraday will leverage its ASIC design and IP solutions expertise to build the SoC. Arm will provide the Neoverse compute subsystem IP to enable scalable computing. Intel Foundry Services will manufacture the chip using its cutting-edge 18A process, which delivers one of the best-in-class transistor performance.

The new 64-core SoC will be a key component of Faraday's upcoming SoC evaluation platform. This platform aims to accelerate customer development of data center servers, high-performance computing ASICs, and custom SoCs. The platform will also incorporate interface IPs from the Arm Total Design ecosystem for complete implementation and verification. Both Arm and Intel Foundry Services expressed excitement about working with Faraday on this advanced Arm-based custom silicon project. "We're thrilled to see industry leaders like Faraday and Intel on the cutting edge of Arm-based custom silicon development," said an Arm spokesperson. Intel SVP Stuart Pann said, "We are pleased to work with Faraday in the development of the SoC based on Arm Neoverse CSS utilizing our most competitive Intel 18A process technology." The collaboration represents Faraday's strategic focus on leading-edge technologies to meet evolving application requirements. With its extensive silicon IP portfolio and design capabilities, Faraday wants to deliver innovative solutions and break into next-generation computing design.

The nonprofit organisation that is in charge of coordinating and managing the namespaces and numerical spaces on the internet—ICANN or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number—has proposed a rather big change on how consumers and businesses could be accessing networked devices on their private networks in the future. ICANN has put forward a new top-level domain for private use, much like the 192.168.x.x IP address range is allocated to private networks (alongside two other ranges), we might end up with a similar top-level domain. The proposed domain will be .internal, although we already have .localhost and .local today, but neither is really usable in a private network.

As such .internal has been suggested—in favour of.private due to concerns about it sounding like something privacy related—as a means for less computer savvy users to connect to devices on a private network. We've already seen solutions from several router manufacturers that use various domain names or subdomains to enable easier connectivity to routers. However, the goal here is to avoid clashes with top-level domains on the internet and.internal is said to resolve this problem. That said, it's not clear how this will be implemented as yet, but the ICANN is set to release more details in the near future. Even though it might not be the perfect solution, it should hopefully allow people to remember what they called their devices when they need to access them, rather than trying to remember the correct IP address.