TrendForce reports that several suppliers, such as Micron and SK hynix, have started scaling back DRAM production. The ASP of DRAM plunged 20% in 1Q23, and this price decline is predicted to slow down to 10~15% next quarter. It's uncertain whether or not demand will recover in 2H23. Therefore, the ASP of DRAM has continued to fall as inventory levels are high from the suppliers' side, and prices will only rebound if there is a significant decrease in production.

PC DRAM: Purchase quantity from buyers has fallen drastically over the past three quarters; buyers have around 9~13 weeks of PC DRAM stock remaining. Despite suppliers having already cut production in the PC DRAM segment, DDR4 8 GB module is still likely to fall by more than 10% in 2Q23. There is a possibility that PC OEMs may purchase more DRAM because prices have been down to a relatively low level, but it is still under observation whether or not this can mitigate the inventory overstock situation from the suppliers' side. TrendForce predicts the ASP of PC DRAM will fall between 10~15%.

NVIDIA has killed SLI on its graphics cards, disabling the possibility of connecting two or more GPUs to harness their power for gaming and other workloads. However, SLI is making a reincarnation today in the form of a new H100 GPU model that spots higher memory capacity and higher performance. Called the H100 NVL, the GPU is a unique edition design based on the regular H100 PCIe version. What makes the H100 HVL version so special is the boost in memory capacity, now up from 80 GB in the standard model to 94 GB in the NVL edition SKU, for a total of 188 GB of HMB3 memory, running on a 6144-bit bus. Being a special edition SKU, it is sold only in pairs, as these H100 NVL GPUs are paired together and are connected by three NVLink connectors on top. Installation requires two PCIe slots, separated by dual-slot spacing.

The performance differences between the H100 PCIe version and the H100 SXM version are now matched with the new H100 NVL, as the card features a boost in the TDP with up to 400 Watts per card, which is configurable. The H100 NVL uses the same Tensor and CUDA core configuration as the SXM edition, except it is placed on a PCIe slot and connected to another card. Being sold in pairs, OEMs can outfit their systems with either two or four pairs per certified system. You can see the specification table below, with information filled out by AnandTech. As NVIDIA says, the need for this special edition SKU is the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) that require significant computational power to run. "Servers equipped with H100 NVL GPUs increase GPT-175B model performance up to 12X over NVIDIA DGX A100 systems while maintaining low latency in power-constrained data center environments," noted the company.

Today, thanks to Yuuki_Ans on the Chinese Bilibili forum, we have more information about the upcoming "Avenue City" platform that powers Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest. Intel's forthcoming Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest Xeon processors will diverge the Xeon family into two offerings: one optimized for performance/core equipped with P-cores and the other for power/core equipped with E-cores. The reference platform Intel designs and shares with OEMs internally is a 16.7" x 20" board with 20 PCB layers, made as a dual-socket solution. Featuring two massive LGA-7529 sockets, the reference design shows the basic layout for a server powered by these new Xeons.

Capable of powering Granite Rapids / Sierra Forest-AP processors of up to 500 Watts, the platform also accommodates next-generation I/O. Featuring 24 DDR5 DIMMs with support for 12-channel memory, with memory speeds of up to 6400 MT/s. The PCIe selection includes six PCIe Gen 5 x16 links supporting CXL cache coherent protocol and 6x24 UPI links. Additionally, we have another piece of information that Granite Rapids will come with up to 128 cores and 256 threads in both regular and HBM-powered Xeon Max flavoring. You can see storage and reference platform configuration details on the slides below.

AMD's EPYC lineup already features the new Zen 4 core designed for better performance and efficiency. However, since the release of EPYC Milan-X processors with 3D V-cache integrated into server offerings, we wondered if AMD will continue to make such SKUs for upcoming generations. According to the report from Wccftech, we have a leaked table of specifications that showcase what some seemingly top-end Genoa-X SKUs will look like. The two SKUs listed here are the "100-000000892-04" coded engineering sample and the "100-000000892-06" coded retail sample. With support for the same SP5 platform, these CPUs should be easily integrated with the existing offerings from OEM.

As far as specifications, this processor features 384 MBs of L3 cache coming from CCDs, 768 MBs of L3 cache from the 3D V-Cache stacks, and 96 MBs of L2 cache for a total of 1248 MBs in the usable cache. A 3 MB stack of L1 cache is also dedicated to instructions and primary CPU data. Compared to the regular Genoa design, this is a 260% increase in cache sizes, and compared to Milan-X, the Genoa-X design also progresses with 56% more cache. With a TDP of up to 400 Watts, configurable to 320 Watts, this CPU can boost up to 3.7 GHz. AMD EPYC Genoa-X CPUs are expected to hit the shelves in the middle of 2023.

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."

AQIRYS, the trending Romanian gaming brand, announces the launch of ADARA, the most advanced gaming keyboard in its portfolio. The model announced today is aimed at the most discerning and demanding users of compact keyboards, and it has been engineered for silence, smoothness, and future customization and upgrade possibilities.

Named after the brightest star in ultraviolet light, ADARA fuses in a versatile compact form factor, the latest features and innovations in mechanical keyboard design with customized switches from HaiMu, the newest OEM name in the high-end switches arena. Thanks to its 1800 compact form factor and 95-key layout, the new keyboard offers similar space-saving benefits for performing ample mouse movements, just like the TKL format preferred by e-sports professionals, while preserving the convenience of the Numpad.

TrendForce's recent analysis of the foundry market reveals that demand continues to slide for all types of mature and advanced nodes. The major IC design houses have cut wafer input for 1Q23 and will likely scale back further for 2Q23. Currently, foundries are expected to maintain a lower-than-ideal level of capacity utilization rate in the first two quarters of this year. Some nodes could experience a steeper demand drop in 2Q23 as there are still no signs of a significant rebound in wafer orders. Looking ahead to the second half of this year, orders will likely pick up for some components that underwent an inventory correction at an earlier time. However, the state of the global economy will remain the largest variable that affect demand, and the recovery of individual foundries' capacity utilization rates will not occur as quickly as expected. Taking these factors into account, TrendForce currently forecasts that global foundry revenue will drop by around 4% YoY for 2023. The projected decline for 2023 is more severe when compared with the one that was recorded for 2019.

Due to the various major events that affected the global economy and politics, the overall demand for consumer electronics made a sharp downward turn in 2022, and global shipments of notebook (laptop) computers began to fall over the quarters. TrendForce's latest analysis finds that global shipments of notebook computers (from ODMs) reached just around 186 million units for 2022, showing a YoY drop of 24.5%. As for 2023, the outlook on the performance of the notebook computer market remains uncertain at this moment. TrendForce expects the YoY decline to moderate to about 7.8%, but shipments are projected to total only 171 million units.

Because market demand was anemic in 4Q22, promotional activities related to the traditional year-end peak season did not generate a lot of sales momentum. Looking at regional markets, notebook brands (PC OEMs) slashed prices in the US and China, but their sales results still did not meet expectations. This development was mainly attributed to factors such as high inflation suppressing consumers' disposable income. Since the sales results for 4Q22 were lackluster, efforts to get rid of the existing stockpile of whole devices might continue through 2Q23. Furthermore, order placements from channels are going to be much more restrained.

TrendForce's latest analysis of the DRAM market finds that the inventory pressure on suppliers remain significant due to the persistently weak demand for consumer electronics. Among the top three DRAM suppliers, only Samsung has seen a slight drop in inventory level thanks to its highly competitive pricing strategy. To prevent DRAM prices as a whole from making another sharp dive, a few suppliers such as Micron have been cutting production. Therefore, the QoQ decline in DRAM prices are projected to shrink to around 13~18% for 1Q23. However, the slump will have yet to reach the bottom at that time. Regarding the QoQ changes in the prices of the major categories of DRAM products for 1Q23, PC DRAM and server DRAM are projected to again register a drop that is near 20%. Conversely, mobile DRAM will experience the smallest price decline because its profit margin is ready the thinnest.

Global market intelligence firm TrendForce states that Chinese memory manufacturer YMTC is now at risk of exiting the market for 3D NAND Flash products by 2024 following its formal placement on the Entity List of the US Commerce Department on December 15. From this point forward, the Commerce Department will be reviewing and approving individual transactions related to the exportation, re-exportation, and sales of equipment, technologies, and other related goods from the US to YMTC. With acquisitions of equipment parts and technical support from its US partners becoming very difficult and prolonged, YMTC is going to be severely constrained from raising its bit output. Hence, its foothold on the market for 3D NAND Flash products is expected to weaken as time goes by.

TrendForce points out that without the support of the key equipment providers, YMTC is now facing a huge technical obstacle in the development of its latest 3D NAND Flash technology known as Xtacking 3.0. In particular, raising yield rate for the 128L and 232L processes is going to be extremely challenging for the Chinese memory manufacturer. Taking account of this latest escalation in the US-China trade dispute, TrendForce has further corrected down its projections on YMTC's supply bit growth rate and the total NAND Flash supply bit growth rate for next year. YMTC supply bits were initially forecasted to grow by 60% YoY for 2023. However, there was a massive downward correction that put its growth rate at just 18%. Now, YMTC is forecasted to post a YoY decline of 7%, which is a complete reversal from the earlier projections.

In a new International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast, the outlook for PCs and tablets continues to get worse. Worldwide PC and tablet shipments are forecast to decline 11.9% in 2022 with volumes shrinking to 456.8 million units, followed by a further decline in 2023. According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, traditional PCs will see shipments drop 5.6% to 281 million units in 2023 while tablets will decline 6.7% to 148 million units.

Despite the sharp decline, shipment volumes will remain above pre-pandemic levels although the market will continue to be challenged by macroeconomic headwinds, excess channel inventory, and high levels of saturation. While the PC market is expected to fare better than tablets with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of just over 1% expected over the five-year forecast, tablets are expected to have a CAGR of -1.7% over the same period.

Lenovo started offering the Ryzen 9 7900 and Ryzen 7 7700 processors as options for its prebuilt desktops, confirming that the 7900 and 7700 will be OEM-exclusives, at least initially. That doesn't mean these chips won't make it to the retail channel, as OEM-only parts from AMD in the past have somehow found their way to retailers, who bought them in trays, and sold them piecemeal as combos with motherboards and CPU coolers. The 7900 is a 12-core/24-thread part, just like its retail-channel sibling, the 7900X. The 7700 is an 8-core/16-thread part, again, similar to the 7700X. Not much else is known about these chips, except for their base frequency of just 3.60 GHz (compared to 4.70 GHz for the 7900X, and 4.50 GHz for the 7700X). Both chips are expected to feature a lowered TDP, with just 65 W for the 7700 (down from 105 W for the 7700X), and possibly 65 W or 105 W for the 7900 (down from 170 W for the 7900X).

Based on the latest data and research, TrendForce has further corrected down the projected YoY growth rate of whole server shipments for 2023 to 2.8%. Three factors are behind this revision. First, lead time has started to return to its usual length for most orders related to server components from 3Q23 onward. Seeing this, server OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) have also begun to correct the component mismatch issue by lowering demand for items that are in excess while maintaining a constant inventory level for items that are still in tight supply. This development, in turn, has reduced the flow of server orders going to ODMs. Second, the wave of demand that was generated earlier from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is dissipating. Hence, expansion activities have cooled off noticeably for services such as video streaming, e-commerce, etc. Among CSPs, Meta, Google, and ByteDance (TikTok) have lowered their server procurement quantities for next year. Lastly, the global economic outlook has remained fairly negative, so companies across most industry sectors have formulated a more conservative expenditure plan and scaled back IT-related spending for next year.

The SiSoft SANDRA user database has just been pinged by two new unreleased AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processor models, the Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 5 7600. These chips have the same 8-core/16-thread and 6-core/12-thread core-counts as the 7700X and 7600X, respectively; but with lower clock speeds, and more importantly, a lower TDP of just 65 W. This would put their package power tracking (PPT) limit around 90 W, down from the 105 W and 140 W of the their "X" siblings.

The 7600 and 7700 come with a base frequency of 3.80 GHz, as detected by SANDRA. Every other specification, such as cache size, is the unchanged from the 7600X or 7700X. There's no word on the availability, but it's likely that AMD would debut these chips in the OEM channel first, especially given that the 7600 has the potential to undercut sales of the embattled 7600X. Things could get interesting as Intel debuts the lower end of its 13th Gen Core i5 series, which are rumored to be based on the "Alder Lake" microarchitecture, and 6P+4E SKUs.

Intel's upcoming Sapphire Rapids processors have faced multiple delays over the past few years. Built on Intel 7 manufacturing process, the CPU is supposed to bring new advances for Intel's clients and significant performance uplifts. However, TrendForce reports that the mass production of Sapphire Rapids processors will be delayed from Q4 of 2022 to the first half of 2023. The reason for this (yet another) delay is that the Sapphire Rapids MCC die is facing a meager yield on Intel 7 manufacturing technology, estimated to be at only 50-60% at the time of writing. Economically, this die-yielding percentage is not profitable for Intel since many dies are turning out to be defective.

This move will stop many OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) from rolling out products based on the Sapphire Rapids design and will have to delay it until next year's mass production. On the contrary, AMD is likely to reap the benefits of Intel's delay, and AMD's x86 server market share will jump from 15% in 2022 to 23% in 2023. Given that AMD ships processors with the highest core counts, many companies will opt for AMD's solutions in their data centers. With more companies being concerned by their TCO measures with rising energy costs, favors fall in the hand of single-socket servers.

Worldwide tablet shipments were down 8.8% year over year in the third quarter of 2022 (3Q22), totaling 38.6 million units, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. This was the fifth straight quarter of decline for the tablet market. Chromebook shipments also struggled in 3Q22, falling to 4.3 million units and a year-over-year decline of 34.4%. Both markets have now shifted from supply constrained industries to ones that are demand challenged as consumer and education spending has slowed in the face of economic uncertainties.

Chinese vendors continue to do well in emerging markets where there is low-end demand. Sanctions from many vendors also enabled Chinese vendors like Huawei to perform well in the Russian market. Meanwhile, the emergence of low-priced Chinese OEMs like Realme, Xiaomi, Oppo and others, has fueled strong competition in the lower range devices. However, these gains still couldn't offset the decline experienced by the main tablet vendors.

Over the past few weeks, the legal dispute between Arm Ltd. and Qualcomm Inc. has been warming up the eyes of the entire tech community. However, as per the latest court filing, Arm could change its licensing strategy and shift its whole business model into a new direction that would benefit the company directly. Currently, the company provides the intellectual property (IP) that chip makers can use and add to designs mixed with other IPs and custom in-house solutions. That is how the world of electronics design (EDA) works and how many companies operate. However, in the Qualcomm-Arm legal battle, Qualcomm's counterclaim has brought new light about Arm's plans for licensing its hardware designs past 2024.

According to Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, who examined court documents, Arm will reportedly change terms to use its IP where the use of other IP mixed with Arm IP is prohibited. If a chip maker plans to use Arm CPU IP, they must also use Arm's GPU/NPU/ISP/DSP IPs. This would result in devices that utilize every design the UK-based designer has to offer, and other IP makers will have to exclude their designs from the SoC. By doing this, Arm directly stands against deals like the Samsung-AMD deal, where AMD provides RDNA GPU IP and would force Samsung to use Arm's Mali GPU IP instead. This change should take effect in 2025 when every new license agreement has to comply with new rules.

Here's the first picture of a Lenovo Legion prebuilt gaming desktop with what is allegedly an OEM NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 "Ada" graphics card designed by Lenovo. The card features a mammoth 4-slot air-based triple-fan cooling solution, and draws power from a single 12+4 pin ATX 12VHPWR connector that's capable of delivering up to 600 W of power with +100% excursions (spikes). The card is installed on a custom motherboard by Lenovo which is Socket LGA1700, and likely features a 12th- or 13th Gen Intel Core processor, cooled by a liquid AIO CLC. Take this leak with a grain of salt, though. The "90" in the masked out "GeForce RTX 4090" logo has a different typeface from the one we're seeing on leaked RTX 4090 retail boxes from the likes of ZOTAC and GIGABYTE.

The latest version 2.02 of CPU-Z adds support for a handful unreleased Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors. These include "non-X" SKUs, namely the Ryzen 9 7950, and Ryzen 9 7900. Keeping up with past trends, these are possibly 65 W TDP variants of the 7900X and 7950X to be released only in the OEM market, and will make it to pre-built desktops. In the past, OEM processors by AMD have found their way to brick-and-mortar retail stores, where they're sold off the tray. The retailers get these chips from AMD by claiming to be SI (system integrators). They tend to bundle these with motherboards, memory kits, and SSDs. AMD in its announcement presentation for the Ryzen 7000 underscored the extreme levels of efficiency "Zen 4" exhibits in chips with 65 W power limits. Single-threaded or lightly threaded performance is mostly unaffected, but heavy multi-threaded workloads could see lower performance in comparison to the retail "X" chips.

Intel has today unveiled another addition to its discrete Arc Alchemist graphics card lineup, with a slight preference to the professional consumer market. Intel has prepared three models for creators and entry pro-vis solutions, called Intel Arc Pro graphics cards. All GPUs are AV1 accelerated, have ray tracing support, and are designed to handle AI acceleration inside applications like Adobe Premiere Pro. At the start, we have a small A30M mobile GPU aimed at laptop designs. It has a 3.5 TeraFLOP FP32 capability inside a configurable 35-50 Watt TDP envelope, has eight ray tracing cores, and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. Its display output connectors depend on OEM's laptop design.

Next, we have the Arc A40 Pro discrete single-slot GPU. Having 3.5 TeraFLOPs of FP32 single-precision performance, it has eight ray tracing cores and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. The listed maximum TDP for this model is 50 Watts. It has four mini-DP ports for video output, and it can drive two monitors at 8K 60 Hz, one at 5K 240 Hz, two at 5K 120 Hz, or four at 4K 60 Hz refresh rate. Its bigger brother, the Arc A50 Pro, is a dual-slot design with 4.8 TeraFLOPs of single-precision FP32 computing, has eight ray tracing cores, and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory as well. It has the same video output capability as the Arc A40 Pro, with a beefier cooling setup to handle the 75 Watt TDP. All software developed using the OneAPI toolkit can be accelerated using these GPUs. Intel is working with the industry to adapt professional software for Arc Pro graphics.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 series processors have been available since March in Lenovo systems. In the meantime, system integrators and OEMs got their hands on these processors and started selling systems based around them. However, today the DIY channel is equipped with these monstrous CPUs. With up to 64 cores and 128 threads of Zen3 IP, these processors can boost up to 4.5 GHz and have 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes and an eight-channel DDR4 integrated memory controller with 280 Watt TDP across all models. AMD has noted that the non-Pro Threadripper 5000 series is ceasing production in favor of these Pro models and justifying the increased price point by adding more L3 cache and more cores.

The 24C/48T Threadripper Pro 5965WX comes with a 3.8 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost frequency with 128 MB of L3 cache, and it is priced at 2399 USD. The bigger Threadripper Pro 5975WX is equipped with 32C/64T configuration, has a 3.6 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost speed, and carries 128 MB of L3 cache while priced at 3299 USD. The top-end Threadripper Pro 5995WX is a monstrous 64C/128T design with a base frequency of 2.7 GHz and a boost of 4.5 GHz. It has 256 MB of L3 cache and costs a staggering 6499 USD. Additionally, all of the new Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 series CPUs require a WRX80-based motherboard chipset, which is an additional expense of its own.

According to sources close to Igor Wallossek from Igor's lab, Intel's upcoming Arc Alchemist discrete graphics card lineup is in trouble. As the anonymous sources state, certain add-in board (AIB) partners are having difficulty adopting the third GPU manufacturer into their offerings. As we learn, AIBs are sitting on a pile of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. This pile is decreasing in price daily and losing value, so it needs to be moved quickly. Secondly, Intel is reportedly suggesting AIBs ship cards to OEMs and system integrators to start the market spread of the new Arc dGPUs. This business model is inherently lower margin compared to selling GPUs directly to consumers.

Last but not least, it is reported that at least one major AIB is stopping the production of custom Arc GPUs due to quality concerns. What this means is yet to be uncovered, and we have to wait and see which AIB (or AIBs) is stepping out of the game. All of this suggests that the new GPU lineup is on the verge of extinction, even before it has launched. However, we are sure that the market will adapt and make a case for the third GPU maker. Of course, these predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, and we await more information to confirm those issues.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $51.9 billion and increased 12% (up 16% in constant currency)
• Operating income was $20.5 billion and increased 8% (up 14% in constant currency)
• Net income was $16.7 billion and increased 2% (up 7% in constant currency)
• Diluted earnings per share was $2.23 and increased 3% (up 8% in constant currency)

"We see real opportunity to help every customer in every industry use digital technology to overcome today's challenges and emerge stronger," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. "No company is better positioned than Microsoft to help organizations deliver on their digital imperative - so they can do more with less."

Intel's upcoming family of Arc Alchemist mobile graphics cards is just around the corner, and we are already starting to spot the company's reference systems utilizing the latest dedicated graphics. Thanks to the findings of @momomo_us, we have information that Intel is readying the NUC X15 laptop reference system codenamed "Alder Country." There are two SKUs, LAPAC71G and LAPAC71H, each with similar CPU and GPU configurations. Carrying an Intel Core i7-12700H processor with 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU is paired with either Arc A550M on the LAPAC71G SKU or Arc A730M on LAPAC71H SKU.

As a reminder, Intel already made such NUC X15 reference laptop designs with Tiger Lake processors. However, they came with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 graphics instead of Intel Arc Alchemist. Implementations of NUC X15 appeared with partners such as ADATA XPG Xenia laptop. We could expect to see more OEMs adapt Alder Country if the performance of Arc Alchemist graphics proves good.

According to the latest TrendForce research, despite the rapid weakening of overall consumer demand in 1H22, DRAM manufacturers previously presented a tough stance on price negotiations and gave little ground, steadily conveying inventory pressure from buyers to sellers. Facing uncertain peak-season demand in 2H22, some DRAM suppliers have begun effectively expressing clear intentions to cut prices, especially in the server field, where demand is relatively stable, in order to reduce inventory pressure. This situation will cause 3Q22 DRAM pricing to drop from the previous 3~8% to nearly 10% QoQ. If a price war is incited due to companies competing for sales, the drop in prices may exceed 10%.

PC OEMs have continuously downgraded their shipment prospects. With average DRAM inventory levels at more than two months, unless a huge price incentive exists, there is no urgent demand for procurement. At the same time, thanks to continuous adoption of the advanced 1Z/1alpha process, supply continued to increase in 3Q22. DDR4 output could not be effectively reduced due to high pricing limiting the penetration rate of DDR5. The price decline of PC DRAM in 3Q22 is revised to 5~10%.