HP Inc. today unveiled the HP ENVY x2, an Always Connected PC that combines the best of a smartphone experience with the best of a Windows PC. Impossibly thin and incredibly durable, the HP ENVY x2 offers lightning fast 4G LTE and Wi-Fi and features the world's longest battery life in a Windows detachable. The striking HP ENVY x2 utilizes the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC platform, giving users the freedom to be mobile with instant-on access to applications. With up to 20 hours of battery life, the detachable PC is built to enhance video streaming for binge-watching and provides flexibility and connectivity to perform daily tasks while on the go.

"A growing number of consumers are looking for more reliable connectivity throughout their days, and they are twice as likely to purchase a PC when it comes with built-in 4G LTE," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, consumer personal systems, HP, Inc. "The HP ENVY x2, with the world's longest battery life in a Windows detachable PC, delivers the next generation of Always Connected PCs by providing a seamless experience anywhere life takes you."

ASUS CEO Jerry Shen today announced ASUS NovaGo (TP370) at the second annual Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui, Hawaii. NovaGo is the world's first Gigabit LTE-capable laptop designed for truly connected mobility, providing users with an always-on, always-connected experience. This ultrathin and light convertible laptop is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC platform, and features a Gigabit Snapdragon X16 LTE modem for download speeds exceeding that of typical home Wi-Fi. It has up to a 22-hour battery life with over 30 days of modern standby, and a built-in eSIM that ensures seamless connectivity across borders.

Mr. Shen joined Executive Vice President of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and President, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies Cristiano Amon onstage during the keynote speech of the three-day event. "Today marks the beginning of a new era of personal computing and ASUS is very proud to be paving the way with Qualcomm Technologies and other partners to develop this new landscape for 'Always Connected' Windows on Snapdragon PCs. ASUS NovaGo reinvents the concept of laptop connectivity and productivity - it's the world's first laptop that is connected anywhere, at any time, with the new Gigabit LTE network; and lasts up to 22 hours on a single charge for beyond all-day battery life," said Mr. Shen.

At the Qualcomm Technology Summit, AMD made a surprise appearance to shed some light on their partnership in Qualcomm. The objective: to integrate Qualcomm's LTE modems in AMD-powered mobile platforms, offering always connected capabilities to laptops and convertibles. AMD's Kevin Lensing took to the stage to talk about how AMD's reference designs for the Ryzen Mobile platform (which includes deployment of the company's Ryzen 5 2500U and Ryzen 7 2700U APUs, for instance) shipped to OEMs with an integrated Qualcomm LTE modem - a clear nod at another design point OEMs could look towards integration on their products. These should allow for online connectivity on the go, offering users more ways to keep connected, whether for work or play.

Of course, this is hardly the first time mobile PC form-factors have had this kind of modem integration; Intel has done it for quite some time on their products, with the XMM7260 and XMM7360 that it has applied to more business-oriented devices or Chromebooks. However, adding LTE enablement as an option for AMD-based platforms at this scale is actually a first for AMD. Naturally, the integration of yet another piece of silicon to a mobile device will undoubtedly add to cost and battery consumption, besides adding some more question that end-users have to answer: which carrier option are available, which of those to go with... But having more options is usually better than the alternative, is it not?

Qualcomm Incorporated today confirmed receipt of Broadcom Limited's nomination of a slate of candidates to replace Qualcomm's existing Board of Directors at the Company's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Qualcomm is exceptionally well positioned - with technology and leadership positions across mobile, IoT, Automotive, edge computing and networking - and leading the transition to 5G. Qualcomm stockholders are poised to participate in substantial growth and value creation as the Company continues to execute its strategy across its businesses.

Broadcom and Silver Lake are effectively asking stockholders to foreclose options and make a decision now on a non-binding proposed transaction which could not be completed for well over a year, if ever, given the magnitude of regulatory issues, the absence of commitments by Broadcom to resolve those issues, Broadcom's lack of committed financing, and the uncertainty surrounding its transition from Singapore to the United States. Qualcomm's Board is composed of 11 world-class directors, 9 of whom are independent and 4 of whom have been added in the last 3 years, and all of whom are firmly committed to acting in the best interests of all Qualcomm stockholders. Qualcomm believes that this action is a blatant attempt to seize control of the Qualcomm Board in order to advance Broadcom's acquisition agenda. These nominees are inherently conflicted given Broadcom's desire to acquire Qualcomm in a manner that dramatically undervalues Qualcomm to Broadcom's benefit.

Broadcom Limited today announced that it has notified Qualcomm Incorporated of its intention to nominate a slate of 11 independent, highly qualified individuals for election to Qualcomm's Board of Directors and to propose certain other matters for the consideration of Qualcomm stockholders at Qualcomm's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Broadcom intends to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission a proxy statement, accompanied by a BLUE proxy card, in connection with Qualcomm's 2018 Annual Meeting. Qualcomm has announced that its 2018 Annual Meeting will be held on March 6, 2018.

On November 6, 2017, Broadcom proposed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Qualcomm for per share consideration of $70.00 in cash and stock, consisting of $60.00 in cash and $10.00 in Broadcom shares. Broadcom's offer represents a 28% premium over the closing price of Qualcomm's common stock on November 2, 2017, the last unaffected trading day prior to media speculation regarding a potential transaction, and a premium of 33% to Qualcomm's unaffected 30-day volume-weighted average price. The Broadcom proposal stands whether Qualcomm's pending acquisition of NXP Semiconductors N.V. ("NXP") is consummated on the currently disclosed terms of $110 per NXP share or is terminated.

HTC, a pioneer in innovative, smart mobile and virtual reality (VR) technologies, today held its VIVE Developer Conference 2017 (VDC2017), where it announced VIVE WAVE, a VR open platform and toolset that will open up the path to easy mobile VR content development and high-performance device optimization for third-party partners. 12 hardware partners, namely 360QIKU, Baofengmojing, Coocaa, EmdoorVR, Idealens, iQIYI, Juhaokan, Nubia, Pico, Pimax, Quanta and Thundercomm, announced their support for the integration of Vive Wave as well as the VIVEPORT VR content platform into their future products. Vive Wave is a clear step forward in bringing together the highly fragmented mobile VR market that has growth up in China the last several years. It saves tremendous efforts by allowing developers to create content for a common platform and storefront across disparate hardware vendors. Over 35 Chinese and global content developers have already built VR content optimized for Vive Wave, with 14 showing live demos at the event. Vive also unveiled the VIVE FOCUS, its highly anticipated premium standalone VR headset for the China market that is also based on the Vive Wave VR open platform.

Qualcomm today announced that its Board of Directors unanimously rejected the unsolicited proposal announced by Broadcom Limited ("Broadcom") on November 6, 2017. "It is the Board's unanimous belief that Broadcom's proposal significantly undervalues Qualcomm relative to the Company's leadership position in mobile technology and our future growth prospects," said Paul Jacobs, Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Qualcomm Incorporated.

"No company is better positioned in mobile, IoT, automotive, edge computing and networking within the semiconductor industry. We are confident in our ability to create significant additional value for our stockholders as we continue our growth in these attractive segments and lead the transition to 5G," said Steve Mollenkopf, Chief Executive Officer of Qualcomm Incorporated.

At a press conference held today in San Jose, Calif., Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), officially announced commercial shipment of the world's first and only 10 nanometer server processor series: the Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processor family. The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processor family is the first high-performance Arm-based processor series designed to offer groundbreaking throughput performance for cloud workloads running in today's datacenters. Purpose built for cloud, the Qualcomm Centriq 2400 server processor family delivers exceptional performance-per-watt and performance-per dollar.

"Today's announcement is an important achievement and the culmination of more than four years of intense design, development and ecosystem enablement effort," said Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager, Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc. "We have designed the most advanced Arm-based server processor in the world that delivers high performance coupled with the highest energy efficiency, enabling our customers to realize significant cost savings."

Broadcom Monday made its latest bid for the acquisition of Qualcomm, with its offer standing at a staggering USD 105 billion, which is a mixture of cash and stock. The Broadcom+Qualcomm combine would become the world's third largest chipmaker, behind Intel and Samsung Electronics. Besides an undisclosed proportion of the bid being in cash, the company offered stock at $70 per share, which is a 28 percent premium over the stock's closing price on Monday. If it goes through, the Broadcom+Qualcomm deal would be the largest tech acquisition, dwarfing the $67 billion acquisition of EMC by Dell, in 2015.

Stocks of both Marvell and Cavium rallied over the weekend as reports emerged of Marvell entering talks to acquire the network equipment SoC giant. Cavium specializes in network infrastructure equipment SoCs, such as the famed ThunderX processor, while Marvell holds IP in networking and storage. There are no details as to the value of the acquisition. Shares of Marvell rose 5 percent, and those of Cavium by a staggering 17 percent, as reports of the deal emerged. Tech stocks could rally big on Monday, if Marvell and Cavium close the deal, and Broadcom inches closer to close its $100 billion bid to acquire Qualcomm.

Broadcom, makers of networking equipment, is exploring a deal to acquire mobile technology giant Qualcomm in a USD $100 billion deal, which could be the largest ever acquisition value of a chip-maker. The resulting company could be the world's largest chipmaker, combining Broadcom's IP with networking PHYs and IoT infrastructure, and Qualcomm's SoCs powering IoT devices besides smartphones, tablets, and ultra-portable notebooks. Broadcom is looking to raise a cash+stock bid consisting of shares valued at $70/share. Besides networking infrastructure equipment, Broadcom made its fortunes on the back of Apple iPhone's success, as it supplies its networking chips.

Razer today unveiled the Razer Phone, an Android smartphone with groundbreaking audiovisual technologies and processing muscle that takes personal entertainment to the next level. The first device from Razer's mobile division, the Razer Phone comes with a phenomenal display, cinematic audio and enough power to last a user all day, all in the palm of his or her hand.

The Razer Phone is equipped with the world's first 120 Hz UltraMotion display that delivers the fastest refresh rates and smoothest graphics among today's smartphones. UltraMotion's adaptive refresh technology synchronizes the GPU and display to remove image tearing or lag while driving efficient power usage. The 5.72-inch display - a Quad HD IGZO LCD - delivers vibrant and sharp images with a wide color gamut.

AMD co-founder Jerry Sanders, in 2009 was famously quoted as stating that "real men have fabs," a jibe probably targeted at the budding fab-less CPU designers of the time. Years later, AMD spun-off its silicon fabrication business, which with a substantial investment of the Abu Dhabi government through its state-owned Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), became GlobalFoundries (or GloFo in some vernacular). This company built strategic partnerships with the right players in the industry, acquisitions such as IBM's fabs, and is now at the forefront of sub-10 nm fab development. It remained one of AMD's biggest foundry partners besides TSMC and Samsung, and is manufacturing its AMD processors at a brand new facility in Upstate New York, USA.

AMD, on the other hand, doesn't regret spinning off GloFo. Speaking at Merrill Lynch Global Technology and Investment Conference, CTO Mark Papermaster said, that going fab-less has helped AMD focus on chip-design without worrying about manufacturing. Production is no longer a bottleneck for AMD, as it can now put out manufacturing contracts to a wider variety of foundry partners. Its chip-designers aren't limited by the constraints of an in-house fab, and can instead ask external fabs to optimize their nodes for their chip-designs, Papermaster said. 14 nm FinFET has added a level of standardization to the foundry industry.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today, unveiled two new headsets: the Razer Hammerhead BT and the Razer Hammerhead for iOS Lightning. Engineered to deliver clear and cordless audio, the new Razer Hammerhead BT is a Bluetooth 4.1 in-ear headset that features the Qualcomm aptX codec for low-latency, high-quality audio. Mobile users may enjoy uninterrupted listening and calls with a battery life of up to eight hours per charge. The Razer Hammerhead BT comes with an in-line remote and microphone that is compatible with iOS or Android devices, providing easy call pick-up or music track navigation.

Making full use of the Lightning Connector capabilities, the Razer Hammerhead for iOS delivers clean digital audio through a custom-tuned, digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Through the Razer Hammerhead iOS companion app, users can personalize listening experiences with customizable or pre-configured equalizer settings.

It would seem Microsoft is ever looking for more creative ways of pushing its Windows 10 operating system towards the masses. Some Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users have apparently encountered one of these: a lock on system updates. The error message, which reads "Your PC uses a processor that isn't supported on this version of Windows", points towards a hardware lock-in in exchange for added security and updates.

A Microsoft Support page sheds some light on this issue: that Windows 10 is the only Microsoft operating system to support particular hardware configurations. Namely, systems based on Intel's "seventh (7th)-generation processors or a later generation" (Kaby Lake); "AMD seventh (7th)-generation ("Bristol Ridge") processor or a later generation"; and "Qualcomm "8996" processor or a later generation". This move on Windows 7 might make some sense; however, Windows 8.1 is still in its lease of life (and Microsoft support) until at least 2018.

Microsoft is looking to reduce costs in its Azure cloud computing platforms for tasks like search, storage, machine learning and big data. And after having developed a version of Windows for servers that use ARM processors, in a joint work with Qualcomm and Cavium, Microsoft seems to also be looking forward to leave its dependency on Intel products as nothing but a memory. Microsoft's ARM server design, dubbed Project Olympus, looks to hardware innovations so as to reduce costs, boosting competitiveness and flexibility in regards to other big players in the cloud space, like Amazon and Alphabet. That the design is open source is also a boon to other businesses and Microsoft partners.


Though the design isn't "deployed into production yet (...) that is the next logical step," said Jason Zander, vice president of Microsoft's Azure cloud division. "This is a significant commitment on behalf of Microsoft. We wouldn't even bring something (...) if we didn't think this was a committed project and something that's part of our roadmap."

A sight for sore eyes at the MSI CES booth was its top-grade socket AM4 motherboard, the X370 XPower Gaming Titanium. This board is positioned in the company's Gaming Enthusiast series, and comes with all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a high-end desktop platform. It is based on AMD's top-dog X370 chipset, and supports AMD Ryzen processors out of the box. Designed for both high-end gaming builds and CPU overclockers, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX connectors, and uses a 10-phase VRM to condition it for the AM4 socket. The board also takes in power from an optional 6-pin PCIe power connector, which can be plugged in to stabilize multi-GPU VGA overclocks.

The star-attraction, however, is the silvery-white PCB, with matching connectors. The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, and two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 when both are populated). The board supports NVIDIA SLI-HB and CrossFireX. The third x16 slot is electrical x4, and wired to the X370 chipset. Storage connectivity includes two 32 Gb/s M.2 slots, one 32 Gb/s U.2 port, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports (from which two are directly wired to the processor). The board also serves up four USB 3.1 ports (including a type-C port), eight USB 3.0 ports, MSI's highest-tier onboard audio solution, and gigabit Ethernet that's sourced from either Intel or Qualcomm Killer.

D-Link today announced two new whole-home Wi-Fi solutions, the Covr Wi-Fi System (DKT-883) and the Covr PowerLine Wi-Fi System (DHP-W732AV). The Covr Wi-Fi system is a simple, intelligent solution that uses a high-performance router and seamless extender to create a single network with ultra-fast speeds and reliable connectivity, to even the farthest reaches of a home. The Covr PowerLine Wi-Fi System (DHP-W732AV), one of the first whole-home Wi-Fi solutions to utilize PowerLine technology as a foundation, uses the existing home router and a set of adapters to create a full coverage solution.

While other mesh network solutions rely on multiple access points, D-Link's Covr Wi-Fi System uses a premium router as the backbone of the wireless network. The router provides the advanced features and speed needed to power bandwidth intensive activities like 4K streaming and gaming on multiple devices. Combined with seamless extenders to cover hard to reach areas, Covr delivers a Wi-Fi signal to all areas of the home including upstairs, basements and backyards.

After putting in work in the OpenGL, WebGL, and most recently, Vulkan APIs, the technology industry consortium Khronos Group is setting its sights on the VR industry and ecosystems. Their aim: to create a "cross-vendor, royalty-free, open standard" for the VR development community. This move is an effort to prevent the VR system from fragmenting itself towards an eventual collapse, considering the multiple engines to create content, platforms to sell that content through, and a few different hardware options with casuistically different requirements and tool-sets. As a result, for a developer to support SteamVR (OpenVR), Oculus (OVR), and OSVR, it has a lot of work to do, since each platform (with its unique runtime) interfaces with the game engine in a different way. Developers must account for the intricacies of each platform during the development process.

SoftBank today announced that it has concluded the acquisition of British chipmaker ARM, in a USD $31 billion purchase. The acquisition was first announced in July 2016. Following this, ARM will be de-listed from the London Stock Exchange from the 6th of September 2016. Although ARM is a CPU architecture designer with a mere $1.5 billion in revenue last fiscal, and licenses the architecture to other SoC makers such as Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, Huawei, etc., SoftBank is betting on ARM CPU architecture's emergence as the prime-mover of the IoT (Internet of things) revolution. This is SoftBank's largest tech acquisition following the $20 billion acquisition of American cellular network Sprint, and a $15 billion investment in Vodafone Japan.

Intel is opening up its silicon manufacturing facilities to fabless chip-makers, beginning with the manufacture of ARM SoCs. The company entered a licensing deal with ARM that allows ARM SoC designers such as Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung, to manufacture their SoCs at Intel fabs. Intel is among the first fabs with a working 14 nm node, and is on-track for sub-10 nm node development.

Intel had a crack at the market segments typically addressed by ARM SoCs, with its own x86 chips, which failed to see the kind of volumes ARM chipmakers were pushing. The company has now changed tactics to open its fabs up to those ARM SoC makers, letting them manufacture their designs on proven silicon-fabrication tech, in geographically important locations. Intel has its cutting-edge fabs located in Costa Rica and Malaysia.

Japanese conglomerate Softbank acquired British CPU architecture designer ARM in a USD $32 billion deal on Monday. Softbank's bid of $32 billion is a 43 percent premium over ARM's current valuation of $22.3 billion, and the Cambridge-based firm will recommend its shareholders to approve of its acquisition. Shares of ARM surged 45% on the LSE, adding £7.56 billion to its market value. The company reported revenues of $1.49 billion in 2015. ARM founder Herman Hauser, however, isn't happy with the board's decision. "This is a sad day for me and a sad day for technology in Britain," he stated.

ARM designs CPU architectures, which it then licenses to other processor and SoC manufacturers, many of which are fabless themselves, making it an intellectual property giant. None of ARM's products are "tangible" or physical. While Intel, for example, designs CPU architectures (eg: x86), implements it (eg: Core i7, Celeron), and manufactures it (at its Costa Rica and Malaysia fabs) ARM's product is not tangible. It has a CPU architecture, which clients such as Samsung, Huawei, and Qualcomm license, implement (eg: Exynos, Kylin, Snapdragon), and contract-manufacture, through fabs such as GlobalFoundries, TSMC, and ST Microelectronics.

The recent 6.4 magnitude Taiwan earthquake, which hit the island nation on February 6th, affected TSMC worse than expected. Taiwan's premier semiconductor foundry, TSMC, had initially expected semiconductor wafer shipments to be down by less than 1%, but it is now emerging that the drop in shipments could be higher, because the damage to one of its facilities, Fab-14, is worse than originally assessed.

TSMC, in an official communication to its clients, assured that 95% of the foundry machines could return to functionality within 2-3 days after the earthquake. To that effect, machines in Fab-6 and Fab-14B have been fully restored. Despite the disaster, the company appears confident of reaching revenue targets of US $5.9-6.0 billion for Q1-2016. TSMC is the primary foundry partner of major fabless semiconductor companies, such as Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and AMD. AMD recently moved its next-generation GPU manufacturing to Korean silicon giant Samsung, while NVIDIA is building its next "Pascal" GPU family on TSMC's process.

Microsoft, in a tactfully-worded blog post by Exec VP for its Windows and Devices Group, Terry Myerson, announced that it won't support older versions of Windows (eg: Windows 7 and Windows 8.1) on the latest/upcoming processors. The software might run on the new hardware, but the company won't provide enterprise support for such platforms. This could include software updates, as the platform won't technically meet the software's requirements.

In the post, Microsoft named upcoming platforms from the big three CPU makers - Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, to which the company will provide enterprise support only for Windows 10. These include the 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processors from Intel, "Bristol Ridge" processors from AMD, and the "8996" SoC from Qualcomm. Machines running a select few models of Core "Skylake" processors will receive enterprise support, but only till 17th July, 2017. After this date, only the most critical security updates will be released for the OS running on those platforms.

TRENDnet, a global leader in reliable SMB and consumer networking solutions, announced today it is shipping its new AC2600 StreamBoost MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Router, model TEW-827DRU, featuring the latest 802.11ac technologies to produce faster speeds and maximize bandwidth for more devices.

"MU-MIMO and quad-stream wireless capabilities were recently introduced as a part of the 802.11ac Wave 2 release," said Evan Davis, senior manager of solutions engineering at TRENDnet. "TRENDnet utilized the 802.11ac Wave 2 technologies in our new AC2600 router for functionality enhancements to address the growing needs of our extremely active home and business wireless networks."