As the world comes to grips with chip shortages due to supply chain disruptions and ripple-effects from the global pandemic, Intel's leaders are urging Congress to fund the CHIPS for America Act to create a more stable future for the U.S. tech industry.

In 1990, 80% of the world's semiconductors were produced in the U.S. and Europe. Today, 80% are produced in Asia, where countries provide substantial incentives to domestic semiconductor industries. This helps create a 30% to 50% cost disadvantage for companies that produce semiconductors in the U.S.
Increasing manufacturing in both the U.S. and the European Union is key to helping rebalance the global supply of chips. In February, EU President Ursula von der Leyen announced the European Chips Act, with the goal of doubling the EU's global semiconductor manufacturing share to 20% by 2030. It also provides for more R&D investments in disruptive technologies, supports small business and startups by attracting new talent to Europe for them, and focuses on building partnerships with like-minded countries to strengthen interdependencies.

At RSA Conference this week in San Francisco, Intel reinforced its commitment to security. At the event, leaders from Intel and its ecosystem partners came together to discuss how the company is addressing some of the toughest security challenges, including hybrid workforces and an increase in connected devices. Intel's approach remains steadfast, investing in unparalleled people, processes and products to deliver security without sacrificing performance.

As the cyber and network security landscapes continue to grow and evolve, Intel's goal is to stay one step ahead by driving innovation across products and research to help build strong security communities both internally and externally. Intel's 2021 Product Security Report noted that 93% of vulnerabilities addressed in Intel products were a direct result of Intel's proactive investment in security assurance. Security begins with Intel, and every component in the system—from software to silicon and network to edge—plays its part to help secure data.

Intel Arc A730M "Alchemist" discrete GPU made headlines yesterday, when a notebook featuring it achieved a 3DMark TimeSpy score of 10,138 points, which would put its performance in the same league as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. The same source has taken the time to play some games, and come up with performance numbers that would put the A730M in a category lower than the RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.

The set of games tested is rather small—F1 2020, Metro Exodus, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but the three are fairly "mature" games (have been around for a while). The A730M is able to score 70 FPS at 1080p, and 55 FPS at 1440p in Metro Exodus. With F1 2020, we're shown 123 FPS (average) at 1080p, and 95 FPS avg at 1440p. In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the A730M yields 38 FPS at 1080p, and 32 FPS at 1440p. These numbers roughly translate to the A730M being slightly faster than the desktop GeForce RTX 3050, and slower than the desktop RTX 3060, or in the league of the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. Intel is already handing out stable versions of Arc Alchemist graphics drivers, and the three are fairly old games, so this might not be a case of bad optimization.

The first benchmark result of an Intel Arc A730M laptop made an appearance online and the mysterious laptop used to run 3DMark turned out to be from a Chinese company called Machenike. The laptop itself appears to go under the name of Dawn16 Discovery Edition and features a 16-inch display with a native resolution of 2560 x 1600, with a 165 Hz refresh rate. CPU wise, Machenike went with a Core i7-12700H, which is a 6+8 core CPU with 20 threads, where the performance cores top out at 4.7 GHz. The CPU has been paired with 16 GB of 4800 MHz DDR5 memory and the system also has a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD of some kind, with a max read speed of 3500 MB/s, which isn't particularly impressive. Other features include Thunderbolt 4 support, WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, as well as an 80 Whr battery pack.

However, none of the above is particularly unique and what matters here is of course the Intel Arc A730M GPU. It has been paired with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 192-bit interface, at 14 Gbps according to the specs. The memory bandwidth is said to be 336 GB/s. The company also provided a couple of performance metrics, with a 3DMark TimeSpy figure of 10002 points and a 3DMark Fire Strike figure of 23090 points. The TimeSpy score is a few points slower than the numbers posted earlier, but helps verify the earlier test result. Other interesting nuggets of information include support for 8k60 12-bit HDR video decoding for AV1, HEVC, AVC and VP9, as well as 8k 10-bit HDR encoding for said formats. Here a figure for the Puget Benchmark in what appears to be Photoshop (PS) is provided, where it scores 1188 points. The laptop is up for what appears to be pre-order, with a price tag of 7,499 RMB, or about US$1,130.

Someone with access to a gaming notebook powered by Intel Arc "Alchemist" A730M discrete GPU posted its alleged 3DMark TimeSpy score, and it looks pretty interesting—10.138 points, which is somewhat higher than that of the GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU or halfway between those of the desktop GeForce RTX 3060 and desktop RTX 3060 Ti.

Based on the Xe-HPG graphics architecture, the Arc A730M features 24 Xe Cores, or 384 execution units, which work out to 3,072 unified shaders. This is not even Intel's most powerful mobile GPU, with that title going to the A770M, which maxes out the ACM-G10 ASIC, with all 512 execution units (4,096 unified shaders) being enabled. It particularly raises hopes for a competitive high-end GPU for gaming notebooks, which can perform in the league of the RTX 3080 Laptop GPU, or the Radeon RX 6800M.

Intel's next-generation desktop processor socket will be the LGA1851. Leaked documents point to the next-generation socket being of identical dimensions to the current LGA1700, despite the higher pin-count, which could indicate cooler compatibility between the two sockets, much in the same way as the LGA1200 retained cooler-compatibility with prior Intel sockets tracing all the way back to the LGA1156. The current LGA1700 will service only two generations of Intel Core, the 12th Generation "Alder Lake," and the next-gen "Raptor Lake" due for later this year. "Raptor Lake" will be Intel's last desktop processor built on a monolithic silicon, as the company transitions to multi-chip modules.

Intel Socket LGA1851 will debut with the 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" processors due for late-2023 or 2024; and will hold out until the 15th Gen "Arrow Lake." Since "Meteor Lake" is a 3D-stacked MCM with a base tile stacked below logic tiles; the company is making adjustments to the IHS thickness to end up with an identical package thickness to the LGA1700, which would be key to cooler-compatibility, besides the socket's physical dimensions. Intel probably added pin-count to the LGA1851 by eating into the "courtyard" (the central gap in the land-grid), because the company states that the pin-pitch hasn't changed from LGA1700.

DDR5 memory pricing has been declining faster than expected, with average pricing for modules based on the latest standard dropping by as much as 20% in a month's time. As reported by ComputerBase, pricing for 1 GB of DDR5 has fallen from around €15 by the end of 2021 down to around €5/GB at time of writing. At current pricing, an entry-level, 32 GB DDR5 kit DDR5-4800 memory (JEDEC standard) has fallen from a high of €430 down to a much more palatable €154.

The price decline comes as good news for anyone aiming to upgrade their PC in wake of AMD's Socket AM5 launch for its Zen 4 architecture, which the company has already confirmed will only support the latest RAM standard. AMD itself must be riding the sea of relief, as high DDR5 pricing could significantly shape the company's next-gen platform's value compared to arch-rival Intel, which already offers DDR4 and DDR5 support with its Alder Lake chips. Expectations place the same memory support for the next-gen Raptor Lake platform. Prices for DDR4 memory seem to have hit a bottom, however, as pricing hasn't significantly moved in around six months. Like with all new technologies, expect the price difference to eventually change in favor of DDR5 memory, as manufacturers adjust their outputs towards adoption.

Currently the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) event is taking place in Dallas and at the event, Intel had one of its Arc Limited Edition graphics cards on display. It's unclear if it was a working sample or just a mockup, as it wasn't running in a system or even mounted inside a system. Instead, it seems like Intel thought it was a great idea to mount the card standing up on the port side inside an acrylic box, on top of a rotating base. The three pictures snapped by @theBryceIsRt and posted on Twitter doesn't reveal anything we haven't seen so far, except the placement of the power connectors.

It's now clear that Intel has gone for a typical placement of the power connectors and the card in question has one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connector. Intel will in other words not be using the new 12-pin power connector that is expected to be used by most next generation graphics cards. We should mention that @theBryceIsRt is an Intel employee and is the Intel Arc community advocate according to his twitter profile, so the card wasn't just spotted by some passerby. Intel has as yet not revealed any details as to when it's planning on launching its Arc based graphics cards.

Today, MSI - the innovative computing manufacturer in gaming and creator laptops - proudly unveils a new lineup of laptops equipped with the latest 12th Gen Intel HX series processors. The new premium laptop lineup delivers not just extreme performances but an innovative set of features including the built-in mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches, exclusive built-in color calibration report and the world's first QHD 240 Hz OLED display. The new lineup promises premium gameplay and super-efficient content creation for the most performance-addicted enthusiasts and top-notch creators.

The new gaming laptop lineup features a significant performance improvement over previous models, including up to 100% increase in CPU performance. And thanks to the robust cooling system, the new gaming laptops can push the latest Intel HX processors to their limits with a whopping 150 W maximum turbo power. The exclusive MSI OverBoost technology also pushes the envelope with a combined 250 W power delivery to CPU plus GPU, promising the most immersive and premium gameplay.

AAEON continues to innovate and improve with the introduction of their UP Squared 6000 Edge Computing Kit, which offers customers elite, exclusive features in a plug-and-play industrial turnkey solution powered by the Intel Atom x6425RE SoC (formerly Elkhart Lake).

An upgrade from the UP Squared 6000 Edge, the UP Squared 6000 Edge Computing Kit provides a wealth of additional features while only outgrowing its predecessor's form factor by 1 centimeter in height. This centimeter houses an integrated carrier board containing a HAT2-compatible 40-pin PSE header, doubling the expansion options available compared to previous iterations of the UP Board series. This is in addition to an already impressive I/O, which features four Gigabit Ethernet ports, two COM ports, three USB 3.2 ports, along with three M.2 sockets to incorporate AI, SSD, 5G, and Wi-Fi5/6 modules.

Jon Peddie Research reports that the global PC-based graphics processor units (GPU) market reached 96 million units in Q1'22 and PC GPUs shipments decreased 6.2% due to disturbances in China, Ukraine, and the pullback from the lockdown elsewhere. However, the fundamentals of the GPU and PC market are solid over the long term, JPR predicts GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of 6.3% during 2022-2026 and reach an installed base of 3.3 million units at the end of the forecast period. Over the next five years, the penetration of discrete GPUs (dGPU) in the PC market will grow to reach a level of 46%.

AMD's overall market share percentage from last quarter increased 0.7%, Intel's market share decreased by -2.4%, and Nvidia's market share increased 1.69%, as indicated in the following chart.

During the International Supercomputing Conference on May 31, 2022, in Hamburg, Germany, Jeff McVeigh, vice president and general manager of the Super Compute Group at Intel Corporation, announced Rialto Bridge, Intel's data center graphics processing unit (GPU). Using the same architecture as the Intel data center GPU Ponte Vecchio and combining enhanced tiles with Intel's next process node, Rialto Bridge will offer up to 160 Xe cores, more FLOPs, more I/O bandwidth and higher TDP limits for significantly increased density, performance and efficiency.

"As we embark on the exascale era and sprint towards zettascale, the technology industry's contribution to global carbon emissions is also growing. It has been estimated that by 2030, between 3% and 7% of global energy production will be consumed by data centers, with computing infrastructure being a top driver of new electricity use," said Jeff McVeigh, vice president and general manager of the Super Compute Group at Intel Corporation.

Intel's revamped IDM 2.0 strategy has seen the company revise its stance in both in-house and outsourced silicon fabrication. While we're already seeing the fruits of Intel's collaboration with TSMC (albeit at the relatively slow pace of introduction for Intel's Arc Alchemist graphics), it seems that Intel is willing to go much farther than just TSMC as a source of chips for its product portfolio.

That's the backdrop to which Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently took a trip to South Korea's capital of Seoul. According to the Korea Herald, Gelsinger met several key Samsung executives, including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, co-CEO and chip business boss Kyung Kye-hyun, and head of Samsung Mobile Roh Tae-moon. More than enough executive grunt to ignite talks of a deepening collaboration between both companies. While the reporting source doesn't provide any quotes or actionable intel from the meeting, Samsung remains one of the key semiconductor manufacturers alongside Intel itself and TSMC, with a particularly strong portfolio in memory-related technologies.

Thermal Grizzly has developed a new Contact Frame designed specifically to fix bending issues present with Intel's latest 12th Gen, Alder Lake CPUs. Developed in partnership with overclocking extraordinaire Der8auer, the new Contact Frame promises to lower operating temperatures on Intel's Alder Lake. According to the company, this improvement is achieved by fixing that platform's independent loading mechanism (ILM), which has been proven to slightly deflect the integrated heatspreader (IHS), reducing its heat transfer capability.

As tested by Igor's Lab, the new contact frame for LGA 1700 reduced the operating temperature of Intel's Core i9-12900K by as much as 10.19 °C - from 70.48 °C without the Contact Frame and towards 60.29 °C after it was installed. The CPU was configured to run popular stress test Prime95, with Small FFT at a fixed 5 GHz frequency on its P-cores. The processor's E-cores were deactivated so as not to compromise the results, while the memory subsystem was run at DDR5-7000. Thermal Grizzly's Contact Frame isn't the only product in this category, and the company is introducing their product at €39.90 for the German and European markets (~$36). Enthusiasts have likely spent more in cooling upgrades that delivered a lesser final operating temperature improvement.

Intel today recognized the contributions of its Vietnam site to alleviating constraints in the global semiconductor supply chain. Thanks to an innovative approach to processing substrates in its assembly and test factory, Intel delivered millions of additional units of chip production over the past year - meeting customer demand while the industry struggled to weather a shortage of this critical component.

"This initiative is a terrific example of how integrated manufacturing is foundational to Intel's success. Our global factory network and supplier ecosystem directly enable a more adaptable and resilient supply of products. Over the past year, as substrates were constrained across the industry, our ability to leverage internal capacity created more than $2 billion in revenue upside for Intel, allowing us to respond with agility to meet dynamic customer demand," said Keyvan Esfarjani, Intel executive vice president and chief global operations officer.

Although there was a leak with a partial picture of the ASRock X670E Taichi board just days before Computex 2022 kicked off, it was hard to draw any real conclusions from it. The company has revealed more details about it, alongside the X670E Taichi Carrara, X670E Steel Legend and the X670E Pro RS. Let's start with the plain X670E Taichi, since this was the board that leaked. As is obvious now, the board doesn't feature a fan on the chipset heatsink, but rather a set of cogs, something we've seen before from ASRock. The board has very limited expansion options when it comes to PCIe slots, with a pair of x16 slots, which are sharing the 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU and that's it. ASRock has gone for four M.2 slots, of which one is PCIe 5.0, most likely the one next to the memory slots. Interestingly, ASRock has kitted out the X670E Taichi with Thunderbolt 4, which means we're looking at an Intel chip here and there should also be support for USB4 and the two ports are located around the back of the board.

Hot Chips 34, the upcoming semiconductor conference from Sunday, August 21 to Tuesday, August 23, 2022, will feature many significant contributions from folks like Intel, AMD, Tesla, and NVIDIA. Today, thanks to Intel's registration at the event, we discovered that the company would present its work on Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake processors with the novel Foveros 3D packaging. The all-virtual presentation from Intel will include talks about Ponte Vecchio GPU and its architecture, system, and software; Meteorlake and Arrowlake 3D Client Architecture Platform with Foveros; and some Xeon D and FPGA presentations. You can see the official website here for a complete list of upcoming talks.

As a little reminder, Meteor Lake is supposed to arrive next year, replacing the upcoming Raptor Lake design, and it has already ahs been pictured, which you can see below. The presentation will be recorded and all content posted on Hot Chips's website for non-attendees to catch up on.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced to present the latest gaming products at COMPUTEX 2022. The innovations include its flagship gaming solutions powered by Intel 12th gen processors. The perfect combination of the IF Design Awarded Z690 AORUS XTREME motherboard, high-end key components, and big size monitors provide remarkable gaming experience. The Project Stealth kit enables an easy and simple assembly experience with special interface and cables hidden design while further enhances the system airflow for optimized cooling effect. Meanwhile, the new gaming PC, Model S delivers powerful, cool, and silent operation even on 3A games with its slick and neat aesthetics.

Moreover, the latest AMD Socket AM5 motherboards including gaming series of X670 AORUS XTREME, MASTER, PRO AX and X670 AERO D for designers will be first exposed in this exhibition as well. Users can take a sneak peek at the advanced design and extensive features of PCIe 5.0 graphics slot, M.2 Gen5 interface, exclusive PCIe/M.2 EZ-latch on GIGABYTE motherboards.

Chinese company Machenike have recently launched the first gaming laptop to feature the new high-end Intel Arc A730M graphics card. The Machenike Discovery Edition 2022 gaming system features a 14-core Intel Core i7-12700H paired with an Arc A730M GPU and 16 GB of 4800 MHz DDR5 memory to power the 16" 1440p 165 Hz screen. The Intel Arc A730M features 24 Xe-Cores and is paired with 12 GB of 12 Gbps GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit memory bus. This is the second fastest Arc Alchemist Mobile GPU currently announced just behind the Arc A770M which features a further 8 Xe-Cores, faster 16 Gbps memory, and a 256-bit memory bus. The Machenike Discovery Edition 2022 is now available to pre-order in China with a limited starting price of 8499 RMB (1255 USD).

Back in January, we heard the first reports of Intel significantly increasing the on-die cache sizes on its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake-S" desktop processor, with the sum total of L2 and L3 caches on the silicon being 68 MB. A CPU-Z screenshot from the same source as the January story, confirmed the cache sizes. The "Raptor Lake-S" die in its full configuration features eight "Raptor Cove" performance cores (P-cores), and sixteen "Gracemont" efficiency cores (E-cores), making it a 24-core/32-thread chip.

Each "Raptor Cove" P-core features 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache even in its client variant, as previously reported, which is an increase from the 1.25 MB L2 cache of the "Golden Cove" P-cores on "Alder Lake-S." The sixteen "Gracemont" E-cores are spread across four E-core clusters, just like the eight E-cores of "Alder Lake-S" are spread across two such clusters. The four cores in each cluster share an L2 cache. Intel has doubled the size of this L2 cache from 2 MB on "Alder Lake" chips, up to 4 MB. The shared L3 cache on the silicon has increased in size to 36 MB. Eight P-cores with 2 MB each, and four E-core clusters with 4 MB, each, total 32 MB of L2 cache. Add this to 36 MB of L3 cache, and you get 68 MB of L2+L3 cache. Intel is expected to debut "Raptor Lake" in the second half of 2022 alongside the 700-series chipset, and backwards compatibility with 600-series chipset. It could go down as Intel's last client processor built on a monolithic silicon.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today announced its ongoing commitment in Europe by building its first factory in the region for next-generation high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems to accelerate delivery to customers and strengthen the region's supplier ecosystem. The new site will manufacture HPE's industry-leading systems as custom-designed solutions to advance scientific research, mature AL/ML initiatives, and bolster innovation.

The dedicated HPC factory, which will become the fourth of HPE's global HPC sites, will be located in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, next to HPE's existing European site for manufacturing its industry-standard servers and storage solutions. Operations will begin in summer 2022.

Acer today launched new Chromebooks designed for businesses, consumers and families that provide the latest performance updates and durable MIL-STD 810H designs. Extra features help Acer Chrome OS customers get the most from their device for functions like remote working, entertainment, as well as staying productive on-the-go.

"Acer continues to lead the industry in premium Chromebooks that are highly-capable, feature-rich and deliver the exact Chromebook experience our customers want," said James Lin, General Manager, Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. "As new generations rely on their Chromebook to do more in their connected world - whether it's for work or personal projects - Acer's innovation will be the foundation of their productive and enjoyable experience."

Acer today announced its refreshed range of TravelMate business laptops for SMB (Small- and Medium- Sized Businesses) and hybrid workers, offering them a wider choice of mobility and performance. Each of the durable Acer TravelMate P4, TravelMate Spin P4 and TravelMate P2 laptops offer workers at the office, home or on the move a highly refined experience with larger touchpads and quieter key presses with a comfortable 1.55 mm travel distance. These durable laptops are designed to deliver powerful performance throughout the work day, enhanced security, advanced connectivity and military-grade durability. They are engineered to handle real life situations such as being bumped through an airport security checkpoint or accidentally dropped, and meet MIL-STD 810H specifications, meaning they can withstand drops, humidity and water spills.

The Acer TravelMate P2, TravelMate P4, and TravelMate Spin P4 laptops provide business-grade security and productivity. These Microsoft Secured-core PCs deliver advanced security down to the firmware level. A SecureBio fingerprint reader and IR camera with a privacy shutter support Windows Hello for secure logins. All models offer advanced connectivity with Wi-Fi 6 to ensure a smoother wireless experience, and optional LTE support so business travelers can enjoy immediate connectivity to local networks.

Acer today announced new models in its professional line of ConceptD creator PCs. The ConceptD 5 laptop, ConceptD 500 mini workstation and ConceptD 100 small form factor desktop now include the latest 12th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GPUs, while the ConceptD 5 laptop now offers a 16-inch OLED display option. ConceptD PCs are designed and optimized for graphic designers, filmmakers, engineers, architects, developers and other creators. They feature top-of-the-line technology housed in a timeless design aesthetic.

The powerful ConceptD 5 and ConceptD 5 Pro creator laptops for mobile professionals are ideal for those who need the ability to create or edit work on the go. Less than an inch in height, their sophisticated and durable metal design makes them easy to take on the road. Designed to handle large, complex CAD modeling and advanced digital content creation, they smoothly render up to 6K-resolution videos, effortlessly process 3D animations, and deliver the best encoding and image quality for livestreaming.

Acer today introduced a suite of powerful new laptops across its popular Swift and Spin notebook ranges, all featuring 12th Gen Intel Core processors and Windows 11. The Swift 3 OLED combines a beautiful display with powerful performance for professionals on-the-go, while the Spin 5 and Spin 3 are designed for professionals who need a portable laptop with multi-mode functionality.

The new Acer Swift 3 OLED laptop (SF314-71) is powered by the latest 12th Gen Intel Core H-series processors with Intel Iris Xe graphics, PCIe Gen 4 SSDs and up to 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory, offering professionals, freelancers and students powerful performance for creation-focused work and gaming. The laptop has also been Intel Evo verified as meeting key experience targets such as instant wake from sleep and offering 10 hours of real-world battery life. In a pinch, a 30-minute charge yields over 4 hours of battery life. Light, modern and thin, the Swift 3 OLED features a 14-inch 16:10 WQXGA+ (2.8k) OLED display with a 92% screen-to-body ratio, which is VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500-certified. The display provides true-to-life images supporting 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The laptop has a 17.9 mm-thin aluminium metal chassis, weighs just 1.4 kg, and features an OceanGlass touchpad made from ocean-bound plastic waste that provides users with a sleek glass-like tactile feeling when scrolling.