The ATX12VO power standard is a new specification for desktop power supplies which boasts greatly increased efficiency over regular desktop power supplies. The new standard requires a compatible motherboard with a 10-pin power connector along with a compatible power supply which only features 12 V rails. The standard requires that any voltage conversion above or below 12 V must be performed directly on the motherboard which increases the complexity and cost for motherboard manufacturers. Intel is interested in promoting the standard with their upcoming 600-series motherboards for Alder Lake-S however most enthusiast boards are unlikely to feature the standard. The standard may find higher adoption with entry-level motherboards for system integrators and pre-built suppliers who need to meet strict government power efficiency regulations.

The fifth iteration of DDR technology, called DDR5, is set to arrive later this year. Many makers of DDR4 technology are announcing their plans to switch to the new standard, and CORSAIR is no exception. Known as the maker of high-quality products, CORSAIR has today posted a blog post teasing company's upcoming DDR5 products, and what they will be bringing to the table. For starters, the company has posted data about DDR5 modules that run at 6400 MHz speed, which is assumed to be the speed of the CORSAIR DDR5 modules when they arrive. At such speed, the memory can achieve a bandwidth of 51 GB/s, which is almost double the 26 GB/s that DDR4-3200 MHz memory achieves.

Another point CORSAIR wrote about is the capacity of a single DIMM. With DDR4, the company has made DIMMs that are only up to 32 GB in capacity. However, with DDR5, CORSAIR plans to quadruple that and build a single DDR5 DIMM that has up to 128 GB of memory on it. Another big point was the power required to run the new technology. The DDR4 standard required 1.2 Volts for operation, while the JEDEC specification says that DDR5 needs just 1.1 Volts to run. This will result in a cooler operation of memory modules.

The following is an opinion editorial by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. It introduces Intel's 2020-2021 Corporate Responsibility Report: I am honored to return to Intel as CEO, and both humbled by the challenges and excited by the limitless opportunities made possible by the magic of technology.

Digital technology is transforming the world at an accelerated pace, driven by what I call the four "superpowers": cloud, connectivity fueled by 5G, artificial intelligence (Al) and the intelligent edge. They are superpowers because each expands the impact of the others. And together, they are reshaping every aspect of our lives and work. This goes straight to Intel's purpose and my own passion: creating world-changing technology that touches and improves the lives of every person on the planet.

As one of the most important tech summits globally, COMPUTEX Forum and its discussion topics have always garnered great attention. To facilitate the discussion on future technology trends, the COMPUTEX Forum on June 2 and 3 will evolve around the theme of "The New Era of Intelligence." TAITRA announced the lineup of speakers to discuss key applications of 5G, AI, IoT, and electric vehicles, deep diving into business strategies in the post-pandemic era.

In the morning of Wednesday, June 2, COMPUTEX Forum will address the topic of "AIoT Evolution." Leading semiconductor giants such as Intel, Micron, NVIDIA and Supermicro, will explore how they accelerate business opportunities in the 5G era. In the afternoon, NXP Semiconductors will kick off the "AI Empowerment" session by sharing its vision and lead the Secure Edge and AI Empowerment discussions in fields. As AI rises in various applications, Arm, Delta Electronics, Micron and Check Point Software will elaborate their latest solution in different scopes.

Today, Intel and QuTech—a collaboration between Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research - published key findings in quantum research to address the "interconnect bottleneck" that exists between quantum chips that sit in cryogenic dilution refrigerators and the complex room-temperature electronics that control the qubits. The innovations were covered in Nature, the industry-leading science journal of peer-reviewed research, and mark an important milestone in addressing one of the biggest challenges to quantum scalability with Intel's cryogenic controller chip Horse Ridge.

"Our research results, driven in partnership with QuTech, quantitatively prove that our cryogenic controller, Horse Ridge, can achieve the same high-fidelity results as room-temperature electronics while controlling multiple silicon qubits. We also successfully demonstrated frequency multiplexing on two qubits using a single cable, which clears the way for simplifying the "wiring challenge" in quantum computing. Together, these innovations pave the way for fully integrating quantum control chips with the quantum processor in the future, lifting a major roadblock in quantum scaling," said Stefano Pellerano, principal engineer at Intel Labs.

Intel has been extensively teasing its Xe HP scalable compute architecture for some time now, and Igor's Lab has an exclusive look at GPU compute cards based on the Xe HP silicon. We know from older reports that Intel's Xe HP compute accelerator packages come in three essential variants—1 tile, 2 tiles, and 4 tiles. A "tile" here is an independent GPU accelerator die. Each of these tiles has 512 execution units, which convert to 4,096 programmable shaders. The single-tile card is a compact, half-height card capable of 1U and 2U chassis. According to Igor's Lab, it comes with 16 GB of HBM2E memory with 716 GB/s memory bandwidth, and the single tile has 384 out of 512 EUs enabled (3,072 shaders). The card also has a typical board power of just 150 W.

The Arctic Sound 2T card is an interesting contraption. A much larger 2-slot card of length easily above 28 cm, and a workstation spacer, the 2T card uses a 2-tile variant of the Xe HP package, but each of the two tiles only has 480 out of 512 EUs enabled. This works out to 7,680 shaders. The dual-chiplet MCM uses 32 GB of HBM2E memory (16 GB per tile), and a typical board power of 300 W. A single 4+4 pin EPS connector, capable of up to 225 W, is used to power the card.

Since lobbying is both legal and regulated in the US (an attempt to bring attempts of influencing political power by corporations under legal boundaries, as opposed to being done in the dark), it feels like it was only a matter of time before big tech attempted to join under one banner. As such, the Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC) has now been put together, and boasts of 64 members including Microsoft, Apple, TSMC, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Arm, and Samsung. It seems that all of these companies - which are often at odds with one another when it comes to competing for consumers' choice and money - have found enough similarities to get organized in an attempt to nudge political power in their favor.

SIAC said in a press release that its mission is to "advance federal policies that promote semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S. to strengthen America's economy, national security, and critical infrastructure." The first announcement from the SIAC following its foundation was its intention to support the CHIPS for America Act. The Act (supported by The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and President Joe Biden) has already been approved by the House and the Senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 but has not yet been funded. It seems that SIAC's first mission is to get the government to open up its $50 billion-deep pockets.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake-S processors are going to be the company's first attempt at delivering heterogeneous core solutions, combining low-power and high-performance IPs in a single chip. Another important milestone that these processors will reach is DDR5 memory adoption, the first of its kind on consumer platforms. Today, thanks to CapFrameX, a monitoring tool that also hosts a database of benchmark runs, we have a piece of recorded information coming from a test system equipped with an Intel Alder Lake-S processor. The tested system spotted an engineering sample of the Alder Lake-S lineup, clocked at just 2.2 GHz. The core count and core configuration remained unknown.

Alongside the upcoming CPU, the system is composed of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 GPU and DDR5 memory running at 4800 MHz. There were four sticks present, each having 8 GB capacity. The leaked system was running the DOTA 2 game at an average of 119.98 FPS, which doesn't mean much, given that we don't know which settings were applied and what was the resolution. There is a chart showing the gaming frame rate and frame time, which could be interesting to look at. However, the only new information we have come to know is that the Alder Lake-S is already capable of playing games and the ecosystem support should be very good at launch.

The new Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model lineup continues to present the best gaming laptops on the market. Armed with the new 11th Gen Intel Core H-Series Processor up to an Intel Core i9, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-Series Laptop GPU, and the fastest available displays with up to 360Hz, the new Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model delivers ultimate power in a premium compact form factor. The RTX 3060 version stands at an impressive height of only 15.8 mm, making it the thinnest gaming laptop in the world with a GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU.

To ensure a smooth experience, the new Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model utilizes the latest PCIe Gen 4 configuration and is powered by DDR4 3200 MHz memory. The innovative M.2 design returns, with dual slots available on RTX 3070 versions and above, allowing users to easily expand the SSD according to their storage needs. Be it hardcore gaming or content creation, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model laptops are built to handle intensive usage and multitasking.

Intel's 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" could have a brief stint as the tip of Intel's desktop spear. Wccftech reports that its successor, the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S," could launch by November 2021. The processor debuts on the new LGA1700 socket, and will introduce many firsts to the platform. The biggest change will be the heterogenous CPU core architecture. The top-spec "Alder Lake-S" is believed to be a 16-core/24-thread processor. From these, 8 will be larger high-performance cores, featuring HyperThreading, while the other 8 will be smaller high-efficiency cores. The chip is expected to be built on the 10 nm SuperFin process, and hence Intel is expected to significantly lower power draw of desktops when the machine is idling or handling lighter desktop loads.

Besides the major update to the CPU cores, "Alder Lake-S" is expected to continue featuring a Xe LP based integrated graphics solution. Significant changes with the I/O are expected, including DDR5 memory support with backwards compatibility for DDR4, and PCI-Express Gen 5.0. The LGA1700 socket is significantly different from the various LGA115x/LGA1200 sockets Intel has been pulling for its mainstream desktop platforms since 2009. It could trigger the need for new CPU coolers that support the socket.

In collaboration with Newzoo, Intel today released a report titled "Diversity and Inclusion in Gaming." This research identifies industry gaps and key insights in an effort to help make gaming more accessible and inclusive. "To strengthen diversity and inclusion across the gaming space, the industry needs to listen and act on the needs of its diverse gaming audience, as well as make hardware and software more affordable and accessible. As part of Intel's desire to better understand its global customer base, Intel is taking key learnings from this report and shaping current internal and external programs to better serve gamers from all backgrounds and walks of life," said Marcus Kennedy, general manager of Intel's Gaming and Esports Segment.

Newzoo, a leading provider of games and esports analytics, independently conducted a survey of 1,824 individuals in the United States between the ages of 10 and 65 who self-identified as gamers. The survey reveals that the gaming market lags behind in diverse representation, both in the player base and in the games themselves. Women, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community and those with disabilities are often overlooked.

Thermaltake, the leading PC DIY premium brand for Cooling, Gaming Gear, and Enthusiast Memory solutions, is pleased to announce a new series of coolers—TOUGHLIQUID 240/280/360 ARGB Sync All-In-One Liquid Coolers are now available for purchase.

This series of all-in-one liquid coolers are equipped with TOUGHFAN fans, a superior fan with speeds of up to 2000RPM and only 22.3 dBA and 33.2 dBA for TOUGHFAN 12 and TOUGHFAN 14 respectively; there are different sizes of fans corresponding to the different dimensions of radiators, users can choose from 240 mm, 280 mm, and 360 mm to achieve the finest cooling results in a quiet way. Besides that, there is a high-performance waterblock featuring a copper base plate, which expedites heat effectively. Plus, a high quality pump distributes a steady flow of water, keeping the copper plate continuously cool. With the low evaporation tube, the loss of coolant can be minimized; hence no refill is needed. Additionally, an exclusive built-in controller is settled on the side of the waterblock, which saves space by integrating with the waterblock and, at the same time, eliminates the cumbersomeness of routing cables.

Ahead of its launch later this month, notebook OEMs are beginning to tease their upcoming gaming notebooks powered by 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake-H" mobile processors that come in core counts of up to 8. ASUS will be hosting a media event tomorrow (May 11) launching its first "Tiger Lake-H" notebooks, which probably follows Intel's own public unveiling of the new processors. The teaser video to the ASUS event reveals at least two notebooks under the company's ROG Zephyrus brand, the Zephyrus S17, and the Zephyrus M16.

The M16 looks to be the more compact of the two, with styling characteristic of past generations of ROG Zephyrus notebooks. The lid-mounted LEDs now come in color. while the S17 is a whole different beast. The teasers reveal an elevated keyboard+touchscreen on the lower half of the clamshell. The gap between this elevation and the base probably opens up additional vents to cool the processor and GPU underneath. This could be the notebook from ASUS's lineup that uses the 65-Watt Core i9-11980HK, the 8-core/16-thread beast that can tick at speeds of 5.00 GHz.

Intel has quietly let out details of its latest-generation Xeon W series workstation processors based on the 14 nm "Rocket Lake" silicon. These chips are built in the same Socket LGA1200 package as the 11th Gen Core desktop processors, but compatible with the W580 chipset. The lineup includes two 6-core/12-thread; and five 8-core/16-thread parts. Leading the pack is the Xeon W-1390P, with clock speeds of up to 5.30 GHz, followed by the W-1390, at 5.20 GHz. These two SKUs feature Thermal Velocity Boost, and are analogous with the 11th Gen Core i9 series.

Next up, are the Xeon W-1370P and W-1370, clocked at speeds of up to 5.20 GHz, and 5.10 GHz respectively, These parts lack Thermal Velocity Boost, and are comparable in many ways to the 11th Gen Core i7 SKUs. The slowest of these 8-core parts is the energy-efficient W-1390T, ticking at nominal clocks of just 1.50 GHz, with 4.90 GHz maximum boost, but a TDP of just 35 W. Among the other SKUs, the "P" SKUs have rated TDP of 125 W, while the non-P ones have 80 W. The 6-core/12-thread SKUs include the W-1350P and W-1350, clocked up to 5.10 GHz and 5.00 GHz, respectively. All Xeon W processors support up to 128 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory with ECC support.

Yesterday, we got information that Intel's upcoming DG2 discrete graphics card is "right around the corner". That means that we are inching closer to the launch of Intel's discrete GPU offerings, and we are going to get another major player in the current GPU market duopoly. Today, however, we are in luck because Igor from Igor's LAB has managed to get ahold of the specifications of Intel's Xe-HPG DG2 graphics card. For starters, it is important to note that DG2 GPU will first come to laptops later this year. More precisely, laptops powered by Alder Lake-P processors will get paired with DG2 discrete GPU in the second half of 2021. The CPU and GPU will connect using the PCIe 4.0 x12 link as shown in the diagram below, where the GPU is paired with the Tiger Lake-H processor. The GPU has its subsystem that handles the IO as well.

As AI technology becomes ubiquitous, the impact of unusual weather also gains more attention. The most impressive case was the sudden weather change in Denver, the US, last September that the temperature dropped from 37°C to minus overnight. Faced with such fluctuation, the devices which maintained the daily life of the city in order, like the facilities for traffic flow analysis, surveillance, and AI visual analytics, could no longer operate normally, or even damaged, due to the lack of endurance to the extreme weathers.

Inspired by the situation, DFI brought an innovative design into the newly-released CS551, the "World's First 3.5" desktop SBC with auto heat-up". This breakthrough gives devices high performance with smaller footprint for image analysis or heavy workloads, no matter at subzero temperatures or under heat waves.

A senior game developer relations engineer at Intel, Pete Brubaker, Tweeted late Wednesday that the company's DG2 discrete graphics card is "right around the corner," and that "it's about to get exciting." Brubaker's Tweet comes as the company is looking to recruit more engineers to work with its developer relations, the team that interfaces with game devs to optimize their engines and games for Intel's graphics architectures.

While the DG1, which was productized as the Iris Xe MAX graphics card, was essentially an iGPU-on-a-stick, the DG2 should spark a lot more interest. Based on a third-party foundry process, the DG2 is the first client graphics product based on the Xe HPG (high performance gaming) graphics architecture, and allegedly crams up to 512 execution units or 4,096 unified shaders—a 4.3x gain over the Iris Xe MAX. It's also rumored to ship with up to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus. Whether it features DirectX 12 Ultimate features or not, remains to be seen, but it's becoming clear that Intel wants a crack at the high-volume e-sports market, with a product that's fast enough for competitive e-sports gaming, and capable of AAA.

Today, Lenovo in partnership with Intel has announced that Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) is building a supercomputer powered by Intel's next-generation technologies. Specifically, the supercomputer will use Intel's Sapphire Rapids CPUs in combination with the highly-teased Ponte Vecchio GPUs to power the applications running at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre. Along with the various processors, the LRZ will also deploy Intel Optane persistent memory to process the huge amount of data the LRZ has and is producing. The integration of HPC and AI processing will be enabled by the expansion of LRZ's current supercomputer called SuperMUG-NG, which will receive an upgrade in 2022, which will feature both Sapphire Rapids and Ponte Vecchio.

Mr. Raja Koduri, Intel graphics guru, has on Twitter teased that this supercomputer installment will represent a combination of Sapphire Rapids, Ponte Vecchio, Optane, and One API all in one machine. The system will use over one petabyte of Distributed Asynchronous Object Storage (DAOS) based on the Optane technologies. Then, Mr. Koduri has teased some Ponte Vecchio eye candy, which is a GIF of tiles combining to form a GPU, which you can check out here. You can also see some pictures of Ponte Vecchio below.

IBASE Technology Inc. (TPEx: 8050), IBASE, a leading provider of industrial motherboards and embedded systems, launches its latest 3.5" SBC IB953 powered by 11th Gen Intel Core processors (codenamed Tiger Lake). Measuring 146 x 102 mm in a compact footprint, the single board computer offers impressive I/O and computing performance, making it an ideal platform for a broad range of demanding applications in factory automation, machine vision, healthcare, as well as retail environments.

The IB953 features a 5G compatible M.2 3052 socket and the latest 11th Gen. Intel Core and Celeron processors built on 10 nm SuperFin process, delivering up to 25% faster performance and greater AI acceleration. With the Intel Core i7-1185G7 (IBASE model IB953AF-I7) comes the new Iris Xe (Xe-LP) graphics architecture supporting 96 EUs (Execution Units) which equals 768 cores and runs at 1.35 GHz, an increase of 250 MHz over the previous 11-gen graphics to provide up to twice the performance and improved power efficiency. The graphics engine's hardware acceleration can drive up to four simultaneous 4K HDR displays (via 2x DisplayPort + eDP and LVDS).

Intel's fabled 8-core "Tiger Lake-H" silicon built on the 10 nm SuperFin process, is close to reality. The company's upcoming 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake-H" processors for performance- and gaming notebooks, leverages this die. An HD Tecnologia report leaks alleged company slides from Intel that detail the processor line up and feature-set. To begin with, the 11th Gen Core-H series processors come in core-counts ranging from 4-core/8-thread, to 6-core/12-thread, and 8-core/16-thread. Look at the embargo date on the leaked slides, one could expect a formal launch as close as May 11, 2021.

The 10 nm SuperFin "Tiger Lake-H" silicon features 8 "Willow Cove" CPU cores, and an updated iGPU based on the company's latest Gen12 Xe LP graphics architecture. Each of the eight CPU cores has 1.25 MB of L2 cache, and they share a massive 24 MB of L3 cache. The Gen12 Xe LP iGPU only has 32 execution units (EUs), according to the slides, 1/3rd those of the 96 EUs on the "Tiger Lake-U." The uncore component is also updated, now featuring dual-channel DDR4-3200 native support, and a 28-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root-complex. 16 of these lanes are wired out as PEG (PCI-Express Graphics), four as a CPU-attached NVMe slot, and eight toward the 8-lane DMI 3.0 chipset bus.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake generation of processors is going to be the first iteration of heterogeneous x86 architecture. That means that Intel will for the first time combine smaller, low-power cores, with some big high-performance cores to provide the boost to all the workloads. If a task doesn't need much power, as some background task, for example, the smaller cores are used. And if you need to render something or you want to fire up a game, big cores are used to provide the power needed for the tasks. Intel has decided to provide such an architecture on the advanced 10 nm SuperFin, which represents a major upgrade over the existing 14 nm process.

Today, we got some information from Igor's Lab, showing the leaked specification of the Intel Core-1800 processor engineering sample. While this may not represent the final name, we see that the leaked information shows that the processor is B0 stepping. That means that the CPU will see more changes when the final sample arrives. The CPU has 16 cores with 24 threads. Eight of those cores are big ones with hyperthreading, while the remaining 8 are smaller Atom cores. They are running at the base clock of 1800 MHz, while the boost speeds are 4.6 GHz with two cores, 4.4 GHz with four cores, and 4.2 GHz with 6 cores. When all cores are used, the boost speed is locked at 4.0 GHz. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 125 Watts, while the PL2 configuration boosts the TDP to 228 Watts. The CPU was reportedly running at 1.3147 Volts during the test. You can check out the complete datasheet below.

Intel is giving finishing touches to the NUC 11 Essential, its next-generation entry-level NUC desktops powered by Pentium Silver and Celeron SoCs based on the 10 nm "Jasper Lake" silicon. Among the SoC options are the Pentium Silver J6005, packing a 4-core/4-thread CPU based on the "Tremont" microarchitecture, a Gen11 iGPU with 32 execution units, and a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface. The Celeron J5105 is the next best option, with slightly lower clock speeds, and the Celeron J4505, a 2-core/2-thread part.

The NUC 11 Essential comes with two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2933 memory. The Gen11 iGPU is leveraged to put out an HDMI 2.0b port, and a DisplayPort 1.4, both of which support 4K displays up to 60 Hz. Connectivity includes 802.11ax + Bluetooth 4.2 with audio offload; 1 GbE wired LAN, four 5 Gbps USB 3.1 type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports.A 65-Watt power brick is included. It measures 135 mm x 115 mm x 36 mm.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today presented two gaming systems of Intel Z590 platform with AORUS MODEL X and mini system AORUS MODEL S, which adopt the top-notch components and materials for extreme performance. Enhanced by the strict verification and leading technology, GIGABYTE provides the PC system of premium performance with optimized heat dissipation and acoustic control. The system maintains cool and quiet even under the overclocking, which balance the high performance and low temperature to keep the system acoustic under 40dB without throttling. Furthermore, the three-year warranty of full system offers reassuring and comprehensive service for users.

"When tackling the uplift of PC performance, multi-core, high frequency, and copious storage become a standard to the premium PC platform, as well as how to make the best components matrix to provide the optimized performance with reliability turns into more inevitable." indicated by Eddie Lin, Vice President of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions. "The new AORUS system is well-tempered by multiple verification and tuning of GIGABYTE's R&D team, which provide a perfect match of cool, quiet, and powerful performance with optimized compatibility, Expandability, and three-year warranty of whole system.

Intel over the weekend announced that it will make new investments into its Rio Rancho manufacturing facility in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The company will hold a media event later today, describing the nature of the investment. Keyvan Esfarjani its VP and GM for manufacturing and operations will be joined by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, along with a few Members of Congress from the state, in this event. Given the substantial participation of elected representatives, this is likely to be an expansion to the facility. Intel describes the Rio Rancho facility as focusing on mass production of the company's 3D XPoint memory, NAND flash, and silicon photonics products.

Update 16:13 UTC: Intel outlined its expansion plans with Rio Rancho, with a $3.5 billion investment, which could create at least 700 high-tech jobs and 1,000 construction jobs and support an additional 3,500 jobs in the state.The press release follows.

Researches from the University of Virginia and University of California San Diego have published their latest case study. The two universities have worked hard to discover a new Spectre vulnerability variant that can pass all of the existing Spectre mitigations and exploit all of the existing processors coming from Intel and AMD. The vulnerability exploits all of the existing x86 processors, and as it is new, there are not implementations of hardware mitigation. The whitepaper called "I see dead μops" takes the implementation of exploiting micro-op caches that could lead to a potential data leak in the processor, which is leading to a Spectre-type exploit.

Modern x86 processors break down complex instructions into smaller RISC-like units called micro-ops, in the frontend, where it makes the design of the backend part much simpler. The micro-ops are stored in the micro-ops cache. The paper is describing micro-op cache-based timing channel exploits in three primary settings: "a) across code regions within the same thread, but operating at different privilege levels, (b) across different co-located threads running simultaneously on different SMT contexts (logical cores) within the same physical core, and (c) two transient execution attack variants that leverage the micro-op cache to leak transiently accessed secrets, bypassing several existing hardware and software-based mitigations, including Intel's recommended LFENCE."