With the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 all but a given, much has been said about the new handheld gaming console in leaks and rumors. Now, a new set of supposed leaks from Decky Wizard on X have caused a bit of consternation among the Switch community, given the seemingly random mix of upgrades and perceived downgrades coming to the next-gen Switch. Minor details include larger buttons, a redesigned dock, and three colorways at launch, however, details around the new display and controls are more significant. For starters, the leaks suggest that the Switch 2 will have larger buttons and Hall-effect joysticks, both of which would likely be a massive upgrade in the eyes of most gamers, however it also seems as though the Switch 2 will use an LCD, as opposed to an OLED display, for the base model.

It seems as though most Switch fans were expecting an OLED panel right out the gate, given the Nintendo Switch OLED has been available for quite some time, now. Hall-effect joysticks will also likely solve one of the community's biggest complaints about the Switch controls—that being stick drift—but Nintendo would have to also provide a calibration tool in the Switch software to correct for wear and tear on the joysticks. Larger buttons may also be a welcome change for most Switch gamers, since cramped controls are a fairly common criticism of the original Switch. In addition to the news of the physical and technical specifications, Decky Wizard also claims that the Switch 2 will be lighter than the Steam Deck and be launched as soon as January 2025. In a subsequent post, Decky Wizard uploaded leaked images of the new Switch 2, showing off not only a fresh looking chassis with smaller screen bezels and a new built-in kickstand design, but also the design of the new first-party dock and two new, larger Joycon release buttons on the backs of each Joycon.

Imagine being able to step into any world in an instant—from the bustling streets of New York City to the snowy mountain tops of the Alps. These worlds are no longer merely places to observe from afar. They can now be explored and interacted with simply through a gaze, a gesture or your voice. What once seemed like science fiction has become a reality as eXtended reality (XR) transforms how we engage with the world around us.

XR is an umbrella term for technologies that use digital elements to extend or alter reality by merging the physical and digital worlds together. This includes virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) as well as other similar technologies yet to be developed. XR offers infinite possibilities, creating a dynamic spatial canvas where users' sight, sound and motion combine to interact with the outside world. A world that will unlock unprecedented experiences across core areas of life, from working and learning to entertainment, gaming and even health and wellness.

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) has successfully achieved the fine pattern resolution required for photomasks for logic semiconductors of the beyond 2 nm (nm: 10-9 meter) generation that support Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography, a cutting-edge process in semiconductor manufacturing.

DNP has also completed the criteria evaluation for photomasks compatible with High-Numerical Aperture, the application being considered for next-generation semiconductors beyond the 2 nm generation, and has commenced the supply of evaluation photomasks. High-NA EUV lithography makes it possible to form fine patterns on silicon wafers with a higher resolution than previously possible, and is expected to lead to the realization of high-performance, low-power semiconductors.

Intel Corporation today announced that Eric Meurice, former president, chief executive officer and chairman of ASML Holding N.V., and Steve Sanghi, chairman and interim chief executive officer of Microchip Technology Inc., have been appointed to Intel's board of directors, effective immediately. Both will serve as independent directors.

"Eric and Steve are highly respected leaders in the semiconductor industry whose deep technical expertise, executive experience and operational rigor make them great additions to the Intel board," said Frank D. Yeary, interim executive chair of the Intel board. "As successful CEOs with proven track records of creating shareholder value, they will bring valuable perspectives to the board as the company delivers on its priorities for customers in Intel Products and Intel Foundry, while driving greater efficiency and improving profitability."

At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, today announced the general availability of AWS Trainium2-powered Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, introduced new Trn2 UltraServers, enabling customers to train and deploy today's latest AI models as well as future large language models (LLM) and foundation models (FM) with exceptional levels of performance and cost efficiency, and unveiled next-generation Trainium3 chips.

"Trainium2 is purpose built to support the largest, most cutting-edge generative AI workloads, for both training and inference, and to deliver the best price performance on AWS," said David Brown, vice president of Compute and Networking at AWS. "With models approaching trillions of parameters, we understand customers also need a novel approach to train and run these massive workloads. New Trn2 UltraServers offer the fastest training and inference performance on AWS and help organizations of all sizes to train and deploy the world's largest models faster and at a lower cost."

Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today introduced Marvell Ara, the industry's first 3 nm 1.6 Tbps PAM4 interconnects platform featuring 200 Gbps electrical and optical interfaces. Building on the success of the Nova 2 DSP, the industry's first 5 nm 1.6 Tbps PAM4 DSP with 200 Gbps electrical and optical interfaces, Ara leverages the comprehensive Marvell 3 nm platform with industry-leading 200 Gbps SerDes and integrated optical modulator drivers, to reduce 1.6 Tbps optical module power by over 20%. The energy efficiency improvement reduces operational costs and enables new AI server and networking architectures to address the need for higher bandwidth and performance for AI workloads, within the significant power constraints of the data center.

Ara, the industry's first 3 nm PAM4 optical DSP, builds on six generations of Marvell leadership in PAM4 optical DSP technology. It integrates eight 200 Gbps electrical lanes to the host and eight 200 Gbps optical lanes, enabling 1.6 Tbps in a compact, standardized module form factor. Leveraging 3 nm technology and laser driver integration, Ara reduces module design complexity, power consumption and cost, setting a new benchmark for next-generation AI and cloud infrastructure.

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are working together to standardize "Low Power Double Data Rate 6 (LPDDR6) - Processing in Memory (PIM)" technology according to a report from Business Korea. This collaboration seeks to accelerate the development of low power memory products. The cooperation is still in its early stage, the companies initial work is focused on registering the standard with the Joint Electron and Device Engineering Council (JEDEC). Discussions are underway to determine technical requirements, specific characteristics of LPDDR with PIM, such as "internal bandwidth"—the data transfer rate within the memory, unlike the "external bandwidth" between the processor and memory in traditional systems. According to a Samsung Electronics representative, the two companies are in the process of developing a timeline for standardization.

This partnership is notable given how Samsung and SK hynix compete in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market. SK hynix beat Samsung in profits reporting 7.3 trillion won in the third quarter, while Samsung made 3.86 trillion won. However, the rise of AI with its increased demand for more memory has shaken up the scene pushing for teamwork instead of wasting resources in developing completely different and unstandardized products. Both firms see PIM technology as a way to grow, previous attempts to independently develop PIM products include Samsung's HBM and LPDDR5-PIM and SK hynix's GDDR6-PIM.

New rumors emerged via Notebookcheck that point to Intel's intention to continue developing discrete desktop GPUs after the imminent launch of its Arc Battlemage series. Leaker JayKihn confirmed in a comment on X that Intel is actively working on future GPU generations, namely the Arc Celestial and Arc Druid, unlike previous rumors that pointed to a possible cancellation if Battlemage underperforms. Sources say Intel is still committed to its GPU roadmap. With the Arc Battlemage series led by the B580 model, Intel is targeting the budget segment, going in direct competition with NVIDIA's RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti. Price-wise, we can expect graphic cards with Intel Arc Battlemage to go around $250 (for the 12 GB model) and although the performance will not be groundbreaking, it can attract interest from buyers on a tight budget.

Since Intel has reportedly canceled all plans to launch discrete laptop Battlemage cards, Arc Druid and Arc Celestial could follow the same path. Although details regarding Arc Celestial and Arc Druid are scattered, confirmation of their development is good news for the PC graphics card market. What we do know now is that Arc Celestial models will arrive in 2025 or early 2026, which could coincide with the launch of Intel's Panther Lake CPUs. The GPUs are expected to take advantage of the new Xe3 graphics architecture (Arc B580 will feature Intel's Xe2-HPG architecture). However, given Intel's latest challenges, the ultimate success of these next-generation GPUs remains to be seen, while we still believe that the success of Arc Battlemage will be decisive for future Intel GPU development.

HWiNFO has been updated to version v8.16, which brings several new improvements and fixes, as well as adds enhanced support for next-generation AMD CPUs and APUs, as well as next-generation Intel GPUs. While it does not specify any models, it is clear that it gets support for AMD's upcoming Kraken Point and Strix Halo APUs, as well as Intel's upcoming Battlemage GPUs.

In addition, the new HWiNFO v8.16 also improves support for Intel Lunar Lake, adds reporting of number of NPU tiles, adds support for Cybenetics Powenetics PMD (Power Measurements Device), enhances sensor monitoring on MSI's Z890, B860, and H810 series motherboards, enhances reporting of CUDIMM CKD parameters, NGU clock, and drive letter, and improves reporting of V/F curve settings, among other things. You can check out the full release notes below.

d-Matrix today unveiled Corsair, an entirely new computing paradigm designed from the ground-up for the next era of AI inference in modern datacenters. Corsair leverages d-Matrix's innovative Digital In-Memory Compute architecture (DIMC), an industry first, to accelerate AI inference workloads with industry-leading real-time performance, energy efficiency, and cost savings as compared to GPUs and other alternatives.

The emergence of reasoning agents and interactive video generation represents the next level of AI capabilities. These leverage more inference computing power to enable models to "think" more and produce higher quality outputs. Corsair is the ideal inference compute solution with which enterprises can unlock new levels of automation and intelligence without compromising on performance, cost or power.

Today at its inaugural IBM Quantum Developer Conference, IBM announced quantum hardware and software advancements to execute complex algorithms on IBM quantum computers with record levels of scale, speed, and accuracy.

IBM Quantum Heron, the company's most performant quantum processor to-date and available in IBM's global quantum data centers, can now leverage Qiskit to accurately run certain classes of quantum circuits with up to 5,000 two-qubit gate operations. Users can now use these capabilities to expand explorations in how quantum computers can tackle scientific problems across materials, chemistry, life sciences, high-energy physics, and more.

Japan has proposed a $65 billion (or more) plan to strengthen the semiconductor and AI industries in the country through grants and financial support by fiscal year 2030. The government plans to present this proposal at the next parliamentary session. The draft includes support for mass production of next-generation chips, focusing on AI chipmakers such as Rapidus, the government estimates an economic impact of about 160 trillion yen from this investment. Rapidus plans to start mass production of advanced chips in Hokkaido from 2027 and will work with IBM and Belgian research organization Imec.

According to the report from Reuters, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said the government would not issue deficit-financing bonds to fund the support plan, although specific financial details are not yet known. The new initiative builds on last year's 2 trillion yen investment in the chip industry, and it is part of a broader economic package. Expected to be approved by the Cabinet on November 22, the plan calls for combined public and private investment in the semiconductor industry of more than 50 trillion yen over the next decade.

LG Electronics (LG) and Tenstorrent are pleased to announce an expanded collaboration, building on their initial chiplet project to develop System-on-Chips (SoCs) and systems for the global market. Through this partnership, LG aims to enhance its design and development capabilities for AI chips tailored to its products and services, aligning with its vision of "Affectionate Intelligence." LG is dedicated to advancing AI-driven innovation, with a focus on enhancing its AI-powered home appliances and smart home solutions, as well as expanding its capabilities in future mobility and commercial applications.

Recognizing the critical role of high-performance AI semiconductors in implementing AI technology, LG plans to strengthen its in-house development capabilities while collaborating with leading global companies, including Tenstorrent, to boost its AI competitiveness.

The 8th edition of the Samsung AI Forum was held on November 4th and 5th in Seoul, and among all the presentations and keynote speeches, one piece of information caught our attention. As reported by The Chosun Daily, Samsung is (again) turning its attention to Processing-in-Memory (PIM) technology, in what appears to be the company's latest attempt to keep up with its rival SK Hynix in this area. In 2021, Samsung introduced the world's first HBM-PIM, the chips showing impressive gains in performance (nearly double) while reducing energy consumption by almost 50% on average. PIM technology basically adds the processor functions necessary for computational tasks, reducing data transfer between the CPU and memory.

Now, the company hopes that PIM memory chips could replace HBM in the future, based on the advantages this next-generation memory technology possesses, mainly for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. "AI is transforming our lives at an unprecedented rate, and the question of how to use AI more responsibly is becoming increasingly important," said Samsung Electronics CEO Han Jong-hee in his opening remarks. "Samsung Electronics is committed to fostering a more efficient and sustainable AI ecosystem." During the event, Samsung also highlighted its partnership with AMD, which reportedly supplies AMD with its fifth-generation HBM, the HBM3E.

On the occasion of the ADAC SimRacing Expo, Thrustmaster is thrilled to unveil its latest high-end steering wheel: the Hypercar Wheel Add-On. Immerse yourself in the demanding, prestigious atmosphere of luxury cars with Hypercar Wheel Add-On - an oval-shaped wheel rim featuring ergonomics inspired by incredibly-powerful hypercars.

Discover an uncompromising design combining elegance and performance. You'll appreciate its sophisticated craftmanship, made from premium materials with meticulous attention to details. The grip surfaces are wrapped in leather and Alcantara, ensuring a firm and comfortable handling. Alcantara, the cutting-edge Made in Italy material, is also renowned for its use in the interiors of the world's most iconic Hypercars. Its superior durability, lightweight feel and unique soft-touch finish bring an added touch of refinement.

The first quarter of 2025 (January thru March) will see back-to-back launches of next-generation GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" graphics card, according to the latest rumors. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is confirmed to take center stage for the 2025 International CES keynote address, where he is widely expected to kick off the GeForce "Blackwell" gaming GPU generation. CES is expected to see NVIDIA launch its flagship GeForce RTX 5090 (RTX 4090-successor SKU), and its next-best part, the GeForce RTX 5080 (RTX 4080 successor).

February 2025 is expected to see the company debut the RTX 5070, and possibly the RTX 5070 Ti, if there is such a SKU. The RTX 5070 succeeds a long line of extremely successful SKUs that tended to sell in large volumes. Perhaps the most important launches of the generation will come in March 2025, when the company is expected to debut the RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti, which succeed the current RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti, respectively. The xx60 tier tends to be the bestselling class of gaming GPUs in any generation. In all, it's expected that NVIDIA will release six new SKUs within Q1, and you can expect over a hundred graphics card reviews from TechPowerUp in Q1.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced the industry's first 100% fanless direct liquid cooling systems architecture to enhance the energy and cost efficiency of large-scale AI deployments. The company introduced the innovation at its AI Day, held for members of the financial community at one of its state-of-the-art AI systems manufacturing facilities. During the event, the company showcased its expertise and leadership in AI across enterprises, sovereign governments, service providers and model builders.

Industry's first 100% fanless direct liquid cooling system
While efficiency has improved in next-generation accelerators, power consumption is continuing to intensify with AI adoption, outstripping traditional cooling techniques.

Qualcomm debuted its Snapdragon X Elite/Plus series of laptop processors a few months ago, and the company is already testing the next-generation Snapdragon X2 series. Interestingly, the new "SC8480XP" SoC is carrying a codename "project Glymur." Up until now, Qualcomm has exclusively used codenames of places in Hawaii. However, with the Snapdragon X2 series, it shifts to Iceland, with the highest waterfall name being used for this next-generation processor. While we have almost zero clue about core counts and clocks, we know that the CPU cores will be an iteration of Nuvia's Oryon design, likely being pre-designed before the acquisition of the Nuvia design team.

According to Winfuture, Qualcomm started testing the next-generation SC8480XP SoC in July and August, testing various RAM and storage configurations. The company will likely evaluate the best configurations for the upcoming platform, tune the RAM speed with the SoC, and decide on guidelines for storage configurations. We are still waiting to see meaningful hints about the next-generation platform, and we are especially curious about the clocks and core counts that Qualcomm is preparing.

Corning Incorporated, one of the world's leading innovators in glass, ceramic, and materials science, today unveiled Corning EXTREME ULE Glass, a next-generation material that will support chip manufacturers in meeting the rapidly growing demand for advanced and intelligent technologies. The new material will help chipmakers improve photomasks - the stencils for chip design - which are critical for the mass production of today's most advanced and cost-efficient microchips.

Corning designed EXTREME ULE Glass to withstand the highest intensity extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, including high numerical aperture (High NA) EUV, which is rapidly becoming an industry standard. EUV lithography allows manufacturers to use the most advanced photomasks to pattern and print the smallest, most complex chip designs. This process requires extreme thermal stability and a uniform glass material to help ensure consistent manufacturing performance.

NETGEAR, Inc., a leading provider of innovative and secure solutions for people to connect and manage their digital lives, today expanded its Nighthawk WiFi 7 standalone router line to include the new RS600, RS500, and RS200. The lineup of Nighthawk routers is built on the company's promise to deliver the latest WiFi 7 technology combined with powerful WiFi performance and secure connectivity for homes of any size.

Powerful, Secure WiFi 7 for Everyone
Since the launch of NETGEAR's first WiFi 7 offering - Nighthawk RS700S - multi-gig internet speeds have become more accessible and affordable, and IoT devices that require extreme low latency and higher throughput continue to be adopted at high rates. WiFi 7, which is 2.4x faster than WiFi 6, offers enhanced performance to address the ever-growing demands of modern connectivity. This next-generation technology supports increased capacity across multiple connected smart home devices, providing faster speeds, near-zero latency and the ability to handle the demands of high-quality video streaming as well as advanced computing, including AI-driven applications and AR/VR experiences.

Samsung Electronics today announced the Galaxy Book4 Edge (15-inch), the latest addition to Samsung's Galaxy Book lineup, now powered by Qualcomm's cutting-edge Snapdragon X Plus 8-core platform. This new Copilot+ PC seamlessly integrates advanced AI capabilities, which elevate productivity and creativity to new heights.

Enhanced connectivity with the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem allows for one easy and efficient workflow across multiple devices, and further improves access to trailblazing Galaxy AI tools. All of these innovations are housed in a slim design featuring a 15.6-inch FHD display, a long-lasting battery with Super-Fast Charging and Samsung's multi-layer Samsung Knox security. The Galaxy Book4 Edge (15-inch) is available in select markets starting October in an iconic Sapphire Blue finish.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI/ML, HPC, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is previewing new, completely re-designed X14 server platforms which will leverage next-generation technologies to maximize performance for compute-intensive workloads and applications. Building on the success of Supermicro's efficiency-optimized X14 servers that launched in June 2024, the new systems feature significant upgrades across the board, supporting a never-before-seen 256 performance cores (P-cores) in a single node, memory support up for MRDIMMs at 8800MT/s, and compatibility with next-generation SXM, OAM, and PCIe GPUs. This combination can drastically accelerate AI and compute as well as significantly reduce the time and cost of large-scale AI training, high-performance computing, and complex data analytics tasks. Approved customers can secure early access to complete, full-production systems via Supermicro's Early Ship Program or for remote testing with Supermicro JumpStart.

"We continue to add to our already comprehensive Data Center Building Block solutions with these new platforms, which will offer unprecedented performance, and new advanced features," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Supermicro is ready to deliver these high-performance solutions at rack-scale with the industry's most comprehensive direct-to-chip liquid cooled, total rack integration services, and a global manufacturing capacity of up to 5,000 racks per month including 1,350 liquid cooled racks. With our worldwide manufacturing capabilities, we can deliver fully optimized solutions which accelerate our time-to-delivery like never before, while also reducing TCO."

Intel has begun sampling the test tools for their "Oak Stream" platform which will house the "Diamond Rapids" generation of processors sometime in late 2025 or early 2026. Previously rumored to continue using the "Birch Stream" platform LGA 7529 socket that will soon be shipping with the 288-core flavor of the "Sierra Forest" efficiency core Xeons as well as 120-core "Granite Rapids" performance core Xeons, "Diamond Rapids" appears to instead be moving up to a substantially larger LGA 9324 socket. This is Intel's next-next generation of Xeon from what is shipping today, following up on the next-gen Intel 18A based "Clearwater Forest" which was only just reported to be powering on earlier this month. Other than the codename there is almost nothing currently known about "Diamond Rapids" but the rumor mill is already fired up and mentioning things such as increased core counts, 16 DRAM channels (similar to what AMD is expected to introduce with EPYC "Venice") and PCI-E 6.0 support.

The LGA 9324 test interposer for use with Intel's Gen 5 VR Test Tool that appeared on their Design-in Tools storefront before the page went to a 404 error carried a price tag of $900 USD and stipulated that this was a pre-order with an expected shipment date in Q4 2024.

With the growing demand for high-speed computing, more effective cooling solutions for AI servers are gaining significant attention. TrendForce's latest report on AI servers reveals that NVIDIA is set to launch its next-generation Blackwell platform by the end of 2024. Major CSPs are expected to start building AI server data centers based on this new platform, potentially driving the penetration rate of liquid cooling solutions to 10%.

Air and liquid cooling systems to meet higher cooling demands
TrendForce reports that the NVIDIA Blackwell platform will officially launch in 2025, replacing the current Hopper platform and becoming the dominant solution for NVIDIA's high-end GPUs, accounting for nearly 83% of all high-end products. High-performance AI server models like the B200 and GB200 are designed for maximum efficiency, with individual GPUs consuming over 1,000 W. HGX models will house 8 GPUs each, while NVL models will support 36 or 72 GPUs per rack, significantly boosting the growth of the liquid cooling supply chain for AI servers.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it introduced the industry's best-performing GDDR7, a next-generation graphics memory product. The development of GDDR7 in March comes amid growing interest by global customers in the AI space in the DRAM product that meets both specialized performance for graphics processing and fast speed. The company said that it will start volume production in the third quarter.

The new product comes with the operating speed of 32 Gbps, a 60% improvement from the previous generation and the speed can grow up to 40 Gbps depending on the circumstances. When adopted for the high-end graphics cards, the product can also process data of more than 1.5 TB per second, equivalent to 300 Full-HD movies (5 GB each), in a second.