SoCs
Capping off a busy month for new processor announcements, Apple this week has announced a new generation of M-series Apple Silicon processors – and with it, a newly refreshed generation of MacBook Pros. Anchored by the new M3 series of processors, Apple has opted to launch most of the stack in a single go, announcing products based on the vanilla M3, and more powerful M3 Pro and M3 Max SoCs at the same time. Built on TSMC’s N3B process, Apple is looking to once again raise the bar on both CPU and GPU performance, as well as setting a new record for the number of transistors used in a single laptop SoC. The launch of the new M3 chips goes hand-in-hand with new MacBook Pro...
Xilinx Expands Versal AI to the Edge: Helping Solve the Silicon Shortage
Today Xilinx is announcing an expansion to its Versal family, focused specifically on low power and edge devices. Xilinx Versal is the productization of a combination of many different...
25 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/9/2021Arm Announces New Mali-G710, G610, G510 & G310 Mobile GPU Families
Today alongside the CPU announcements, Arm is also unveiling a whole family of third generation Valhall GPUs with the Mali-G710, G510, G310, with particularly large improvements in the mid-...
30 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/25/2021Arm Announces Mobile Armv9 CPU Microarchitectures: Cortex-X2, Cortex-A710 & Cortex-A510
Today Arm is announcing a whole cluster of Armv9 client CPUs: The Cortex-X2: A flagship core with more performance and deeper OOO, the Cortex-A710: a power-efficient performance core, and...
181 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/25/2021Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 7c Gen 2: Entry-Level PC and Chromebook Refresh
As part of their Scaling the Mobile Compute Ecosystem presentation, Qualcomm this morning is announcing a refreshed version of their Snapdragon 7c for laptops. Aptly named Snapdragon 7c Gen...
33 by Ryan Smith on 5/24/2021Qualcomm Shows Off Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows on Arm Development
Alongside today’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC announcement, Qualcomm is also unveiling a new Windows 10-focused development kit. Collaborating with Microsoft, the two companies have put together the Snapdragon...
27 by Ryan Smith on 5/24/2021AMD's Wi-Fi 6E Module: The RZ608
One of the elements of building a complete end-to-end solution means having all the components under one brand. The complexity of modern gadgets means that having everything made under...
51 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 5/10/2021IBM Creates First 2nm Chip
Every decade is the decade that tests the limits of Moore’s Law, and this decade is no different. With the arrival of Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) technology, the intricacies...
118 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 5/6/2021Intel’s Chief Revenue Officer: We have Silicon, but Shortages in Wi-Fi, Substrates, Panels
One of the key commentaries about the current semiconductor shortages is around where exactly the bottlenecks are. The traditional interpretation of a semiconductor shortage implies that not enough silicon...
24 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 5/4/2021AI Funding Spree: +$300m for Groq, +$676m for SambaNova
The growth of AI has seen a resurgence in venture capital funding for silicon start-ups. Designing AI silicon for machine learning, both for training and inference, has become hot...
15 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 4/19/2021TSMC Q1 2021 Process Node Revenue: More 7nm, No More 20nm
This week TSMC has disclosed its full quarterly financial results for Q1 2021. In those results the company often explains where the revenue demand is for its technologies, and...
40 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 4/15/2021Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 780G: New 5nm 765 Successor
Today Qualcomm is announcing the new Snapdragon 780G, direct successor to the 765G: 1+3+4 CPUs with Cortex-A78’s up to 2.4GHz, +50% GPU, 2x AI performance, Triple-ISPs on a 5nm...
38 by Andrei Frumusanu on 3/25/2021Qualcomm Completes Acquisition of NUVIA: Immediate focus on Laptops (Updated)
Today Qualcomm is announcing that the company has completed the acquisition of NUVIA, a start-up company consisting of industry veterans who were behind the creation of Apple’s high-performance CPU...
25 by Andrei Frumusanu on 3/16/2021Xbox Series X SoC: Power, Thermal, and Yield Tradeoffs
This week at ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference), Microsoft presented a talk titled ‘Xbox Series X SoC: A Next Generation Gaming Console’, with hardware engineer Paul Paternoster presenting...
82 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 2/15/2021The Snapdragon 888 vs The Exynos 2100: Cortex-X1 & 5nm - Who Does It Better?
Ahead of our full device review of the Galaxy S21 Ultra (and the smaller Galaxy S21), today we’re focusing on the first test results of the new generation of...
123 by Andrei Frumusanu on 2/8/2021MediaTek Announces Dimensity 1100 & 1200 SoCs: A78 on 6nm
Today MediaTek announced two new top-end SoCs in the form of the new Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200. The two new designs are a follow-up to last year’s Dimensity...
15 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/20/2021Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 870: An 865++?
Today Qualcomm is making a rather unexpected SoC announcement in the form of the new Snapdragon 870. The chip is a rather odd release in Qualcomm’s chipset line-up in...
25 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/19/2021Qualcomm to Acquire NUVIA: A CPU Magnitude Shift
Today Qualcomm has announced they will be acquiring NUVIA for $1.4bn – acquiring the start-up company consisting of industry veterans which originally were behind the creation of Apple’s high-performance...
78 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/13/2021Samsung Confirms AMD RDNA GPU In Next Exynos Flagship
Today during the Exynos 2100 launch event, Samsung's Dr. Inyup Kang, VP and GM of the System LSI division, confirmed that their partnership with AMD on integrating a next-generation...
15 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/12/2021Samsung Announces Exynos 2100 SoC: A New Restart on 5nm with X1 Cores
Today, Samsung LSI took the virtual stage to announce the new Exynos 2100 flagship SoC. The new SoC promises some very large technical upgrades – the aforementioned new Cortex-X1...
34 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/12/2021Intel Launches Jasper Lake: Tremont Atom Cores For All
One of the more interesting elements in Intel’s 2020 set of disclosures was its 10nm Tremont Atom core. Initially used in the low power Lakefield product, this core design...
31 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 1/11/2021