Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 5

Microsoft has just announced that its new Windows and Surface chief is Pavan Davuluri, after losing Panos Panay to Amazon last year, where Microsoft split Windows and Surface teams with two different leaders.

Davuluri took over as the Surface silicon and devices boss, with Mikhail Parakhin leading a new team that will work on Windows and web experiences, but now both Windows and Surface are under the responsibility of Davuluri, as Parakhin has left as he "decided to explore new roles".

Microsoft is pooling the Windows and devices team together, which is news learned by an internal memo from Microsoft's head of experiences and devices, Rajesh Jha, who outlined the new Windows organization. The Verge got their hands on the memo, where Jha explained: "This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era".

TSMC is enjoying an increasing number of orders as chip giants trip over themselves to get 3nm process node manufacturing for their upcoming designs. Customers include Apple, AMD, Intel, and more.

In a new report from Economic Daily News, we hear that TSMC's new 3nm process node orders are set to see huge growth throughout the year and to "remain robust until the end of the year." Q4 2023 saw TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) see 15% of its revenue derived from 3nm orders, but that's expected to pass 20% this year.

Apple will use TSMC's new 3nm process node for its upcoming A18 series processor, which will power its next-gen iPhone 16 family of smartphones later this year. Apple will also use the N3 node from TSMC for its upcoming next-gen M4 processor, which will power upcoming MacBook laptops.

SK hynix has announced it has planned a mega fab complex called Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, which will begin construction in March 2025, with an estimated completion date in 2046... so we're still a while away.

The South Korean giant has prepared at least $90 billion towards the project, which will see four separate fabbing facilities and would be one of -- if not the -- biggest fab complex on the planet. SK hynix will have new bleeding-edge facilities on its site, as well as room for companies like South Korean rival Samsung to build other facilities there.

SK hynix will have multiple facilities up and running before its 2046 completion date, with the first of the four fabs to be operational in 2027. This is just two years after construction starts, similar to TSMC's new bleeding-edge facility in Japan, which also took just two years to build... meanwhile, Intel and TSMC continue to struggle with US semiconductor fab construction with multi-year delays ahead for Intel's plant in Ohio.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has publicly invited Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for a private tour of Intel's new semiconductor fab lines.

In a new post on X, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger posted: "@ElonMusk - I was thinking of you at our Chips Act ceremony this week with @POTUS and @SecRaimondo. I am looking forward to giving you a personal tour of our semiconductor fab lines! Follow me so we can migrate our conversations to X on DM".

Intel's new semiconductor chip plant in Germany has had archaeologists working on the site discovering two prehistoric burial mounds with human, and animal remains from a prehistoric human and animal sacrifice.

The State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) examined the 300-hectare industrial site ahead of site development works planned by Intel in Germany. There, they discovered two approximately 6,000-year-old monumental wooden chambers containing multiple human and animal remains.

Archaeologists traced one of the two burial mounds to the Baalberg group, an anxiety Neolithic culture that existed in central Germany between about 4100 and 3600 BC. There were two large, trapezoidal burial chambers built using wood inside the mound, with a corridor running between the two chambers that experts said would've been used as a procession route by settlers in the next millennium.

MediaTek announced during GTC 2024 last week that four new automotive SoCs within its Dimensity Auto Cockpit portfolio, with the new chips featuring NVIDIA GPUs ready for AI workloads.

The next-gen Dimensity Auto Cockpit SoCs feature Arm-based Cortex cores under the latest Armv9 instruction set architecture, as well as NVIDIA's next-gen GPU that runs AI workloads including large language models (LLMs). The built-in NVIDIA GPU inside of the SoC will handle real-time ray tracing graphics and even DLSS 3-based AI upscaling.

NVIDIA DRIVE OS is the heart behind the system, which allows automakers to use all of NVIDIA's software and IP designed for the platform.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is officially coming after Apple and its walled-garden ecosystem, with the regulator claiming Apple has forced its way into becoming a monopoly that gained it an "astronomical valuation" at the expense of consumers, developers, and competing phone makers.

The new lawsuit filed on Thursday by the DOJ states that Apple implemented changes such as blocking cross-platform messaging apps, limiting third-party wallet and smartphone compatibility, disrupted non-Appe Store programs/cloud streaming services in an effort to keep consumers purchasing iPhones. CNBC reports that Apple's fight against the lawsuit will cost the company money, which may prevent it from releasing new products and services, thus hurting consumer demand.

Notably, 16 attorneys general stated that Apple's ecosystem anticompetitive tactics are also within its advertising, browser, FaceTime, and news offering, with Attorney General Merrick Garland saying in the recent release, "If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly." An Apple spokesperson told CNBC that the company completely disagreed with the lawsuit and would defend against it.

A top US admiral has just testified that China is building its military and nuclear arsenal on a scale not since seen World War II, preparing to invade Taiwan by 2027.

Admiral John Aquilino, the leader of the Indo-Pacific Command, told the US House Armed Services Committee in a prepared testimony on Tuesday that Beijing's defense budget has ballooned by 16% over the last few years to over $223 billion. In the three years since he's taken command, he said that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had added another 400 fighter jets and 20 new major warships to its arsenal. Admiral Aquilino said China has doubled its ballistic and cruise missile inventory since 2020.

Admiral Aquilino said: "All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping's directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. The PLA's actions indicate their ability to meet Xi's preferred time-line to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed".

NVIDIA has finally unveiled its next-gen Blackwell B200 AI GPU and new DGX systems for the future of AI, with CEO Jensen Huang saying that his company needs to focus on both compliance and resilience when it comes to serving the Chinese market.

Jensen noted that many parts of NVIDIA's systems are made in China, saying "that's just the truth," and that NVIDIA needs to do everything in its power to create more resilience in the supply chain. Jensen said: "There are two things we have to do right away. One is to make sure we understand the policies and comply. And the other is to do everything we can to create more resilience in our supply chain".

Jensen noted that many of NVIDIA's systems use parts made in China, where the NVIDIA CEO added: "That's just the truth," adding that the same thing is true for both the auto and defense industries. Jensen continued: "The supply chain of the world is quite complicated. We have every confidence that the goal of the nations is not adversarial... the doomsday scenario is not likely to happen".

The CHIPS and Science Act was signed by the Biden administration in 2022, authorizing $280 billion in new funding to see the US becoming the beacon for the best semiconductor factories and chips made on the planet.

Today, the Biden administration unlocked $53.7 billion to unleash R&D and semiconductor manufacturing, with billions going to the likes of Intel, Samsung, and TSMC. The US Commerce Department has announced that Intel has signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms for federal grants of up to $8.5 billion, while Intel can access up to $11 billion of loans from the CHIPS Act.

Intel will also claim US Treasury Department's Investment Tax Credit (ITC) of up to 25% for its planned investments of around $100 billion to establish multiple facilities and fabs in the USA. This includes a new fab in Arizona, an advanced packaging center in New Mexico, a leading-edge manufacturing site in Ohio -- which was just delayed from 2025 to 2027 or 2028 -- and a new R&D center in Oregon.