Business, Financial & Legal - Page 9

Intel is reportedly deep in discussions with NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft to use its Intel 18A process node (classified as 2nm) for their upcoming chips, which would move some large orders away from TSMC.

In a post shared on X by insider @Jukanlosreve and reported by Korean media outlet Chosun, we're hearing that Intel Foundry's fresh new Intel 18A process node will enter stable mass production in the second half of the year, with Intel officially announcing in early April that 18A had entered risk production.

Intel Foundry being in discussions with the likes of NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft could be a masterstroke move against TSMC in a world now controlled through tariffs under the Trump administration. Intel is a US-based company, and TSMC is a Taiwan-based company... if Intel is using its Intel Foundry semiconductor manufacturing arm on US soil, making and providing chips to US companies... then there are no tariffs.

Microsoft's purchase of Activision in 2023 was the most expensive video game acquisition of all time, and with that title comes a lot of regulatory scrutiny to ensure the deal didn't violate any antitrust laws that made the market unfair for competition.

The $69 billion deal attracted considerable attention at the time and has certainly given Microsoft and its gaming brand, Xbox, a massive boost in the market. However, with a deal of this proportion, regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wanted to get involved to ensure everything was done legally. An investigation was launched into the deal. The investigation results have now been published, and Microsoft has been found completely clean of any wrongdoing.

Bloomberg's legal team delved into the details of the document posted by the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which stated in quite heavy language that Microsoft hasn't violated any antitrust laws with its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, and most notably, the conclusion of the investigation will "reshape how the Federal Trade Commission reviews deals involving rapidly evolving technology."

AMD has posted its first quarter 2025 financial results, and with $7.4 billion in revenue and a gross margin of 50%, it's good news. The company's impressive revenue was once again driven by growth in the Data Center segment, which saw a first-quarter revenue increase of 36% year over year.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su cites the company's expanding 'data center and AI momentum' as playing a key role in its continued success (this is the fourth consecutive quarter of growth). However, AMD's Client and Gaming segment seems to be doing well, too, with revenue up 28% year over year.

This covers AMD Ryzen products for desktop and mobile devices, Radeon GPUs, and hardware for consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox Series X|S. However, AMD's Ryzen processors grew revenue here, with Client revenue growing by a massive 64% year over year. AMD's Gaming business, on the other hand, fell by 30%, even with the recent launch of the Radeon RX 9070 Series.

AMD has reportedly abandoned the use of Samsung Foundry's SF4X process node, after reports suggested the company would be mass-producing its I/O dies for EPYC server CPUs on Samsung 4nm.

In a new post on X by insider @Jukanlosreve, we're hearing that AMD has "decided not to use Samsung Foundry's SF4X process" after reports back in February 2025 that it would be using the process node for its I/O die on EPYC processors. We should expect AMD to shift those orders over to TSMC and its new Arizona plant in the US for these 4nm chips.

AMD was reportedly exclusively collaborating with Samsung on its new SF4X process node, with the new SF4X node used on its EPYC server CPUs, Radeon APUs, and even Radeon GPUs, with AMD using a dual-sourcing strategy between TSMC and Samsung Foundry, which would've been a big deal (mostly for Samsung here).

After years of it being a possibility, Elon Musk's Starbase facility in Texas is now an official city after residents of the area approved the decision.

The Starbase facility is located on the southern tip of Texas and is where Elon Musk's space-faring company, SpaceX, operates its rocket launches/development. The ruling to turn Starbase into an official city came after residents voted to incorporate a patch of land as a new municipality in an election held on Saturday. Out of the 283 eligible voters, the majority are SpaceX employees, with 212 votes in favor of the decision and six opposing it.

As for the size of the new city, Starbase's jurisdiction will be about 1.6 square miles, have its own local government, a mayor, two commissioners, taxation, and other local infrastructure. The first mayor of the city will be Bobby Peden, a SpaceX vice president.

TSMC's next-gen 2nm process node (N2) is progressing smoothly, with defect density (D0) matching its 5nm process, and surpassing its 3nm and 7nm nodes at similar stages of development.

We can expect mass production of TSMC's new 2nm process node in Q4 2025 according to the latest reports from Taiwanese media outlet Ctee, with AMD's new EPYC "Venice" CPU being the first to complete tape-out on 2nm, and Apple's next-gen iPhone 18 expected to use 2nm chips. Intel is also reportedly using TSMC's new 2nm process node for the compute tiles on its next-gen Nova Lake CPUs.

TSMC's list of 2nm clients includes Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek, and Broadcom. NVIDIA's next-gen Rubin AI GPU family will arrive on 3nm at first in 2026, with a refresh possibly hitting 2nm in the future. TSMC chairman C.C. Wei recently emphasized that demand for 2nm is "unprecedented" and far exceeds the demand of 3nm.

Apple has posted its Q2 2025 financial results, with the company pulling in $95.4 billion in revenue -- down from the record-breaking $124.3 billion in revenue from the previous quarter -- with its "bread and butter" doing quite well, as always.

Apple broke industry estimates for its Q2 2025 revenue, and enjoyed some healthy business in all departments apart from one. Apple's "bread and butter" is the iPhone, which pulled in $46.84 billion in revenue, compared to $45.96 billion from the previous quarter: driven by the new iPhone 16e release.

The recent launches of the new 13-inch and 15-inch M4 MacBook Air laptops helped boost up Macrevenue, with $7.95 billion in earnings compared to $7.45 billion in Q1 2025.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has personally thanked President Trump and his focus on domestic (US) semiconductor manufacturing, pledging that his company would invest $500 billion in the US over the next 4 years.

Tim Cook has promised that Apple will invest $500 billion in the United States in the next 4 years, and that it has a long-standing relationship with domestic suppliers.

Cook said in his virtual presentation during President Donald Trump's celebration of his first 100 days in office: "I want to take a moment to recognize President Trump's focus on domestic semiconductor manufacturing, and we will continue to work with the administration as we invest in these areas".

Grand Theft Auto 6 has been officially delayed by Rockstar Games, with the developer saying it needs more time to complete development of the highly anticipated title.

The announcement of GTA 6 being delayed until May 26, 2025, has resulted in Take-Two Interactive's share price sliding by as much as 7% at the time of reporting, marking a deep decline for the publisher. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has responded to the announcement of the delay with a recent statement, saying the publisher fully supports Rockstar's decision, and that "While we take the movement of our titles seriously and appreciate the vast and deep global anticipation for 'Grand Theft Auto 6,' we remain steadfast in our commitment to excellence."

Despite the announcement of the delay, Take-Two still anticipates delivering a multiyear period of growth for its business, which will include "enhanced value for our shareholders." More specifically, Take-Two reiterated that it expects it achieve sequential increases in net bookings in fiscal 2026 and 2027, saying it believes it will achieve record levels of bookings during both periods.

The Taiwanese government is planning to better control exports of its advanced semiconductor process technologies, as well as outbound semiconductor investments according to new reports.

In a new report from the Economic Daily, we're learning that Taiwanese government officials will enforce the "N-1" technology restriction, which will see TSMC banned from exporting its latest production nodes, and it'll also introduce a penalty for violating the N-1 restriction.

Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai has said that the new N-1 policy will apply to TSMC's planned production in the United States, with only one generation older allowed to be deployed overseas. However, TSMC's most advanced semiconductor process technology is its current N3P process node, but before the end of the year we'll see TSMC begin fabbing new chips on its N2 process node, which will then become the flagship process node.

TSMC is reportedly not using High-NA EUV lithography machines for its next-gen A14 (1.4nm) process node, and will instead continue to rely on its conventional 0.33-NA EUV machines.

The news was revealed at the North American Technology Symposium recently, with the move leading semiconductor competitors like Intel Foundry with a technological edge over TSMC (Intel spent billions buying ASML's bleeding-edge High-NA EUV lithography machines).

TSMC's SVP Kevin Zhang said during the recent North American Technology Symposium: "TSMC will not be using high-NA EUV lithography to pattern A14 chips, manufacturing of which is scheduled to start in 2028. From 2 nanometers to A14, we don't have to use high-NA, but we can continue to maintain similar complexity in terms of processing steps. Each generation of technology, we try to minimize the number of mask increases. This is very important to provide a cost-efficient solution".

TSMC currently has 24 semiconductor factories under construction across Taiwan, the United States, Germany, and Japan, but the company has a shortage of fab workers that could slow things down.

In a new report from DigiTimes, we're hearing that almost all of the teams that TSMC has in Taiwan that can be mobilized, have been, and that hiring locals in Taiwan has caused issues to get worse across its global supply chain. TSMC had 83,825 employees at the end of 2025, which is a huge increase from the 51,000 staffers it employed at the end of 2019.

However, turn over of TSMC employees has reportedly been high enough that it has pushed the company to increase salaries and bonuses, with overseas operations being a challenge to figure out local work culture. Japan is very similar to Taiwan, but there aren't many workers to fill positions, while the shortage of workers in the US has made it hard for TSMC to deal with America's "work-life balance" idea.

TSMC says that it remains on track to begin high-volume production of next-gen chips on its new N2 (2nm-class) process node, the first production tech that uses gate-all-around (GAA) nanosheet transistors, in the second half of this year.

The news was unveiled during TSMC's recent North American Technology Symposium 2025 event, with its new N2 node to power multiple products this year from AMD, Apple, and most recently, Intel.

TSMC's next-gen A14 process node, when compared against the upcoming N2 process, will have 15% more performance using the same power, or up to 30% power reduction at the same speed, along with over 20% more logic density. TSMC will be evolving its NanoFlex standard cell architecture to NanoFlex Pro, enabling greater performance, power efficiency, and design flexibility.

AMD has just confirmed it will host its Computex 2025 press conference on May 21, and you can tune into the show right from your PC or smartphone.

AMD's upcoming Computex 2025 press conference will be hosted by Jack Huynh, the SVP and GM of the Computing and Graphics Group of the company, who recently hosted CES 2025, where he willl be announcing key products and technology advancements across gaming, AI, PC, and enterprise, showcasing whats' possible through AMD vision on AI-powered devices.

We should expect to see things like the Radeon RX 9060 XT mainstream RDNA 4 graphics card, I'm sure a ton about how successful and powerful the company's fresh new Strix Halo APU is, an earful about AI which I'm sure we'll all be sick of within minutes of hearing "AI, AI, AI, AI, AI" over and over again.

Intel is set to announce yet another round of layoffs, with around 20% of its global workforce to see their jobs cut, representing around 21,000 positions.

In a new report from Bloomberg, we're learning that the Intel layoffs would be happening this week with the company aiming to "eliminate bureaucracy at the struggling chipmaker" according to a person familiar with the matter. The move is part of a bid to streamline management and rebuild an engineering-driven culture according to Bloomberg's source.

Intel cut around 15,000 positions in August 2024, with its global workforce dropping from 124,800 employees in 2023 to 108,900 last year... and now with another 20,000 positions slashed, Intel's global workforce will dwindle down to 88,900.

The United States and China are engaging in a tit-for-tat trade war, and currently, Chinese goods are facing a 145% additional fee when they enter the US, but the White House just confirmed that's not the total, as the tariff can reach up to 245%.

On Tuesday this week, the White House shared a fact sheet about the newly announced trade tariffs with the goal of clarifying some of the confusion around what goods are subject to tariffs and what aren't, especially after Trump announced an exemption on select Chinese goods. Officials who have spoken to The Register informed the publication that the stated 245% fee isn't an error, and was intentional. So, how did we get the 245%? It's a combination of already established tariffs and President Trump's reciprocal tariffs.

According to the White House fact sheet, fentanyl-justified tariffs and prior tariffs implemented under Section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act, China faces a levy of 245%, which is essentially at an embargo level as it wouldn't be beneificial for a company to send its products to US due to it either having to raise prices of its goods to levels beyond what consumers are willing to pay, or eat into its own profit margins beyond what is financially sustainable.

The PC supply chain is showing some momentum in a post-tariff world from President Trump, with new data from analyst firm Canalys showing that big US-based tech companies are importing PC products in huge volumes, so much so that they're at a 4-year high.

US trade policy changes are causing headaches for many, with tech companies including Apple, Dell, HP, and many others importing PC products in mass quantities, with the shipment increased to levels beyond what we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic according to Canalys.

Q1 2025 PC shipments increased by 9.4% to 62.7 million units, with these shipments including desktops, laptops, and workstations, showing that the overall PC supply chain has been eager to dodge the new US tariffs. Wccftech points out that major tech companies have been forcing their suppliers to speed up the production process, with shipment volumes massively increasing, with the site noting that the supply chain has been successful in "front-running" the new policies.

Samsung Electronics is the first company to receive government approval to extend working hours in order to boost its semiconductor research and development (R&D) staff, with the South Korean government approving a new policy to increase the industry's semiconductor competitiveness, boosting work hours up to 64 hours per week.

In a new report from Korean media outlet Chosun, industry sources said that the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Gyeonggi branch approved the request on April 9. The new exemption allows Samsung's chip R&D staffers to work up to 64 hours per week for the first 3 months, and up to 60 hours per week for the 3 months after, exceeding the 52-hour statutory workweek that South Korea allows.

The South Korean government revised its labor rules on March 14, extending the permitted overtime for semiconductor R&D roles to 6 months per application, up from 3 months previously. South Korean companies can now seek approval for a one-time, 6-month extension under the new rules.

President Trump has just announced that the Unites States' reciprocal tariffs won't happen on smartphones, computers, and other electronics, which is a major win for US companies like Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, Intel, and more.

The exclusions will apply to smartphones, laptops, storage products, CPUs, memory chips, as well as flat-screen displays. These are some of the most popular electronics products in the world, and most of them aren't made in the US, with their innards (processor, memory, etc) made in Taiwan, South Korea, or China.

The exemptions cover nearly $390 billion worth of US imports based on US 2024 trade statistics, reports Reuters, including over $101 billion from China. President Trump just enforced 125% tariffs on goods coming from China, with the new exemptions made because President Trump wants to give these companies more time to move their production onto US soil.

The former director of Global Public Policy for Facebook has told US senators that Meta actively targets teens with advertisements based on their emotional state, with data acquired through their online activity.

Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams spoke to senators on Wednesday and said during her time at the company, Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements when they were feeling down or depressed. The claim, which was first made during Wynn-Williams' book "Careless People," documents the time she spent at Facebook and the lack of concern top executives at the company had for children using its platform.

More specifically, Wynn-Williams said Meta, then known as Facebook, targeted teens between the ages of 13 and 17 with advertisements when they were feeling "worthless or helpless".