Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 1

TSMC was expected to spend between $10 billion and $12 billion on its next-gen 3nm chip factory in Arizona, USA -- but it seems that the Taiwanese semiconductor world leader has much bigger plans.

According to people familiar with the matter, Reuters reports that TSMC is "weighing plans to pump tens of billions of dollars more into cutting-edge chip factories in the U.S. state of Arizona than it had previously disclosed, but is cool on prospects for an advanced European plant".

TSMC is building a next-gen 3nm fabrication plant in Arizona and could spend somewhere between $23 billion and $25 billion to get it operational, which would put them ahead of Samsung which has just begun construction of its new 5nm plant in South Korea. TSMC is already pumping out 5nm chips for companies, with Apple using a custom M1 chip on 5nm inside of its new MacBook and iPad Pro.

Samsung has announced that construction of a new production line has started and that the company expects the plant to be operational in the second half of 2022. This is part of a $151 billion investment into Samsung aiming to be the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology against the likes of so-very-dominant TSMC, Intel, and others.

The new state-of-the-art facility will be making 14nm DRAM and 5nm logic semiconductors, both of which will be based on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. NVIDIA's next-gen Hopper GPU architecture will be made on 5nm and according to my sources, NVIDIA suffered the blows it has taken with Ampere on the 8nm node from Samsung -- against TSMC and its 7nm node for AMD with Radeon (and Ryzen) because after that, it could get to tap Samsung's new 5nm tech.

This is where NVIDIA will play catch up in a big way, with Samsung's new 5nm plant up and operational in the second half of 2022 we can begin to expect that NVIDIA's next-gen Hopper GPU will be unveiled sometime in the second half of 2022. NVIDIA itself even teased "Ampere Next" for 2022 just last month.

Samsung has just announced that it is boosting its investments in bleeding-edge chip manufacturing, with the South Korean giant spending $151 billion between now and 2030 to boost research into next-gen process technology, and the construction of a new production facility.

The company had previously said that it would be investing $115 billion between now and 2030 but has now revised that, with a larger $151 billion. Samsung Electronics will be pumping the investments into its System LSI and Foundry business, with Samsung "closely collaborating with various semiconductor design companies, component and equipment manufacturers, as well as academia in making progress towards that goal".

Samsung said that the expansion of its Foundry Business will "fuel entire new industries on next-generation technologies like AI, 5G and autonomous driving".

Trading cards are leaving Target after a man pulled a gun out in a dispute over trading cards in a Target parking lot.

Target has announced that it will be removing all trading cards from store shelves from May 14 onward after a man on May 7 pulled a gun out during a fight over trading cards. Target states it is temporarily suspending the "sale of MLB, NFL, NBA and Pokemon trading cards within our stores, effective May 14." Target added that it decided to remove these trading cards "out of an abundance of caution", and that shoppers can still purchase them online "Guests can continue to shop these cards online at Target.com."

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the value of trading cards to increase drastically, with some Pokemon cards such as a mint condition Charizard sold for $300,000 in January - it was worth $16,000 in 2019. According to Joe Maddalena, executive vice-president at Texas-based Heritage Auctions said, "When Covid-19 hit, a lot of Gen X and Millennials were looking for things to do and we found a lot of these guys and girls started playing Pokemon again because they grew up with it."

A new alliance of powerful US tech companies has joined forces to create the Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC) which has urged US congressional leaders to secure $50 billion for the CHIPS for America Act.

The Semiconductors in America Coalition has pushed congressional leaders to secure $50 billion in funding for US-based chip manufacturing incentives and research initiatives. SIAC says 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 CHIPS for America Act legislation may have been enacted earlier this year, but the funds are not flowing -- something Intel has voiced its opinion on with the Biden administration recently. SIAC's first actions included a letter to congressional leaders to support this legislation, and fully fund the $50 billion asked for in the CHIPS for America Act.

Last week Bill and Melinda Gates announced that they would be divorcing, and now new reports have come out about why.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Melinda Gates has been considering divorcing Bill Gates for two years before the divorce was made official. The two were married for 27 years, and according to the Journal, Melinda had been meeting with lawyers across multiple different firms since 2019 in an attempt to fix a marriage that was "irretrievably broken."

Bill and Melinda haven't said what has caused the two to split up, but the Journal reported that the main speculative reason is that Melinda has been upset with Bill over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bill and Melinda first met Epstein in 2011 after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in 2008 - "still haunts" Melinda Gates. People who were close to the meeting said that Melinda was "furious" over the relationship Bill had with Epstein.

The hunt for former President Donald Trump's financial records has been reignited by a Democrat-led House committee.

The committee is currently pushing a federal judge to order former President Donald Trump to comply with a subpoena to release his financial records. The argument the committee is pushing is that Trump has no reason or claim not to release his financial records now that he is no longer the President of the United States.

The effort is being led by the chair Carolyn Maloney, and according to a source close to the matter, if the committee is successful, it would be moving closer to obtaining Trump's tax records. Douglas Letter, the general counsel for congressional Democrat, wrote, "While the committee's need for the subpoenaed information has not changed, one key fact has: plaintiff Donald J Trump is no longer the president".

Colonial Pipeline is recovering from a ransomware attack over the weekend which forced the largest US fuel pipeline operator to shut its critical networking supplying the US east coast.

Reuters reports the story explaining that the "attack is one of the most disruptive digital ransom schemes reported and has prompted calls from American lawmakers to strengthen protections for critical U.S. energy infrastructure from hacking attacks".

The Biden administration and Washington are reportedly doing what they can behind the scenes to ensure that fuel supply remains solid and that Colonial Pipeline is back and operating ASAP. The gigantic cross-US pipeline runs between Texas and New Jersey, a distance of around 5500 miles (8850km).

A new craze has sparked outrage online as people in China are ordering what is called a "blind box", which is a mystery parcel that is shipped to the buyer that contains a random pet.

BBC News reported that on Monday, 160 distressed cats and dogs were found inside a courier company's truck in Chengdu. Chinese law states that it's illegal to transport live animals. However, local media has reported that these "blind boxes" are overwhelmingly popular. These "blind boxes" can contain any animal from tortoises, lizards, rats, dogs, and cats.

As you can imagine, the cruelty of this entire practice has sparked outrage online, with some users saying, "Have we made any achievements in the rescue and management of stray animals? Now there is a pet blind box industry?". State media outlet Xinhua even went as far to say "blind boxes" are a "desecration of life". Online buyers of these "blind boxes" have been urged to have "more goodwill and more respect for life".

A Black man who has intellectual disabilities was forced to work unpaid by a former South Carolina restaurant manager.

The former restaurant manager is 56-year-old Bobby Paul Edwards, and in 2019 Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he plead guilty against forced labor chargers. Edwards enslaved 43-year-old John Christopher Smith, who was forced to work 100 hour weeks, at zero pay, with no days off, for 5 years. Now, Edwards is being forced to pay Smith an entitled total of $546,000 as a rightful compensation.

Court documents state that Smith began his full-time employment in 1990 at the age of 12 under the ownership of Edwards' relatives. In 2009 Edwards took over the operation and allegedly moved Smith into an apartment described as "sub-human," "deplorable" and "harmful to human health", according to Smith's lawyer.