Business, Financial & Legal - Page 12

TSMC founder Morris Chang hasn't had a long-form video interview in 17 years, when he was interviewed by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, but now he's appeared in an awesome new interview with the guys at Acquired. It's a long watch, but totally worth it, check it out:

During the interview, the TSMC founder discusses a bunch of hot topics over the last couple of decades, including the relationship between TSMC and NVIDIA, its 40nm process node development back in 2009, resolving TSMC's incredible core business vs its expansions, the 2009 dispute with NVIDIA, and more.

Acquired's interview with Chang includes talking about the all-in move on the 28nm node, meeting Apple and the entire debacle between Apple and Intel -- as Apple was going to have Intel make its chips, but eventually decided on TSMC -- to which the TSMC founder had some fighting words to say about that. Chang said Apple paused its discussions with TSMC at the time, talking to Intel which was making chips for the company's Mac family, but eventually decided on TSMC.

Americans could soon be hit with a price hike for sought-after electronics as President Trump pushes the idea of tariffs on foreign production of computer chips.

President Trump is looking to implement tariffs on foreign production of semiconductors and computer chips in all forms in an effort to bring manufacturing of these components to American soil. The idea behind the tariffs, which could range between 25 and 100% tax, is to force foreign manufacturers to either pay the exorbitant fee to import their goods or choose to manufacture their products on American soil. However, there is a third option, and that involves foreign manufacturers increasing the price of their products, which essentially means consumers will have to pay for Trump's import tax.

In Trump's crosshairs with these tariffs are Taiwanese semiconducting manufacturer TSMC and South Korean giant Samsung, which produces various computing products such as CPUs, GPUs, storage, and memory modules. Notably, TSMC and Samsung have agreed to build fabrication plants in the US, but TSMC has been somewhat hesitant to manufacture its cutting-edge technologies on US soil and instead opts for those advanced chips to be manufactured in Taiwan. Unfortunately, companies such as Apple, NVIDIA, and others are only really interested in TSMC's best offerings.

NVIDIA has responded to the recent unveiling of DeepSeek's R1 model, which wiped approximately $1 trillion from tech companies on the stock market and approximately $600 billion from NVIDIA.

The unveiling of DeepSeek's R1 model sent shockwaves through the tech industry after the Chinese company revealed its chatbot was capable of rivaling OpenAI's ChatGPT but was built in just two months and for just $6 million, a mere fraction of what has been invested into ChatGPT. Moreover, the company claimed the model was trained on NVIDIA's less-advanced H800 chips. These factors caused a massive stir and pullback from spending in the tech space, resulting in $600 billion being wiped from NVIDIA, marking a 17% plunge on Monday, the biggest loss in the company's history.

Now, NVIDIA has responded to DeepSeek's R1 model, with a NVIDIA spokesperson telling CNBC on Monday, "DeepSeek is an excellent AI advancement and a perfect example of Test Time Scaling. DeepSeek's work illustrates how new models can be created using that technique, leveraging widely-available models and compute that is fully export control compliant." NVIDIA also believes that DeepSeek's new model and the technique it used to create it will only fuel the chipmaker more as the technique called Test Time Scaling will require an abundance of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).

The Trump administration is reportedly hard at work on a plan to save TikTok, using Oracle and a group of US investors to take control of TikTok's global operations in a new exclusive report from NPR "according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks".

President Trump and his administration are reportedly working on a new deal at the White House, with China-based owner ByteDance retaining a minority stake in the company, but TikTok's special sauce -- its algorithm -- data collection and software updates will be overseen by Oracle, which provides the foundation for TikTok's web infrastructure as it is.

NPR reports from a said who "person directly involved in the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the deliberations" who said: "The goal is for Oracle to effectively monitor and provide oversight with what is going on with TikTok. ByteDance wouldn't completely go away, but it would minimize Chinese ownership".

Apple has been hit with a lawsuit that alleges the company used "forever chemicals" in Apple Watch bands, which are known to cause negative health effects in humans.

The lawsuit has been filed in the Northern District of California has highlighted three Apple Watch bands, which Apple states have all been made from fluoroelastomer. The lawsuit alleges fluoroelastomer hides per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are commonly known as "forever chemicals". These chemicals are known to be resistant to water, grease, and heat -- and extremely difficult to break down naturally in an environment or a human body.

Notably, the chemicals have been linked to an increased risk of cancer and negative immune system effects that can even lead to complications with unborn children within a womb. Unfortunately, these chemicals are widely used in a variety of common items such as clothing, cleaning products, nonstick cookware, hygiene products, and more. They are widely used due to their effectiveness and their price, which is incredibly cheap compared to alternatives.

'Trust no one, not even yourself' is the theme of the latest ruling from the European General Court. In an inspiring display of personal accountability, the EU General Court determined on Wednesday that the European Commission is to pay damages to an EU citizen for failing to comply with EU data protection regulations. Yes, you read that correctly.

The citizen in question used the 'Sign in with Facebook' login option on the EU's webpage to register for a conference. The courts determined that this transfer of user information to Meta Platforms in the US was a violation of their own data-protection laws, and promptly ordered that the citizen be paid 400 Euros in damages.

While the equivalent $412 USD might not seem like much (from a legal perspective): in a market comprised of regular data breaches and questionable handling of user data - it is promising to see even the smallest of violations being enforced on a judicial level. Particularly when it involves the government fining themselves.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang hosted a "trillion-dollar banquet" in Taiwan last night, inviting the heads and CEOs of some of its biggest AI partners including Quanta, ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, and others.

Jensen invited some of the biggest names in the tech industry, including TSMC chairman C.C. Wei, Foxconn chairman Liu Tangwei, Quanta chairman Lin Baili, ASUS chairman Jonney Shi, Pegatron chairman Tong Zixian, and the bosses and executives of MSI, GIGABYTE, Acer, ASRock, and Inventec.

Once their banquet was over, the executives went outside of the restaurant with Taiwanese media interviewing NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and TSMC chairman C.C. Wei. Jensen was in Taiwan meeting with the CEOs of NVIDIA's supply chain partners, thanking them for building NVIDIA, and leading the charge with AI.

Elon's jet is in Florida, Global Foundries jet is in Florida, Qualcomm's jet is in Florida... they're all at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate to Make America Great Again by... buying Intel.

In a new tweet from Dylan Patel, we're being painted a picture of an interesting world: Elon + Global Foundries + Qualcomm buying Intel, which would see the US semiconductor industry stabilize a little bit. Intel Foundry is the chunk of the company that would be the biggest prize, with consumer/server processors, IP, and other parts of Intel of heavy value to buyers.

Elon Musk buying Intel is an interesting take, something I said many months ago when the Intel takeover rumors started flying. I said that Elon could work wonders on Intel, which needs to be chopped down heavily like he did to Twitter (and soon, DOGE for the US government). I continued, saying that it wasn't the 90s anymore and that the old Intel needs to die and be reborn as the industry has changed, and Intel has missed countless opportunities.

In a new turn of events for Intel, after CES 2025 is done and dusted, a new rumor of a company eyeing Intel off is back in the headlines.

Charlie Demerjian from SemiAccurate is reporting that they've read an internal email about a company "that was looking to buy Intel outright, not parts". However, the interested party is NOT one of the companies that we've been hearing about, with Charlie adding that "we have not seen any rumor of this company's interest in public statements"

Charlie explained in his post: "This email went to a very tight circle at the company according to our source which leads us to believe that it was quite real. When a company wants to use the press, public opinion, or investors as a denial of service weapon, they go public and go public loudly. When a company wants to actually buy something, they do whatever they can to avoid leaks to keep the price down. The way this email was circulated, or not circulated, made us lean toward it being real. That said it was far from confirmation".

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang says he is delighted to go and meet with President Trump to congratulate him, and "do everything we can to help this administration succeed".

In a new interview with Bloomberg TV, Jensen said: "I'd be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do everything we can to help this administration succeed". The news seems to have ruffled some feathers with TDS sufferers, with childish headlines like "NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang joins rush to kiss Trump's ring" yet the CEO of the world's most valuable (and important) company, has no issue with it (and would be "DELIGHTED" to meet him).

We've seen some huge moves back to sanity in the last few days, with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announcing that Facebook and Instagram would be removing those all-important (sarcasm) "fact-checkers" and moving into a world of "Community Notes" just like that other crazy Trump supporter: Elon Musk, and his platform X with its Community Notes initiative.

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit - alleging that the company was retaining recordings of private conversations with the virtual assistant Siri.

This settlement marks the end of a 6-year proceeding starting in 2019, during which Apple has vehemently denied any wrongdoing or liability for the matter. The accusations brought towards Apple cap a long string of cybersecurity concerns. A recent report from The New York Post highlighted an iOS setting 'Enhanced Visual Search' that evidently shares user's photos and photo data with Apple by default. Just 3 weeks prior, warnings were also issued that failing to update to iOS 18 could leave users vulnerable to security threats. 

As part of the settlement, U.S. users who owned Siri-enabled devices between September 2014 and December 2024 are eligible for compensation. Eligible individuals may receive up to $20 per device, with a maximum of five devices per person, pending court approval in February. Instructions on how to claim, and when payments will be disbursed, will be approved by a federal judge in the next hearing scheduled for Feb 14th, 2025. 

TSMC will reportedly begin equipment move-in at its biggest CoWoS advanced packaging and testing plant -- AP8 -- in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) in April 2025, according to the latest reports.

The company will have 2000 production line machines installed by the end of 2025, providing a huge boost to equipment makers, with TSMC's single largest advanced packaging plant and its production capacity being "very urgent" in the face of all this high-end chip demand.

TSMC's new CoWoS advanced packaging is in short supply, with production capacity doubled this year at its current factories in Nanke, Zhongke, and Zhunan. This year, TSMC is expected to double the production capacity of CoWoS again, with recent reports that the company is increasing prices of CoWoS advanced packaging by 15-20% this year.

NVIDIA and Qualcomm are reportedly considering switching over production of their next-gen 2nm chips to Samsung Foundry, as the costs of TSMC making new 2nm chips is too high.

Samsung Foundry needs all the semiconductor customers it can get, and if it can poach two of the biggest in NVIDIA and Qualcomm for its next-gen 2nm (SF2) process node, then that's a huge win for the South Korean semiconductor industry against TSMC.

TSMC is currently in the lead with 2nm node production with a yield rate of approximately 60% and is conducting process testing with customers including Apple, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm, which are all major customers of TSMC. However, in new reports from Koreran media, the high price of TSMC's new 2nm chips and limited production capacity, Apple has moved away from using 2nm for its new chips until 2026, while NVIDIA and Qualcomm are now considering moving to Samsung Foundry.

TSMC is expected to drive up the prices of its 5nm and 3nm process nodes by 5-10% and its CoWoS advanced packaging by 15-20% thanks to unstoppable AI demand.

In a new post by LTN, we're learning that reports from the semiconductor industry that will see TSMC driving up the prices of its 5nm and 3nm advanced processes, which will fall in line with foundry prices for advanced packaging production capacity. We all know TSMC dominates the semiconductor world, and since they're the only ones capable of making the world's most advanced chips, price increases are on the way in 2025.

AI demand is also driving up TSMC's advanced process node and advanced packaging costs, with 3nm a nd 5nm nodes having tight production on capacity, with price rises of 5-10% expected starting in January 2025, while CoWoS advanced packaging costs will increase 15-20% as the market is oversaturated with mature processes.

TSMC has announced it has started mass production at its first fab in Japan, with the Japanese government pushing to secure its supply chains for critical, and essential goods -- with the semiconductor industry being a key part of that.

The new fab in Kumamoto Prefecture produces logic chips with 12nm to 28nm process technologies, destined for carrs and image sensors, with recent news that TSMC's fab in Japan secured customers like Sony and auto parts maker Denso. TSMC has plans to build its second factory in Japan next to the first fab to produce higher-end 6nm chips, with construction aiming for March 2025, and operations beginning by the end of 2027.

Japan is wanting to secure its position in the semiconductor industry as soon as possible, with on-going tensions between the US and China (and Taiwan) set to continue to escalate, especially before President Trump is sworn in on January 20, 2025. TSMC has been offered $6.3 billion in subsidies from the Japanese goverrnrment, too.

TSMC's next-gen silicon photonics advancements are hitting new strides, with its first co-packaged optics (CPO) samples expected to reach NVIDIA and Broadcom in 2025, pushing speeds of up to 1.6 terabits-per-second (1.6T) over fiber optic connections inside of new AI data centers in 2H 2025.

TSMC and Broadcom have jointly developed microring modulator (MRM) which has recently passed 3nm trial production, paving the way of integrating of top AI chips into CPO modules, with TSMC expected to use its CoWoS or SoIC advanced packaging.

In a new report from UDN, we're learning that the new advanced semiconductor packaging technology allows for 1.6T optical transmission, with NVIDIA and Broadcom being the first two customers of TSMC's latest tech. One of the leads on the silicon photonics packaging technology is the co-CEO of TSMC, Chiang Shangyi, who has industry-leading capabilities in optical communication components and semiconductor chip packaging technology, and works closely with Broadcom.

TSMC is the king of the technology industry, controlling a dominant 90% of the world's advanced semiconductor manufacturing... and it's leaving South Korea shaking in its semiconductor boots.

In the rise of AI, South Korea's Samsung has been continuously falling behind -- especially with fellow South Korean memory rival SK hynix -- and that Korean media are now pointing out the fact that the South Korean government is well aware of the problem, and has plans to kick start a Korean Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or KSMC.

KSMC would have the aim of following TMSC's successful model and would support the development of the local semiconductor industry, with experts saying that KSMC would face obvious challenges including the large technological gap with its competitors, and the lack of an industrial supply chain.

ASML is selling a Lego set of its bleeding-edge TWINSCAN EXE:5000 High-NA EUV lithography machines, but it's unfortunately only available to ASML employees.

There are many on social media calling for ASML to make its Lego set available to people outside of the company -- myself included -- but ASML spokesperson Monique Mols responded saying "sorry, but it's only for ASML employees".

Mopls was pressed about it again, but Mols said that the Lego model of the TWINSCAN EXE:5000 High-NA EUV lithography machine in its awesome Lego form is only a "fun iten for employees" as the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The Lego-style replica was selling for $216 on ASML's employee website, but the real machine costs over $350 million and weighs as much as two Airbus A320s... you know, the planes.

Honey, the browser extension marketed to consumers as a solution to easily finding the best coupons on the internet for purchasing products, has been exposed by a YouTuber for conducting shady business practices, misleading customers, and swiping affiliate marketing money from partners.

The YouTube channel MegaLag recently posted a 23-minute investigation into the extremely popular browser extension, purchased by PalPal for $4 billion in 2019. The investigation implicates some of the biggest creators on YouTube, such as MrBeast, MKBHD, Linus Tech Tips, and many others, all of which have promoted Honey to their audiences for many years. MegaLag explains Honey's nefarious business practices can be traced back to its extension, which presents itself to a user at the last phase of purchasing an item through a website.

Honey asks the user if they would like to apply the coupon codes the extension has found on the website, and after the user agrees, Honey begins "testing" the scraped coupons and adding them to the checkout. However, MegaLag discovered that if a user was carrying out a purchase through an affiliate marketing link, say through a YouTube video description which gives the creator of that YouTube video a kickback on the total purchase value of that product, Honey would covertly and unsuspectingly change the affiliate marketing link from the YouTuber's to Honey's own link.

The US government has asked NVIDIA to investigate how its best AI chips are ending up in China, pushing the company to ask big distributors, to start spot checks on customers in Southeast Asia.

In a new report from The Information and Reuters, we're learning that the US Department of Commerce is asking NVIDIA to look into how its chips are getting into China.

NVIDIA was being pushed to ask its big distributors Dell and Super Micro Computer (SMC) to conduct spot checks on their customers in Southeast Asia, with The Information reporting that 5 different people involved in smuggling NVIDIA chips say they've so far managed to evade detection during recent inspections by Super Micro.