Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 7

The Biden administration signed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022, with $39 billion in grants and loans provided to semiconductor manufacturing companies to make chips on US soil... well, it's not going so well.

We've seen multiple setbacks over the last couple of years in US semiconductor manufacturing, with TSMC building multiple new fabs in the USA, as well as Intel pushing virtually all-in on domestic manufacturing. TSMC has pumped billions of dollars into getting chip-making fabs up and running in Arizona, but back in late 2022 that TSMC's engineers in the United States were "babies" for leaving Taiwan after experiencing culture shock in the country.

But now, DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion) rules in the US are strangling any hopes of domestic semiconductor manufacturing. In a new report, The Hill writes that DEI is killing the CHIPS Act, reporting that commentators noted the CHIPS and Science Act money has been "sluggish." Why? Because they haven't noticed that the CHIPS Act is "so loaded with DEI pork that it can't move."

The National Science Council in Taiwan has announced the latest results of the National Quantum Team. The IRTI team used a microwave IC design and TSMC's older 28nm process node to create new low-temperature control chip modules that control qubits inside a quantum computer.

Taiwan's National Science Council joined forces with the Academia Sinica and the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 2021 to integrate industry, government, academia, and research and kick off a national quantum team. Today, they held a press conference to announce the technological progress of quantum computing.

IRTI is the team responsible for developing the required hardware for the quantum computer subsystem, within the quantum national team. Project host and leader of the Institute of Electronics and Optoelectronics Systems of ITRI, Xu Shixuan, explained at the meeting that quantum computers needed to feature freezers and countless instruments.

OpenAI has decided to air out some of its dirty laundry in a new blog post that fires back at Elon Musk's recent lawsuit that accused OpenAI of turning against its morals as a company.

OpenAI has since taken to its blog to post a lengthy article authored by several of the company's top officials, such as Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. Within the blog post, OpenAI has leaked email chains with Elon Musk that reveal a plethora of details regarding Elon Musk's intentions and involvement with the company during its infancy. In one message sent in 2018, Musk suggested that OpenAI merge with Tesla and use the electric car company as its "cash cow", even going as far as to say, "Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google."

Elon Musk departed from OpenAI in 2018 when he attempted to gain control of the company and was denied, severing a large portion of the revenue that he was supplying. Since OpenAI's rise in popularity through its creation of ChatGPT, Musk has been accusing the company of betraying its founding principles of staying open-source, hence the name, and being a non-profit company. OpenAI has seemingly reverted on both of those principles, signing a more than $10 billion deal with Microsoft, which spawned Windows Copilot, an AI-powered chatbot powered by OpenAI's underlying GPT technology.

Spotify is preparing to take full advantage of the European Commission's (EC) recent ruling against Apple that claims the company is "abusing its dominant position" in the music streaming app distribution business.

The ruling by the EC featured a massive fine of €1.84 billion (about $2 billion) for Apple and claimed the iOS developer has anti-steering rules within its App Store that prevent developers from informing users about alternative and cheaper subscription services outside of the app. According to European Commission's competition head Margrethe Vestager, Apple's guidelines are a violation of EU law, and the practice is "illegal".

In a nutshell, the EC claims Apple's guidelines to developers prevent services such as Spotify from informing its users about cheaper or even alternative pricing for subscriptions from outside of the iOS app, which is a tactic to get users to checkout through the App Store where Apple takes a 30% cut of all purchases. The EC has ordered Apple to lift its strict rules for developers and "allow music streaming developers to communicate freely with their own users," which would look like app developers providing pricing information to users within apps.

Samsung Foundry is reportedly rebranding its 2nd generation 3nm-class fabrication technology -- aka SF3 -- to SF2, its 2nm-class manufacturing process... a move requiring a rewritten contract.

A source told ZDNet: "We were informed by Samsung Electronics that the 2nd generation 3nm [name] is being changed to 2nm. We had contracted Samsung Foundry for the 2nd generation 3nm production last year, but we recently revised the contract to change the name to 2nm."

The site reports that renaming its SF2 process node will see Samsung better competing against Intel Foundry, as it has its Intel 20A production node, also a 2nm-class technology, arriving later this year. Samsung unveiled its process technology roadmap through to 2027 back in 2022, listing many nodes along the way: SF3E, SF4P, SF3, SF4X, SF4, SF3P, SF2P, and SF1.4.

Ethisphere's annual World's Most Ethical Companies list aims to highlight global businesses that are "committed to doing business with ethics and integrity" through a detailed assessment process. In 2024, 136 organizations spanning 20 countries and 44 industries were recognized by Ethisphere for their "unwavering commitment to business integrity."

Of the 136 organizations, only five are from the 'Technology' industry - Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP, Inc., Juniper Networks, and Western Digital. IBM, which also makes the list, is listed under Information Technology Services. According to Ethisphere, making the list involved a rigorous review process of a company's practices, documentation relating to ethics, and overall conduct.

To become eligible, companies must complete an extensive questionnaire and provide "over 240 different proof points on their culture of ethics," covering social, environmental, governance, diversity, inclusion, and other practices.

TSMC has just kicked off its 2024 campus recruitment drive, where there's 6000 new jobs up for offer in Taiwan, with the semiconductor giant incentiving the positions, especially for engineers and technicians.

In a new report by Chinese media outlet Ctee, TSMC went to the National Taiwan University, and for TSMC to leap into the future, the company needs to bolster its workforce. This is where the 6000 new jobs are open for Taiwan citizens, with new staff required across all of its factories, joining TSMC to create miracles and become a world-class company (more so than it already is).

TSMC highlighted the average overall salary for new engineers with master's degrees is NT$2 million, which works out to around $63,000, which is double the average wage in Taiwan.

Intel is reportedly trying to poach South Korean chip design firms that are building processors with Samsung, as Intel Foundry wants to become the world's biggest and best semiconductor firm on the planet.

TSMC is the leader right now, but Intel Foundry is set on becoming the second-biggest semiconductor manufacturer behind TSMC soon while overtaking the Taiwanese giant in 2026 with its next-generation Intel 14A process node. Samsung has multiple big partners and customers in South Korea, but a new report from Digitimes suggests Intel Foundry is trying to woo these firms to build their chips with Intel.

Intel's recent win with Microsoft's new chip being the first customer for its new Intel 18A process node has South Korean firms rattled because if a big tech company like Microsoft is building on Intel fabs, then that could be a loss to Samsung. That could lead to a domino effect, especially as Intel proves itself with future nodes over the years.

The European Commission announced on Monday that Apple has been hit with an antitrust fine amounting to 1.8 billion euros, or $1.95 billion.

According to reports from CNBC, one of the world's biggest tech companies has been hit with an antitrust fine amounting to nearly $2 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps. The publication states the Commission discovered Apple had put in place restrictions on app developers that stopped Apple product users from being informed about cheaper music-streaming apps, with the Commission going as far as to allege that Apple had prohibited developers of music-streaming apps from providing users with any instructions on how to sign up to these cheaper alternatives.

The resulting fine from the EU can be traced back to a complaint Spotify made in 2019, which resulted in an investigation being opened up by the European Commission. The investigation boiled down to the Commission diving through Apple's contractual agreements it forces on developers and how those agreements prevent developers from informing iOS users about cheaper, alternative music streaming services outside of the App Store, which would circumvent Apple's 30% fee for apps and in-app purchases.

Intel has reportedly been pitching its new Intel 18A process node to South Korean fabless chip companies, where it wants to secure contracts to manufacture chips for these companies.

TheElec reports: "Intel was increasing its sales activity against South Korean fabless chip companies. The US chip giant was heavily pitching its 18A process node to South Korean chip startups and is promising various incentives". TheElec's sources said: "Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger last year met with senior executives of these companies and updated them on its chip foundry plan".

Microsoft recently announced it has chosen a chip design based on the new Intel 18A process node, but now we're hearing that Intel is pushing its new 18A node into the wild in South Korea (and I'm sure other countries and companies worldwide).