Prediction articles:
2020: A consumer electronics forecast for the year(s) ahead
AI Chips: What Will 2020 Bring?
CEO Outlook: 2020 Vision: 5G, China and AI are prominent, but big changes are coming everywhere
Top 10 Tech Failures From 2019 That Hint At 2020 Trends – Last year’s tech failures often turn into next year’s leading trends
Trends:
AMD’s 7nm Ryzen 4000 CPUs are here to take on Intel’s 10nm Ice Lake laptop chips
Top 9 challenges IT leaders will face in 2020: From skills shortages to privacy concerns
From the oil rig to the lake: a shift in perspective on data
In December 2020, the new IEC/EN 62368-1 will replace the existing safety standards EN 60950-1 and EN 60065-1
Use of technology money outside company IT department is the new normal
Tech to try:
12 Alternative Operating Systems You Can Use In 2020
CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION: WHAT IT IS AND WHY YOU NEED IT
Research:
Universal memory coming? New type of non-volatile general purpose memory on research, some call it UltraRAM.
1,318 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oh my. The principal engineer who worked on Intel CPUs from the Pentium III to the Core i7 says Intel has lost focus, and it’s “lucky” AMD can’t make enough CPUs to do more damage. Grab your popcorn.
What’s wrong with Intel, and how to fix it: Former principal engineer unloads
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3569182/whats-wrong-with-intel-and-how-to-fix-it-former-principal-engineer-unloads.html
The principal engineer who worked on CPUs from the Pentium III to Core i7 says Intel has lost focus, and it’s “lucky” AMD can’t make enough CPUs to do more damage.
In a blunt video posted late Thursday evening, outspoken former Intel principal engineer Francois Pidnoel offered his advice on how to “fix” Intel CPUs, criticized current leadership for not being engineers, said AVX512 was a misadventure, and declared that it’s only luck AMD hasn’t grabbed more market share.
“First, Intel is really out of focus,” Piednoel said in the nearly hour-long video presentation. “The leaders of Intel today are not engineers, they are not people who understand what to design to the market.”
Piednoel said Intel’s technical decisions have largely been “nonsense” since 2016. Incidentally, Piednoel left Intel in 2017 after serving as a principal engineer and performance architect for 20 years, working on CPUs from the Pentium III to the 6th-gen Core i7. The outspoken engineer often made technical presentations and demonstration pitches to the hardware press, passionately arguing why design decisions made by Intel were the right decisions.
“You had Skylake and Skylake X for a reason,” Piednoel said. “AVX512 is designed for a race of throughput that is lost to the GPU already. There’s two ways to get throughput. One is to get the throughput is by having larger vectors to your core, and the other way is to have more cores.”
“The state of software out there is really not favoring going larger vectors,” Piednoel said in the video. “In fact, you can see clearly in Cinebench for example—that is not one of my favorite benchmarks, especially for a laptop where it doesn’t make any sense—but you can see that AMD is winning the battle of throughput. It’s because they have more cores and they can afford to have more cores.
“Dadi (Pearlmutter) understood that large vectors in consumer electronics like laptop is bad: 1) More power to deliver it right. 2) Almost no software using it, create larger cores. 3) Good for throughput benchmarks,” Pienoel said. “Who needs this on laptop?”
Piednoel said the decision to pursue AVX512 in consumer chips has made the dies larger and has high power costs. Intel CPUs, for those who don’t know, have long lowered clock speeds for AVX512 workloads.
This probably isn’t new to anyone who heard famed Linux creator Linus Torvalds reach deep to spew anger at Intel’s AVX512 approach just last month.
Loss of focus
Another mistake Intel made was to defocus the company from its core business of making fast CPUs,
Intel went on a diversified buying spree in the last half of the decade that left the company unable to focus on its CPU business. This let bitter rival AMD catch up with it, and the only thing saving Intel from losing a more massive market share is AMD’s volume constraints in making its popular CPUs.
“Intel is very lucky AMD cannot get the volume, to be able to compete,” Piednoel. “If they were getting volume, the price difference would definitely cost Intel market share a lot more than what they are losing right now.”
Just yesterday AMD reached an all-time high of 20 percent market share in laptops,
would require Intel to be flexible. “Right now, Intel is so rigid,” Piednoel said. “It’s just ‘I have a core, and I am going to use it everywhere.’”
could be put to work designing focused, niche versions of Xeon for more specialized needs rather than selling the same core for all scenarios.
Only MBA’s rising
Piednoel didn’t spare words for Intel’s culture, which he said has changed drastically and promotes MBAs over those with technical prowess. This has resulted in “no innovation, no aggressive road-maps, and no people driven because they are are discouraged because the MBA’s are the only ones rising,”
said ‘God only gave us one brand. Don’t ever mess it.’ I think right now, we are messing up the brand
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates
Sometimes it’s easier to rewrite genetics than update Excel
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-microsoft-excel-misreading-dates
Tomi Engdahl says:
In the last few generations of chips, the resistance of the tungsten contacts that bridge transistors to the wiring that links them up to form logic gates has become a drag on performance. Applied Materials has introduced a machine that reverses this resistance problem, boosting the performance of today’s chips and allowing fabs to continue using tungsten into the future.
Applied Materials Says New Tool Breaks Chip Resistance Bottleneck
https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/applied-materials-says-new-tool-breaks-chip-resistance-bottleneck
in the last few generations the resistance of those tungsten contacts has become a drag on performance, and chip makers had been eyeing moves to alternative materials for future generations. Chip equipment supplier Applied Materials says it’s come up with a machine that reverses this resistance problem, boosting the performance of today’s chips and allowing fabs to continue using tungsten into the future.
For devices on today’s most advanced chips “resistance is your key issue,” says Zhebo Chen, global product manager. “With the transistor you’ve taken an economy car and turned it into a race car, but if the roads are congested it doesn’t matter.”
The heart of the problem is that in the existing manufacturing process, tungsten contacts must be clad in a layer of titanium nitride.
The problem is that even as the diameter of the contact has been shrunk down, the thickness of the cladding has not. In 7-nanometer chips today, contacts are only 20 nanometers wide, and only 25 percent of their volume is tungsten, explains Chen. The rest is cladding.
In July, Applied Materials released a machine that can make tungsten contacts with no cladding at all, reducing resistance by 40 percent. This “selective gapfill process” deposits tungsten from the bottom of the contact hole up instead of on all the surfaces at once. Because it uses a different chemistry than the previous process, there’s no need for a liner’s adhesion enhancement nor its fluorine-blocking ability. However, the process does need to be accomplished completely in a vacuum
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Files Patent for big.LITTLE-esque Hybrid Computing Technique
Big performance, low power
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-patent-biglittle–hybrid-computing-implementation
As spotted by patent sleuth @Underfox3, AMD has field a patent for a technique that speeds the transfer of threads between high-performance cores and smaller low-performance cores in a big.LITTLE-esque hybrid computing architecture. As with all patent filings, this doesn’t assure that AMD will bring a hybrid computing device to market, but it certainly shows the company is busy researching hybrid architectures.
The patent outlines a new instruction set subset implementation for low power operation. AMD’s patent describes an implementation that allows for one subset of instructions to execute on larger full-featured processing cores optimized for higher performance, while a second subset of instructions run on smaller simplified cores designed for power efficiency. The patent outlines a method for the cores to use a shared memory location to speed the transfer of threads, based upon certain variables, between the two types of cores.
In practice, the big cores would execute heavy performance-sensitive workloads, while the smaller cores would execute light tasks. When a core isn’t busy, it could be shut off, thus improving power consumption further.
Intel has already forged ahead with a hybrid design with its Lakefield chips (half-heartedly branded as Big-Bigger), but unlocking maximum efficiency requires the operating system and applications to be aware of the architecture so they can target threads to the correct cores. There’s already plenty of work underway to support that technique.
The method described in AMD’s patent appears to allow the processor to independently sort out which type of thread should run on each cluster based on the instructions supported by the cores within.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux 5.8 includes 800,000 new lines and over 14,000 changed files, making it one of the biggest releases yet.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/linux-5-8-launched-linus-torvaldss-biggest-release-of-all-time-brings-these-new-updates/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0h&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia tries to get its hands on Arm
The deal would create a chipmaking potentate
https://amp.economist.com/business/2020/08/08/nvidia-tries-to-get-its-hands-on-arm
Tomi Engdahl says:
SQL started with a goal to empower non-programmers to work with the relational data effectively. Despite its shortcomings, it has arguably been wildly successful, with most databases implementing or emulating it. However, like any solution, SQL is facing increasing inadequacy in the support of the new requirements, modes of use and user productivity.
We Can Do Better Than SQL
https://edgedb.com/blog/we-can-do-better-than-sql/
The questions we often hear are “Why create a new query language?” and “What’s wrong with SQL?”. This post contains answers to both.
Before we begin, let’s overview some of the history of how the relational model came to be, and how SQL was created.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.webopedia.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to get the most out of your Windows 10 on ARM device
To get the best battery life and performance from your Windows 10 on ARM device, you’ll want to follow a few simple guidelines.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-get-most-out-your-windows-10-arm-device?amp
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.admixplay.com/the-active-rise-and-inactive-future-of-idle-games/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Skyrmions: the new face of computer data storage
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/19508/20190401/skyrmions-the-new-face-of-computer-data-storage.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arch Linux • Hardware • Linux Mint • Lubuntu
5 Best Linux Distributions for an Old Laptop
https://linuxhint.com/best-linux-distributions-old-laptop/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Agile velocity is the most dangerous metric for dev teams because it is frequently mis-used. Learn why it has a reputation for killing culture and how easy it is to game. https://linearb.io/blog/why-agile-velocity-is-the-most-dangerous-metric-for-software-development-teams/?utm_campaign=Content%20Promotion&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_term=dangerous&utm_content=velocity
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why we measure (and punish) speeding…
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-we-measure-punish-speeding-steve-wells/
Also ths one
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-burndown-charts-provide-any-value-steve-wells/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor Sales Increase 5.1% Year-to-Year
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced worldwide sales of semiconductors were $34.5 billion in June 2020, an increase of 5.1% from the June 2019 total of $32.9 billion. Sales in June were 0.3% less than the May 2020 total of $34.6 billion. Sales during the second quarter of 2020 were $103.6 billion, an increase of 5.1% over the second quarter of 2019, but a small decrease of 0.9% …
Semiconductor Industry Association
https://www.semiconductors.org/global-semiconductor-sales-increase-5-1-percent-year-to-year-in-june-q2-sales-down-slightly-compared-to-q1/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can you fit a whole game into a QR code?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExwqNreocpg
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russell Kirsch, inventor of the pixel, dies in his Portland home at age 91
https://www.dpreview.com/news/2623782158/russell-kirsch-inventor-of-the-pixel-dies-in-his-portland-home-at-age-91
Computer scientist Russell Kirsch, best known for inventing the pixel, passed away August 11 at his home in Portland, Oregon. He was 91-years-old.
It was in 1957 though that Kirsch would forever make his mark on the world when he, alongside a team of researchers, developed a small 5cm by 5cm digital image scanner for the SEAC that went on to capture the first digital images
This technology allowed Kirsch and his team to develop algorithms that laid the foundations for image processing and image pattern recognition. Kirsch’s invention also helped NASA with its earliest space explorations, including the Apollo Moon landings, and paved the way for future imaging technologies, such as satellite imagery and Sir Godfrey Hounsfield’s CAT scan.
Even after Kirsch retired in 2001, he never stopped improving upon his inventions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Says New Transistor Technology Could Boost Chip Performance 20%
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/08/13/196243/intel-says-new-transistor-technology-could-boost-chip-performance-20?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Intel on Thursday disclosed a new method for making transistors on semiconductors that its chief architect said could boost the performance Intel’s next round of processors by as much as 20%. From a report:
The Santa Clara, California-based company is one of the few remaining in the world that both designs and manufactures its own chips. But its manufacturing operations have become a concern among investors after Intel last month said that its next-generation chip-making process, called its 7-nanometer process node, would be delayed. Analysts believe the delays could cement the lead that rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co have gained in making smaller, more power efficient chips. Intel’s shares have fallen nearly 20% since the delays were disclosed. On Thursday, Intel sought to buck the notion that the single-number names given to each generation of chip process node tell the entire story by disclosing improvements on its existing 10-nanonmeter process node. It announced a new way of making what it now calls “SuperFin” transistors, which, along with a new material being used to improve the capacitors on chips, is expected to boost the performance of Intel’s forthcoming processors, despite their still being made on 10-nanometer manufacturing lines.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-tech-idUSKCN2591X1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla signs fresh Google search deal worth mega-millions as 25% staff cut hits Servo, MDN, security teams
$2.5m-a-year CEO set to take a pay cut, so that’s all right, then
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/14/mozilla_google_search/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Tech and Government Can Speak the Same Language
https://www.eetimes.com/how-tech-and-government-can-speak-the-same-language/
A failure to communicate. That’s one phrase that could be used to describe the meeting between tech CEOs and Congress in early August.
From Sundar Pichai of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook to Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Tim Cook of Apple, the tech giant executives took on questions from members of Congress on a wide range of topics. The tension between Congress and the tech world was clear, as sound bites about data control and monopolization were met with technical explanations and defensiveness.
The lack of results from the hearing shouldn’t come as a surprise. The tech community and the government are different worlds and they typically don’t understand each other.
A tech leader once told me, with the classic arrogance of a tech entrepreneur, that the industry operates under Moore’s Law, but the government seems to operate under Moron’s Law.
Whether or not the tech leader’s perception was true really didn’t matter. Either way, the failure to communicate between the government and the tech sector was an obstacle that was holding back the American economy and it needed to be fixed. Now more than ever, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc, this barrier must be broken down for the benefit of both parties.
Innovation is a critical driver of economic growth, and no industry creates more innovation than tech, particularly in the field of electrical engineering. These innovations happen every day, and we often take them for granted. But in the past 25 years or so this kind of innovation has led to one of the greatest periods of prosperity the world has ever seen. And the process continues — magnetic resonance imaging, smart electric grids for power plants are improving efficiencies, and nanomanufacturing are just a few examples of technologies being developed today that have great promise for the future.
Unfortunately, the differences between the tech and government worlds can lead to problems that stall innovation. But there are ways we can bridge this gap.
What the government can do to help tech companies
Leave them Alone. It’s a bit of an overstatement, but the government can’t micromanage this industry. The government simply has no ability to predict the technology of the future or take the risks necessary to find out what does, or doesn’t, work. No matter how many Rhodes Scholars there are in the White House or Congress, they will never be smart enough to tell Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard and remake the software industry.
Clear and Reliable Rules. To the extent the government must get involved, on issues like taxes, education, antitrust, etc., it should adopt clear rules that don’t change with every new Congress or every new President. It doesn’t really matter what the rules are if they are reasonably fair and, above all, predictable, so tech companies can plan for them.
Fund Basic Research. The one proactive thing the government can do is to fund and conduct “science for science’s sake,” i.e., research that simply follows wherever the science leads it, with no commercial or business application in mind. When this research produces interesting results, the tech industry will be more than ready to find and develop commercial uses for it. This is exactly what happened when research at the Defense Department produced the technology that ultimately created the Internet.
Let them Fail. Doing something new involves risk because, by definition, no one knows how it will turn out. Most new companies will fail, and the government should let them fail. It distorts the market and wastes capital to give in to political pressure and rescue companies whose new ideas didn’t work. On the other hand, when the risk works out, the government must let companies succeed and enjoy the financial benefits from taking a big risk and turning out to be right.
What tech companies should do to work with the government
Think About It One Day Per Year. Tech companies have more important things to do than worry about the government. But they can’t just ignore it – they should do the minimum, so they aren’t completely unprepared if something drastic happens.
Don’t Let Them Help Too Much. A tech company needs to create something new, move quickly, and adapt as things changes. The government isn’t designed to do any of this, and it can’t really help with innovation iteration.
Take What is Available. On the other hand, there are many general benefits available to everyone that tech companies don’t take advantage of. This applies in particular to small to mid-sized tech firms in electrical engineering who are working to create new products and systems. A prime example is the R&D tax credit.
Stay Away from Big Company Battles. The big tech companies often fall into the trap of trying to use the government as a weapon against their competitors. This is probably unwise even for them, but smaller companies should definitely stay out of these battles. It may make sense to support an industry-wide initiative with the consensus of most parties, but it usually doesn’t make sense to side with one group of big guys against the other.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://semiengineering.com/power-and-performance-optimization-at-7-5-3nm/
Tomi Engdahl says:
DAC 2020 Addresses Chiplet Design and Integration
https://www.3dincites.com/2020/08/dac-2020-addresses-chiplet-design-and-integration/
In the early days of ASIC technology, only logic library elements and basic I/Os with up to 10s of transistors were available for customizing gate arrays and/or logic functions in standard cell chips. And then, “megacells” (a.k.a. Functional Blocks, Semiconductor IP Blocks), comprised of 100s, even 1000s, and more transistors became available and offered proven memories, processor cores, data converters, special I/Os and many other widely used functions for integration in IC designs. These megacells enjoyed rapid market acceptance, mainly because they boosted designers’ productivity, reduced risk of failure, and cut development as well as unit cost.
History Repeats Itself
While Moore’s Law has driven major progress in integrating many functions into small pieces of silicon (a.k.a. die, plural dice), IC packaging experts at IDMs, assembly houses (a.k.a. OSATs) and wafer foundries have developed technologies to integrate one or more of these delicate dice into an IC package, primarily to protect it/them against mechanical damage and avoid over-heating. Because advanced packaging technologies have made it technically easier and more cost-effective to combine multiple dice in a package, calls for repeating the success of ASIC megacells for advanced packaging became louder. Developers responded and the term “chiplet” was coined for a die that is ready for integration into a package and can interface with other chiplets in this package.
As a complete product, a chiplet includes not only the physical die but also models/electronic datasheets that describe – e.g. core functionality, physical dimensions, power dissipation, footprint, location of power/test/signal pins and I/O characteristics. These models/electronic datasheets enable EDA planning, design, and verification tools to integrate chiplets relative quickly into a suitable single-die or multi-die package, optimize power, unit cost, reliability, and ensure first-time success. High bandwidth memory (HBM) devices were the first chiplets offered; FPGA slices, SerDes I/Os, processor cores, hardware accelerators, and other functions followed. A chiplets can be proprietary – to differentiate an IC – or available from 3rd parties who specialize in widely used functions – e.g. HBMs and SerDes.
While EDA companies – for business reasons – typically wait for new technology to mature and standards to solidify, before supporting it to automate design steps, the rising market demand for chiplets has encouraged the EDA industry to dedicate time at DAC 2020 for addressing chiplets. Tutorial 10, titled Chiplet Integration: Tools, Methodologies, Requirements, Infrastructure covered in two-parts of many aspects of chiplet design and integration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Photo Realistic QR-Codes
93×93 pixel QR code capable of holding 100 characters.
The size also makes the scanning responsive and fast.
186×186 pixel colour information.
Colours are chosen from a high-contrast QR-safe palette.
Dithering introduces blurring which reduces sharp constrast edges.
Repository hosted on http://www.qrpicture.com.
Picture to QR code converter
https://github.com/xyzzy/qrpicture
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel unveiled the details of its new 10nm SuperFin tech.
Intel’s Path Forward: 10nm SuperFin Technology, Advanced Packaging Roadmap
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intels-path-forward-10nm-superfin-technology-advanced-packaging-roadmap
Intel’s Architecture Day 2020 was awash in new revelations, you can find the full breakdown here, but its new 10nm SuperFin technology and advanced packaging technology rank among the highlights. Both of these technologies will be critical factors as the chipmaker looks to defray the impact from the fallout of its delayed 7nm node.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Even with another infusion of cash from Google, you have to wonder just how long Firefox will survive as a viable, mainstream web browser.
An endangered internet species: Firefox
https://www.zdnet.com/article/an-endangered-internet-species-firefox/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0h&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
Even with another infusion of cash from Google, you have to wonder just how long Firefox will survive as a viable, mainstream web browser.
I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox browser since it was still in beta. In 2004, for a while, it was my favorite web browser. Not because it was open-source, but because it was so much better and more secure than Internet Explorer. That was then. This is now. Firefox is in real danger of dying off.
Firefox had a great run, but beginning in 2012 with Firefox 11, the once innovative browser began a sharp decline in quality. Over the years, things continued downhill.
Oh, Mozilla and Firefox still produced important work. You need to look no further than the JavaScript, Rust, and WebAssembly languages. They were also champions of security and privacy. Projects such as embracing DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) and overall security improvements were great, but users didn’t care.
With the arrival of Google’s Chrome browser, users turned from Firefox to Chrome as their favorite browser. Every year or so, I look at web browser popularity, and every year, Firefox’s market share shrinks. By July 2012, Firefox was retreating from its all-time high mark of 23.75%. By March 2020, according to the US federal government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which gives us a running count of the last 90 days of US government website visits, Firefox had dropped to a mere 3.6%. As of Aug. 14, 2020, only a few months later, it’s shrunk down even more to a paltry 3.3%.
Firefox is on its way to irrelevance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook joins The Linux Foundation as a platinum member
For years, Facebook has relied on Linux and open-source software. Now it’s taking a leading role in The Linux Foundation.
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/facebook-joins-the-linux-foundation-as-a-platinum-member/?fbclid=IwAR1Toy-cwKGs69SpdUq7N5LayQd46L_H1e89NP74Pb27q6rUfckFdbOzAgU
Tomi Engdahl says:
TSMC valmistaa 5 nanometrin piirejä seitsemälle
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/11028-tsmc-valmistaa-5-nanometrin-piireja-seitsemalle
TSMC on saanut 5 nanometrin prosessinsa niin hyvään kuntoon, että yhtiö jakaa jo tuotantokapasiteettia ensimmäisillä asiakkaille ensi vuoden alkupuolelle. Listalla on kiinalaisen GizmoChina-sivuston mukaan seitsemän yritystä: AMD, Apple, Intel, Mediatek, Nvidia, Qualcomm sekä Bitmain.
Kiinalaistietojen mukaan Apple on tilannut 40-45 tuhatta kiekko A14- ja A14 Bionic -prosessorien valmistukseen. Tilauksessa on myös mukana tulevien Arm-macbookkien suorittimia.
Qualcomm ja Mediatek ovat tilanneet 5 nanometrin piirejä 5G-älypuhelimia varten. Intel on tietysti mielenkiintoinen nimi listalla. Viime aikoina on spekuloitu paljon sitä, että Intel valmistuttaisi ensimmäiset 7 nanometrin datakeskusprosessorinsa TSMC:n linjoilla. Intelin oma tuotanto on tällä hetkellä vähintään kaksi sukupolvea TSMC:n terävintä kärkeä jäljessä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/08/16/1652249/happy-birthday-to-debian-cpan-and-mutt?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese companies poached over 100 senior engineers from TSMC #chinesechipmakers
https://www.gizchina.com/2020/08/13/chinese-companies-poached-over-100-senior-engineers-from-tsmc/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Q&A: Stephen Leonard on the Business Value of IBM POWER10
https://newsroom.ibm.com/Stephen-Leonard-POWER10
IBM Cognitive Systems General Manager Stephen Leonard spoke with us about how IBM POWER10, the tenth generation of the IBM POWER processor family, is expected to deliver business value to large and small enterprises in the age of AI and Hybrid Cloud when IBM POWER10-based servers reach customers in the second half of 2021.
What are the first things customers need to know about IBM Power Systems and the IBM POWER10?
IBM Power Systems have been indispensable to both enterprise clients and small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), and our new generation IBM POWER10 processor is designed to be even more differentiated. This 7 nanometer chip is about the size of a postage stamp and houses 18 billion transistors. If you’re an enterprise client in any industry from retail, telecom, financial services to healthcare, the POWER10’s goal is to be a state-of-the-art, enterprise-class enabler of your business processes that doesn’t have to live in a data center.
We designed the IBM POWER10 processor so enterprise clients can run IBM POWER10-equipped servers on-site for high-speed processing that’s reliable and secure.
Among SMBs, we’re seeing IBM Power Systems deployed to handle business-critical workloads in environments where bulletproof reliability and security are required, but they don’t have capacity for a larger system such as a mainframe, to run their critical applications. A mid-sized customer with task-specific computing requirements may not be able to invest in a raised-floor, environmentally controlled data center, but may still demand an enterprise-grade server for sensitive and sophisticated operations.
Describe the role of IBM Power Systems role digital transformation, AI and Hybrid Cloud.
Clients often want to stick with the systems they have—especially if they’ve enjoyed the kind of performance and flexibility they’ve had with IBM Power Systems over the years. At the same time, any debate about AI and hybrid cloud is over. The question is no longer “if,” but “when?” and “how fast?” In addition, the global pandemic has made it abundantly clear that companies who were thinking about AI and hybrid cloud need to make their moves now. IBM Power Systems can serve as the on-ramps to digital transformation by bringing AI and hybrid cloud capabilities to new clients, and to our tens of thousands of established clients, without the disruption and expense of “rip and replace.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IFTLE 458: The Demise of US Chip-making Accelerates as Intel Falls Further Behind
https://www.3dincites.com/2020/08/iftle-458-the-demise-of-us-chip-making-accelerates-as-intel-falls-further-behind/
According to Swan Intel has identified a “defect mode” in its 7nm process that caused “yield issues”. He added that the company would be using external foundries for its forthcoming 7nm Ponte Vecchio GPU graphics chips. So, Ponte Vecchio, a chiplet-based design, apparently will have some of its chiplets outsourced. Intel’s announced 7nm server CPUs (Granite Rapids) will now be scheduled to arrive in 2023. Swan further stated that Intel could use third-party foundries for entire chip designs in the future. Intel has used outside fabs, for low-margin, non-CPU products built on trailing-edge nodes. But never for its state of the art (SOTA) products.
The announced 7nm delay is added on to the back of a company (Intel) that is still struggling to overcome the embarrassment of its multi-year delay issues at 10nm. The industry is still awaiting Intel’s first 10nm desktop CPUs, which are now not scheduled to arrive in late 2021.
Intel has allowed competitors, like AMD, to take the process node leadership position for the first time in the company’s history. Apple has also recently announced that it is transitioning from Intel’s chips to its own ARM-based 7nm silicon. Did Apple have advanced notice that Intel would make this announcement?
Some are questioning whether this 7nm delay is simply the beginning of another series of delays like we saw for 10nm. Further, will the 7NM slippage push Intel into a “fab lite” mode? That would make both Intel and AMD dependent upon TSMC. Will Intel really turn its leading-edge manufacturing over to TSMC?
So, while the US now appears significantly behind on SOTA logic nodes, what about memory? There are only three major players left at the poker table in memory – Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
While HMC did see some minor usage in the market it ultimately, it lost the battle against high bandwidth memory (HBM/HBM2), which were supported by SK Hynix and Samsung, and Micron finally folded the project in 2018.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2020/08/17/samsung-tekee-ibmn-seuraavan-palvelinsuorittimen-7-nanometrilla/
Tomi Engdahl says:
7nm chip architecture with triple the capacity of its previous model, increasing efficiency and reducing costs.
IBM unveils its first seven-nanometre chip for next-generation hybrid cloud computing
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-unveils-first-seven-nanometre-chip-for-next-generation-hybrid-cloud-computing/
The company’s new processor will significantly improve the efficiency of business workloads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Flight Simulator is finally back and seems like it’s a very good game.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-08-17-microsoft-flight-simulator-review-a-sim-for-everyone-and-one-of-the-best-sims-yet
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2020/7/21/21331824/amd-7nm-ryzen-4000-desktop-chips-apu-processor-prebuilt-systems-intel
means engineering samples and live chips are already out there sitting on shelves waiting on OEMs to get the green light
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-unveils-first-seven-nanometre-chip-for-next-generation-hybrid-cloud-computing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft says Teams support for IE 11 will end on Nov 30 and 365 apps on Aug 17, 2021; legacy Edge browser will not receive security updates after Mar 9, 2021 — Microsoft will begin the gradual phase-out of IE11 by ending Teams support for it this fall. Microsoft will stop providing security updates …
Microsoft outlines its IE, legacy Edge phase-out timetable
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-outlines-its-ie-legacy-edge-phase-out-timetable/
Microsoft will begin the gradual phase-out of IE11 by ending Teams support for it this fall. Microsoft will stop providing security updates for the desktop version of legacy Edge after next March.
Tomi Engdahl says:
X86 or Arm? AWS now lets you choose both at once for Kubernetes
Elastic Kubernetes Service clusters can mix and match architectures for production workloads
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/aws_eks_arm_support_in_production/
Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) now runs and is supported for production workloads on the cloud colossus’ Arm-powered servers.
Amazon says the change means “you can mix x86 and Arm based EC2 instances within a cluster, and easily evaluate Arm-based application in existing environments.”
One does not simply walk into multi-architecture Kubernetes clusters. AWS’ documentation points out that you may need to upgrade your cluster so that Kubernetes can handle code cut for the different chips, and that of course your apps will need to be ready to run on Arm. Even with those chores done, you’ll have to do without Cluster Storage Interface drivers with Arm.
On the upside, AWS has already made sure its container registry can handle multi-architecture containers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
We’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday: Microsoft to yank services from Internet Explorer, kill off Legacy Edge by 2021
You need to give that plate back to us after you’ve finished your cake. Yes the fork too. We’ll get your coat
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/microsoft_internet_explorer_support_deadline/
The clock is ticking. Microsoft has warned customers its services won’t be supported on the veteran browser within the year.
To be fair to the Windows giant, it has been making determined efforts to kill off the former leading browser for some time now, telling customers it was merely a compatibility solution before sticking the knife in a little deeper earlier this year.
Yesterday the company announced that it would be pulling support for the browser from Microsoft 365 apps and services (including the likes of Sharepoint) by this time next year. The lights will be turned off for some components even earlier – the Teams web app will stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 from 30 November 2020.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Looks to Regain Innovation Lead
https://www.eetimes.com/intel-looks-to-regain-innovation-lead/
Intel held an Architecture Day for the first time in two years; it was the company’s chance to reclaim the lead in technology innovation after some recent missteps. The company argued that future progress in IC performance will be predicated less on process shrinks and more on architectural innovations. It then went on to demonstrate it’s getting its groove back with work in several categories of architectural innovation.
Intel has codified those categories. Intel’s Raja Koduri, SVP, chief architect and GM Intel Architecture, Graphics and Software, focused on what Intel calls the Six Pillars of Innovation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
European approach to tech regulation. One of the advocates for the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the European Parliament is now a lecturer at Standford University.
What Can America Learn from Europe About Regulating Big Tech?
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/what-can-america-learn-from-europe-about-regulating-big-tech?utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Flight Simulator is finally back and seems like it’s a very good game.
Microsoft Flight Simulator review – a sim for everyone, and one of the best sims yet
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-08-17-microsoft-flight-simulator-review-a-sim-for-everyone-and-one-of-the-best-sims-yet
Tomi Engdahl says:
X86 or Arm? AWS now lets you choose both at once for Kubernetes
Elastic Kubernetes Service clusters can mix and match architectures for production workloads
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/aws_eks_arm_support_in_production/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux kernel maintainers tear Paragon a new one after firm submits read-write NTFS driver in 27,000 lines of code
‘How exactly do you expect someone to review this monstrosity?’
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/paragon_tries_to_contribute_ntfs/
Paragon Software is trying to get its NTFS driver into the Linux kernel, but has submitted it as a single dump of 27,000 lines of code, sparking complaints that it is too large to review.
NTFS is the default file system for Windows XP and later. Microsoft is beginning to replace it with ReFS for some scenarios, but NTFS remains as the general-purpose file system for Windows. Linux has limited support for NTFS but has noted: “The biggest limitation at present is that files/directories cannot be created or deleted.”
Paragon’s NTFS driver includes a free version with full read-write support, and a paid-for edition with partition formatting, error-checking utilities, and other features. NTFS support is useful for scenarios like attaching external storage formatted with NTFS, or booting a Windows PC into Linux for troubleshooting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud now bigger than Dell, HPE, Lenovo and Cisco COMBINED
$233 billion revenue in 2019, says IDC, with the top five creaming a third of it
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/19/idc_semiannual_public_cloud_services_tracker_h2_2019/
Global spend on cloud services hit $233.4bn in 2019, says analyst firm IDC, and the biggest five players accounted for a third of it and grew faster than the chasing pack.
IDC defines “cloud” as the combination of software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service (SaaS, IaaS and PaaS). The firm rates AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Google, and Oracle as the five leaders by revenue, suggesting they won more than a third of all revenue and grew it by 35 percent in 2019. By contrast, the entire cloud market grew by 26 percent.
By way of contrast, a third of $233.4bn is $77bn. Intel’s 2019 revenue was $71.9bn and IBM’s was $77.1bn. Or to look at it another way, global cloud spend surpassed the combined revenue of Cisco ($51.9bn), Dell ($90.6bn), HPE ($30.1bn) and Lenovo ($51.4bn), which collectively hauled in $224bn.
IDC found SaaS is the largest of its three cloudy segments, accounting for $122bn of spend (plus another $26bn for underlying infrastructure).
Tomi Engdahl says:
50 Top Private Software Companies of 2020
https://www.designnews.com/design-software/50-top-private-software-companies-2020?ADTRK=InformaMarkets&elq_mid=14147&elq_cid=876648
Inc.’s annual ranking of the leading privately-held American software companies provides insights and surprises. Software engineers will find the innovative techniques of interest, from user interface design and methods to accessing fairly dispersed database or HTML indexes to new online business models and the use of the latest software tech.
Inc. – dedicated to the coverage of owners and managers of private companies – recently released the Inc. 5000 2020. This list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America is grouped by industry, including engineering, manufacturing, transportation, and others. The software category was particularly impressive with its median growth of 197%, total revenues of $13.4 billion, and contributions of over 46,000 jobs, according to Inc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SQLite maximum database size increased to 281TB – but will anyone need one that big?
An unlikely requirement for an engine popular on Android and iOS
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/19/sqlite_maximum_database_size_increased_281tb/
SQLite, which claims to be “used more than all other database engines combined”, has been updated to version 3.33.0 with the maximum size increased to 281TB, around twice the previous capacity of 140TB.
SQLite is an embedded database engine that reads and writes directly to its files, which means it is not directly comparable to systems like MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server. Its popularity is based on its reliability, high performance and small size, and the fact that it has always been free.
The primary author, D Richard Hipp, has declared that it is “in the public domain and does not require a license”, though a “warranty of title” can be bought for reasons such as “your legal department tells you that you have to purchase a license”.
It is open source but generally does not accept patches for fear of including copyright code by mistake. The docs say you can submit a patch, but “please do not be offended if we rewrite your patch from scratch.”
The library is included with many operating systems, including Android and iOS, which factors in the claims for its wide use.
Compatible but quirky
SQLite has a few other distinctive features. It uses dynamic typing; that is, any column can store any type of data. There is a short list of fundamental types: integer, real, text or blob. There are some other quirks, such as that SQLite permits null values in primary keys.
“This is a bug, but by the time the problem was discovered there where so many databases in circulation that depended on the bug that the decision was made to support the bugging behavior moving forward,” say the docs.
https://sqlite.org/copyright.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robust Rust trust discussed after Moz cuts leave folks nonplussed: Foundation mulled for coding language
Cannot infer an appropriate lifetime, indeed
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/rust_new_foundation/
Following Mozilla’s announcement last week that it would restructure and cut 250 jobs, the Rust Project, which oversees the Rust programming language, on Tuesday said it plans to work with Mozilla to create a Rust foundation by the end of the year.
Mozilla signs fresh Google search deal worth mega-millions as 25% staff cut hits Servo, MDN, security teams
$2.5m-a-year CEO set to take a pay cut, so that’s all right, then
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/14/mozilla_google_search/
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 entrepreneurs told us how they’ve used tech to navigate 2020′s challenges
These tech trends defined 2020 so far, according to 5 founders
https://thenextweb.com/dutch-disruptors/2020/08/12/these-tech-trends-defined-2020-so-far-according-to-5-founders/
1. Office analytics will help businesses organize a safe return to the workplace
This year, our work lives took a strange and sudden turn. We went from spending the majority of our time at work to working from home.
2. Tech will help businesses prepare for the ‘great rehiring’
At the beginning of 2020 everyone was talking about the ‘War for Talent.’ Businesses were competing to attract the best hires with perks, pay, and cool company cultures. But when the crisis hit, companies began drastically cutting down on hiring and even letting go of current employees to offset significant business losses.
3. Making faster, better credit decisions by combining humans with machine learning
Across the globe, SMEs have been hard hit by this crisis, with a majority losing revenue. Even businesses that were healthy and scaling could not have predicted and prepared for an event like this.
4. New trends in online payments make it easier for people to buy and sell online
In the last few months, online shopping became a lifeline for many to the outside world from ordering groceries to medicine to bottles of wine (another kind of medicine).
5. EdTech helps guide students in the virtual classroom
It’s not just businesses that have moved online. With schools still shut down, homeschooling is now the go-to method for delivering information to approximately 1.5 billion students who are eager to learn.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductors Outperforming Most Industries – but Watch Second Half
https://blog.semi.org/business-markets/semiconductors-outperforming-most-industries-but-watch-second-half
Things are picking up.
PMIs Have Generally Recovered
Purchasing managers indices indicated July manufacturing increases in most key countries with only South Korea and Japan having PMIs still in contraction territory (Chart 1). The Global PMI recovered sharply (Chart 2), reaching 50.3 in July.
Service Sector Still Fighting Pandemic
The manufacturing sector is recovering but the service sector is still struggling, hit hard by pandemic-driven travel curtailments, restaurant closures and restrained consumer spending.