Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) yesterday made the announcement that it has approved an investment in Arm Holdings Plc. The market leader in contract chipmaker is prepared to spend around $100 million, upon the UK-headquartered semiconductor design firm going public. Regulatory filing information has SoftBank Group aiming to raise about $4.87 billion with its initial public offering (IPO) of Arm. The listing has, so far, attracted a number of "cornerstone investors" including NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Apple, Samsung Electronics and Alphabet.

Mark Liu, TSMC's chairman, stated last week that "Arm is an important element of our ecosystem, our technology and our customers' ecosystem. We want it to be successful, we want it to be healthy. That's the bottom line." The spending spree announcements also extended to something Team Blue related—TSMC declared that it has reached an agreement with Intel to purchase a 10% equity interest in IMS Nanofabrication Global, LLC. This deal is valued at roughly $432.8 million. Intel has already sold 20% of IMS to Bain Capital, but it still retains majority ownership—the two business deals valued IMS Nanofabrication at approximately $4.3 billion, according to an Intel statement.

British semiconductor specialist firm, Arm Ltd., has has confirmed that it will be offering its clients the option to license "SoC solutions," as opposed to the usual model of paying for intellectual properties. A new Bloomberg article reaffirms previous claims that Arm's engineering department was beavering away on reference chip designs. An IPO filing, registered with the SEC, reveals that various system-on-chip designs are in the pipeline—likely targeting fast-growing tech markets.

An Arm statement explained: "More recently, we have invested in a holistic, solution-focused approach to design, expanding beyond individual design IP elements to providing a more complete system. By delivering SoC solutions optimized for specific use cases, we can ensure that the entire system works together seamlessly to provide maximum performance and efficiency. At the same time, by designing an increasingly greater portion of the overall chip design, we are further reducing incremental development investment and risk borne by our customers while also enabling us to capture more value per device." Arm is probably keen to boost its profit margins, and become more attractive in the eyes of potential investors—lately their designs have been implemented in more expensive product segments, namely automotive, client PCs, and cloud data center solutions.

We heard rumblings about Intel considering a stake in Arm earlier this summer—Reuters picked up on the multinational corporation's leadership negotiating with Japan's SoftBank about becoming a potential anchor investor in the latter's initial public offering (IPO) of Arm Holdings plc. Several big players have reportedly been courted as key strategic partners—Arm already counts some of these corporations as major clients and business partners. The looming IPO has an estimated value of around $60 billion and $70 billion. Intel has made their investment public today, as announced this morning by Stuart Pann, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Foundry Services.

Pann elaborated on his company's major strategic decision, during proceedings at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference: "80% of TSMC wafers have an Arm processor in them...The fact that our organization, the IFS organization, is embracing Arm at this level, investing in Arm, doing partnerships with Arm should give you a signpost that we are absolutely serious about playing this business. Because if you are not working with Arm, you cannot be a foundries provider." Despite competing in several market segements, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Arm announced a multi-generation agreement, earlier this year, to enable chip designers to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on the former's 18A process. The now tighter relationship appears to be steering Team Blue back to formerly abandoned pastures—Pann stated: "Our focus will be for now, much more on ARM and around RISC-V, because that is where the volumes is at, but expect more to come out in the coming months...For example, we announced something with Arm, we will do more with them, clearly as they expand their base. They have multiple interests in multiple areas, and they have been a superb partner."

Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists and creators of all types, is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated release of Cinebench 2024. This latest iteration of the industry-standard benchmarking software, which has been a cornerstone in computer performance evaluation for two decades, sets a new standard for performance evaluation, embracing cutting-edge technology to provide artists, designers, and creators with a more accurate and relevant representation of their hardware capabilities.

Redshift Rendering Engine Integration
Cinebench 2024 ushers in a new era by embracing the power of Redshift, Cinema 4D's default rendering engine. Unlike its predecessors, which utilized Cinema 4D's standard renderer, Cinebench 2024 utilizes the same render algorithms across both CPU and GPU implementations. This leap to the Redshift engine ensures that performance testing aligns seamlessly with the demands of modern creative workflows, delivering accurate and consistent results.

Arm's impending IPO, valued between $60 billion and $70 billion, has reportedly garnered substantial backing from industry giants such as Apple, NVIDIA, Intel, and Samsung, as per sources cited in a Bloomberg report. This much-anticipated public offering serves as a litmus test for investor interest in new chip-related stocks and could reshape the tech industry landscape. While the information remains unofficial, it underscores the significant support Arm has received from major licensees, including Apple, AMD, Cadence, Intel, Google, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Synopsys, with each potentially contributing between $25 million and $100 million, a testament to their confidence in Arm's future prospects. Originally, SoftBank aimed to raise $8 billion to $10 billion through the IPO, but a strategic shift to retain a larger Arm stake revised the target to $5 billion to $7 billion.

This IPO's success holds paramount importance for SoftBank and its CEO, Masayoshi Son, particularly following the Vision Fund's substantial $30 billion loss in the previous fiscal year. Masayoshi Son is reportedly committed to maintaining significant control over Arm, planning to release no more than 10% of the company's shares during this initial phase, aligning with SoftBank's recent acquisition of the Vision Fund's Arm stake and reinforcing their belief in Arm's long-term potential. Arm has enlisted renowned global financial institutions such as Barclays, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Mizuho Financial Group to prepare for the IPO, highlighting the widespread interest in the offering and the anticipated benefits for these financial institutions.

Ampere Computing, known for its Altra (Max) and upcoming AmpereOne families of AArch64 server processors tailored for data centers, has released a guide for enthusiasts on running Steam for Linux on these ARM64 processors. This includes using Steam Play (Proton) to play Windows games on these Linux-powered servers. Over the summer, Ampere Computing introduced a GitHub repository detailing the process of running Steam for Linux on their AArch64 platforms, including Steam Play/Proton. While the guide is primarily designed for Ampere Altra/Altra Max and AmpereOne hardware, it can be adapted for other 64-bit Arm platforms. However, a powerful processor is essential to appreciate the gaming experience truly. Additionally, for the 3D OpenGL/Vulkan graphics to function optimally, an Ampere workstation system is more suitable than a headless server.

The guide recommends the Ampere Altra Developer platform paired with an NVIDIA RTX A6000 series graphics card, which supports AArch64 proprietary drivers. The guide uses Box86 and Box64 to run Steam x86 binaries and other x86/x86-64 games for emulation. While there are other options like FEX-Emu and Hangover to enhance the Linux binary experience on AArch64, Box86/Box64 is the preferred choice for gaming on Ampere workstations, as indicated by its mention in Ampere Computing's Once the AArch64 Linux graphics drivers are accelerated and Box86/Box64 emulation is set up, users can install Steam for Linux. By activating Proton within Steam, it becomes feasible to play Windows-exclusive x86/x86-64 games on Ampere AArch64 workstations or server processors. However, the guide doesn't provide insights into the performance of such a configuration.

NVIDIA's latest financial report for FY2Q24 reveals that its data center business reached US$10.32 billion—a QoQ growth of 141% and YoY increase of 171%. The company remains optimistic about its future growth. TrendForce believes that the primary driver behind NVIDIA's robust revenue growth stems from its data center's AI server-related solutions. Key products include AI-accelerated GPUs and AI server HGX reference architecture, which serve as the foundational AI infrastructure for large data centers.

TrendForce further anticipates that NVIDIA will integrate its software and hardware resources. Utilizing a refined approach, NVIDIA will align its high-end, mid-tier, and entry-level GPU AI accelerator chips with various ODMs and OEMs, establishing a collaborative system certification model. Beyond accelerating the deployment of CSP cloud AI server infrastructures, NVIDIA is also partnering with entities like VMware on solutions including the Private AI Foundation. This strategy extends NVIDIA's reach into the edge enterprise AI server market, underpinning steady growth in its data center business for the next two years.

Tachyum today announced that new EDA tools, utilized during the physical design phase of the Prodigy Universal Processor, have allowed the company to achieve significantly better results with chip specifications than previously anticipated, after the successful change in physical design tools - including an increase in the number of Prodigy cores to 192.

After RTL design coding, Tachyum began work on completing the physical design (the actual placement of transistors and wires) for Prodigy. After the Prodigy design team had to replace IPs, it also had to replace RTL simulation and physical design tools. Armed with a new set of EDA tools, Tachyum was able to optimize settings and options that increased the number of cores by 50 percent, and SERDES from 64 to 96 on each chip. Die size grew minimally, from 500mm2 to 600mm2 to accommodate improved physical capabilities. While Tachyum could add more of its very efficient cores and still fit into the 858mm2 reticle limit, these cores would be memory bandwidth limited, even with 16 DDR5 controllers running in excess of 7200MT/s. Tachyum cores have much higher performance than any other processor cores.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, today unveiled the new-generation AI NAS TS-AI642. Adopting an ARM 8-core processor with 6 TOPS NPU, the TS-AI642 is perfect for AI image recognition and smart surveillance applications. Achieving both high performance and power-efficiency with 2.5 GbE connectivity, 10GbE expandability via PCIe and dual 4K HDMI output, the TS-AI642 fulfills the image storage, backup, and video surveillance demands of SMBs.

"According to professional technology media and global technology firms, 2023 is the year of Edge AI. Research shows that companies and organizations are leveraging more efficient and budget-friendly Edge AI solutions due to the market and economic uncertainty." said Jerry Deng, Product Manager of QNAP. "The QNAP TS-AI642 is the first ARM-based AI NAS on the market. Incorporating NPU for boosting AI image recognition performance with a low power design, the TS-AI642 is a cost-optimized entry-level ARM-based AI image storage and Surveillance NAS for SMBs."

NVIDIA today announced the next-generation NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper platform - based on a new Grace Hopper Superchip with the world's first HBM3e processor - built for the era of accelerated computing and generative AI. Created to handle the world's most complex generative AI workloads, spanning large language models, recommender systems and vector databases, the new platform will be available in a wide range of configurations. The dual configuration - which delivers up to 3.5x more memory capacity and 3x more bandwidth than the current generation offering - comprises a single server with 144 Arm Neoverse cores, eight petaflops of AI performance and 282 GB of the latest HBM3e memory technology.

"To meet surging demand for generative AI, data centers require accelerated computing platforms with specialized needs," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "The new GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip platform delivers this with exceptional memory technology and bandwidth to improve throughput, the ability to connect GPUs to aggregate performance without compromise, and a server design that can be easily deployed across the entire data center."

ASUS IoT, the leading global AIoT solution provider, today announced Tinker Board 3N series, a versatile, Arm -based single-board computer (SBC) that empowers easy system integration, broad adaptability and superb expandability - elevating it to the perfect choice for the emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) era.

The NUC-sized SBC series is equipped with rich I/O and supports Linux Debian, Yocto, and Android operating systems, presenting an all-new premium option for developers and system integrators' diverse IIoT projects. Its optimized thermal design simplifies deployment of embedded applications, ensuring efficient operation in demanding environments. With its durable and reliable design, Tinker Board 3N offers enhanced computing performance, low power consumption and a wide range of interfaces, so it's primed and ready for smart manufacturing applications powering the IoT revolution.

The escalating challenges in acquiring high-performance x86 servers have prompted Chinese data center companies to accelerate the shift to Arm-based system-on-chips (SoCs). Investment banking firm Bernstein reports that approximately 40% of all Arm-powered servers globally are currently being used in China. While most servers operate on x86 processors from AMD and Intel, there's a growing preference for Arm-based SoCs, especially in the Chinese market. Several global tech giants, including AWS, Ampere, Google, Fujitsu, Microsoft, and Nvidia, have already adopted or developed Arm-powered SoCs. However, Arm-based SoCs are increasingly favorable for Chinese firms, given the difficulty in consistently sourcing Intel's Xeon or AMD's EPYC. Chinese companies like Alibaba, Huawei, and Phytium are pioneering the development of these Arm-based SoCs for client and data center processors.

However, the US government's restrictions present some challenges. Both Huawei and Phytium, blacklisted by the US, cannot access TSMC's cutting-edge process technologies, limiting their ability to produce competitive processors. Although Alibaba's T-Head can leverage TSMC's latest innovations, it can't license Arm's high-performance computing Neoverse V-series CPU cores due to various export control rules. Despite these challenges, many chip designers are considering alternatives such as RISC-V, an unrestricted, rapidly evolving open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) suitable for designing highly customized general-purpose cores for specific workloads. Still, with the backing of influential firms like AWS, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung, the Armv8 and Armv9 instruction set architectures continue to hold an edge over RISC-V. These companies' support ensures that the software ecosystem remains compatible with their CPUs, which will likely continue to drive the adoption of Arm in the data center space.

Make health and fitness journeys smoother with the Exynos W930—the wearable processor that keeps smartwatches ahead of the curve, with new leaps in performance and power saving.

Watch it work wonders
Exynos W930 is equipped with the Arm Cortex-A55 dual-core CPU, boosting CPU speed to 1.4 GHz for an 18% jump over our last generation processor. In-package DRAM expands to 2 GB in the Exynos W930, passing the last generation by 33%, so you can switch between apps up to 25% faster and manage your workouts and your work life better with a suite of apps performing at their best.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced its fifth generation of Galaxy foldables: Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5. The industry-leading form factors offer unique experiences for every user with sleek and compact designs, countless customization options, and powerful performance. The new Flex Hinge makes the foldable experience possible, while offering an aesthetically balanced and solid design. These unrivalled foldable devices unlock extraordinary camera capabilities such as FlexCam to take photos from creative angles. With strong performance and an optimized battery powered by the latest processor, the Samsung Galaxy Z series transforms what is possible with a smartphone - open or closed.

"Samsung is revolutionizing the mobile industry with foldables by setting the standard and continually refining the experience," said TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. "Every day, more people choose our foldables because they offer an experience people want that they can't get on any other device. Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5 are the latest devices that prove our commitment to meeting the needs of our customers through innovative technology."

Several big players in the industry have (reportedly) presented themselves as potential anchor investors in Ltd. Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, the owner of the British semiconductor and software design company is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) in the USA, with a likely kick-off date in September. The Financial Times has today claimed that NVIDIA was invited (by Softbank) to actively negotiate with Arm leadership with the aim to join a group of prospective IPO anchor investors. Citing insider sources who have been briefed about ongoing deliberations—Team Green could be proposing an investment of roughly $35 billion to $40 billion.

The report suggests that SoftBank would prefer an offer closer to $70 - 80 billion—it seems that more haggling is on the cards. NVIDIA is a longtime partner and client of Arm, with the former attempting to buyout the latter over a year ago—but their agreement was terminated due to "significant regulatory challenges" in regions including the US, UK and China. At the time, the scuppered deal's estimated value was widely reported being $66 billion.

ASUS IoT, the global AIoT solution provider, today announced PE1100N, a unmatched, ultra-compact computer for AI inferencing at the edge, and based on the next-generation and world-leading NVIDIA Jetson Orin series. It features a fanless design for quiet operation, rich industrial connectivity for serious flexibility and supports a wide range of power inputs and operating temperatures for maximum versatility and durability.

With the powerful Jetson platform, featuring an efficient Arm processor and embedded NVIDIA GPU, PE1100N delivers energy-efficient computing with powerful AI-inferencing capabilities, making it ideal for diverse, scalable edge AI applications in smart city, transportation, manufacturing and more - including traffic analysis, people-tracking, counting and surveillance. Also, PE1100N's compact size and anti-vibration design make it especially ideal for smart manufacturing solutions, such as automated guided vehicle (AGVs), autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), AI-powered automated optical inspection (AOI) and robotics applications - accelerating time to market for AI applications.

The revolutionary UNO R4, announced on Arduino Day, is now available on the Arduino Store! The fourth version of the iconic, beloved UNO adds a whole new dimension to the world of DIY and making revolutionized by the simple 8-bit microcontroller over a decade ago. Take your maker potential to new heights: UNO R4 has a speedy 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 and offers a 16-fold increase in memory, as well as more connectors and connectivity options than ever - in two variants: UNO R4 Minima and UNO R4 WiFi.

Both variants allow you to start making or easily upgrade UNO R3-based projects with more computational power, memory, and speed than previous versions - courtesy of the RA4M1 microcontroller by Renesas - while maintaining the same form factor and 5 V operating voltage.

Broadcom Inc. today announced sample availability of its second generation of wireless connectivity chipset solutions for the Wi-Fi 7 ecosystem, spanning Wi-Fi routers, residential gateways, enterprise access points, and client devices. The new chips build on the ecosystem of products with Broadcom's first-generation Wi-Fi 7 chips while delivering additional functionality to a wider market.

The first chip, the BCM6765, is a highly-optimized residential access point chip that supports 320 MHz 2-stream Wi-Fi operation. This new platform system-on-chip (SoC) allows the productization of Wi-Fi 7 mass-market access points and smart repeater solutions which span the spectrum of cost, form factor, and performance. The second chip, the BCM47722, is an enterprise access point chip that also supports 320 MHz 2-stream operation along with dual IoT radios that support simultaneous operation for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee, Thread, and Matter protocols. This SoC addresses the growing needs of Internet of things (IoT) applications in the enterprise Wi-Fi market. The third chip, the BCM4390, is a low-power Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 combo chip designed for use in mobile devices such as handsets and tablets. It supports 160 MHz 2-stream Wi-Fi operation, dual Bluetooth, and Zigbee, Thread, and Matter protocols to service a broad set of mobile markets.

Reuters has been informed this week by a trusted insider source that the higher-ups at Intel Corporation are holding talks with Japan's SoftBank about becoming a possible anchor investor in the latter's initial public offering (IPO) of Arm. The British semiconductor and software design company was wholly acquired by the Japanese multinational investment holding firm in 2016. This was followed by a failed takeover bid by NVIDIA—six years later. Arm is aiming to sell its shares via Nasdaq in Q3 or Q4 2023, with a goal of raising around $8 - $10 billion. It also formulated plans to adjust pricing models earlier this year, with news reports labelling the strategic act as an attempt to rake in more royalties.

Intel and Arm have already formed a relationship in recent times—thanks to the development of the former's low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs). These are set to be built on Intel Foundry's 18A process. The two companies have signed a multi-generation agreement to collaborate on the design of a series of mobile chipsets as an opening product range—diversified options will follow in the future. Arm is rumored (according to Reuters) to be working on its own proprietary chip, but the deal with Intel allows it to use its partner's "open system foundry model."

After 1 year, 9 months, and 28 days of development, the Debian project is proud to present its new stable version 12 (code name bookworm). bookworm will be supported for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security team and the Debian Long Term Support team.

Following the 2022 General Resolution about non-free firmware, we have introduced a new archive area making it possible to separate non-free firmware from the other non-free packages:

• non-free-firmware
• Most non-free firmware packages have been moved from non-free to non-free-firmware. This separation makes it possible to build a variety of official installation images.

Debian 12 bookworm ships with several desktop environments, such as:

• Gnome 43,
• KDE Plasma 5.27,
• LXDE 11,
• LXQt 1.2.0,
• MATE 1.26,
• Xfce 4.18

ECS showed off a large array of products at their booth at Computex this year, demonstrating the range of markets they cater to, from consumer to industrial. To start with, their long lived LIVA series of mini PCs have received an update to Intel's 13th gen Core series of processors with the LIVA Z5. The LIVA Z5 lineup includes three new models: the Z5 Plus, a more spacious Z5E Plus, and a completely passive Z5F Plus. Each of these feature the new processor generation up to 15 W and are designed for smart retail and kiosk deployments. The series not only boasts the new processor generation, but also expandable DDR4-3200 with capacities up to 64 GB, M.2 PCI-E NVMe Gen 4x4 SSD storage (plus 2.5" SATA in the Z5E and Z5F), optional Wi-Fi 6 module, dual 2.5 GbE, three USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 Type-A, USB Type-C, HDMI, and COM ports. Each of these new models can support up to four simultaneous 4K displays. ECS had the Z5 and Z5E Plus running as a multi-display automated self-service kiosk in their booth where visitors could order a bubble tea. Beside these was also the new LIVA P300, a slightly larger ITX barebones machine with a Q670 motherboard supporting both 12th and 13th Gen processors on LGA 1700, up to 65 W TDP.

The HYTE Thicc FT12 is a stand-out at the company's booth at the 2023 Computex. It's probably the most feature-rich fan specs-sheet we've come across, all to justify its price of $80 for a 3-pack SKU. The 120 mm fan derives its name from its 32 mm thickness, which is a bit more than the 25 mm that's industry standard, and more than double the 15 mm slimline form-factor. The impeller has a liquid-crystal polymer coating that minimizes dust build-up over timeand improves airflow characteristics. The fan's motor has sensors that can detect airflow temperature, as well as the exact position of the impeller. The onboard electronics also has support for HYTE's Nexus Link unified interface over USB type-C (legacy adapter included). As a fan, the HYTE THICC FT12 has a speed-range between 500 to 2,000 RPM, and has zero-RPM capability. At its top speed, it pushes over 70 CFM of airflow, with over 3.3 mm H₂O static-pressure. The company didn't reveal noise figures, though. HYTE is backing the fan with a 6-year warranty.

Mobile devices touch every aspect of our digital lives. In the palm of your hand is the ability to both create and consume increasingly immersive, AI-accelerated experiences that continue to drive the need for more compute. Arm is at the heart of many of these, bringing unlimited delight, productivity and success to more people than ever. Every year we build foundational platforms designed to meet these increasing compute demands, with a relentless focus on high performance and efficiency. Working closely with our broader ecosystem, we're delivering the performance, efficiency and intelligence needed on every generation of consumer device to expand our digital lifestyles.

Today we are announcing Arm Total Compute Solutions 2023 (TCS23), which will be the platform for mobile computing, offering our best ever premium solution for smartphones. TCS23 delivers a complete package of the latest IP designed and optimized for specific workloads to work seamlessly together as a complete system. This includes a new world-class Arm Immortalis GPU based on our brand-new 5th Generation GPU architecture for ultimate visual experiences, a new cluster of Armv9 CPUs that continue our performance leadership for next-gen artificial intelligence (AI), and new enhancements to deliver more accessible software for the millions of Arm developers.

Imagination Technologies is bringing seamless visual experiences to cost-sensitive consumer devices with the new IMG CXM GPU range which includes the smallest GPU to support HDR user interfaces natively.

Consumers are looking for visuals on their smart home platforms that are as detailed, smooth, and responsive as the experience they are accustomed to on mobile devices. At the same time, ambitious content providers are aligning the look and feel of their applications' user interfaces with their cinematic content, by integrating advanced features such as 4K and HDR.

NVIDIA today announced a supercomputer built on the NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip, adding to a wave of new energy-efficient supercomputers based on the Arm Neoverse platform. The Isambard 3 supercomputer to be based at the Bristol & Bath Science Park, in the U.K., will feature 384 Arm-based NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchips to power medical and scientific research, and is expected to deliver 6x the performance and energy efficiency of Isambard 2, placing it among Europe's most energy-efficient systems.

It will achieve about 2.7 petaflops of FP64 peak performance and consume less than 270 kilowatts of power, ranking it among the world's three greenest non-accelerated supercomputers. The project is being led by the University of Bristol, as part of the research consortium the GW4 Alliance, together with the universities of Bath, Cardiff and Exeter.