The unprecedented demand for ventilators in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed many firms from various industries to re-tool their production-lines to make them. A big chunk of these makeshift ventilator manufacturers are from the automobile and aerospace industries. A ventilator isn't as simple a device as it sounds. It's not a mechanized ambu bag. It is an intelligent device that assists in respiration by precisely combining oxygen and ambient air specific to the patient's needs, and assists them in expiration. This requires a microprocessor-based control. Established biomedical equipment manufacturers use their own ASIC-based electronics for their ventilators; but the likes of General Motors don't have time to develop custom electronics. Enter the immensely versatile Raspberry Pi.

By leveraging Arm-based SBCs (single-board computers) such as Raspberry Pi, with its plethora of modern- and legacy I/O options, makeshift ventilator manufacturers are able to quickly design functional devices. All they have to do is write code for it. Even the cheapest $5 Pi Zero board with its GPIO interface suffices to run embedded Linux and code that runs the ventilator's hardware. Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi, says that demand for the Pi Zero is at an all-time high. The company manufactured over 192,000 units of the SBC in Q1-2020, and plans to scale up production to 250,000 per quarter, going forward. The Pi Zero features a Broadcom BCM2835 single-core Arm SoC and 512 MB of RAM, with a microSD slot for storage. That's plenty of brains to run a ventilator and save lives.

The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium, originally established to develop 25, 50 and 100 Gbps Ethernet specifications, announced today it has changed its name to the Ethernet Technology Consortium in order to reflect a new focus on higher-speed Ethernet technologies.

The goal of the consortium is to enhance the Ethernet specification to operate at new speeds by utilizing specifications that are developed or in development. This allows the organization to work alongside other industry groups and standards bodies to adapt Ethernet at a pace that aligns with the rapidly evolving needs of the industry. The ETC has more than 45 members with top-level promoter members that include Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, Dell, Google, Mellanox and Microsoft.

TSMC today announced it has collaborated with Broadcom on enhancing the Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS ) platform to support the industry's first and largest 2X reticle size interposer. With an area of approximately 1,700mm2, this next generation CoWoS interposer technology significantly boosts computing power for advanced HPC systems by supporting more SoCs as well as being ready to support TSMC's next-generation five-nanometer (N5) process technology.

This new generation CoWoS technology can accommodate multiple logic system-on-chip (SoC) dies, and up to 6 cubes of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), offering as much as 96 GB of memory. It also provides bandwidth of up to 2.7 terabytes per second, 2.7 times faster than TSMC's previously offered CoWoS solution in 2016. With higher memory capacity and bandwidth, this CoWoS solution is well-suited for memory-intensive workloads such as deep learning, as well as workloads for 5G networking, power-efficient datacenters, and more. In addition to offering additional area to increase compute, I/O, and HBM integration, this enhanced CoWoS technology provides greater design flexibility and yield for complex ASIC designs in advanced process nodes.

There is a lot to say regarding patent applications and their defense, and the devious ways these can be used as a way to both stifle innovation, competition, and to leech other companies' funds with what is usually described as "patent troll" behavior. Being a seat of technological innovation, The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) registers patents as results of their attachés' work - some of these see the light of day as actual products, but more often than not, the patent rights are used as a way for the institute to receive funds from those that would license their intellectual property.

After entering a legal battle with Apple and Broadcom back in 2016, CalTech has now had its accusation of patent infringement against both companies come to a close, with the jury deciding in favor of the university. The accusation was of both companies deploying WiFi chips which were based on Caltech's patent designs - WiFi chips that were then shipped within millions of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks. As a result, both Apple and Broadcom were ordered to pay a total of $1.1 billion in compensation, with Apple taking the brunt of the decision ($837.8 million) and Broadcom coming in with a thinner slice at $270.2.

Broadcom has today started shipping its latest Tomahawk 4 chip for network switches, used by all hyperscale cloud providers like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. The Tomahawk 4 is a processor built using a 7 nm manufacturing node from TSMC. Featuring over 31 billion transistors, the chip is one of the largest ever Broadcom built. It is an improvement to the Tomahawk 3, which achieved 12.8Tbps. This new chip is having two times the bandwidth available, resulting in 25.6 Tbps speeds while still achieving the form of a single die.

To achieve the massive throughput of 25.6 Tbps, Broadcom put 512 PAM4 SerDes blocks running at 50 Gbps on a single monolithic design. Capable of supporting 64 ports of 400GbE or 256 ports of 100GbE, the Tomahawk 4 is said to bring costs of operations down by 75% due to the less required power and hardware to operate 25.6 Tbps switch, where in the past it was required to run multiple switches to achieve such throughput. Additionally, to control all the telemetry processing and run the switch firmware, four Arm CPUs running at 1 GHz are embedded in die to help out.

Intel is reportedly looking to sell its connected home devices division, a company unit used for designing semiconductors that enable WiFi connection in all kinds of devices and SoCs made for managing network devices like WiFi routers. Following a previous deal, where Intel sold its modem division to Apple for 1 billion USD, Intel is now looking to "get rid of" another unit that is not doing any data-centric design workload.

The Connected Home division had around 450 million USD last year in annual sales, but it seems that competition is getting good with competing offers from Broadcom Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. If the unit is potentially sold to another company, Intel could rewire its R&D funds to other groups inside the company. Additionally, it is worth to mention that a financial advisor has reportedly been hired to evaluate any possible offers that Intel receives.

The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 certification program from Wi-Fi Alliance is now available and delivers the best user experience with devices based on IEEE 802.11ax. The certification program brings new features and capabilities that enable substantially greater overall Wi-Fi network performance in challenging environments with many connected devices such as stadiums, airports, and industrial parks. With adoption of the latest Wi-Fi generation increasing, product vendors and service providers can trust Wi-Fi CERTIFIED will distinguish Wi-Fi 6 products and networks that meet the highest standards for security and interoperability. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 provides significant capacity, performance, and latency improvements to the entire Wi-Fi ecosystem, while ensuring products across vendors to work well together to deliver greater innovation and opportunity.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 supports a more diverse set of devices and applications, from those requiring peak performance in demanding enterprise environments to those requiring low power and low latency in smart homes or industrial IoT scenarios. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 delivers nearly four times the capacity of Wi-Fi 5, and is an evolutionary advancement for Wi-Fi's ability to deliver high-performance infrastructure and optimized connectivity to all devices on a network simultaneously - bringing noticeable improvements in densely connected Wi-Fi environments. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 delivers critical connectivity that supports cellular networks, and leverages high speeds, low latency, power efficiency, greater capacity, and enhanced coverage to deliver many advanced 5G services.

At a launch event today, AMD was joined by an expansive ecosystem of datacenter partners and customers to introduce the 2nd Generation AMD EPYC family of processors that deliver performance leadership across a broad number of enterprise, cloud and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors feature up to 64 "Zen 2" cores in leading-edge 7 nm process technology to deliver record-setting performance while helping reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 50% across numerous workloads. At the event, Google and Twitter announced new 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor deployments and HPE and Lenovo announced immediate availability of new platforms.

"Today, we set a new standard for the modern datacenter with the launch of our 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors that deliver record-setting performance and significantly lower total cost of ownership across a broad set of workloads," said Dr. Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD. "Adoption of our new leadership server processors is accelerating with multiple new enterprise, cloud and HPC customers choosing EPYC processors to meet their most demanding server computing needs."

The trade ban imposed on Chinese tech giant Huawei by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and ratified through an Executive Order by President Donald Trump, is cutting both ways. Not only are U.S. entities banned from importing products and services from Huawei, but also engaging in trade with them (i.e. selling to them). U.S. tech firms stare at a $11 billion revenue loss by early estimates. Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs compiled a list of companies impacted by the ban, and the extent of their revenue loss. It turns out that AMD isn't a small player, and in fact, stands to lose more revenue in absolute terms than even Microsoft. It earns RMB 268 million (USD $38.79 million) from Huawei, compared to Microsoft's RMB 198 million ($28.66 million). Intel's revenue loss is a little over double that of AMD at RMB 589 million ($84 million), despite its market-share dominance.

That's not all, AMD's exposure is higher than that of Intel, since sales to Huawei make up a greater percentage of AMD's revenues than it does Intel's. AMD exports not just client-segment products such as Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics, but possibly also EPYC enterprise processors for Huawei's server and SMB product businesses. NVIDIA is affected to a far lesser extent than Intel, AMD, and Microsoft. Qualcomm-Broadcom take the biggest hit in absolute revenue terms at RMB 3.5 billion ($508 million), even if their exposure isn't the highest. The duo export SoCs and cellular modems to Huawei, both as bare-metal and licenses. Storage hardware makers aren't far behind, with the likes of Micron, Seagate, and Western Digital taking big hits. Micron exports DRAM and SSDs, while Seagate and WDC export hard drives.

The United States tech industry has overnight dealt a potentially fatal blow to Chinese electronics giant Huawei, by boycotting the company. The companies are establishing compliance with a recent Executive Order passed by President Donald Trump designed to "stop the import, sale, and use of equipment and services by foreign companies based in countries that are potential adversaries to U.S. interests," particularly information technology security. Google has announced that it will no longer allow Huawei to license Android, and will stop updates and Google Play access to Huawei smartphones. Huawei can still equip its phones with open-source Android, but it cannot use Google's proprietary software, including Google Play Store, Chrome, and all the other Google apps. Intel decided to no longer supply processors and other hardware to Huawei, for use in its laptops and server products. Sales of AMD processors will stop, too. Qualcomm-Broadcom have decided to stop supply of mobile SoCs and network PHYs, respectively. Microsoft decided to stop licensing Huawei to use Windows and Office products.

The ban is a consequence of the U.S. Government placing Huawei on a list of banned entities, forcing all U.S. companies to abandon all trade with it, without prior approval from the Department of Commerce. Trade cuts both ways, and not only are U.S. firms banned from buying from Huawei, they're also banned from selling to it. Huawei "buys from" over 30 U.S. companies, (for example, Windows licenses from Microsoft). CNN reports that U.S. firms could lose up to $11 billion in revenues.

NVIDIA has been patent-trolled sued over patent-infringement by Xperi, parent company of Invensas Corporation and Tessera Advanced Technologies. Xperi alleges that NVIDIA violated five of its U.S. patents, bearing numbers 5,666,046; 6,232,231; 6,317,333; 6,849,946; and 7,064,005, which mainly deal with the physical and electrical innovations behind packaging of NVIDIA GPUs (mating of the die with a substrate that has a ball/pin-grid that interfaces with the PCB). NVIDIA designs the GPU die and hands over its packaging requirements to TSMC. The Taiwanese semiconductor fabrication giant oversees both the manufacturing of the GPU die, as well as its packaging. Despite this technicality, Xperi alleges that NVIDIA is responsible for the design of the overall GPU, including its package, and must answer for its wrongdoing.

Xperi is not your average back-alley IP hoarder technology inventor. The San Francisco-based company won IP disputes with several semiconductor giants, including Samsung Electronics and Broadcom. In both cases, Xperia won settlements, making it a giant-killer given its roughly $1.2 billion-market cap. In his Q1 2019 Earnings Call, Xperi CEO Jon Kerchner stated "...Today we filed a lawsuit against NVIDIA for patent infringement. We believe that NVIDIA is using our patent semiconductor technology in certain of its CPUs and processors and we have been speaking with NVIDIA for several years about taking a patent license. We ultimately could not reach an agreement and we felt that we needed to take this action to defend our intellectual property rights. We filed the case in Delaware Federal Court asserting 5 patents."

Razer , the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Sila, a high-performance WiFi router designed for home users requiring WiFi service optimized for high-performance gaming, streaming and downloading multimedia content. With the upsurge in mobile gaming, and with many homes unable to run a wired network to every room, fast and reliable WiFi is more important than ever. The Razer Sila router is designed to deliver lag-free gaming and smooth, interruption-free streaming over a fast wireless network, meeting the needs of today's mobile, console and laptop users.

The Razer Sila features a suite of technologies designed to give gamers the fastest, most reliable WiFi connection within their home or office with Razer FasTrack, Multi-Channel ZeroWait DFS and Mesh capability with a dedicated backhaul. Setup and management through a mobile app makes Sila installation and use simple and quick. The Razer FasTrack software featured in the Razer Sila is a proprietary QoS engine for smart traffic management. By using deep packet inspection and adaptive learning technology, Razer FasTrack allows users to prioritize traffic based on application and device types, from mobile phones and smart TVs through to laptops, PCs or consoles. With built-in detection for PlayStation, Xbox and Switch consoles, users can easily fine tune their networks for the smoothest gaming or streaming experiences. Razer FasTrack also features a one-touch gaming mode, to automatically reserve bandwidth for online gaming.

After being blocked via an executive order by President Trump, Broadcom has given up on their quest to acquire Qualcomm. The chipmaker will also be withdrawing the slate of independent director candidates that they were planning to nominate at Qualcomm's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Although highly disappointed with the outcome, Broadcom respects President Trump's decision. The company also wants to thank the stockholders for their unconditional support during the entire process. With this whole Qualcomm takeover business out of the way, Broadcom will concentrate on their redomiciliation process.

US President Donald Trump blocked the potentially-$117 billion Broadcom-Qualcomm merger through an executive order. The White House considered damning observations by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which had been studying potential national security implications of this merger. "There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that Broadcom Ltd. [by acquiring Qualcomm] might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States," wrote President Trump in the order.

Broadcom expressed shock and disbelief over the order. The company, in a statement, said that it "strongly disagrees that its proposed acquisition of Qualcomm raises any national security concerns." Qualcomm, meanwhile, battened down the hatches for any press comments. The American chipmaker had been wrestling an increasingly Broadcom-slanted board that was all but ready to sell the company to Broadcom at an undervalued price. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the Trump administration has shot down ten similar deals since it came to power, in which foreign companies - overwhelmingly Chinese in national origin - had attempted buy out American high-technology firms. Californian Intel is still in the foray to swallow Broadcom, as CFIUS doesn't concern itself with American companies buying out foreign firms.

In a sequence of events perfectly illustrated by the stock image below, Intel is reportedly mulling the acquisition of Broadcom, which is still making efforts to acquire Qualcomm; the Wall Street Journal reported late last week. Shares of Intel fell 1 percent on this report. A successful acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom would result in a seemingly-American silicon supergiant that could pose a threat to Intel's position in the industry, observes CNBC. Both Intel and Broadcom spokespersons refuse to comment the WSJ report, terming it as "deal chatter."

Broadcom recently swayed Qualcomm board its way ahead of a crucial vote for the acquisition, prompting a CFIUS investigation, by American regulators, which has the legal power to halt the acquisition if national security implications emerge. Taking advantage of this, and its relatively stable outlook despite the recent CPU vulnerability mess, Intel is looking to mop up a seemingly foreign Broadcom. Other industry giants such as Microsoft and Google have expressed extreme concern with the developments in this deal, particularly with Apple's "sway" over it.

The United States Government is closely examining national security implications of a potential Broadcom-Qualcomm merger. Broadcom is a Singapore-based company, while Qualcomm is American. An empowered national security panel called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has the legal power to stop mergers between American and foreign companies, and acquisitions of American companies by foreign entities; is said to be examining specifics of Qualcomm's high-technology and intellectual property falling into the hands of Broadcom, as the two companies close in on a crucial Qualcomm board meet scheduled for March, in which Broadcom has exercised its shareholding to plant 6 favorable board members among the 11-member Qualcomm board, which all but guarantees a vote in favor of the merger - a classic hostile takeover.

"Not so fast," believes Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the US Senate, who urged Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to have the CFIUS examine the Broadcom-Qualcomm deal. In its unprecedented pre-deal discussions within the otherwise opaque committee, a consensus emerged that Broadcom's decision to relocate its headquarters to the US was insufficient to circumvent a CFIUS review. "I urge CFIUS to promptly review Broadcom's proposed acquisition of control of Qualcomm's board, and to act prior to the March 6 Qualcomm meeting to address any national security concerns that may be identified," Senator Cornyn wrote to Secretary Mnuchin. It looks like Broadcom's decision to tamper with Qualcomm's board is set to spectacularly backfire.

The Broadcom-Qualcomm acquisition saga continues, but with an encouraging development for the potential buyer. Qualcomm is reportedly coming around to the idea of acquisition by Broadcom, if the price is right. Broadcom's last offer stood at a staggering $121 billion, or $79 per share (which once touched $82 per share). Qualcomm's board is of the opinion that the current offer "severely undervalues" the company, without further guidance on what would constitute a fair price.

"Broadcom reiterated in the February 23 meeting that its reduced $79.00 per share proposal is its best and final proposal. The Qualcomm Board is unanimous in its view that each of Broadcom's proposals, including its prior $82.00 per share proposal, materially undervalues Qualcomm, and the Board encourages Broadcom to enter into mutual due diligence and price negotiations," Qualcomm stated in a press-release.

Taking an if-you-can't-beat-them-buy-them approach, Broadcom attempted to buy rival chipmaker Qualcomm last year for $105 billion. However, Qualcomm considered that Broadcom undervalued the company and shot down Broadcom's bid in a heartbeat. Fast forward to present day, Broadcom today announced that they've increased their bid to $121 billion. The company also stated that this was their "best and final" offer. In this new deal, Qualcomm stockholders would receive $82 per share which consists of $60 in cash and $22 in Broadcom shares. If the purchase is completed, it would go down as the biggest tech deal in history surpassing Dell's acquisition of EMC in 2015 for $67 billion. But more importantly, Broadcom would have the assets to compete against rivals in the likes of Intel and Samsung. Qualcomm confirmed that they've received Broadcom's offer and will review it with their Board of Directors.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Agile Multiband is a new certification program from Wi-Fi Alliance that enables devices to utilize Wi-Fi network resources better, and networks to adapt and balance load as network conditions change. Wi-Fi Agile Multiband devices dynamically exchange information about a network environment, enabling devices to make smarter decisions and quicker connections in home, enterprise, and managed network environments. Wi-Fi Agile Multiband delivers new capabilities that provide a better experience with both static use cases, such as streaming a high-definition movie, and mobile use cases such as Wi-Fi calling.

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that the Qualcomm Board of Directors, following the recommendation of the Board's Governance Committee, has unanimously determined not to nominate any of the 11 candidates assembled by Broadcom Limited and Silver Lake Partners to replace Qualcomm's current directors at Qualcomm's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Qualcomm today also filed its preliminary proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with Qualcomm's upcoming 2018 Annual Meeting.

After a thorough review of the Broadcom-Silver Lake nominees, the Governance Committee concluded that these nominees are inherently conflicted and would not bring incremental skills or expertise to the Qualcomm Board. Qualcomm's Board is nominating its 11 incumbent directors for re-election at the 2018 Annual Meeting: Barbara T. Alexander, Jeffrey W. Henderson, Thomas W. Horton, Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, Ann M. Livermore, Harish Manwani, Mark D. McLaughlin, Steve Mollenkopf, Clark T. Randt, Jr., Dr. Francisco Ros and Anthony J. "Tony" Vinciquerra.

Broadcom Limited, today announced that it has delivered the StrataXGS Tomahawk 3 switch series, demonstrating an unprecedented 12.8 Terabits/sec of Ethernet switching performance in a single device -- double the bandwidth of any other switch silicon available in the market today. The Tomahawk 3 series represents the industry's first shipping product that supports high-density, standards based 400GbE, 200GbE, and 100GbE switching and routing for hyperscale cloud networks, fortifying Broadcom's position as the market leader in raw Ethernet performance, silicon execution, and switch product velocity. Remarkably, the Tomahawk 3 switch series was developed, manufactured, and shipped to customers a mere 14 months following the introduction of the previous 6.4Tbps product generation, while delivering 40% lower power consumption per 100GbE switch port and up to 75% lower cost per 100GbE switch port.

Qualcomm Incorporated today confirmed receipt of Broadcom Limited's nomination of a slate of candidates to replace Qualcomm's existing Board of Directors at the Company's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Qualcomm is exceptionally well positioned - with technology and leadership positions across mobile, IoT, Automotive, edge computing and networking - and leading the transition to 5G. Qualcomm stockholders are poised to participate in substantial growth and value creation as the Company continues to execute its strategy across its businesses.

Broadcom and Silver Lake are effectively asking stockholders to foreclose options and make a decision now on a non-binding proposed transaction which could not be completed for well over a year, if ever, given the magnitude of regulatory issues, the absence of commitments by Broadcom to resolve those issues, Broadcom's lack of committed financing, and the uncertainty surrounding its transition from Singapore to the United States. Qualcomm's Board is composed of 11 world-class directors, 9 of whom are independent and 4 of whom have been added in the last 3 years, and all of whom are firmly committed to acting in the best interests of all Qualcomm stockholders. Qualcomm believes that this action is a blatant attempt to seize control of the Qualcomm Board in order to advance Broadcom's acquisition agenda. These nominees are inherently conflicted given Broadcom's desire to acquire Qualcomm in a manner that dramatically undervalues Qualcomm to Broadcom's benefit.

Broadcom Limited today announced that it has notified Qualcomm Incorporated of its intention to nominate a slate of 11 independent, highly qualified individuals for election to Qualcomm's Board of Directors and to propose certain other matters for the consideration of Qualcomm stockholders at Qualcomm's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Broadcom intends to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission a proxy statement, accompanied by a BLUE proxy card, in connection with Qualcomm's 2018 Annual Meeting. Qualcomm has announced that its 2018 Annual Meeting will be held on March 6, 2018.

On November 6, 2017, Broadcom proposed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Qualcomm for per share consideration of $70.00 in cash and stock, consisting of $60.00 in cash and $10.00 in Broadcom shares. Broadcom's offer represents a 28% premium over the closing price of Qualcomm's common stock on November 2, 2017, the last unaffected trading day prior to media speculation regarding a potential transaction, and a premium of 33% to Qualcomm's unaffected 30-day volume-weighted average price. The Broadcom proposal stands whether Qualcomm's pending acquisition of NXP Semiconductors N.V. ("NXP") is consummated on the currently disclosed terms of $110 per NXP share or is terminated.

ARRIS International plc has completed its acquisition of the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom Limited. With this acquisition, ARRIS builds on a leadership position in networking and entertainment for service providers while expanding into new enterprise and vertical markets. The deal strategically positions ARRIS for a new phase of growth by leveraging the companies' combined technology assets to enable next-generation wireless and wired networks. The Ruckus target vertical markets span hospitality, education, government, service providers, multi-dwelling / tenant units, sports / entertainment venues, and transportation centers. Additionally, Ruckus' trailblazing leadership in the small-cell CBRS LTE market represents an opportunity to deploy converged Wi-Fi and LTE using common cloud-based control and management capabilities.

Qualcomm today announced that its Board of Directors unanimously rejected the unsolicited proposal announced by Broadcom Limited ("Broadcom") on November 6, 2017. "It is the Board's unanimous belief that Broadcom's proposal significantly undervalues Qualcomm relative to the Company's leadership position in mobile technology and our future growth prospects," said Paul Jacobs, Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Qualcomm Incorporated.

"No company is better positioned in mobile, IoT, automotive, edge computing and networking within the semiconductor industry. We are confident in our ability to create significant additional value for our stockholders as we continue our growth in these attractive segments and lead the transition to 5G," said Steve Mollenkopf, Chief Executive Officer of Qualcomm Incorporated.