ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced an all-new gaming peripherals lineup that channels the minimalist feel of monochrome through a striking Moonlight White color scheme. The ROG Strix Scope NX TKL 80%, tenkeyless mechanical RGB gaming keyboard, ROG Strix Impact II ambidextrous gaming mouse, ROG Strix Go Core gaming headset and ROG Cetra II Core in-ear gaming headphones are all now available in North America in this stunning colorway.

ROG has a long history of weaving Aura Sync into a huge ecosystem of devices to let gamers shine a light on their personalities through their gear - but many players also seek a minimalist look. That's why the ROG color palette is expanding to include the Moonlight White series, providing a commanding counterpart to the signature red-and-black color scheme.

In view of the ongoing production capacity shortage in the semiconductor industry and the resultant price hike of chips, revenue of the top 10 IC design companies for 2Q21 reached US$29.8 billion, a 60.8% YoY increase, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. In particular, Taiwanese companies put up remarkable performances during this period, with both MediaTek and Novatek posting YoY growths of more than 95%. AMD, on the other hand, experienced a nearly 100% YoY revenue growth, the highest among the top 10.

TrendForce indicates that the ranking of the top five companies for 2Q21 remained unchanged from the previous quarter, although there were major changes in the 6th to 10th spots. More specifically, after finalizing its acquisition of Inphi, Marvell experienced a major revenue growth and leapfrogged Xilinx and Realtek in the rankings from 9th place in 1Q21 to 7th place in 2Q21.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the new IBM Power E1080 server, the first in a new family of servers based on the new IBM Power10 processor, designed specifically for hybrid cloud environments. The IBM Power10-equipped E1080 server is engineered to be one of the most secured server platforms and is designed to help clients operate a secured, frictionless hybrid cloud experience across their entire IT infrastructure.

The IBM Power E1080 server is launching at a critical time for IT. As organizations around the world continue to adapt to unpredictable changes in consumer behaviors and needs, they need a platform that can deliver their applications and insights securely where and when they need them. The IBM Institute of Business Value's 2021 CEO Study found that, of the 3,000 CEOs surveyed, 56% emphasized the need to enhance operational agility and flexibility when asked what they'll most aggressively pursue over the next two to three years.

Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd. today continued to demonstrate its vision and leadership in the wireless audio space with the introduction of Qualcomm aptX Lossless audio technology to its already extensive audio portfolio. aptX Lossless is a new capability of the proven aptX Adaptive technology and a new feature of Snapdragon Sound Technology that is designed to deliver CD quality 16-bit 44.1kHz lossless audio quality over Bluetooth wireless technology. Qualcomm Technologies has taken a systems level approach and optimized a number of core wireless connectivity and audio technologies, including aptX Adaptive, which work together to auto detect and scale-up and are designed to deliver CD lossless audio when a user is listening to a lossless music file and the RF conditions are suitable.

"At Qualcomm Technologies we're excited about the future of sound, and we're continually looking for ways to help our customers deliver new and exciting listening experiences. Lossless audio means mathematically bit-for-bit exact, with no loss of the audio file and up to now the necessary bit rate to deliver this over Bluetooth has not been available. With many leading music streaming services now offering extensive lossless music libraries, and consumer demand for lossless audio growing, we're pleased to announce this new support for CD lossless audio streaming for Bluetooth earbuds and headsets which we plan to make available to customers later this year," said James Chapman, vice president and general manager, Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.

Tachyum Inc. today announced that it has successfully executed the Linux boot process on the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) prototype of its Prodigy Universal Processor, in 2 months after taking delivery of the IO motherboard from manufacturing. This achievement proves the stability of the Prodigy emulation system and allows the company to move forward with additional testing before advancing to tape out.

Tachyum engineers were able to perform the Linux boot, execute a short user-mode program and shutdown the system on the fully functional FPGA emulation system. Not only does this successful test prove that the basic processor is stable, but interrupts, exceptions, timing, and system-mode transitions are, as well. This is a key milestone, which dramatically reduces risk, as booting and running large and complex pieces of software like Linux reliably on the Tachyum FPGA processor prototype shows that verification and hardware stability are past the most difficult turning point, and it is now obvious that verification and testing should successfully complete in the coming months. Designers are now shifting their attention to debug and verification processes, running hundreds of trillions of test cycles over the next few months, and running large scale user mode applications with compatibility testing to get the processor to production quality.

MediaTek today announced the new Dimensity 920 and Dimensity 810 chipsets, the latest additions to its Dimensity 5G family. This debut gives smartphone makers the ability to provide boosted performance, brilliant imaging and smarter displays to their customers.

Designed for powerful 5G smartphones, the Dimensity 920 balances performance, power and cost to provide an incredible mobile experience. Built using the 6nm high-performance manufacturing node, it supports intelligent displays and hardware-based 4K HDR video capture, while also offering a 9% boost in gaming performance compared to its predecessor, the Dimensity 900.

ATP Electronics, a global leader in specialized storage and memory solutions, has announced that its A600Sc Series serial ATA solid state drives (SATA SSDs) have been successfully qualified for compatibility and interoperability with Adaptec Smart Storage PCIe Gen 4 Tri-Mode SmartRAID 3200, SmartHBA 2200, and HBA 1200 Smart Storage adapters.

Designed for storage platforms in next-generation data centers, the Adaptec PCIe Gen 4 SAS/SATA/NVMe HBA and RAID tri-mode adapters deliver significantly higher performance through PCIe Gen 4 x16 CPU interfaces as well as SAS and SATA storage. The new offerings simplify integration and provide flexibility to aggregate diverse storage devices with Microchip's proven security and manageability features for the most demanding server storage applications.

A recent Google study led by Mirhoseini et al. and published in Nature details how AI can be leveraged to improve upon semiconductor design practices currently employed - and which are the result of more than 60 years of engineering and physics studies. The paper describes a trained machine-learning 'agent' that can successfully place macro blocks, one by one, into a chip layout. This agent has a brain-inspired architecture known as a deep neural network, and is trained using a paradigm called reinforcement learning - where positive changes to a design are committed to memory as possible solutions, while negative changes are discarded, effectively allowing the neural network to build a decision-tree of sorts that's optimized every step of the way.

The AI isn't applied to every stage of microchip design as of yet, but that will surely change in years to come. For now, the AI is only being employed in the chip floorplanning stage of microchip production, which is actually one of the more painstaking ones. Essentially, microchip designers have to place macro blocks on their semiconductor designs - pre-made arrangements of transistors whose placement relative to one another and to the rest of the chips' components are of seminal importance for performance and efficiency targets. Remember that electric signals have to traverse different chip components to achieve a working semiconductor, and the way these are arranged in the floorplanning stage can have tremendous impact on performance characteristics of a given chip. Image A, below, showcases the tidy design a human engineer would favor - while image B showcases the apparently chaotic nature of the AI's planning.

AMD is preparing to switch things up a bit with its upcoming AM5 platform. The new platform is said to bring significant changes to the design of the socket and the CPU package, where we will see some new design choices and decisions. For starters, all of the processors made for the AM5 platform will come in a land grid array (LGA) configuration, very similar to that of Intel. Thanks to the rendering of ExecutableFix, we got to see exactly how will the new LGA design look like. And today, we get to see more details of the AMD's upcoming Raphael processor's integrated heat spreader (IHS) design.

The IHS serves the purpose of spreading the heat away from the die and dissipating it efficiently. However, IHS designs can sometimes be very interesting. According to this rendering from ExecutableFix, AMD's upcoming Raphael design, based on Zen 4 core, will feature a unique IHS design, which can be seen below.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, announces the latest B560MX-E PRO and B560MH-E PRO motherboards. Designed to support Intel's 10th/11th Generation Intel Core Processors and professional graphics cards, the new B560 series motherboards are highly versatile. Powered by Intel's B560 chipset, these two new motherboards are efficient and robust in any use case.

PCI-e 4.0 and PCIe M.2 4.0 & M.2 Cooling, among other cutting-edge technology, adds up to a great platform, tailor-made for business or even casual use. The two new motherboards support up to 128 GB of DDR4 memory across 4 DIMM with an overclocking capability of up to 4000+(OC)MHz. Backed by BIOSTAR's proprietary Digital PWM technology, the new B560MX-E PRO, and B560MH-E PRO motherboards are safe and long-lasting, capable of supporting the best hardware with ease. Both motherboards pack all the essentials in their rear I/O panel with almost identical layouts on a Micro-ATX form factor.

Loaded with cutting-edge hardware and leading specs, the brand new GIGABYTE Z590 motherboards have made a strong impression of premium quality and bold style among the PC community. The GIGABYTE Z590 motherboards have achieved massive success since the launch, from dominating the overclocking world rankings to earning the world-renowned Red Dot design award, once again, affirming GIGABYTE's leadership in PC hardware!

Dedicated for extreme overclocking, Z590 AORUS TACHYON is a motherboard that was jointly designed by overclockers for overclockers. With this motherboard, GIGABYTE teamed up with world-class overclockers and managed to push the latest i9-11900K processor to a record-breaking 7314.41MHz. A new world record that proves yet again GIGABYTE motherboards have amazing overclocking capability and durability. Designed for PC enthusiasts, the flagship Z590 AORUS XTREME comes with a comprehensive package, featuring the highest 20-phase digital power delivery on the market, the highest memory frequency support, and a next-gen PCIe 4.0 ultra-fast data transfer, to deliver uncompromising performance in every aspect.

Today, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, Inc., has announced an update to the Tesla Model S automobile. The new car has seen a design revision for the first time since 2012, and it looks like something straight from the future. The interior has seen a complete revamp, and now it looks very futuristic and minimalistic. The specs of the car are also impressive. It can accelerate from 0-60 mph in just under two seconds. The starting price of the car is 80K USD, and it will be available in March. However, the speed and the price is not the main character found inside the car.

Tesla has announced that the updated Model S design has a new infotainment system that has a Tesla Arcade gaming platform with 10 TeraFLOPs of power. According to Mr. Musk, you will be able to play Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk on the Tesla Arcade, a new gaming platform for Tesla vehicles. Right now, it is undefined what is the exact configuration inside the new Tesla Model S car. However, it is speculated that AMD Radeon Navi 23 GPU is powering the platform. When it comes to the CPU choice, speculations are pointing out that Tesla is most likely using an Intel Atom chip paired with the aforementioned AMD Radeon GPU. All we know is that the GPU is clocked at 2.44 GHz, and possibly has 32 CUs. To play Cyberpunk and Witcher 3, you are would need to own one of these new Model S autos and the whole software stack is running locally. We are expecting to hear more about the final specifications once the car arrives in March.

The PC has never been more essential, so this year at CES 2021, HP Inc. is launching computing innovations essential to how and where people experience work and life. HP today unveiled new devices and solutions designed to power hybrid work environments and growing personal creative studios.

With half of the global workforce still working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, new use cases for the PC are emerging for both consumers and employees remaining at home. Since COVID, there has been a seven hour increase in time spent on personal PCs. In some cases, this has resulted in an increase in everyday creativity - with photography, writing stories or articles, and live streaming being the top three activities among consumers. But working and staying at home isn't always simple, with only 30% of people having a space where they can shut the door. Yet 72% of knowledge workers want a hybrid remote-office model moving forward and 48% of Gen Z are considering an expansion of their freelance business in the future, requiring solutions with enhanced collaboration and micro-mobility features.

Designing a custom processor can be a rewarding thing. You can control your ecosystem surrounding it and get massive rewards in terms of application-specific performance uplift, or lower total cost of ownership. It seems like cloud providers have figured out that at their scale, designing a custom processor can get all of the above with the right amount of effort put into it. If you remember, in 2018, Amazon has announced its Graviton processor based on Arm instruction set architecture. Today, the company has almost 10% of its AWS instances based on the Graviton 1 or 2 processors, which is a massive win for a custom design.

Following Amazon's example, the next company to join the custom server processor race is going to be Microsoft. The Redmond based giant is looking to build a custom lineup of processors that are meant to satisfy Microsoft's most demanding sector - server space. The company's Azure arm is an important part where it has big and increasing revenue. By building a custom processor, it could satisfy the market needs better while delivering higher value. The sources of Bloomberg say that Microsoft is planning to use Arm ISA, and start building independence from the x86 vendors like Intel and AMD. Just like we saw with AWS, the industry cloud giants are starting to get silicon-independent and with their scale, they can drive the ecosystem surrounding the new processors forward rapidly. The sources are also speculating that the company is building custom processors for Surface PCs, and with Windows-on-Arm (WoA) project, Microsoft has laid the groundwork in that field as well.

ASRock has today published a new product on the company website. The new ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card is the latest addition to the company's offerings. Featuring regular, reference-designed PCB found in the Made-by-AMD (MBA) cards, the ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT even features all of the same specifications as the reference model: base clock 1825 MHz, game clock 2015 MHz, boost clock 2250 MHz, memory clock 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). The card itself isn't changed one bit. Even the stickers found on it (which are usually AIB's logos) are still AMD's. The only thing that differs this card from AMD's offerings is the box that the graphics card comes in. That is the only part that features ASRock's branding. When it comes to the pricing and availability, we do not know when this card will arrive, however, assuming the reference PCB design, it will feature a reference price of $999.

Apple's silicon design team has recently launched its "fastest" CPU core ever, found inside the company's M1 processor designed for laptops and mini-PCs. Featuring an eight-core processor, where four cores are represented by low power small configurations, and four big, high-performance design cores, the M1 processor proved to be extremely fast. However, the Apple Silicon processor doesn't seem to cover anything higher than the 13-inch MacBook Pro. And that is about to change. When it comes to higher-end models like the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which provides more cooling area, it is logical that the processor for those designs is a higher performance design.

Enter the world of the Apple M1X processor. Designed for high-end laptops and the most demanding workloads, the new processor aims to create a new performance level. Featuring a 12-core CPU with eight big and four small cores, the M1X processor is going to deliver much better performance than M1. The graphics and memory configuration are currently unknown, so we have to wait and see how it will look like. The M1X is set to arrive sometime in Q1 of 2021, according to the source of the leak, so be patient and remember to take this information with a grain of salt.

PowerColor, the creator of the iconic "Red Devil" flagship designs of AMD Radeon graphics cards, has today posted a teaser for the upcoming Radeon RX 6800 XT GPUs. With their custom PowerColor Radeon RX 6800 XT Red Devil graphics card, the company is bringing consumers their best engineering and design. Today, we are getting the first glimpse of what is to come. Pictured below is a backside of the GPU, with a dark metallic backplate, illuminated by the Red Devil logo. The teased picture shows a bit more of the card as well, where we can see the printed Red Devil logo. This custom design is expected to be a triple-slot and triple-fan design. With AMD reference designs being priced at an MSRP of $649, this custom card is possibly going to be pricier. Below you can see that the Red Devil has awoken amid the wait for custom cards to arrive:

Just a few days ago AMD has announced its Radeon RX 6000 series of graphics cards based on the new RDNA 2 architecture. While AMD has given out the "Big Navi" chips to its partners to design custom boards and give users designs with better cooling and possibly higher overclocking capabilities, that doesn't seem to extend to the highest-end parts. So far, we have seen custom designs from companies like ASUS, MSI, etc., and all of them have one thing in common - they only do designs for Radeon RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT. So one would wonder where are the highest-end custom Radeon RX 6900 XT designs.

The first wave of the "custom" cards will be on November 18th, when manufacturers will release designs that are MBA (Made-by-AMD), meaning that the PCB is a reference design, just with a custom cooler installed. When it comes to the custom RX 6900 XT cards, AMD is now in talks with its partners whether to keep the biggest "Big Navi" design available for custom designs, or to keep it as AMD exclusive, with the most likely scenario being the AMD exclusivity. AMD partners could carry the models in their stores and offerings, however, the PCB and cooler design would be AMD's. The situation is yet unresolved so we have to wait and see what comes out of it and if we are getting any custom designs of the Radeon RX 6900 XT model.

AMD is preparing to launch its Radeon RX 6000 series of graphics cards codenamed "Big Navi", and it seems like we are getting more and more leaks about the upcoming cards. Set for October 28th launch, the Big Navi GPU is based on Navi 21 revision, which comes in two variants. Thanks to the sources over at Igor's Lab, Igor Wallossek has published a handful of information regarding the upcoming graphics cards release. More specifically, there are more details about the Total Graphics Power (TGP) of the cards and how it is used across the board (pun intended). To clarify, TDP (Thermal Design Power) is a measurement only used to the chip, or die of the GPU and how much thermal headroom it has, it doesn't measure the whole GPU power as there are more heat-producing components.

So the break down of the Navi 21 XT graphics card goes as follows: 235 Watts for the GPU alone, 20 Watts for Samsung's 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory, 35 Watts for voltage regulation (MOSFETs, Inductors, Caps), 15 Watts for Fans and other stuff, and 15 Watts that are used up by PCB and the losses found there. This puts the combined TGP to 320 Watts, showing just how much power is used by the non-GPU element. For custom OC AIB cards, the TGP is boosted to 355 Watts, as the GPU alone is using 270 Watts. When it comes to the Navi 21 XL GPU variant, the cards based on it are using 290 Watts of TGP, as the GPU sees a reduction to 203 Watts, and GDDR6 memory uses 17 Watts. The non-GPU components found on the board use the same amount of power.

Porsche Design and AOC have entered a partnership that combines Porsche Design's sophisticated and functional design philosophy with AOC's state-of-the-art display technology. Together they will bring exceptional gaming monitors to the market, developed for gamers looking for the highest performance while infusing their gaming stations dramatic style. The first ever Porsche Design AOC AGON gaming monitor will be launched in autumn 2020.

The Porsche Design brand is synonymous with exclusive lifestyle products, which stands for precision and perfection. The company's pure design philosophy is to optimize form and function by discovering new and innovative solutions. AOC is a subsidiary of TPV Technology, the largest LCD monitor manufacturer in the world. Thanks to its excellent, high performance and unique gaming displays from the AOC Gaming and the premium AGON lines, AOC holds the number one position in the global gaming monitor market.

Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ: RMBS), a premier silicon IP and chip provider making data faster and safer, today announced it has achieved a record 4 Gbps performance with the Rambus HBM2E memory interface solution consisting of a fully-integrated PHY and controller. Paired with the industry's fastest HBM2E DRAM from SK hynix operating at 3.6 Gbps, the solution can deliver 460 GB/s of bandwidth from a single HBM2E device. This performance meets the terabyte-scale bandwidth needs of accelerators targeting the most demanding AI/ML training and high-performance computing (HPC) applications.

"With this achievement by Rambus, designers of AI and HPC systems can now implement systems using the world's fastest HBM2E DRAM running at 3.6 Gbps from SK hynix," said Uksong Kang, vice president of product planning at SK hynix. "In July, we announced full-scale mass-production of HBM2E for state-of-the-art computing applications demanding the highest bandwidth available."

Well, introduces to yours truly at least! The Zergotech Freedom has officially been out since April 2020, but anything before March this year might as well be a parallel universe. The Sydney-based company has thus been also seeing a hard time getting the word out on their take on the ergonomic, split mechanical keyboard design. Developed in collaboration with another Sydney-based design company, Boost Design, the Zergotech Freedom has since won the Red Dot product design award and, as of the time of this post, the Australian Good Design award. These design awards specifically call out the two features that interested me as well, in the form of the patented sliding palm rests that ensure your palms are always supported when needed only, and the semi-orthogonal key layout that should theoretically lower the learning curve when going from a more-traditional staggered column setup to the parallel columnar setup usually employed in such keyboards.

The Zergotech Freedom otherwise ticks off just about every feature I expect to see from a split ergonomic keyboard in 2020, including the option of different tactile, clicky, and linear feedback mechanical switches from Kailh, multi-OS compatibility with a programmable interface to customize key mapping on the different layers of the keyboard, tilting and tenting of the keyboard halves for ergonomics, as well as the ability to go with blank keycaps out of the box if desired. What is different here, apart from those palm rests aforementioned, is the inclusion of O-rings to make the keyboard quieter, as well as the provision of a 75% keyboard for discrete key functionality. This means that the learning curve will be even lower, although the foot print occupied by the keyboard is higher than contemporary offerings. The Zergotech Freedom retails from $339 US, the pricing being another thing in common with other such keyboards, and one that I want to get my hands on to see if the pricing is justified.

Here's the first render of a finished custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, courtesy of a leak by HD Tecnologia. The ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity Holo is shown featuring a conventional axial-flow fan-heatsink design. The card is taller than standard by a good inch or so, over 2 slots thick, and appears to feature an acrylic diffuser with RGB LED elements. The RGB embellishments cover both sides of the card.

A recurring theme with "Ampere" cards appears to be thicker-than-standard backplates. On this card, the backplate looks chunky, with RGB elements all over. As for the cooling solution, it features a triple-fan setup ventilating a large heatsink, and possibly a baseplate underneath. We can see the new-generation multi-GPU connector. Variable fan-speeds for individual fans could be a new design trend with this generation. More renders of the RTX 3090 Trinity Holo surfaced, revealing three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Renders of the RTX 3080 Holo by ZOTAC also surfaced, revealing a smaller product design with just two fans, and two 8-pin PCIe power inputs. A see-through render shows that NVIDIA is planning to use two grades of the same GA102 silicon on both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, differing in core-configuration, memory bus, and clock speeds.Update Aug 30th: VideoCardz scored a family shot of possibly all of ZOTAC's upcoming custom RTX 30-series board designs.

IBM today revealed the next generation of its IBM POWER central processing unit (CPU) family: IBM POWER10. Designed to offer a platform to meet the unique needs of enterprise hybrid cloud computing, the IBM POWER10 processor uses a design focused on energy efficiency and performance in a 7 nm form factor with an expected improvement of up to 3x greater processor energy efficiency, workload capacity, and container density than the IBM POWER9 processor.

Designed over five years with hundreds of new and pending patents, the IBM POWER10 processor is an important evolution in IBM's roadmap for POWER. Systems taking advantage of IBM POWER10 are expected to be available in the second half of 2021. Some of the new processor innovations include:

Jim Keller on Lex Fridman's AI Podcast shed some light on his thoughts on the microprocessor design fundamentals as he sees them. In a hour-and-a-half-long interview, he approaches Moore's Law and its much lauded - and ubiquitously repeated - death, as well as the need for both iterative and zero-point microprocessor design requirements.

Mr. Keller approaches the usual microprocessor design loop, where a company develops a new design from scratch and then looks at the most fundamental way of adding performance. Usually, he says, easy 10% performance increments can be found by simply looking at a design and increasing execution units - increase a buffer here, increase a cache over there, put in another add processor on this part of the pipeline. However, he also speaks of how this process in itself is limiting, inasmuch as doing this often will eventually guide processor designs towards a bottleneck and the diminishing returns problem, where any more additions made to the design don't seem to increase performance - mostly just adding complexity, area and power requirements, and generally convoluting a given design.