Samsung is introducing a slew of new features for its recent QLED TV sets to create "more immersive and responsive gaming sessions". Samsung is bringing adaptive sync and HDMI 2.1 to its latest QLED sets which will bring significant gaming improvements when paired with a high-end PC or next-generation console. HDMI 2.1 enables 4K 120Hz support with next-generation graphics cards and consoles, along with FreeSync Premium to benefit existing systems with stuttering and tearing reductions. Samsung is also advertising low input lag of 9.8 ms, automatic game mode with motion blur minimization, Dynamic Black EQ to improve object clarity in dark scenes, and Multi-View PiP capability.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has received UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation of Gold level and above for all of its global semiconductor operation sites. This signifies that Samsung's semiconductor sites in South Korea, US and China meet the requirement of more than 95-percent waste diversion through methods that do not involve thermal processing. In particular, the Samsung DSR building in Hwaseong, Korea, home to most of its local semiconductor R&D staff, is validated for Zero Waste to Landfill at the Platinum level for reaching 100-percent waste diversion.

"The Zero Waste to Landfill Gold validation is testament to the care and effort by our employees around the world to protect the environment," said Chanhoon Park, executive vice president of global infrastructure technology at Samsung Electronics. "Eco-friendly operations are now a must for any business and we will continue to ensure sustainable growth that is mindful of the environment that we live and operate in."

For users that want to fully migrate their HDD storage towards a speedier SSD-option, Samsung's QVO series has usually been one of the more interesting prospects. Built solely with the intention of offering some of the best performance/$ metrics in the SSD storage space, the QVO series keeps Samsung's quality track record when it comes to NAND production but aims to reduce pricing as much as possible.

Amazon has now listed an 8 TB, consumer-available Samsung 870 QVO SSD. This SSD won't win any speed contests: it's built on the 2.5" form-factor and features a SATA III interface, but then again, this isn't meant to be used as users' fastest storage solution - it's meant to replace high-capacity HDDs while offering a notable performance improvement. It's very likely the QVO 870 is using Samsung's QLC (quad level cell) 3D V-NAND tech - which is still fine for most use-cases where you'll be mostly reading from the disc (and honestly, it's likely that most users would never even see performance degradation over the lifetime of the SSD, should they have a typical usage scenario). The 8 TB Samsung 870 QVO is currently listed on Amazon for a relatively steep $899.99 - which still amounts to some 11 cents per GB, so not a bad deal at all. Remember that pricing is currently slightly on the high side following the COVID-19 pandemic, though.

RosetEra user 12Danny123 has discovered a new Samsung page dedicated to Samsung Access for TV, a subscription rental service that includes reference to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Microsoft and Samsung have existing partnerships in the game streaming arena so its not much of a stretch to see them bring Xbox Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to Samsung's TVs sometime in the future.

The page includes a snippet stating "with Samsung Access, you get your choice of a streaming or gaming service (up to a $120 value), included at no additional cost. Choose from Showtime, Sling TV, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, YouTube Music Premium, YouTube Premium, or YouTube TV." This isn't the first time a company has included game streaming directly from their TV, Sony previously enabled Playstation Now support on select Bravia televisions however this was later discontinued. Take all this information with a grain of salt as this may be just a code for use on Xbox or PC and not an indication of future support.

When AMD scored a double hit by winning the Xbox and the PlayStation console projects the number of GPUs the company shipped from 2013 on took a jump. As their APU sales increased (partially due to the console wins) their overall sales increased even more. Likewise, as AMD introduced the Zen CPU, associated GPU sales also increased. The net result is since 2013 AMD has shipped over a half-billion GPUs either integrated or discrete.

When compared to Intel (integrated only) or NVIDIA (discrete only) both companies beat AMD in their respective classes, but overall AMD beats them both. Fun with numbers. The cumulative distribution of GPUs by platform is shown in the following chart. Next year AMD will be able to add Samsung smartphones to its list of platforms, and those numbers are going to huge.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced plans to expand its NAND flash production capacity in Pyeongtaek, Korea, reinforcing the company's ability to meet demands from emerging technologies. Construction, which began this May, will pave the way for mass production of Samsung's cutting-edge V-NAND memory in the second half of 2021.

"The new investment reaffirms our commitment to sustain undisputed leadership in memory technologies, even in uncertain times," said Cheol Choi, executive vice president of Memory Global Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "We will continue to serve the market with the most optimized solutions available, while contributing to growth of the overall IT industry and the economy in general."

Samsung Electronics today announced the availability of Galaxy Book S with Intel processor, the latest addition to its leading computing device family. To ensure consumers have access to a wide range of computing devices to best fit their lifestyle, Samsung introduces the Galaxy Book S powered by the new dynamic Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology. Galaxy Book S joins other previously announced premium mobile laptops, designed to offer a seamless and connected experience across devices. Galaxy Book S is built for the next generation of users who are looking for a computing device that provides outstanding productivity, wide-ranging connectivity, enhanced mobility and expansive continuity across devices and operating systems to help them get more done in less time.

"The way we work has shifted and it's important we have computing devices that can adapt to this new working style. Users utilize multiple devices throughout their day to accomplish tasks, and demand that those devices provide them with enough flexibility to remain on the move and available," said Woncheol Chai, SVP and Head of Product Planning Team, Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics. "With our new computing devices like the Galaxy Book S, we are providing users with an exciting opportunity to be productive, efficient and connected."

Samsung Electronics, the global gaming monitor market leader today announced its official partnership with global esports organization, T1 Entertainment & Sports (T1). With this partnership, all teams and players located at the T1 headquarters training facility in Seoul will practice using Samsung's latest curved gaming monitors, the Odyssey G9 and G7. The Odyssey portfolio delivers a powerful combination of high-performance 1000R curvature, QLED picture quality, rapid 1 ms response time and 240Hz refresh rate for the most immersive gaming experience.

"We are proud to partner with T1, the leader in professional esports, helping them in their continued success and global growth as official display partner," said Hyesung Ha, Senior Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. "Our line-up of Odyssey monitors provides the latest in gaming monitor technology with lightning-fast speed, comfortable curvature and a sleek design, offering professional esports gamers the competitive edge they need to make every split second count."

According to the latest investigations by the DRAMeXchange research division of TrendForce, NAND Flash bit shipment in 1Q20 was relatively on par with 4Q19. The overall ASP of NAND Flash products also climbed during the period. As a result, the global NAND Flash revenue for the quarter went up by 8.3% QoQ to US$13.6 billion.

In 1Q20, demand for enterprise SSDs exceeded supply because cloud service providers' procurement for data centers had been growing progressively since 4Q19. Also, inventories of NAND Flash suppliers mostly returned to normal during the period. Consequently, most NAND Flash products for the major applications experienced a rise in contract prices. As for the impact of COVID-19 during the Lunar New Year, TrendForce's investigations at the time found that the server supply chain managed to make a better recovery than the supply chains for notebook computers and smartphones. The impact of the outbreak on the storage demand from the cloud services sector was thus quite limited. On the other hand, the production of notebooks and smartphones was affected by logistical problems and breakage in the component supply chain. Because of this, notebook and smartphone manufacturers have gradually resumed production since March.

One of the first Intel "Lakefield" heterogenous processor-powered devices, a Samsung Galaxy Book S model, is listed by Samsung on its Canadian online store. The Galaxy Book series typically consists of Arm-powered clamshell/convertible notebooks that use Windows 10 (Arm version). The device in question is a Galaxy Book S 13.3-inch notebook bearing model number NP767XCM-K01CA, and comes in two color trims - "Mercury Gray" and "Earthy Gold."

Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-L16G7 "Lakefield" heterogenous processor that has four "Tremont" low-power cores, and a "Sunny Cove" high-performance cores, in an arrangement rivaling Arm big.LITTLE, the first of many such chips from the company, as it taps into new technologies such as heterogenous cores and advanced Foveros chip packaging to design its future processors. The notebook offers Full HD resolution, 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB or 512 GB of solid-state NVMe storage, 802.11ax 2x2 WLAN, and a 42 Wh battery, possibly with double-digit hour battery life. All of this goes into a 6.2 mm (folded) device weighing under a kilogram.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced plans to boost its foundry capacity at the company's new production line in Pyeongtaek, Korea, to meet growing global demand for cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet (EUV) solutions.

The new foundry line, which will focus on EUV-based 5 nanometer (nm) and below process technology, has just commenced construction this month and is expected to be in full operation in the second half of 2021. It will play a pivotal role as Samsung aims to expand the use of state-of-the-art process technologies across a myriad of current and next generation applications, including 5G, high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Following the release of Samsung's T7 Touch portable SSD in January, the T7 is now available. Samsung T7 combines sleek, compact design with the fastest transfer speeds currently available based on the USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard. The business card-sized portable SSD can be slipped into nearly any pocket and holds up to 2 TB of data. Samsung T7 is the perfect everyday storage companion for those looking to save video and photo content from a variety of USB-compatible devices. The T7 saves time with incredibly fast transfer speeds, and gives users peace of mind with data security features.

The T7 offers a significant speed upgrade over previous storage solutions. With a read speed of 1,050 MB/s and a write speed of 1,000 MB/s, it is approximately twice as fast as its predecessor, the T5, and up to 9.5 times faster than external hard disk drives. Moreover, the device can reach its maximum speed when used with the NVMe interface. With these speeds, Samsung T7 can help improve daily workflow and save valuable time for digital creative professionals.

Samsung announced today in an OCP Virtual Summit keynote that it has developed a solid state drive (PM9A3 SSD) with a SNIA-based E1.S form factor and full PCIe Gen 4 support to harness the production efficiencies of the company's sixth-generation (1xx-layer), three-bit V-NAND. At the same time, the company said that it has introduced a comprehensive reference design for its E1.S-based storage system.

The keynote, in addition to announcing the PM9A3, highlighted a new approach to open source multi-industry storage collaboration that spotlighted the development of an open-source platform (OSP) fundamentally tied to cloud-scale infrastructure deployments. It was presented by Jongyoul Lee, senior vice president of Samsung's Memory Software Development Team at the Open Compute Project Virtual Global Summit.

A DigiTimes premium report, interpreted by Chiakokhua, aka Retired Engineer, chronicling NVIDIA's move to contract TSMC for 7 nm and 5 nm EUV nodes for GPU manufacturing, made a startling revelation about NVIDIA's recent foundry diversification moves. Back in July 2019, a leading Korean publication confirmed NVIDIA's decision to contract Samsung for its next-generation GPU manufacturing. This was a week before AMD announced its first new-generation 7 nm products built for the TSMC N7 node, "Navi" and "Zen 2." The DigiTimes report reveals that NVIDIA underestimated the efficiency gains AMD would yield from TSMC N7.

With NVIDIA's bonhomie with Samsung underway, and Apple transitioning to TSMC N5, AMD moved in to quickly grab 7 nm-class foundry allocation and gained prominence with the Taiwanese foundry. The report also calls out a possible strategic error on NVIDIA's part. Upon realizing the efficiency gains AMD managed, NVIDIA decided to bet on TSMC again (apparently without withdrawing from its partnership with Samsung), only to find that AMD had secured a big chunk of its nodal allocation needed to support its growth in the x86 processor and discrete GPU markets. NVIDIA has hence decided to leapfrog AMD by adapting its next-generation graphics architectures to TSMC's EUV nodes, namely the N7+ and N5. The report also speaks of NVIDIA using its Samsung foundry allocation as a bargaining chip in price negotiations with TSMC, but with limited success as TSMC established its 7 nm-class industry leadership. As it stands now, NVIDIA may manufacture its 7 nm-class and 5 nm-class GPUs on both TSMC and Samsung.

Samsung and AMD announced last year their strategic partnership to bring AMD RDNA GPUs to the Samsung mobile chips and use that as the only GPU going forward. And now, some performance numbers are going around about the new RDNA smartphone GPU that is compared to Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU. Thanks to the South Korean technology forum "Clien", they have obtained some alleged performance results of new GPU in the GFXBench benchmark. The baseline in these tests is the Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU, which scored 123 FPS in Manhattan 3.1 test, 53 FPS in Aztec Normal, and 20 FPS in Aztec High.

The welcome surprise here is the new RDNA GPU Samsung is pursuing. It has scored an amazing 181 FPS in Manhattan 3.1 test (up 47% from Adreno 650), 138 FPS in Aztec Normal (up almost 200% from Adreno 650), and 58 FPS in Aztec High which is 190% higher compared to Adreno 650. This performance results could be very true, as the Samsung and AMD collaboration should give first results in 2021 when the competition will be better, and they need to prepare for that. You always start designing a processor for next-generation workloads and performance if you want to be competitive by the time you release a product.

Samsung in its Q1-2020 financials release disclosed that the company will commence mass production of chips on its cutting-edge 5 nanometer EUV silicon fabrication process within Q2-2020 (that's before July 2020). This is big, as it lends credence to rumors of NVIDIA secretly developing 5 nm GPUs. Suddenly, it's possible that "Ampere," if not "Hopper," is 5 nm EUV-based, as NVIDIA has chosen Samsung to be its foundry partner for next-generation GPUs.

"In the second quarter, the Company aims to expand EUV leadership, beginning with the start of mass production of 5 nm products, while closely monitoring the uncertain market situation caused by COVID-19," the company states in the release. Samsung also announced that following commencement of mass production on 5 nm, further development of GAAFET (gate all-around FET) 3 nanometer silicon fabrication process will get underway. The company appears to be erring on the side of caution with its forward-looking statements, though. Much of what Samsung does will be dictated by the impact of COVID-19 on the supply chain and market.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020. Total revenue was KRW 55.33 trillion, a decrease of 7.6% from the previous quarter mainly due to weak seasonality for the Company's display business and Consumer Electronics Division and partially due to effects of COVID-19. From a year earlier, revenue rose 5.6% due to increasing demand for server and mobile components.

Operating profit was lower by KRW 0.7 trillion quarter-on-quarter to KRW 6.45 trillion, affected by the same factors that weighed on revenue with a corresponding decrease in operating margin, even though memory earnings were higher. Compared with a year earlier, operating profit increased by KRW 0.2 trillion with an improved product mix in the mobile business and additional diversification of the Company's customer base in mobile OLED.

In the quarter, foreign exchange movements had little impact on the overall operating profit as the positive effects from a stronger U.S. dollar and euro against the won - felt mainly in the component business - were offset by weakness in currencies in major emerging markets.

ORIGIN PC is proud to announce the availability of a custom ORIGIN PC desktop powered by AMD Ryzen inside a Tesla Model S for kids called the LUDICROUS PC. Originally built for Marques Brownlee, also known as MKBHD, and inspired by his Tesla Model S, the LUDICROUS PC is a powerful gaming desktop featuring liquid cooling and is capable of being driven just like a normal Radio Flyer Tesla Model S. The LUDICROUS PC is available now on ORIGINPC.com with options to select the color and rims for the vehicle.

Designed by the ORIGIN PC team, the LUDICROUS PC is a special build that required some challenges to overcome such as airflow, fitting the PC parts inside the Tesla Model S for kids, and still maintaining the drivability of the car. The first LUDICROUS PC was engineered, built, and shipped to MKBHD late 2019 for the opening of his new studio in 2020. The LUDICROUS PC features working headlights, a horn, the capability of being driven forwards and backwards, and a remote that can turn the PC on.

According to the report of DigiTimes, which talked about TSMC's 5 nm silicon manufacturing node, they have reported that NVIDIA is also going to be a customer for it and they could use it in the near future. And that is very interesting information, knowing that these chips will not go in the next generation of GPUs. Why is that? Because we know that NVIDIA will utilize both TSMC and Samsung for their 7 nm manufacturing nodes for its next-generation Ampere GPUs that will end up in designs like GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 graphics cards. These designs are not what NVIDIA needs 5 nm for.

Being that NVIDIA already has a product in its pipeline that will satisfy the demand for the high-performance graphics market, maybe they are planning something that will end up being a surprise to everyone. No one knows what it is, however, the speculation (which you should take with a huge grain of salt) would be that NVIDIA is updating its Tegra SoC with the latest node. That Tegra SoC could be used in a range of mobile devices, like the Nintendo Switch, so could NVIDIA be preparing a new chip for Nintendo Switch 2?

Samsung Electronics is reportedly developing its 7th generation V-NAND memory with ultra-high 3D stacking technology. The first model will feature at least 160 layers, subsequent models will feature more. In early signs of the company not wanting to yield the technological initiative to China's YMTC, the first 160-layer V-NAND by Samsung is slated to come out roughly around the time YMTC's 128-layer 3D NAND flash hits mass production, towards the end of 2020.

At the heart of the ultra-high 3D stack is Samsung's proprietary Double Stack technology. The double-stack technology creates electron holes at two separate times for current to go through circuits. The current-generation single-stack chips creates these holes once throughout the stack per cycle. The 160-layer NAND flash is expected to herald a 67% increase in densities per package over the 96-layer chips in the market. Densities could also be increased by other means such as switching to newer semiconductor fabrication nodes, and PLC (5 bits per cell), which is currently being developed by KIOXIA.

Intel has regained its position of semiconductor leader by revenue from Samsung for the 2019 period. Intel had been trailing Samsung for the last 2 years but after a decline in DRAM demand Intel reclaimed the leading position. The overall semiconductor market saw revenue drops of 12% in 2019 which hit other companies worse than Intel.

Andrew Norwood, research VP at Gartner says: "Oversupply in the DRAM market helped push the overall memory market down 32.7% 2019. The memory market accounted for 26.1% of semiconductor sales in 2019 and was the worst-performing device segment,". Samsung being a large DRAM supplier was hit hard by this compared to Intel with limited memory production. Gartner the research firm has also cut its global semiconductor market outlook this year to a 0.9% dip from the 12.5% growth estimated at the end of 2019 due to the effects of COVID-19.

ASUS is giving finishing touches to the launch of a new Zenbook 14 (UX434IQ) model with a combination of a Ryzen 4000 "Renoir" processor and NVIDIA's entry-level GeForce MX350 discrete graphics. Although never pictured and with no confirmation of whether it gets the swanky ScreenPad (a color touchscreen that works like the notebook's trackpad); the combine surfaced in a Futuremark database submission.

The Zenbook 14 (UX434IQ) combines an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U (8-core/8-thread) processor with NVIDIA GeForce MX350 discrete graphics, and more interestingly, 16 GB of LPDDR4x-4266 memory. The "Pascal" based MX350 graphics features 640 CUDA cores, and a 64-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory. It's marketed to offer a 2.5x performance uplift against an Intel Gen 9.5 iGPU, but we're not sure if it makes even a 1.5x uplift over the iGPU of the 4700U (448 "Vega" stream processors, 1600 MHz engine clock, plenty of memory bandwidth at its disposal thanks to LPDDR4x). The notebook also packs a decent Samsung PM981 1 TB NVMe SSD.

Leading PC manufacturer GIGABYTE officially launches today, on April 16, a new generation of laptops for its AERO series, a line of creator laptops that proudly received the 2020 Red Dot Design Award. The new generation laptops come with 10th Gen Intel Core H-series processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 SUPER graphics, complete with a free Adobe Creative Cloud 3-month subscription a giveaway that is worth US$238.47, offered by major GPU manufacturer NVIDIA. Today, on April 16, GIGABYTE officially launches a new generation of AERO series creator laptops fitted with 10th Gen Intel Core H-series processors: 15-inch AERO 15 OLED with 4K UHD display; 17-inch AERO 17 HDR; 15-inch AERO 15 with FHD 144Hz; and 17-inch AERO 17 with FHD 144Hz.

The world's first Microsoft Azure AI notebooks, GIGABYTE's AERO series laptops are equipped with artificial intelligence that detects the use of applications and collects configuration data of processors, graphics, and fans. Learning from the Azure cloud-based database, the AI automatically optimizes the laptop's configuration to offer a stable and comfortable work environment for creators, thus eliminating the need for manual configurations. With Intel Core i9-10980HK processors, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER graphics cards, and improved AI, the new laptops receive a significant boost in performance, executing 3D rendering on Cinema 4D 30% faster than the previous generation could.

Huawei's subsidiary, HiSilicon, which designs the processors used in Huawei's smartphones and telecommunications equipment, has reportedly moved its silicon orders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), according to DigiTimes. Why Huawei decided to do is move all of the 14 nm orders from Taiwanese foundry to China's largest silicon manufacturing fab, is to give itself peace of mind if the plan of the US Government goes through to stop TSMC from supplying Huawei. At least for the mid-tier chips built using 14 nm node, Huawei would gain some peace as a Chinese fab is a safer choice given the current political situation.

When it comes to the high-end SoCs built on 7 nm, and 5 nm in the future, it is is still uncertain how will Huawei behave in this situation, meaning that if US cuts off TSMC's supply to Huawei, they will be forced to use SMIC's 7 nm-class N+1 node instead of anything from TSMC. Another option would be Samsung, but it is a question will Huawei put itself in risk to be dependant on another foreign company. The lack of 14 nm orders from Huawei will not be reflecting much on TSMC, because whenever someone decides to cut orders, another company takes up the manufacturing capactiy. For example, when Huawei cut its 5 nm orders, Apple absorbed by ordering more capacity. When Huawei also cut 7 nm orders, AMD and other big customers decided to order more, making the situation feel like there is a real fight for TSMC's capacity.

Google is planning to take the Apple route in designing its own SoCs for its hardware. The company kicked off "Project Whitechapel," an initiative with technical assistance from Samsung (and possibly silicon-fabrication), to design Arm-based SoCs with specialized hardware to power Google's machine-learning tech. The first such chip will be 8-core Arm SoCs powering next-generation Pixel premium smartphones, but in the future, Google could use Arm-based SoCs to power Chromebooks.

Google has, in the past, collaborated with Intel and Qualcomm to put specialized hardware on smartphone SoCs, although the resulting chips would still be supplied by the two. "Project Whitechapel" would see Google play a dominant role in the SoC's design, with Samsung only providing technical inputs. It wouldn't be far-fetched to predict Google using lightweight variants of the SoC on its own IoT hardware, such as Chromecast and Home smart-speakers.