Today in the Nintendo Switch 2 Showcase, we got to announce the big project we have been working on in the background: STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions! STARSEEKER will take players on a multiplayer voyage of discovery, cooperative expeditions, and camaraderie. Exploring deep space on the ESS Starseeker, players will need to work together with the entire crew of the space station to complete planet-wide objectives across a multitude of star systems using cutting edge technology. STARSEEKER is a multi-platform game that is slated to release in 2026.

If you would like to follow development and get your hands on BETA access as soon as it becomes available, make sure to join our Discord; using this link. To answer the biggest question that Astroneer fans: No, STARSEEKER is not a direct sequel or Astroneer 2. STARSEEKER exists within the same universe as Astroneer, but it's a very different game. That being said, Astroneer is still in active development!

Industry insiders posit that TSMC's two flagship fabrication facilities are running ahead of schedule with the development of an advanced 2 nm (N2) process node. A cross-facility mass production phase is tipped to begin later this year, which leaves room for next-level experiments. Taiwan's Economic Daily News has heard supply chain whispers about the Baoshan "P2" plant making internal preparations for a truly cutting edge 1.4 nm-class product. According to the report, unnamed sources have claimed that: "TSMC has made a major breakthrough in the advancement of its 1.4 nm process. (The company) has recently notified suppliers to prepare the necessary equipment for 1.4 nm, and plans to install a trial production 'mini-line' at P2 (Baoshan Fab 20)."

Their Hsinchu-adjacent "Fab 20" site is touted as a leading player in the prototyping of this new technology. Industry moles reckon that "1.4 nm expertise" will eventually trickle over to nearby "P3 and P4 plants" for full production phases. Allegedly, these factories were originally going to be involved in the manufacturing of 2 nm (N2) wafers. Additionally, TSMC's "Fab 25" campus could potentially play host to trial 1.4 nm activities—the Economic Daily News article proposes that four plants based in the Central Taiwan Science Park are pitching in with collaborative work. As interpreted by TrendForce, "P1" could begin "risk trial production" by 2027, followed by full-scale output within the following year.

Quantum Machines (QM), the leading provider of advanced quantum control solutions, has recently announced the NVIDIA DGX Quantum Early Customer Program, with a cohort of six leading research groups and quantum computer builders. NVIDIA DGX Quantum, a reference architecture jointly developed by NVIDIA and QM, is the first tightly integrated quantum-classical computing solution, designed to unlock new frontiers in quantum computing research and development. As quantum computers scale, their reliance on classical resources for essential operations, such as quantum error correction (QEC) and parameter drift compensation, grows exponentially. NVIDIA DGX Quantum provides access to the classical acceleration needed to support this progress, advancing the path toward practical quantum supercomputers.

NVIDIA DGX Quantum leverages OPX1000, the best-in-class, modular high-density hybrid control platform, seamlessly interfacing with NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. This solution brings accelerated computing into the heart of the quantum computing stack for the first time, achieving an ultra-low round-trip latency of less than 4 µs between quantum control and AI supercomputers - faster than any other approach. The NVIDIA DGX Quantum Early Customer Program is now underway, with selected leading academic institutions, national labs, and commercial quantum computer builders participating. These include the Engineering Quantum Systems group (equs.mit.edu) led by MIT Professor William D. Oliver, the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (IQCC), quantum hardware developer Diraq, the Quantum Circuit group (led by Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon Professor Benjamin Huard), and more.

Cyan friends and family, we have some difficult news to share today. We would like to share with you some very unfortunate news. Despite our best efforts to avoid it, Cyan has made the difficult decision to reduce our overall staff size resulting in the layoff of twelve talented staff members, roughly half the team-effective at the end of March. Industry conditions have forced us into a tricky spot where we are having to weigh the future health of our studio against the month-to-month realities of game development in 2025.

Throughout the past year, we have been ultra-transparent with the entire Cyan team about the choppy waters we find ourselves in, as well as the dangers ahead. While the news of a layoff was not a surprise to the team, it was (and is) still deeply saddening for all of us. Although we have done our best to pad the landing for those affected with severance packages, we would implore any fellow developers looking for world-class talent to reach out. For now, our number one priority is to secure financing for our next project, and to restabilize the studio. We've been around for a very long time, and have been through tough times before. Our sincere hope is to continue to be around, and to provide the types of experiences that only Cyan can deliver.

As always, we are grateful for all the love and support from our amazing player community.
Sincerely, Cyan Leadership

According to a report produced by semiconductor industry analysts at Kiwoom Securities—a South Korean financial services firm—Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is expected to complete the development of a 5 nm process at some point in 2025. Jukanlosreve summarized this projection in a recent social media post. SMIC is often considered to be China's flagship foundry business; the partially state-owned organization seems to heavily involved in the production of (rumored) next-gen Huawei Ascend 910 AI accelerators. SMIC foundry employees have reportedly struggled to break beyond a 7 nm manufacturing barrier, due to lack of readily accessible cutting-edge EUV equipment. As covered on TechPowerUp last month, leading lights within China's semiconductor industry are (allegedly) developing lithography solutions for cutting-edge 5 nm and 3 nm wafer production.

Huawei is reportedly evaluating an in-house developed laser-induced discharge plasma (LDP)-based machine, but finalized equipment will not be ready until 2026—at least for mass production purposes. Jukanlosreve's short interpretation of Kiwoom's report reads as follows: (SMIC) achieved mass production of the 7 nm (N+2) process without EUV and completed the development of the 5 nm process to support the mass production of the Huawei Ascend 910C. The cost of SMIC's 5 nm process is 40-50% higher than TSMC's, and its yield is roughly one-third." The nation's foundries are reliant on older ASML equipment, thus are unable to produce products that can compete with the advanced (volume and quality) output of "global" TSMC and Samsung chip manufacturing facilities. The fresh unveiling of SiCarrier's Color Mountain series has signalled a promising new era for China's foundry industry.

Intel GPU enthusiasts have been waiting patiently for news regarding higher-end models; ever since the launches of wallet-friendly Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" B580 and B570 graphics cards. As the cliché goes; recent silence has been deafening—we last heard about a speculative expanded lineup of B-series SKUs around late January. At the time, three mysterious "Battlemage" PCI identifiers turned up online; courtesy of Tomasz Gawroński's detective work. Opinions were split about the exact nature of these leaked "BMG" IDs; one camp envisioned Team Blue having professional variants of their existing B580 in the pipeline—presumably with generously specced pools of 24 GB VRAM onboard. A more optimistic group posited that Intel's Arc Xe2 desktop gaming family would welcome more potent "B750, B770," and (maybe) "B780" SKUs.

Yesterday, Tomasz Gawroński (aka GawroskiT) interacted with another notable source of inside track information: Jaykihn (jaykihn0). Plenty of Team Blue-related "scoops" have emerged via Jaykihn's social media channel; mostly predictions regarding upcoming desktop, mobile and enterprise CPUs. Their latest leak indicates Intel's alleged abandoning of a high-end/larger "BMG-G31" GPU die in 2024; within the third quarter of that year. Insiders have long insisted that the Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" project navigated choppy waters during development; hence the appearance of endless theories about the whole caboodle being called off. Jaykihn clarified that he believes that a "retail" launch of "BMG-G31" dGPUs will no longer take place. Many watchdogs will assume that a gap will be filled by forthcoming Arc Xe3 "Celestial" discrete GPUs. Jaykihn stated that they have no fresh insights into how that project is going.

After many rumors and supposed leaks claimed that Tencent was preparing a buyout of Ubisoft, it seems as though an alternative solution was reached, with Ubisoft today announcing that it has created a new subsidiary to house some of its biggest gaming franchises. According to the announcement, the new business entity is "based on its Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six brands," and it received initial funding from Tencent, which owns a 25% stake in the new business. Tencent's investment in the new subsidiary is to the tune of €1.16 billion.

The announcement also gives us an indication of what to expect from these game franchises going forward. For starters, Ubisoft mentions that the new subsidiary—and likely the capital injection from the Tencent investment—is part of a new business model that would allow it to invest more in increasing the quality of its creative outputs. Supposedly, it will focus on quality story-driven solo games and growing its multiplayer offerings with more frequent content updates, more social features, and introducing "free-to-play touchpoints." The acquisition comes after a series of delays marred the lead-up to the launch of the latest Assassin's Creed Shadows, which ultimately seems to have been a commercial success. In keeping with other trends, Ubisoft mentions in the press release that the move to split off these gaming IPs will also help accelerate its recent moves to make these gaming franchises multi-platform. Recently, Ubisoft has repeatedly stated that its strategy moving forward would include more multi-platform day-one launches, as opposed to console exclusives and timed exclusives.

Thank you for all your amazing feedback! It's incredible that 60,000 of you played our demo and helped us test Descenders Next. It's been incredible watching everyone play, and reading through your feedback has blown us away, so a massive thank you from all of us at RageSquid and No More Robots! We're driven to make Descenders Next the best it can be, and reading through your feedback you made some great calls. We understand you feel the game needs some tweaks to make it feel like the ultimate Descenders experience, and we agree!

You hit on a few bits in your feedback that we want to iron out before we launch into early access. The team are already on it, adding in some highly requested features like key bindings, the first-person camera and the return of Enemy, Kinetic and Arboreal, but others will be a bigger undertaking. This means getting Descenders Next ready for early access launch will take a little bit longer than we were anticipating, so we're going to give the game a little bit more time in the oven, and push the launch date back. We don't have a date for you just yet, as we're making sure that we've taken all your feedback on board and got our changes just right, but we're not going to keep you waiting too long.

CD Projekt Red, the studio behind wildly popular The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 game franchises, is once again entering the mobile gaming scene, this time in partnership with Scopely, the massive publisher that recently made news for buying Niantic, developer behind Pokémon Go. CD Projekt Red announced the partnership in its 2024 financial earnings report, although the announcement is rather vague.

According to the earnings report, CDPR and Scopely will develop "a game set within one of CD PROJEKT's IPs," and nothing more than that. Currently, a Witcher or Cyberpunk spin-off seem equally likely, although with The Witcher 4 expected to launch within the next few years, CDPR may be looking to build up hype around the Witcher universe leading up to that launch. That said, there is also reportedly a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel in the works as well, so a Cyberpunk spin-off is also a possibility. CDPR has already released a number of iOS and Android games set in The Witcher IP, including Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, Gwent: Rogue Mage, The Witcher, Monster Slayer, The Witcher Battle Arena, The Witcher Adventure Game, and Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. Meanwhile, there has been but one mobile game based on the Cyberpunk universe—Roach Race—so it would not be surprising to see a Cyberpunk 2077 spin-off come out of the partnership.

Sarcina Technology, a global semiconductor packaging specialist, is excited to announce the launch of its innovative AI platform to enable advanced AI packaging solutions that can be tailored to meet specific customer requirements. Leveraging ASE's FOCoS-CL (Fan-Out Chip-on-Substrate-Chip Last) assembly technology, this platform includes an interposer which supports chiplets using UCIe-A for die-to-die interconnects, allowing for the delivery of cost-effective, customizable, cutting-edge solutions.

Sarcina Technology is on a mission to push the boundaries of AI computing system development by providing a unique platform that enables efficient, scalable, configurable and cost-effective semiconductor packaging solutions for AI applications. As AI workloads continue to evolve, there is a need for increasingly sophisticated packaging solutions capable of supporting higher computational demands. Sarcina's novel interposer packaging technology integrates leading memory solutions with high-efficiency interconnects. Whether prioritizing cost, performance or power-efficiency, Sarcina's new AI platform can deliver.

Hello Kindred, we would like to share an update on the development and release window of Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. As Marco explained in the video (view it below), Bloodlines 2 will not be ready for release in the first half of 2025. Paradox Interactive and The Chinese Room are committed to delivering this game, and we believe that ensuring great technical quality is more important than sticking to a specific date.

The game is currently in a late development stage, and feedback from the community has been taken into account during this time. TCR is working hard on quality assurance to ensure it is stable and free of bugs that could disrupt the player experience. Bloodlines 2 will launch in October 2025 when the game meets the technical quality standards that you, our fans, rightfully expect and deserve. Please stay tuned for the game's exact launch date. We want to ensure that the content we share with you is high-quality and showcases exciting game features. With this updated release timeline, we will pause our development diaries so that the team can concentrate on refining the game.

If Nightdive Studios were a home, it would be built upon the foundation of System Shock. As one of the studio's formative projects, the Kickstarter campaign for its acclaimed System Shock remake put Nightdive on the map. But it wasn't System Shock that inspired Nightdive's creation, rather its sequel, System Shock 2. With the recently announced June 26, 2025, release date for System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster fast approaching, some have wondered: why a remaster instead of a full remake? To answer this, let's look back at Nightdive's origins, remasters as a form of preservation, and the many enhancements that make System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster a worthy tribute to a beloved classic!

Where It All Began
"Like many others, my first experience with System Shock was the sequel," begins Nightdive Founder and CEO Stephen Kick, who recounts being introduced to the game while eating lunch with his friends at school. After sharing how much he loved Half-Life, his friend Marshall suggested giving System Shock 2 a try. "The next day, he came back to the table and handed me the Big Box. That night, I installed the game and was instantly captivated. Every aspect of it congealed into an unforgettably immersive experience that still gives me chills every time I think about it."

Rapidus Corporation, a manufacturer of advanced logic semiconductors, today announced that it signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Quest Global Services PTE. Ltd. As part of the agreement, Rapidus will become Quest Global's new semiconductor foundry partner, enabling it to provide a wide range of solutions to its customers. Quest Global customers will be able to leverage Rapidus' 2 nm gate-all-around (GAA) manufacturing process to develop engineering design and manufacturing solutions that will support growing industry demand for low-power artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors. Together, the two companies will deliver transformational silicon solutions as a virtual integrated device manufacturer (IDM) model for fabless companies.

The AI semiconductor industry is in its early stages, with applications just beginning to emerge and new entrants quickly coming to market. Customers will shift from general-purpose AI semiconductors to dedicated designs that reduce power consumption and maximize performance. To support these industry requirements, customers will engage design firms focused on providing custom solutions, such as Quest Global, while also collaborating with semiconductor foundries, like Rapidus, that can manufacture dedicated semiconductors with a short turnaround time.

AMD has launched a new open-source project called, GAIA (pronounced /ˈɡaɪ.ə/), an awesome application that leverages the power of Ryzen AI Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to run private and local large language models (LLMs). In this blog, we'll dive into the features and benefits of GAIA, while introducing how you can take advantage of GAIA's open-source project to adopt into your own applications.

Introduction to GAIA
GAIA is a generative AI application designed to run local, private LLMs on Windows PCs and is optimized for AMD Ryzen AI hardware (AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Processors). This integration allows for faster, more efficient processing - i.e. lower power- while keeping your data local and secure. On Ryzen AI PCs, GAIA interacts with the NPU and iGPU to run models seamlessly by using the open-source Lemonade (LLM-Aid) SDK from ONNX TurnkeyML for LLM inference. GAIA supports a variety of local LLMs optimized to run on Ryzen AI PCs. Popular models like Llama and Phi derivatives can be tailored for different use cases, such as Q&A, summarization, and complex reasoning tasks.

At Xbox, our mission is clear: bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet. We believe that gamers should be able to play the games they want, with the people they want, anywhere they want. Central to this vision is empowering game creators to deliver exceptional content across all platforms seamlessly. Our goal is simple: to make every screen in the world an Xbox.

Since the original Xbox debuted as the first game console equipped with a built-in hard drive, this kernel of innovation has been at the core of our identity. With Xbox Live, we reshaped multiplayer gaming, establishing an industry standard for online connectivity, community building, and digital distribution. Furthering our commitment to accessibility and choice, Xbox Game Pass introduced a subscription model that redefined how players discover and engage with games, creating new opportunities for developers to connect with audiences worldwide. Since our earliest explorations in the console space, we're proud to have led the way in ensuring that hardware and services can best meet the changing needs of the gaming audience.

Hello everyone, we shared with you—earlier this month—that we wanted to tell you more about the status of our team and our future; so what better opportunity to do so as a celebration of Metro's 15th anniversary. In honor of the incredible 15 years of Metro, we've created a video to celebrate our journey throughout the tunnels of the metro system, made possible by our devoted community—always supporting us along the way. This is our thanks to you, the players.

Metro turns 15
The legacy and success of Metro over the past decade and a half is something we at 4A Games are incredibly proud of. It actually started 20 years ago when 4A Games was founded, and inspired by Dmitry Glukhovsky's then online novel, we began to work on our inaugural title of the same name, Metro 2033. Our partnership has continued, and he is working with us on our next Metro title, but more on that later. Many of the development team here at 4A Games have seen Metro evolve over the past 15 years. It is amazing to see the advancement from the pages of a novel, into a fully-realized game, through ever-improving sequels, and now into a global franchise with millions of players. We have loved being able to grow and foster an incredible community which has gone from strength to strength along with us. What we are achieving now was a far distant dream all those many years ago, and we are lucky to have so many dedicated, talented developers who are as passionate about the series as you, the players.

Razer, the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers, today unveiled WYVRN, a groundbreaking developer platform meticulously designed to empower game creators to redefine the development process and deliver the best and most immersive gaming experiences.

Built for game developers, it delivers futuristic directional and realistic tactile sensations, Razer's customizable cutting-edge AI capabilities, Sensa HD Haptics immersive experiences, vibrant RGB Chroma lighting effects to match in-game events, and leverage THX Spatial Audio+ to immerse gamers in a 3D soundscape. WYVRN will help create standout AI-powered games that captivate players by transforming titles and standing out in the competitive gaming industry. This is also enhanced by seamless Unreal Engine integration, enabling developers to build products and experiences that will define the future of AI gaming with a single SDK.

The wait is nearly over! We're thrilled to announce that the highly anticipated remaster of Croc Legend of the Gobbos is launching April 2, 2025! Wishlists are open for PC on GOG.com—with Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox digital storefronts following soon. Croc's back and he's still got the moves! Croc Legend of the Gobbos is the heartwarming journey of an endearing, humble little crocodile equipped with only his iconic backpack and a wiggly butt as he platforms his way across a series of unique worlds by running, jumping, climbing, swimming and tail spinning on his quest to rescue his adopted family of Gobbos from the grasp of the evil sorcerer Baron Dante and his impish Dantini hordes.

With its broad appeal and groundbreaking creativity, the original game quickly became a multi-million selling platforming classic, and while the Croc Legend of the Gobbos remaster delivers an authentic gameplay experience that transports players back to the golden age of gaming, it also introduces a roster of modern updates including enhanced HD graphics, modern control mechanics with an updated camera, and retro video modes to recreate the gaming experience that charmed us in the 1990s.

Large language models (LLMs) love large quantities of memory—so much so, in fact, that AI enthusiasts are turning to multi-GPU setups to make even more VRAM available for their AI apps. But since many current LLMs are extremely large, even this approach has its limits. At times, the GPU will decide to make use of CPU processing power for this data, and when it does, the performance of your CPU cache and DRAM comes into play. All this means that when it comes to the performance of AI applications, it's not just the GPU that matters, but the entire pathway that connects the GPU to the CPU to the I/O die to the DRAM modules. It stands to reason, then, that there are opportunities to boost AI performance by optimizing these elements.

That's exactly what we've found as we've spent time in our R&D labs with the latest AMD Ryzen CPUs. AMD just launched two new Ryzen CPUs with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D, pushing the series into new performance territory. After testing a wide range of optimizations in a variety of workloads, we uncovered a range of settings that offer tangible benefits for AI enthusiasts. Now, we're ready to share these optimizations with you through a new BIOS feature: AI Cache Boost. Available through an ASUS AMD 800 Series motherboard and our most recent firmware update, AI Cache Boost can accelerate performance up to 12.75% when you're working with massive LLMs.

Samsung Foundry could abandon its 1.4 nm (SF1.4) process node initially targeted for 2027 production, according to industry leaker @Jukanlosreve. This decision comes amid ongoing yield problems with the company's 3 nm SF3 node and follows the shutdown of underutilized 5 nm and 7 nm production lines. This could significantly impact Samsung's technology roadmap, which had positioned SF1.4 alongside automotive-focused SF2A and SF2Z nodes. According to Korea Economic Daily data, the foundry division's market share has fallen to 8.2% compared to TSMC's 67.1%. Samsung continues the development of Exynos 2600 on the SF2 node and maintains orders from Japan's Preferred Networks but has failed to attract major clients beyond Chinese firms, avoiding US sanctions. Internal restructuring appears imminent, with reports suggesting the Exynos design team may move under the Mobile Experience division.

While Samsung may prioritize improving yields on existing nodes rather than pursuing SF1.4, this approach risks competitive disadvantages in high-performance computing and AI markets. The SF2Z node with Backside Power Delivery Network (BPDN) technology remains under development, though its commercial viability depends on resolving broader manufacturing issues. Samsung's retreat would further fall behind advanced node manufacturing, competing with TSMC and potentially Intel, raising questions about competition in leading-edge semiconductor fabrication. The company's decisions in the coming months will determine whether it can regain manufacturing credibility or face production of trailing-edge semiconductor nodes. Manufacturing advanced silicon remains a challenge for everyone except TSMC.

What's better than first-person sprayer PowerWash Simulator? A second PowerWash Simulator! That's right, we're thrilled to finally be able to talk about the next soap-erior sequel in our beloved franchise, PowerWash Simulator 2, coming in 2025 to Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and Epic Games Store. Available to wish list now on your platform of choice. Those of you who are eagle-eyed Game Pass fans may have enjoyed the original already, but for those unfamiliar with the concept, let me give you the rinse. PowerWash Simulator is what it says on the tin: find yourself in a mess, clean it up, build your business, become deeply immersed in soothing satisfaction, and indulge in some fascinating lore, including a mayor, a cat and… aliens?

That sounds random, but this game has been so beloved (by over 17 million of you!) that we wanted to give you more. Design Director Dan Chequer tells us a little more about why a sequel was the natural next step. "PowerWash Simulator has exceeded our expectations by taking off in the incredible way it has. Although we've added a huge amount of incredible content to the original game, we built and designed the game over four years ago when we never expected it to become so large. As a result, it has some technological limitations keeping us from adding new and interesting features. So, it made sense to start discussing where we could go from here."

Focus Entertainment Publishing, a subsidiary of PULLUP Entertainment Group, Games Workshop, and Saber Interactive are proud to announce the development of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3, the next instalment in the legendary franchise set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Space Marine 2 continues to captivate players, and this new edition promises an even more immersive experience, staying true to the Warhammer 40,000 universe, with intense, brutal, and spectacular gameplay.

Dear Spectre Fans, it's been two weeks since we launched Spectre Divide Season 1: Flashpoint. We're incredibly grateful for the positivity and support that you've shown over that short time. Unfortunately, the Season 1 launch hasn't achieved the level of success we needed to sustain the game and keep Mountaintop afloat. We were optimistic about the first week. We've had ~400,000 players play, with a peak concurrent player count of ~10,000 across all platforms. But as time has gone on, we haven't seen enough active players and incoming revenue to cover the day-to-day costs of Spectre and the studio. Since the PC launch, we stretched our remaining capital as far as we could, but at this point, we're out of funding to support the game. This means Mountaintop will be closing its doors at the end of this week.

We expect to take Spectre offline within the next 30 days, but we plan on disabling new purchases and refunding money spent since Season 1 launch via the platforms. We'll be following up with more information on this soon. We pursued every avenue to keep going, including finding a publisher, additional investment, and/or an acquisition. In the end, we weren't able to make it work. The industry is in a tough spot right now. This is a painful update to share. We love Spectre, and we're incredibly proud of what we built with this community. From the entire team at Mountaintop, I want to thank the Spectre community for all your support these past few years. We've loved every minute, and we're sincerely going to miss you. Special thanks to our incredible investors too, without which Spectre wouldn't have been possible.

Intel's 18A node, often referred to as Intel's silver lining, has just produced tangible result. In a LinkedIn post of Intel's engineering manager Pankaj Marria, we learn that Intel's 18A node is now being produced in initial wafer lots for testing and evaluation by Intel's customers. This means that Intel's 18A node PDK is officially in version 1.0, and customers are already using that PDK for testing of custom chips. "The Eagle has landed," noted the post, referring to the node development as a major milestone for a node developed and made in US. There were even posters with the same slogans being brought up, meaning that possible customers are also happy with inital test runs. With high-volume manufacturing slated for second half of 2025, we could even see 18A HVM going before initial targets.

Intel's leadership transition to CEO Lip-Bu Tan has overlapped with a recalibration of corporate messaging around the foundry business. Tan's internal communication explicitly frames Intel's strategy as a dual-track approach that maintains both product development and foundry services under unified corporate governance. This position counters speculation regarding potential foundry spinoff scenarios, though it doesn't categorically exclude future structural changes. Previous industry rumors had outlined potential joint venture configurations involving TSMC and major US semiconductor firms, including AMD, Broadcom, and NVIDIA, taking equity positions in a separate foundry entity. While such arrangements remain theoretically viable, Tan's emphasis on fab strategic importance aligns with predecessor Pat Gelsinger's manufacturing-centric vision, suggesting continuity in Intel's Foundry and Product model despite market pressure.

At Embedded World 2025, Congatec unveiled an acetone-based heat pipe cooling solution explicitly engineered for sub-zero operating environments. The system addresses thermal management challenges in extreme cold conditions where traditional cooling mechanisms risk freezing and component damage. Yes, even at sub-zero environments the CPU still needs a dissipation medium as its heat density is still a problem. Operating reliably at temperatures as low as -40°C, the technology utilizes acetone's -95°C freezing point to maintain thermal transfer functionality in arctic environments. The solution resolves a fundamental limitation of water-based systems, which become inoperable at their 0°C freezing threshold. Despite water's superior latent heat of vaporization (2,260 J/g), its physical properties render it unsuitable for extreme cold applications.

Acetone's thermal properties prevent ice formation and reduce condensation risks, creating a stable heat transfer mechanism for polar research, high-altitude infrastructure, cold storage, and industrial automation in harsh climates. Imagine an edge server operating in the North Pole, needing to collect and process data locally before getting it to the research/scientist team. The solution integrates directly with Congatec's Computer-on-Module (COM) portfolio, including COMe, COM-HPC, and COM-HPC mini designs, eliminating the need for custom cooling system development. An optional heat pipe adapter will be available for specialized implementations. The company clarified that acetone-based cooling is purpose-built exclusively for extreme cold environments rather than general applications, as water remains superior for conventional temperature ranges due to its greater heat dissipation capacity, lower cost, and widespread availability.