Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license
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This Week
Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027
Starting in 2027, smartphone batteries will once again be replaceable in the EU. Learn all about the new regulation and what this means for users.
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Aurora and Hirschbach expand partnership for 500 Aurora Driver-powered trucks
Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ: AUR) announced Thursday an expansion of its strategic partnership with Hirschbach Motor Lines. This includes plans for the Iowa-based refrigerated truckload carrier to own 500 autonomous trucks powered by Aurora’s virtual driver, called the Aurora Driver. Deliveries of these Aurora Driver-powered driverless trucks are expected to begin in 2027. A MOU and the path to 500 Autonomous Trucks The first step involves a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The MOU outlines the ...
TSMC Earnings, New N3 Fabs, The Nvidia Ramp
TSMC's earnings suggest that the company's leadership is not truly bought into the AI growth story.
Is the Future “AWS for Everything”?
A theme running through my book is the idea that efficiency improvements, and the various methods for making products cheaper over time, have historically been dependent on some degree of repetition, on running your production process over and over again. Higher production volume means larger, more efficient factories. It means more opportunities to use dedicated, high-speed, continuous process production equipment, or to implement efficiency-improving methods like Design for Manufacturing or St...
Interviewing Intel's Chief Architect of x86 Cores at Intel Tech Tour 2025
Hello you fine Internet folks, I was at Intel Tech Tour this year where Intel talked about their upcoming Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest CPUs. I had a chance to sit down with Stephen Robinson, Lead Architect for x86 Cores at Intel, and talk about lntel’s approach to Cougar Cove and Darkmont and what changed from the prior generations.Hope y’all enjoy!The transcript has been edited for readability and conciseness.George Cozma: Hello you fine Internet folks! We’re here in Phoenix, Arizona at I...
2026 AI & Semiconductor Outlook
Happy New Year! Last year was incredible for semiconductors — and AI stocks in particular — so as tradition demands, here’s the annual outlook. Fair warning: outlooks are hard. Things change constantly, and my views will change with them.But first, let’s see who actually won.2025 Year Performance ReviewLet’s ask ourselves who won this year, and the answers are a bit surprising. If I had to put the stories of 2025 in semiconductors into a single cohesive narrative, it would be: AI spending steppe...
Lessons from History: The Great Railroad Buildout
It’s time for another history lesson—this one reaches further back than my usual fare. I spent months in books and unusual places on the internet for this piece, and I think I find the parallels to today’s AI buildout remarkable. This is the story of the railroad capital cycle: how America financed, built, overbought, and eventually consolidated the most transformative infrastructure of the 19th century. Early American History of Railroads: The Civil War and Land GrantsWhere does a cycle begin? ...
Lagging Edge will have a Permanent Glut
Hey, it’s been a bit of time. I have been swamped at SemiAnalysis. Remember, most of the best work happening in Semiconductors and AI is already underway at SemiAnalysis. We offer a diverse range of products, as well as numerous job opportunities available. We are currently hiring for various roles, including accounting, general operations, sales, and data engineering. Today’s post mixes free and paid content. First up: Texas Instruments. TI’s quarter was rough—optimism that the analog cycle had...
Intel's One True Stakeholder is Here
Finally, after all this time, I think the endgame for Intel might be here. If you missed the news, there is a rumor that the Trump administration could be taking a stake in Intel. This feels like a long time coming, but the incompetent board is still fighting. For more work on the board, read both mine and SemiAnalysis’s pieces. Source: WSJ The final stakeholder is here, and Intel needs to do a better job of capturing its attention and help. Let’s walk through a brief recap of how we got here an...
AI is Creating Peak Software, Media is the Best Analogy
Let’s start with the basics. Software and the cost of creating software are dropping massively, as tools like Cursor and Claude Code proliferate. What used to cost thousands of dollars in tokens now costs mere cents, as generative AI is making coding much cheaper and faster. That is an obvious statement. But so what? I think today, I want to propose my theory on how I see the broader software ecosystem will be impacted by the influx of new supply from coding agents. Welcome to the Software disru...
Intel Inside the Micro Revolution: 8008 Origins
Intel has bounced back from its, at one point, seemingly existential crisis. When I wrote this post back in August 2024 the situation seemed bleak.Today Intel’s share price has risen to almost $100. Central to Intel’s resurgence is surging demand for the product that has sustained Intel over almost five decades: the CPU or more specifically x86 CPUs.So it seems like a good time then to go back to the design that represents the real start of Intel’s CPU story; a CPU architecture that Intel didn’t...
Arm Makes Chips!
Arm AGI CPU - Photo Credit ArmPlease note that the following is not investment advice. This post may be too long for your email client so please read in your browser by clicking on the title.‘We’ll make chips over my dead body.’Robin Saxby, ARM Founding CEO It’s one of the things that Arm is most famous for: it’s a chip company that doesn’t make chips. A stance that has been a key part of Arm’s strategy since it was articulated by Robin Saxby in 1991 and that has remained in place for more than ...
Compatibility and Fragmentation in the AI Era
If you go far back enough in time, every new computer design had a new instruction set.Which, of course, was a pain!IBM 709 Front Panel - By ArnoldReinhold - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18267293When IBM introduced the 709 mainframe in 1958 as the successor to the popular (with a grand total of 123 systems sold in total!) 704 the new computer’s architecture was incompatible with its predecessor. Fortunately, by then high level languages - and FORTRAN cr...
Nvidia's Groq Plot Thickens
At the end of last year following Nvidia’s non-takeover, non-aquihire of Groq we discussed the future of Groq’s technology.There was lots of speculation about the reason for what looked like a very expensive deal. Did Nvidia do the deal just to end a possible challenge to its ‘GPU supremacy’ from a promising start-up? I was sceptical, saying:What is the future of Groq’s technology?… As we’ve seen Jensen Huang has stated that Nvidia plans “ … to integrate Groq’s low-latency processors into the NV...
Intel's Larabee Legacy
Everyone is dunking on Intel (yet again) and I really didn’t want to join in … However, with the launch of Intel’s latest mobile design - known as Panther Lake - one feature (or rather lack of a feature) jumped out and had me retracing Intel’s history to understand how historic mistakes can continue to hinder a company for decades.Panther Lake has certain highly respected analysts quite excited.And Panther Lake is exciting on many fronts.Sadly, though, I won’t be joining the SemiAnalysis team, f...
Qualcomm's Ventana RISC-V Acquisition
This post may be too long for your email client: please click on the title for the full post. This is not investment advice and the usual disclaimers apply.Whilst the world was focused on Nvidia’s acquisition of most of Groq’s team and a license for Groq’s technology just before Christmas last year, another December acquisition of a startup by a chip giant generated a lot less discussion.On 10 December Qualcomm announced they were acquiring RISC-V CPU designer Ventana Micro Systems. Like Groq, V...
Jensen Groks Groq
Is this the deal that launched a million blog posts? It certainly feels like a million and, initially, I didn’t want to make it a million and one, but … this Substack is passionately interested in computer architecture and, for reasons that I’ll explain later, this feels like a significant moment in the history of computer architecture.Plus, now that things have settled down a little after the initial wave of excitement and puzzlement about the deal - see the quote from Irrational Analysis below...
TPU Mania
Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, discusses TPUs and GPUs with Paul Kedrosky. No criticism of Krugman intended, it’s great that computer architecture is getting so much attention.All of a sudden, everyone is talking - and writing - about Google’s TPUs (Tensor Processing Units). The use of TPUs to train Google latest, market leading Gemini 3 model together with Google’s decision to sell TPUs to third parties (apparently including arch-rival Meta) have combined to create a major ‘vibe-s...
Qualcomm's Hexagon AI Accelerators
This is a part free and part paid post. The first part, discussing Qualcomm’s recently announced AI200 and AI250 AI accelerators and the history of the Hexagon architecture is free, whilst the detailed look at the Hexagon architecture that follows is paid. None of what follows is investment advice.You can upgrade to a paid subscription and support The Chip Letter using the button below.Subscribe now“Qualcomm’s Hexagon might just be the most important architecture that no-one is talking about”On ...
Nexperia's Long History, Tangled Present and Uncertain Future
Whilst the world and its money is focused on the possibilities offered by AI, it’s easy to miss interesting events elsewhere. One such development happened this week in the Netherlands.‘Takes control’ is shorthand for a number of actions including suspending CEO Zhang Xuezheng from his role and his board seat. The rationale for these actions?It’s not the first time that Nexperia has been at the centre of concerns about Chinese ownership. In 2021 Nexperia bought Newport Wafer Fab in Wales in the ...
Arm's Chief Architect on the History of the Arm Architecture
By Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67895534Whilst some computer architects both past and present are famous, others have a lower profile. One of the latter is Arm’s Chief Architect, Richard Grisenthwaite, who according to Arm, has been …‘… responsible for the long-term evolution of the Arm architecture and has led its development for more than 20 years, beginning with Armv6 … In his early days at Arm, Richard worked on Arm720T, A...
The PC was never a true 'IBMer'
The IBM Personal Computer was launched on 12 August 1981. Designed by an IBM team in Boca Raton, Florida led by Philip Don Estridge and William C. Lowe. That first PC, given the less than charismatic designation as the ‘Model 5150’, and its successors quickly set the standard for personal computing, first in business and then in homes. So much so that they became known as just ‘PCs’.But the PC was never an true ‘IBMer’, the colloquial term used for IBM employees.Wait a moment! The IBM PC. Design...
Source Control
Bill Gates - Image credit below‘Source Code’ is the first volume of Bill Gates’s memoirs, covering his life up to 1978. That means his family, his childhood, his education, and the early years of Microsoft with a particular focus on the development, launch and success of Microsoft’s first product Microsoft BASIC.The US Cover of ‘Source Code’Accompanying the book has come the release of the source code for (a version of) the very first Microsoft BASIC running on the Intel 8080-based Altair 8800. ...
Turing Award Histories
What if you could read and watch extended interviews with almost 2,000 of the smartest people in computer science and engineering? People who have shaped the field, who have made many of the most important discoveries and who have founded multibillion dollar companies. In these interviews they tell their stories, talk about their influences, their education, about the obstacles they overcame and about their contributions to the field.What’s more, you can read and watch these interviews for free....
MIPS
Readers may have noticed a famous and distinguished name in computer architecture in the news recently:GlobalFoundries to Acquire MIPS to Accelerate AI and Compute CapabilitiesJuly 8, 2025GlobalFoundries (Nasdaq: GFS) (GF) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire MIPS, a leading supplier of AI and processor IP.“MIPS brings a strong heritage of delivering efficient, scalable compute IP tailored for performance-critical applications, which strategically aligns with the evolving demands of...
The Big Data Center Water Problem
A datacenter with 15 megawatts of IT capacity is estimated to use about 80-130 million gallons of water each year. That is as much water as three hospitals, or two 18-hole golf courses. The current AI boom has the world's tech giants building big data centers across the world. We all know they need a lot of energy. But what about water?The two are very closely tied together.This channel has a not-so-secret obsession with water. In this video, we look at the data center's massive water footprint....
How Sony Mastered the Transistor
Last month’s AiSalon was quite fun. I had a good time moderating the panel, discussing the current AI market trend as well as things to come. We are doing another one on November 19th at Appier’s office in Taipei, featuring Jeffrey Abbott, GP at Blitzscaling Ventures. It would be fun to see you guys there. Sign up for AiSalon Taiwan @ AppierAt the end of World War II, Japan was at zero. Then Godzilla came and made it Minus One. In the wake of this ruin, an extraordinary company was founded. And ...
EUV With Fewer Mirrors?
Has it really been so long since I last did a newsletter? That is kind of crazy. Time moves so fast.Like as I wrote before, I want to thank Professor Shintake as well as Dr. Patrick Naulleau of EUV Tech for their help and consultation. They are the true experts of this domain. I do want to note that ASML chose the number of mirrors they did for a very real reason. It gives them full ability to print specific features on the mask. Simplifying the number of mirrors that away so we should keep this...
The Creation of STMicroelectronics
Two semiconductor companies. Both alike in dignity. In fair Europe, where we set our scene. From ancient roots break to new silicon. In 1987, Italy's SGS Microelettronica and France's Thomson Semiconducteurs decided to join forces. It was a historic alliance that created a European semiconductor giant - a globally competitive one at that. The stories of these two star-cross'd silicon lovers are fascinating. In today's video, we talk about the merger that created SGS-Thomson, now STMicroelectroni...
The $600 Billion AI Chip Giant
Note: All I would like to point out is that Broadcom’s market cap is $771 billon now. Broadcom is the second largest AI chip company in the world. Thanks to that, the company is the 11th largest company in the world. Over $600 billion as of this writing, bigger than Visa and just behind TSMC. It is a bit crazy considering that in 2009 the whole company was worth $4 billion. 150 times growth in 15 years is kind of wild. But what is Broadcom? How did they get this big? What do they do? In this vid...
What’s Next For ASML?
See the video below: I recently returned from a two week trip to Europe for IMEC’s ITF World 2024. It was a wonderful whirlwind of a journey and had a great time. I received a great deal of ideas for videos and will be working on them over the next few weeks. The trip had many upsides - sorry I didn’t organize any meetups as I was too tired - but the highlight was undoubtedly this trip to ASML. I recently had the opportunity to visit ASML's headquarters in the small village of Veldhoven in the N...
Why Brain-like Computers Are Hard
Computers that run the Von Neumann architecture store their programs and data in the same memory bank. Since both have to travel the same road to get and from the CPU, we find that the system is ultimately limited not by the CPU or GPU's computational limits but by said road. This is the famous Von Neumann bottleneck.In a previous video I talked about in-memory computing as a way to bring a computer’s memory closer to the compute. But making a computer that thinks like the brain - a neuromorphic...
TSMC's CHIPS Act Money
At the end of my video on TSMC’s experiences in Japan, I wrote: As for TSMC Arizona, that fab will eventually make chips. Local news just reported that they added their last steel beam in February 2024. But as Mark Liu said, the future depends on the size of the subsidy. If TSMC wants 40% support like with Japan on a $40 billion project, that's $16 billion in subsidies. Will the administration want the PR optics of giving $16 billion of taxpayer money to a foreign company in an election year?May...
Analog Chip Design is an Art. Can AI Help?
Here’s the video: I want to call out a Substack written by a friend. Tanj boasts a monstrous boatload of knowledge about semiconductor manufacturing - particularly in memory. He recently started his new Substack and I want you all to go subscribe to it. Like now. PoratboExploration of new ideas in technology and science of the small. "Plenty of room at the bottom" - Feynmann, Caltech, 1959By TanjThis below post on FinFETs is extremely informative and I loved it. PoratboPipe.3: The Chip Base and ...
Toshiba’s Big Technology Export Scandal
You can watch the video here: I recently read an interview with ASML's (now retiring) CEO - Peter Wennink - about the issue of banning Dutch exports of lithography machines to China. In it, he talked about the notion about ASML restricting exports of older, DUV lithography machines. > Maybe they think we should come over the bridge, but ASML has already surrendered. We are no longer allowed to supply EUV to China. And EUV is half of our turnover ... He also pointed out that the lithography ban d...
EUV Lithography. But With a Free Electron Laser
Long time no see.I have been thinking about this recently. The idea of what goes next after EUV. The current presumption in the wider media is that EUV works and is worth the investment. The former is true in a literal sense. I am not so sure about the latter. I want to do another video about this down the line. But I am feeling increasingly uneasy about the state of EUV lithography right now. And I am feeling especially … especially nervous about High-NA EUV. The new senior leadership of ASML h...
TSMC's New R&D Fab in Taiwan
Sorry that it took so long for me to get this one out onto the newsletter. I have been super busy and I have been tired recently. Also, there is a new video coming today. I think you’ll find it fun at an atomic level. The big question that I left viewers with at the end of the video was: “How can TSMC be so ‘productive’ with their R&D when their spend trails that of other companies?”The comments on the video point out a few things: First, the lower cost of living and real estate in Taiwan. I don...
TSMC's New Fab in Germany
The rumors have long been cooking. Reuters said that it took 40 rounds of talks. But now the news is finally here: TSMC is building a fab in Europe. I was asked by a fan in Germany to give a few thoughts on the news. I love my German viewers so let's do it! But first … The AI and Semiconductor Symposium in TaipeiAre you going to SEMICON 2023 in September? If you are coming to Taipei, then you should come to the AI and Semiconductor Symposium that me, Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis and Doug O’Laughl...
The 20 Year Fall of Japan's Sharp Corporation
The mechanical pencil. The calculators. The TVs. Over the years, Japan's Sharp Corporation has delivered a bevy of iconic products. But starting at the turn of the century, the company found itself increasingly trapped in a single, incredibly competitive business. Attacked on all sides by foreign competitors and running out of money, the company sold itself to a Taiwanese electronics giant. The first such foreign takeover of a major Japanese consumer electronics company. For this video, let us t...