Around the web
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Several traders said that the soaring price of crude and question marks over the supply of oil-derived naphtha - a popular feedstock in Asia - from Russia are challenging the economics of producing plastics in crackers in South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. They added that the problems are an early indication of the difficulties Russia?? invasion of Ukraine may create for industries that rely on raw materials.
Zero Hedge
Analog Devices has announced it will invest EUR100 million over the next three years in ADI Catalyst, a 100,000 square foot custom-built facility for innovation and collaboration located at its campus in the Raheen Business Park in Limerick, Ireland.
Company release
The London Metal Exchange (LME) was forced to halt trading in nickel and said it would cancel trades as prices doubled to more than $100,000 per tonne on Tuesday, a surge sources blamed on short covering by one of the world's top producers.
Reuters
Graphcore used TSMC's wafer-on-wafer 3D integration technology to attach a power-delivery chip to Graphcore's AI processor. The new combined chip, called Bow, for a district in London, is the first on the market to use wafer-on-wafer bonding, say Graphcore executives. The addition of the power-delivery silicon means Bow can run faster-1.85 gigahertz versus 1.35 GHz.
IEEE Spectrum
Toshiba said supply challenges for electronic components are unlikely to abate for another year as chronic shortages remain, while Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a key supplier of chipmaking materials, may also have an impact.
Bloomberg
In the wake of President Putin's military aggression in Ukraine, some firms, including Apple, Jaguar Land Rover, H&M and Burberry, have announced they are pausing activities in Russia.
BBC News
The criminal group wants Nvidia to commit to making its GPU drivers completely open source. If Nvidia does not comply, the criminals say, the company can expect to see a new leak that would include the complete silicon, graphics, and computer chipset files for all its recent GPUs.
Ars Technica
Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion works by absorbing air to generate plasma, which is then accelerated through an IPT thruster and electromagnetic nozzle. And yes, there is still some air in the altitude at which ABEP will operate. The team at Kreios Space believes its system will lower the costs of VLEO operations enough to make them feasible. Operating in VLEO will allow a 16x increase in resolution for Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. What's more, the firm claims its system "doesn't produce space debris."
Interesting Engineering
The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is on fire following a Russian attack, Ukraine's foreign minister said on Friday, as he called for a security zone and firefighters to be allowed to tackle the incident. A generating unit at the plant has been hit during an attack by Russian troops and part of the station is on fire, RIA news agency cited the Ukrainian atomic energy ministry as saying on Friday. A plant spokesperson told RIA that background levels of radiation had not changed.
Reuters
Companies will prioritize vendors that can provide consistent and dependable supplies, likely paying a premium. In the end, those costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. While prices will become an important consideration for consumers, brands that offer a consistently and predictably available set of choices will enjoy pricing power.
Freight Waves
Apple will host its annual spring product launch event on March 8.
Reuters
The train is planned to use the gravitational energy created on the downhill loaded sections of the iron or giant's rail network to recharge its battery power systems, eliminating the need for additional charging on the return trip to reload. "The Infinity Train has the capacity to be the world's most efficient battery electric locomotive," said Fortescue CEO Elizabeth Gaines. "The regeneration of electricity on the downhill loaded sections will remove the need for the installation of renewable energy generation and recharging infrastructure."
Interesting Engineering
Google-owned Fitbit announced a voluntary recall of 1.7 million smartwatches that may overheat due to the lithium-ion battery inside and burn the user. The recall is for the discontinued Fitbit Ionic Smartwatch (introduced in 2017 and stopped producing in 2020) that according to US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), "the lithium-ion battery in the Ionic smartwatch can overheat, posing a burn hazard."
Zero Hedge
All contacts, groups, files, and messages going through Telegram are available to anyone with access to Telegram's servers. It's all in there because there's no end-to-end encryption by default. Using insecure messengers is like inviting foreign governments, hackers, and company employees to every single chat with your friends. If you didn't mind this before because you "had nothing to hide", I'm afraid circumstances have changed.
nuno.sh
Ukraine is at war. But it is also home to a little-known company called Cryoin, which plays a big role in the global production of semiconductors. Cryoin makes neon gas, a substance used to power the lasers that etch patterns into computer chips. It supplies companies in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan, but most of its neon is shipped to the US, the company told WIRED.
Wired
Snapdragon X70 introduces the Qualcomm 5G AI Suite, designed for AI-powered optimizations of sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G links
Qualcomm
When talking to people in the RISC-V community, there are two words that are repeated often ??free and freedom. Some people want cores that are free, while others want the freedom to do with the cores whatever they want. To those people, free is almost immaterial because they will spend a lot to get what they want.
Semiconductor Engineering
Apple has become the latest major firm to halt all product sales in Russia, in he wake of its invasion of Ukraine. The vendor said it was "deeply concerned" about the Russian invasion and stands with those "suffering as a result of the violence."
BBC News
Canada will invest a total of C$240 million (US$189 million) into its semiconductor industry to bolster manufacturing and research of chips that are crucial to national security and technological advancement, a federal minister said on Monday.
Reuters
Italy plans to set aside more than EUR4 billion (US$4.6 billion) until 2030 to boost domestic chip manufacturing as it seeks to attract more investment from tech companies such as Intel, a draft decree seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday.
Reuters
Toyota will shut down all 14 of its factories in Japan on Tuesday after a possible cyber-attack. Its supplier Kojima Industries Corporation suspected it had been hit by a cyber-attack, causing a halt in production.
BBC News
Rivian Automotive is "making progress" in the increase of production for electric vehicles at its Normal, Illinois, assembly plant and is aiming to take 10% share in the EV market by 2030, CEO RJ Scaringe said on Thursday.
Reuters
That sophisticated tracing system emerged from a relatively low-tech and crowd sourced development process.
BBC News
Oil prices have surged past US$100 a barrel after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a "special military operation" in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.
BBC News
ASML, a key supplier to computer chip makers, is examining alternative sources for the small amount of neon it uses in its factories in case a conflict between Russia and Ukraine disrupts supplies.
Reuters
Micron Technology, the biggest maker of computer memory chips in the US, said the growing crisis in Ukraine highlights the complexity and vulnerability of the semiconductor supply chain. Some of the gases used in the production of chips comes from the country which the US says Russia is invading.
Bloomberg
Seattle-based logistics giant Expeditors International of Washington Inc. said it had shut down most of its operating systems in response to a cyberattack disclosed Sunday. Numerous logistics professionals have raised grave concerns.
Wall Street Journal
Oil prices are climbing on fears that the Ukraine-Russia crisis will disrupt supply chains across the world.
BBC News
Intel is increasing its reliance on erstwhile rival TSMC in its attempt to boost sales and eventually regain dominance as the world leader in manufacturing scale and chip process technology.
EE Times
The semiconductor industry has long struggled with a notorious cycle of booms and nasty downturns. Now though, the industry is confident of beating the patterns of the past to extend what is an extraordinary run for the sector.
The Financial Times
Luxshare Precision Industry, an Apple Inc supplier, said on Monday it aims to raise up to CNY13.5 billion yuan (US$2.13 billion) to fund six projects, including building a production line for wearable devices.
Reuters
This week's announcement that India's Vedanta has tied up with Taiwan's Foxconn Technology to make chips is being lauded as proof that New Delhi is gaining traction with its plans to build a semiconductor industry. That's hardly the case.
Bloomberg
Arm has introduced its new Mali-C78AE image signal processor (ISP), which is added to its "AE" line of safety-capable IP suitable for ADAS and human vision applications.
Company release
Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger said Intel would be interested in participating if a consortium emerges to own the British semiconductor and software design company Arm.
Reuters
It was a darling with investors and customers. What happened next is more dramatic than anybody knows.
The Financial Times
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a conference call with analysts that regulators would not budge in their opposition to Nvidia's proposed $80 billion acquisition of Arm.
Venturebeat
Despite multiple COVID-19 resurgences, offline channel disruptions due to restrictions and sustained component shortages affecting OEMs, key SEA countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam) saw a 5% YoY growth in smartphone shipments in 2021, according to Counterpoint Research. At 96 million units, the 2021 shipments were the highest ever for a calendar year and more than the pre-pandemic levels.
Counterpoint
The Mercury Research CPU market share results are in for the fourth quarter of 2021, showing that AMD now comprises 25.6% of the overall x86 market, its highest share ever, partially on the strength of its increasing gaming console shipments.
Tom's Hardware Guide
Construction of TSMC's first advanced chip plant in the US is three to six months behind schedule.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
Will this metal recycling startup revolutionize the battery and clean energy sectors? (Feb 15, 2022)
Nth Cycle extracts critical metals from batteries for a second life through a special electrical recycling technology
Electrek
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