Today's Hardware Pulse
Nvidia driver hints at next‑gen DLSS 5 work
Nvidia’s GeForce Game Ready driver 610.47 adds three new profile options—Enable DLSS NR override, Enable DLSS NR SL override, and Override DLSS NR presets—suggesting continued development of DLSS 5 neural‑rendering technology. The earlier DLSS 5 reveal had sparked debate over AI‑driven image alteration, and the new driver hints at a quiet but ongoing effort.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Cyient Semiconductors raises $30M Series A
Motorola Razr Plus 2026 Vs. Razr Plus 2025: Differences You Can't See
The 2026 Motorola Razr Plus keeps the iconic foldable silhouette while adding a titanium hinge, a true 10‑bit display, an ultrawide camera, and a 12.5% larger 4,500 mAh battery. Internally it shares the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage with the 2025 model, but gains five years of security updates versus three. The upgrades raise the price, positioning the 2026 as a long‑term value proposition for users who plan to keep a premium foldable for years. By contrast, the 2025 version offers the same performance at a lower cost but lacks the new camera, battery, and durability enhancements.
The Hidden iOS Feature That “BOOST Charges” Your iPhone
Apple’s iOS 26.4 adds Boost Charge Mode, a software‑driven setting that speeds up iPhone charging by temporarily disabling power‑hungry functions. Users can activate the mode manually or automate it through the Shortcuts app, linking actions to charger connection and disconnection. The...
SoftBank Has Injected $450 Million Into This British AI Chip Company
SoftBank has poured $457 million into Graphcore, the UK AI‑chip maker it acquired in 2024. The capital injection is intended to accelerate Graphcore’s development of intelligence processing units for artificial general intelligence projects. The funding also dovetails with SoftBank’s wider AI...
Trump-Xi Summit Puts Rare‑Earth Mineral Tensions Front‑and‑Center
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing to discuss trade, security and rare‑earth minerals, with Washington pressing Beijing to ease supply‑chain pressure on critical mining inputs. The talks come amid broader Middle‑East turmoil and a...
AMD Leaks Budget Radeon RX 9050 with 2,048 Cores, Targeting Strained Mid‑Range Market
AMD is reportedly developing a low‑end Radeon RX 9050 that carries the same 2,048 stream processors as its higher‑end RX 9060 XT, but with reduced clock speeds. The card would ship with 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128‑bit bus, positioning...
DJI’s Mini 4K Successor Beginner Drone Already Has Its First Discount at a Major UK Retailer
DJI has introduced the Lito 1 and premium Lito X1 drones as successors to the Mini 4K, and the Lito X1 is now 5% cheaper on Amazon UK, dropping from £369 to £349 (about $444). The X1 weighs under 249 g, placing it in the...
Schaeffler and ThunderSoft Partner on Vehicle Computing Platforms
German automotive supplier Schaeffler and Chinese software firm ThunderSoft have formed a partnership to develop modular, scalable central vehicle computing platforms. The joint effort aims to replace traditional distributed ECU architectures with a single high‑performance processor that can handle safety‑critical...
China's Next-Gen CPUs and GPUs Prepare to Challenge Last-Gen Intel and AMD in 2027 — Loongson 3B6600 and 9A1000 Aim...
Loongson Technology announced its next‑generation 3B6600 CPU and 9A1000 GPU, slated for retail release in 2027. The 3B6600, built on a 12 nm process, aims to match the performance of Intel’s 12th‑Gen Alder Lake i5/i7 chips, while the 9A1000 targets parity with...
Zhejiang University Unveils Graphene Composite Doubling Strength and Boosting Conductivity Tenfold
A team from Zhejiang University introduced an "inverse phase enhancement" method that creates a bulk graphene‑polymer composite with 117% higher tensile strength and ten‑times the thermal conductivity of conventional composites. The advance could accelerate heat‑management solutions for AI chips, smartphones...
Garmin's Coveted Beginner Running Watch Unexpectedly Falls to Its Lowest Ever Price
Garmin’s entry‑level Forerunner 55 is now selling for about $138 on Amazon, a 39% discount that brings the price down to its lowest point ever recorded. The price cut trims the original $229 tag by roughly $90, making the GPS‑enabled watch...
IRobot Unveils Eight New Roomba Models After Picea Acquisition, Prices $291‑$1,016
iRobot announced eight new Roomba robot vacuums following its bankruptcy filing and acquisition by Picea. The lineup, priced between $291 and $1,016 in the U.K., promises up to 25% smaller dimensions, 9 cm clearance capability, and AI‑enhanced navigation. The launch signals...
Taiwan’s Chips Power the Global Economy. China Holds the Leverage
Taiwan’s semiconductor champion TSMC supplies roughly 90% of the world’s most advanced chips and 99% of the AI‑training silicon that powers smartphones, electric vehicles and the global AI race. A serious disruption—whether from a blockade, customs inspections or outright conflict—could...
VIS Says AI Demand Drives Growth as Singapore Fab Fully Booked
Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) says AI demand is fueling semiconductor growth, with its Singapore 12‑inch wafer fab's first phase already fully booked. The fab will begin sample shipments in July 2025 and target mass production in the first quarter of...
A Networking Revolution at AWS
Amazon Web Services unveiled a unified, custom networking stack that replaces heterogeneous vendor hardware with a single ASIC‑based switch architecture and its own Linux‑derived NetOS. The current platform delivers 51.2 Tbps across 64 × 800 Gbps ports, and a next‑generation version will double capacity...
The Semiconductor Industry Is Set to Surpass $1 Trillion by 2030, Driving Industry Innovation
The global semiconductor market posted a record $791.7 billion in 2025, a 25.6% jump, and is projected to top $1 trillion by 2026. Growth is driven by AI, data centers, 5G/6G, electric vehicles and edge computing. Marco Van Der Haar of Malvern...
Chip-Processing Method Could Assist Cryptography Schemes to Keep Data Secure
MIT engineers unveiled two low‑cost hardware innovations that could reshape security and computing at the edge. First, they devised a twin physical‑unclonable‑function (PUF) fabrication method that splits a chip so each half shares a unique fingerprint, enabling direct authentication without...
CEA-Leti and NcodiN Partner to Industrialise 300 Mm Silicon Photonics
CEA‑Leti announced a series of strategic collaborations aimed at scaling next‑generation silicon photonics and memory technologies. In partnership with French startup NcodiN, the institute will transfer the company’s nanolaser‑enabled optical interposer to a 300 mm silicon‑photonic process, targeting sub‑0.1 pJ/bit links for...
Unlocking Yield Improvements in Advanced Packaging Through Materials-Driven Failure Analysis
Advanced packaging—3D ICs, FOWLP, chiplets—now underpins AI, 5G, and edge computing, but its complex material interfaces are creating severe yield pressure. Traditional defect inspection alone cannot capture the subtle, multiscale failures that arise from thermal stress, CTE mismatch, and contamination....
Optimising SiCr Deposition for High-Yield Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS Manufacturing with Picosecond Ultrasonics
Picosecond ultrasonic (PULSE™) technology provides non‑contact, sub‑angstrom thickness metrology for silicon‑chromium (SiCr) films used in bipolar‑CMOS‑DMOS (BCD) devices. The technique, validated against TEM, achieved repeatability better than 0.5 Å (1σ) and captured wafer‑wide uniformity across 49 points. Simultaneously, reflectivity measurements revealed...
Ford’s New Battery Container Is Here To Take On The Tesla Megapack
Ford has launched a new subsidiary, Ford Energy, to produce the DC block, a modular stationary battery container built in Kentucky with prismatic LFP cells. The 20‑foot container holds 5.45 MWh, offers two‑hour or four‑hour discharge options, and is designed for...
Panasonic’s 4680 Mass Production Pushed Back yet Again
Panasonic Energy has postponed mass production of its 4680 cylindrical battery cell for a second time, still awaiting a purchase order from its primary customer, likely Tesla. The original 2024 launch date slipped to March 2026, which was also missed,...
What’s Really Needed For Advanced Test?
Advanced test in semiconductor manufacturing promises adaptive binning, feed‑forward models and real‑time analytics, but the industry’s biggest obstacle is data quality. PDF Solutions highlights that misaligned metadata and incomplete tool‑level data routinely break automated test flows, forcing engineers to intervene...
The Specialty Device Surge Part 3: Solving The Process Control Challenges Of MEMS, Photonics, Co-Packaged Optics, And More
The article outlines how specialty semiconductor devices—MEMS sensors, CMOS image sensors, SiC/GaN power transistors, and photonic/co‑packaged optics—require tighter process control than traditional logic chips. It details the specific challenges each class faces, such as wafer‑level uniformity, multi‑layer variability, and defect...
Complete End-To-End Closed-Loop Product Yield Ramp And Learning
Yield ramping at advanced semiconductor nodes is increasingly difficult as designs grow larger, more heterogeneous, and generate massive test data. A closed‑loop learning flow that ties together test pattern generation, diagnosis, volume analytics, and failure analysis can compress the learning...
Ensuring AI Reliability: Mitigating Silent Data Corruption Risks
Silent Data Corruption (SDC) is emerging as a critical reliability threat for large‑scale AI training and inference, as highlighted in a new Open Compute Project whitepaper co‑authored by NVIDIA, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The paper links rising SDC rates to...
AI Accelerator Testing Depends On DFT Innovations
The rise of AI accelerators is reshaping semiconductor test flows, demanding deeper functional testing, advanced DFT techniques, and continuous monitoring throughout a chip’s lifecycle. I/O and lane‑repair capabilities are emerging as critical yield‑enhancing tools, while system‑level testing is essential for...
Advanced Metrology for Backside Metallization Using Picosecond Laser Ultrasonics
Picosecond Ultrasonics (PULSE) technology is emerging as the preferred metrology solution for backside metallization (BSM) in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. The non‑contact, non‑destructive method can accurately measure film thickness and elastic modulus across single‑layer and multilayer metal stacks ranging from 50 nm...
The AI Server Challenge: Testing Power At Scale
AI servers are hitting a power‑delivery bottleneck as accelerators run at ultra‑low voltages while drawing tens of amps. Multi‑stage converters are consolidating to higher distribution voltages to cut losses, but this raises the stakes for accurate, high‑current testing. Traditional test...
Home Win: Challenging The Traditional Semiconductor Manufacturing Model
Custom Interconnect Ltd. (CIL) has opened a 64,000 sq ft BP2 facility, the UK’s largest semiconductor packaging operation, featuring a 15,000 sq ft ISO 7 cleanroom and the only domestic wafer‑level chip‑scale packaging system. The plant integrates high‑volume PCB assembly with semiconductor assembly, delivering up...
Arm’s Software Chief Sees Human Language as the New Way to Program
Arm’s senior vice president for AI and developer platforms, Alex Spinelli, says the company is moving beyond chip design to build its own AGI‑class CPU and a new Performix software suite that lets engineers write code using natural‑language “recipes.” The...
How Direct-to-Chip Cooling Is Helping MSPs Meet AI Demand
Managed Service Providers are confronting a surge in AI-driven workloads that outpace the capacity of traditional air‑cooled data centers. The heat density of modern GPUs demands cooling solutions that can handle 60‑120 kW per rack, prompting a shift toward direct‑to‑chip liquid...
New Mobile C-UAS High-Power Microwave System for Drone Swarm Defense & Rapid Tracking
ThinKom Solutions unveiled Alecto, a mobile high‑power microwave (HPM) system built for counter‑UAS missions that can engage drone swarms while on the move. The platform leverages patented Variable Inclination Continuous Transverse Stub (VICTS) technology combined with vacuum electronics to deliver...
Samsung Officially Brings Refurbished Phones with Warranty to India
Samsung India has introduced the Certified Re‑Newed program, offering refurbished Galaxy smartphones with a one‑year manufacturer warranty. Prices start around $280 for the Galaxy A36 5G and go up to $1,175 for the flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra 5G, a modest...
Compute Layer Balances Power, Efficiency, and Cost in Robotics
A practical question for #robotics teams: how do you improve performance and energy efficiency without making the design too complex or expensive? That’s where the compute layer matters. @ASRockcomputer using #IntelCoreUltra Series 3 shows how robotics design is increasingly about balancing...
Senasic Clears HKEX Hearing as CATL-Backed Chip Platform Eyes IPO
Senasic Electronics Technology cleared its Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing hearing and is moving toward an IPO, backed by joint sponsors CICC and Guotai Haitong. The company, the world’s third‑largest automotive wireless sensing SoC maker and China’s largest, counts CATL...
Robinson Unmanned Supports U.S. Marine Corps MARV-EL Program with Sikorsky
Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky has secured a $15.5 million contract from the U.S. Marine Corps for the Medium Aerial Resupply Vehicle‑Expeditionary Logistics (MARV‑EL) Increment 2 program, centered on the R66 TURBINETRUCK autonomous cargo helicopter developed with Robinson Unmanned. The R66 combines Sikorsky’s MATRIX...
The AI Energy Crisis Is Bad. Wait Until Quantum Arrives
Europe is set to launch Magne, a quantum computer built by Microsoft and Atom Computing in Denmark, backed by €80 million (≈$87 million) from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and EIFO. The article warns that as quantum computers become commercially viable, their energy...
AMD Radeon AI PRO R9600D: 32 GB VRAM for Local AI Instead of Gaming Fireworks
AMD has launched the Radeon AI PRO R9600D, a compact workstation GPU built on RDNA 4 that packs 32 GB of GDDR6 memory, 150 W total board power and passive cooling. The card delivers 24.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and up to 794 TOPS of INT4 matrix ops,...
NVIDIA Open GPU Kernel Modules 595.44.06: Vulkan Beta for Developers Instead of Driver Confetti
NVIDIA released a pre‑release version of its Open GPU Kernel Modules 595.44.06 on May 1, 2026, tying it to the Vulkan Developer Beta branch for Linux. The update introduces the VK_KHR_maintenance11 extension, fixes to VK_EXT_descriptor_heap, shader performance gains, and a compute‑timestamp correction....
Solving Hard Problems in Soft Electronics
Camille Cunin, a recent MIT Materials Science PhD, created polymer‑metal “mille‑feuille” composites that enable soft, stretchable organic transistors for bioelectronic applications. Her work tackles the dual challenge of conducting electrons and ions in hydrated, flexible environments, a key hurdle for...
Pixel 10 Pro Fold Nears Perfection with Smooth Software
Quick hands on with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold Google is not far from creating a "perfect" foldable. Software is smooth and the phone feels nice in the hand Display, battery and performance improvements should make it a great foldable...
ARM CEO Predicts 512‑Core CPUs as Agentic AI Reduces GPU‑CPU Ratio Relevance
ARM chief executive Rene Haas warned that the rise of agentic AI will drive data‑center CPUs toward 512 cores, shrinking the importance of traditional GPU‑to‑CPU ratios. He projected a $100 billion CPU market opportunity by 2030 and cited $2 billion in customer...
Micron SVP Warns Memory Bandwidth Bottlenecks Will Curb Data‑center GPU Efficiency
Micron senior vice president Jeremy Werner told The Circuit Podcast that memory bandwidth has become a strategic bottleneck for data‑center AI inference. He warned that without faster, larger memory, GPU utilization could fall sharply as inference workloads grow, prompting a...
KAIST Microcomb Chip Generates 22 GHz Low‑Noise Signals for Future 6G Networks
A joint KAIST team led by Prof. Kim Jungwon and Prof. Lee Han Suk unveiled a microcomb photonic chip that generates ultra‑low‑noise 22 GHz millimeter‑wave signals. The breakthrough promises to overcome noise and stability limits of electronic sources, paving the way...
TELUS and Canada Launch $9 B Sovereign AI Cluster Across British Columbia
TELUS and the Government of Canada announced the expansion of Canada’s sovereign AI infrastructure with three new data‑centre facilities in British Columbia. The cluster will house over 60,000 GPUs, consume 150 MW by 2032 and inject roughly $9 billion into the economy,...
Archer Materials Strengthens Pathway to Wafer-Scale Quantum Device Manufacturing
Archer Materials (ASX: AXE) is shifting its graphene‑based quantum device program from laboratory prototypes to wafer‑scale production using standard semiconductor processes. The company remains on track to showcase a functional qubit before year‑end, marking a critical milestone in its development...
US Imports From China Plunge, Vietnam and India Rise
China’s share of goods imported to the U.S. has fallen from 22% at the start of Trump’s first term in 2017 to just 7.5% in the first three months of this year, as American companies have shifted supply chains for...
Clearest Look yet at Sony’s The Collexion Headphones
We've been reporting on Sony's The Collexion headphones, and this is the clearest look at them so far. https://t.co/0BXewywYrj
AMD
Why not $AMD more though? I agree with the dynamic - as my saying goes - all viable compute will be used but Helios is going to be a beast. And AMD has CPUs. I know it’s a both situation...
Malaysia Launches Laser Crosswalk to Enhance Pedestrian Safety
Malaysia Introduces Its First Laser Crosswalk to Boost Pedestrian Safety by @x_viral_vibes #EmergingTech #Innovation #Tech #TechForGood https://t.co/KNHQrJeHr8