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
TSMC Maps 1nm Roadmap and Plans Up to 12 New Fabs by 2031
TSMC disclosed a roadmap targeting 1nm chip production around 2030‑31 while simultaneously planning up to 12 new wafer fabs to serve nodes from 2nm to 1.4nm. The move aims to lock in capacity ahead of the next wave of advanced devices and address supply‑chain constraints.
Rethinking How Physics Is Used in Hardware Design
Modern hardware design is hitting a workflow bottleneck: physics is evaluated only after lengthy, separate simulation steps. As devices span nanometers to centimeters and involve tightly coupled thermal, mechanical, and electrical effects, traditional meshing and multi‑tool workflows delay insight and...
Motorola Razr 2026 Vs. Razr 2025: A Few Steps Forward, One Big Step Back
Motorola’s Razr 2026 arrives as the newest budget‑friendly foldable, priced at $699 and featuring a MediaTek Dimensity 7450X processor, a 50 MP ultrawide camera, and a larger 4,800 mAh battery. Compared with the Razr 2025, the newer model costs $100 more and halves internal storage...
Span Is Building a New Kind of Electric Utility
Span is turning residential electrical panels into a flexible grid resource, enabling homeowners to host AI compute nodes while avoiding expensive service upgrades. The company’s XFRA “distributed data center” leverages unused capacity, and its partnership with PG&E will see Span...
Google’s New AI Glasses Rival Meta Ray-Bans with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster Designs
Google announced AI‑powered smart glasses at I/O 2026, developed with Samsung, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. The devices feature a camera, speaker, microphone and run on an unnamed Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. They enable hands‑free navigation, live visual translation and photo...
Warby Parker and Google Take on Meta with New AI Smart Glasses
Warby Parker announced its first smart‑glasses, co‑developed with Google and Samsung, at Google I/O. The Intelligent Eyewear frames embed speakers, dual cameras, and Google Gemini‑powered AI within a lightweight dark‑green nylon design, offered as both sunglasses and regular glasses. Pricing...
A First (and Second) Look at the Android XR Glasses Launching This Year
Google unveiled the latest iteration of its Project Aura Android XR glasses, adding a protective case, a revamped compute puck with a fingerprint scanner, and an adaptive‑transparency lens that reacts to user focus. The company also showcased prototype designs from...
Xreal Unveils Project Aura Android XR Device at Google I/O Showcase
Xreal unveiled Project Aura, a lightweight wired XR glasses platform, at Google I/O, promising a global launch in 2026. The device runs Android XR, leverages Google’s Gemini AI, and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Live demos showcased immersive Google...
Startup Bolt Graphics Promises 5x Performance over Nvidia’s Best GPU
Bolt Graphics, a 2020‑founded startup, announced that its Zeus GPU has taped out on TSMC’s 12 nm process and targets a 2027 launch. The company claims the card delivers five times faster path‑tracing than Nvidia’s RTX 5090 while drawing only 250 W, roughly...
Firefly CSC2-N48SPK3 – A 2880 TOPS RISC-V AI Server with 48 SpacemiT K3 Nodes, 48 NVMe SSDs
Firefly has introduced the CSC2‑N48SPK3, a 2U rack‑mount server that packs 48 SpacemiT K3 RISC‑V compute nodes and a Rockchip RK3588 control node. Each K3 node delivers up to 60 TOPS of sparse AI performance, up to 32 GB LPDDR5 memory and...
Apple Repurposes Slightly Defective A‑Series Chips for Budget Devices
Macbook Neo is best example of a side benefit for Apple’s custom silicon: next level expertise at re-using slightly defective chips. The $599 hit laptop built on A18 Pro chips, which was first used for iPhone 16 (2024). Apple needs chips for...
Ask Experts Anything About Sony’s Pricey Wireless Headphones
After testing Sony’s most expensive wireless headphones ever, we're letting you ask our audio experts anything you want to know about them in a live Q&A. https://t.co/eQQthjAUlt
Rivian’s Mind Robotics Valued at $3.4 B After $400 M Funding Round
Rivian’s robotics subsidiary, Mind Robotics, closed a $400 million financing round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $3.4 billion. The funding underscores Rivian’s strategy to use advanced robots for its own factories and to sell the technology to other manufacturers, potentially unlocking...
Intel Closes to Oracle with $8 B Market‑cap Gap, Reshaping Enterprise Hardware Hierarchy
Intel's market value rose to $546.7 billion, leaving a $8.3 billion gap with Oracle's $554.9 billion valuation. The chipmaker's AI‑related revenue jump and a strong Q1 earnings beat have accelerated the catch‑up, while Oracle leans on cloud contracts worth $553 billion.
Is the New Surface Pro for Business (12th Edition) Worth an Upgrade over the Pro 11? Here's What You Need...
Microsoft’s Surface Pro for Business (12th Edition) upgrades the flagship 2‑in‑1 with Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, optional 5G, Wi‑Fi 7, and an anti‑reflective display. Starting at $1,949.99, it is $250 pricier than the 11th Edition and $750 above the Snapdragon‑based Surface Pro 11, which...
Roam to Deploy EV Charging at Hand Picked Hotels’ Luxury Country House Properties
Roam Charging has won a contract to install and operate 112 electric‑vehicle charge points at 20 luxury country‑house and coastal resort properties owned by Hand Picked Hotels in the UK and Channel Islands. The deployment will cover the full lifecycle—from design and...
Closing the Silicon Realization Gap: From Static DFM to Governance for Lifecycle (GFL)
The semiconductor sector has outgrown static Design‑for‑Manufacturing (DFM) sign‑off, which only proves a chip can be fabricated. Modern 2.5D/3D heterogeneous systems encounter substrate warpage, thermal‑current interactions, firmware changes, and aging that can break convergence after tape‑out. The article names this...
Microsoft Surface Pro for Business (12th Edition) Is a Pricey 2-in-1 Tablet with Intel Panther Lake
Microsoft unveiled the 12th‑generation Surface Pro for Business, a 13‑inch 2‑in‑1 tablet powered by Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processor. Configurations start at $1,950 and can be equipped with up to 64 GB of LPDDR5x RAM, a 1 TB user‑replaceable PCIe NVMe...
Gaming Phones Are Becoming the New, Affordable Android Flagships – 144Hz OLED and Mammoth 8,000mAh Battery
RedMagic unveiled the RedMagic 11S Pro, an over‑clocked gaming phone built on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, featuring a 24,000 RPM TurboFan AquaCore cooling system, an 8,000 mAh battery with 80 W fast charging, and a 6.85‑inch 144 Hz AMOLED display without a notch. The device launches...
Sub-Sea AI Data Center Is Operating in China
China has launched the world’s first commercial undersea AI data center, located six miles off Shanghai’s Lingang Special Area. The wind‑powered facility, built by Hi Cloud Technology in partnership with local authorities, cost roughly $226 million and began operations in October...
SBRS Introduces 500 kW Charging System for Commercial Vehicles
Shell subsidiary SBRS has launched the PowerPack 500, a modular DC fast‑charging system delivering up to 500 kW for heavy‑duty commercial vehicles in Europe. The all‑in‑one unit starts with two charging points and can scale to six connectors without any depot redesign....
The Reality Behind Very Large-Scale Led Screens
The article explains how LED screens larger than 1,000 m² transform from simple displays into complex engineering systems. Scaling introduces intertwined challenges in signal routing, power distribution, structural load, and real‑time control that small installations never face. Physical weight, wind forces,...
Doosan Group Nears $3.3 B Deal to Acquire 70% of SK Siltron, Expanding Into Wafer Production
Doosan Group is poised to sign a stock purchase agreement for a 70.6% stake in SK Siltron, valued at roughly $3.3 billion. The move adds front‑end wafer production to Doosan’s existing testing, packaging and materials businesses, positioning the conglomerate for the...
Microchip Timing Module Supports AI Data Centre and 5G Synchronization
Microchip has launched the MD-990-0011-B plug‑in timing module, co‑developed with Intel for Xeon 6 SoC servers and virtualized RAN platforms. The module offers automatic source selection among GNSS, SyncE and PTP, delivering resilient synchronization for AI workloads, cloud services and 5G...
GPUs: A High-Throughput Architecture Confronting a Workload Shift
Graphics processing units still power large‑scale AI training, but frontier large language models are exposing a growing memory bottleneck. While Nvidia H100 GPUs can deliver petaflops of FP8 throughput, trillion‑parameter inference often falls below 10 FLOPs per byte, making bandwidth...
Tattu Launches 5.0 Smart Battery Platform as Heavy-Lift Drones Demand Faster Charging and Smarter Fleet Power Management
Tattu, the UAV battery arm of Shenzhen Grepow, unveiled its 5.0 Smart Battery Platform aimed at 100 kg‑class agricultural and logistics drones. The system combines 6C fast charging, 12C continuous discharge, an intelligent BMS, and lifecycle data access, and pairs with...
Analog Devices Eyes $1.5 Bn Cash Acquisition of AI Chipmaker Empower Semiconductor
Analog Devices, Inc. is in advanced negotiations to purchase AI‑chip specialist Empower Semiconductor for roughly $1.5 bn in cash. The deal would add Empower’s FinFast power‑management technology to ADI’s portfolio as data‑center AI spending accelerates.
Escarda Starts Series Production of AI Laser Weeder After Acquisition
Berlin‑based Escarda Technologies, now fully owned by Berlin Industrial Group (B.I.G.), is moving into series production of its AI‑powered laser weeder. The system blends high‑resolution cameras, AI plant recognition and Class‑1 laser technology to eliminate weeds in real time without...
The Next 15 Years of Moore’s Law, According to Imec
Imec’s new 15‑year roadmap predicts the commercial debut of complementary FET (CFET) technology around 2033, effectively stacking PMOS and NMOS devices to halve circuit area. The institute also foresees a shift to two‑dimensional semiconductor channels by 2041 to boost power...
ChargePoint Wants To Fix The Condo EV Charging Problem With 2,500 New Ports
ChargePoint announced a plan to deploy roughly 2,500 Level 2 EV charging ports at multifamily residences across the United States, beginning in 2026. The rollout is backed by a partnership with OBE Power, which will own, operate, and handle all maintenance...
Blackstone and Google Launch $5 B AI Cloud Venture to Deploy Custom TPUs
Blackstone and Google announced a $5 billion joint venture to create a U.S.-based AI cloud company that will offer Google’s custom Tensor Processing Units as a compute‑as‑a‑service. The venture aims to bring 500 MW of data‑center capacity online in 2027, signaling deep...
Meta’s $200 B AI Data Center Redraws Rural Louisiana Real‑Estate Map
Meta Platforms is pouring more than $200 billion into Hyperion, a 5‑gigawatt AI data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. The project will host up to 7,500 construction workers and reshape a swath of farmland the size of Manhattan, prompting a dramatic...
Intel and Qualcomm Eye Tenstorrent in AI Chip Consolidation Push
AI accelerator startup Tenstorrent has entered early-stage acquisition talks with Intel and Qualcomm. The interest reflects mounting pressure on major silicon vendors to secure more efficient AI processing technology and to counter Nvidia's dominance.
Rapid Adoption of Automotive Ethernet Raises Standardization and Cost Concerns
Tech Insights forecasts automotive Ethernet sockets will climb from about 962,000 in 2025 to 3.42 million by 2032, pushing the average per‑vehicle ports from 11 today to 27 by 2030. The rapid growth is driven by higher‑bandwidth sensors, autonomous‑driving workloads and...
Linux 7.2 Will Fix The Intel P-State Driver For The New Bartlett Lake CPUs
The upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel will incorporate a patch that corrects the Intel P‑State driver’s handling of the new Bartlett Lake processors, eliminating bogus 7 GHz maximum frequency reports. The fix originated from a QNAP engineer after the Intel Core 9 273PE was mistakenly...
The Nvidia H200 China Deal Survived the Trump-Xi Summit–Just Not in the Way Anyone Expected
President Trump’s Beijing visit ended with no new Nvidia H200 shipments, despite the chips receiving U.S. export licences in December 2025. Ten Chinese firms—including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com—have licences for up to 75,000 units each, but Beijing has barred...
Samsung Electronics Launches Emergency Semiconductor Production Plan Ahead of Union Strike
Samsung Electronics activated an emergency management plan for its semiconductor fabs ahead of a union strike slated for May 21. The company is trimming wafer input volumes and shifting capacity to high‑bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to protect critical AI‑related supply....
Memory Chip Prices Set to Ease in Late 2027 as AI Demand Drives Global Market Volatility
Memory chip prices, which have surged amid AI‑driven demand, are projected to soften in the second half of 2027. Former Samsung Device Solutions head Kye‑hyun Kyung cites expanding Chinese production and a projected global wafer capacity of 6 million units per...
Infineon Expands XHP 2 CoolSiC MOSFET Portfolio with 2300 V Modules for Renewable Energy
Infineon Technologies has added 2300 V CoolSiC™ MOSFET variants to its XHP 2 power‑module family, targeting high‑voltage renewable‑energy converters. The new modules support DC‑link voltages up to 1500 V, feature on‑resistance between 1 mΩ and 2 mΩ, and offer 4 kV or 6 kV isolation. Leveraging silicon‑carbide...
China’s Rapid Chipmaking Expansion Threatens AI Memory Chip Boom, Samsung Adviser Warns
Samsung adviser Kyung Kye‑hyun warned that China’s aggressive chip‑making expansion could blunt the AI‑driven memory super‑cycle by 2028. Chinese firms already hold about 20% of the NAND market and could capture 12‑13% of DRAM after adding 300,000 wafers over three...
LG's UltraGear Is a Native 1,000Hz Full HD Gaming Monitor
LG has launched the UltraGear, a 24.5‑inch Full HD gaming monitor that delivers a native 1,000 Hz refresh rate. Unlike Samsung and Acer’s dual‑mode models, it maintains the 1080p resolution while hitting the ultra‑high refresh speed. The monitor targets competitive FPS players,...
China Market for Nvidia AI Chips to Open 'over Time': Huang
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg that China will gradually allow sales of its high‑end H200 AI chip, which is currently licensed but blocked by U.S. export rules. He did not meet Chinese leaders directly, but noted President Trump has...
AMD EPYC Venice Reportedly Combines TSMC N2P and N2 CCD Designs
AMD’s upcoming EPYC “Venice” server line will employ two distinct chiplet (CCD) designs. The mainstream variant will use TSMC’s N2P process, delivering up to 96 cores per socket with 12 Zen 6 cores per CCD. A high‑density version will run on...
Research Bits: May 19
Researchers at the University of Washington unveiled a low‑power, electrically programmable photonic integrated circuit built with standard foundry processes, using phase‑change material to retain settings without power. MIT scientists demonstrated implosion carving to shrink hydrogel‑based optical features from 800 nm to...
Intel Reportedly Urging OEMs Toward Faster Adoption of 18A Consumer CPUs
Intel is reportedly pressing major PC OEMs to accelerate the rollout of consumer processors built on its new 18A manufacturing node. The company aims to shift production capacity from aging Intel 7 and Intel 4/3 chips toward higher‑margin Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake CPUs....
Uviquity Announces World’s First Chip-Scale Deep-UV Laser
Uviquity announced the world’s first chip‑scale deep‑UV laser operating at 229 nm, produced from a single semiconductor chip. The device leverages the company’s aluminum nitride photonic‑integrated‑circuit platform and second‑harmonic generation to deliver collimated, narrow‑line‑width output. Sampling for OEM partners begins in...
Rohm Scales Power Supply Tools for Automotive SoCs
Japanese chipmaker Rohm has begun mass production of a configurable automotive power‑supply platform that pairs its BD968xx‑C series PMICs with the BD96340MFF‑C DrMOS driver. The solution targets system‑on‑chips used in ADAS, driver‑monitoring and in‑vehicle cameras, offering a 2.7‑5.5 V input range...
Titan Army P275MV Plus Gaming Monitor Tested: MiniLED Meets Dual Mode – High Performance, Plenty of Brightness, and a Surprisingly...
Titan Army’s P275MV Plus is a 27‑inch 4K Mini‑LED gaming monitor that blends true HDR performance with a Dual‑Mode that drops to Full HD @ 320 Hz for ultra‑fast competitive play. It offers 1152 local‑dimming zones, 1200 cd/m² peak HDR brightness, 0.5 ms gray‑to‑gray response and 4.2 ms...
ESP32-S3 PowerFeather V2 Board Gains Support for LiFePO4/LFP Batteries
Adafruit’s ESP32‑S3 PowerFeather V2 adds native support for LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries while retaining compatibility with Li‑Ion and LiPo packs. The board incorporates an Analog Devices MAX17260 fuel gauge and a TPS631013 buck‑boost regulator to keep 3.3 V stable across a 5 V‑18 V...
Microchip Ethernet PHY Families Enable Secure, Scalable Connectivity
Microchip Technology introduced the LAN878x and LAN888x families of Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) PHY transceivers, covering 100BASE‑T1, 1000BASE‑T1 and dual‑speed 100/1000BASE‑T1 options. The devices embed hardware‑based MACsec security compliant with IEEE 802.1AE‑2018 and native Time‑Sensitive Networking (TSN) for deterministic, low‑latency communication....