Fan Expo San Francisco 2024 has unveiled another batch of guests and it’s the cast of Chainsaw Man.
The post Cast of Chainsaw Man will be at Fan Expo San Francisco 2024 appeared first on 8Bit/Digi.
Ubisoft has made another round of layoffs, this time cutting staff from two of its US studios.
A total of 45 employees have been let go across the Assassin's Creed publisher's San Francisco studio and Red Storm Entertainment, which is based in Cary, North Carolina. It is unclear which departments have been affected.
"Yesterday Ubisoft San Francisco and Red Storm Entertainment informed their teams of a restructuring that resulted in 45 employees leaving Ubisoft," a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN in a statement.
Megan Shipman, Alex Organ, and Natalie Van Sistine from Spy x Family will be among the guests at Fan Expo San Francisco 2024.
The post Meet Spy x Family Cast at Fan Expo San Francisco 2024 appeared first on 8Bit/Digi.
Fan Expo San Francisco 2024 has announced the first batch of guests with familiar stars and cinematic legends.
The post First Batch of Fan Expo San Francisco 2024 Guests Announced appeared first on 8Bit/Digi.
For a fun look back at 1950's San Francisco watch the film noir classic '"The Lineup." It was a 1958 movie based on the TV series of the same name. "Too hot…too big…for TV!"
What the mostly daytime, sunny-skies crime flick lacks in true "film noir" visuals, is made made up by being a real time capsule. — Read the rest
The post Get a look back at 1950's San Francisco appeared first on Boing Boing.
The Ubisoft Forward 2024 showcase has drawn to close. Don't worry if you missed it, though, as we're about to go over everything which made an appearance during the showcase. From major releases to updates for existing titles to Assassin's Creed - because this is Ubisoft Forward and there has to be Assassin's Creed news. It's the law.
You'll find all of the announcements below, along with their accompanying trailers, for everything shown during Ubisoft Forward 2024.
While the Ubisoft Forward 2024 pre-show actually began with a dicussion about Skull and Bones water mechanics, the first proper game trailer we got was for Rocksmith+, a game designed to teach you how to play the guitar. Well, it can now also teach you how to play the piano. You can try RockSmith+ for free on PlayStation 4 and 5.
Last time around I vented, more than a bit, about Voice XML and how the end result was arguably worse than any problem the standard set out to solve. You’re as locked into your platform provided are you were 20 years back and apps are harder to build and maintain than they were on the villainous “proprietary platforms” VXML replaced.
Voice over IP, VoIP going forward, gets no such criticism from me. It was inevitable and, honestly, a pretty good idea. I mean, who wants to pull two sets of cables through an enterprise, one for phones and another for data, when you only need one set?
The vision of VoIP… as suggested by Google Gemini
The problem was the same problem we always have with tech. We thought we were all ready for VoIP about five to ten years, depending on the enterprise, before we really were.
I mean, we had been through Y2K, we had upgraded everything we could, gig EtherNet was most places, and your CEO had heard about Skype. We were clearly there in the minds of many. Our marketing team, ahead of their time and also reading the same airline magazine as the CEO, declared that 85% of our new sales would be on VoIP in 2003… and we didn’t even have a solution yet. Work to be done.
Along the way we had to dispense with a bunch of silly ideas before we got down to the reality of how things had to work.
On the list of silly ideas were stand alone VoIP phones. Perhaps silly is the wrong word… but practicality didn’t quite enter into it. For a stretch in the mid-aughts I had a blue Pingtel Xpressa phone on my desk. Really a nice looking phone. It won a design award. It was a solid piece of equipment.
The black version of the phone… it came in various colors
It had a web server in it so you could configure it from your desktop and was entirely run in Java, because we were still thinking that the JRE was a good idea back then. That means if you can find one today… and there are some on eBay… that they will still work. I mean, they are a security nightmare and would be running a Russian or Chinese bot net within 5 minutes of being exposed to the open internet, but it would still make a SIP call if you could configure it correctly.
We had some other, more pedestrian physical SIP phones
In our lab we had an OnDo SIP server (later Brekeke PBX) setup in the lab and could make calls into other lab systems through it. We also setup the server so that dialing specific error response number would return that response. Dial “404” to get a 404 error sort of thing. Handy and lots of fun and of no practical use at all outside of a testing environment.
The base theory was that we’d all buy a phone we liked and subscribe to some sort of VoIP phone service or some such. But non-tech people have issues activating freaking cell phones. In what world was a phone you needed to get on your wired network… Wi-Fi need not apply at that point in time as it was still in the slow ages… and then configure from your PC going to be a viable solution?
Pingtel and a few other SIP phone manufacturers faded away. They were all kind of expensive, and the Pingtel itself was super pricey in a world where people love a quality product right up until they see the price, then they buy the cheapest, low effort unreliable garbage they can find.
A hot market… in all the wrong ways…
Pingtel itself was purchased by Northern Telecom, Nortel, which was desperate for anything that might save it from itself. Pingtel was just another rock thrown to a drowning man. The joke about Nortel was that if you had spent $1,000 on their stock around Y2K and $1,000 on your favorite domestic beer in the can, five years later the redemption value of the cans the beer came in were worth more than the stock and you at least had the pleasure of drinking the beer.
A few such vendors, Pingtel included, tried to pivot away to a soft phone idea, but for consumers that removed the reassurance of a physical phone, left the config issues, and put them in a market where Skype, which mostly just worked and was free to start while they were expecting you to BUY their soft phone AND subscribe so some service or another to be able to dial… who exactly?
Skype you could pay a bit more to and dial not just your pals on your friend’s list but real phone numbers. I used to use it for that. Hell, for a while I had a ten digit phone number so you could dial into my Skype account from the public phone network.
The SIP phone thing was going to be cheap public options, like Skype and expensive proprietary options, like Cisco’s phones, and specialized implementations for things like call centers. And it remains pretty much that way today. Sure, Skype has gone away, but Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and similar software has replaced it.
So it wasn’t too much later that I ended up with one of these incomprehensible bad boys on my desk.
A Cisco 7961 Series VoIP phone
I mean, it is a UI nightmare and almost overtly hostile to the average user, but that is what the IT department loves about it. It makes them feel good to tell end users to RTFM when they cannot negotiate the garbage menu system of an overly complicated device that they forced on their company. I mean, it must them feel good, right? They wouldn’t keep making these sorts of fucking decisions if they didn’t enjoy it, right?
Not that I don’t still see old PBX systems and Nortel phones still in use. But if your company buys something new, they probably buy a full service solution from Cisco or RingCentral or Mitel, or a few other minor players in the market. Or they just force Microsoft Teams on you and let you figure out how the Teams app client and the Teams web client are actually supposed to be the same product.
But the market had to make that choice, and that took a few years. If you work in an office now you probably have some ancient relic system, some spiffy but over complicated integrated VoIP phone and service… or you have a cell phone that you use exclusively and you can’t even remember if you have a phone on your desk, much less what it is.
Meanwhile, as this was shaking out, the network infrastructure had to be made ready.
Yeah, we installed a lot of gig Ethernet switches for Y2K. It was a big bragging point to get that gig port in your office for a time. But the network is more than just a speed. There were a pile of issues to get through, starting with things like class of service… how do I know what this data even is… and quality of service… how do I prioritize things correctly… and a bunch of subsidiary issues that early solutions caused, like the great buffer bloat crisis, which I always denigrate largely because it was an issue of our own making due to everybody having the same easy solution to whatever their immediate throughput issue was, all of which meant coming up with standards that would work across equipment from different vendors… or even equipment from the same vendor but configured by different individuals. I mean, I was there in the 90s when we couldn’t get caller ID to reliable talk across phone companies.
And those are just a few of the real issues and doesn’t even get into some of the dumb bits. We had a customer buy the IP Contact Center package I inherited at one point and, despite the very clear language about network requirements, they expected it to work over their WAN between offices which consisted something like a 5BaseT coax connection that had no QoS configured and was being actively used for real time database replication.
These sorts of issues always start with the customer calling up and saying the software doesn’t work and then, hours to days later, the discovery of the actual issue.
Then there was the question of the IVR servers and how they would handle VoIP traffic. We came into the 2000s with a few vendors like Dialogic and NMS selling very expensive PCI telephony cards. They were making money, were happy with their margins, and did not want to spoil that.
The card vendors were doing so well that IBM bought Dialogic because its mark up on their products were so good, and IBM wanted them to get better with VoIP.
NMS, our chosen vendor, offered up IP integrations that worked with their pricey CG-6000 cards, while IBM had a software solution that used the Dialogic software interface that so many vendors had already integrated with, but a software VoIP stack that charged, per port, the same price as the physical card solutions from Dialogic.
There was a lot of that sort of thing going around. One of the RAD Group companies was likewise offering up a VoIP stack for license at a rate that boggled the mind.
This in a world where your typical CEO thought VoIP was going to be cheap because they could use Skype without charge to call their kid at college.
And, along those lines, there was the question of how many lines could a software VoIP stack handle. Yeah, NMS wanted tens of thousands of dollars for that 4xT1/E1 card, but it had the processing power to handle it and leave your server to do the other work it needed to do, which often included network calls to back end systems like the database, speech reco server, and TTS server.
Let’s take a quick time out to remember a major mobile and long distance provider, Sprint, that was a customer of ours who had outsourced their IT to IBM. Everybody who did that regretted it because IBM was very much in the “promise everything just to get the contract signed, then do as little as possible” mode.
The IBM people told Sprint they could solve server network load issue by running all of those external servers on the IVR server. So each one ran its own copy of an Oracle database, a Nuance reco server, a ScanSoft TTS server, and a few other items. That not only did NOT solve the network issue… all those Oracle databases needed a constant replication scheme to stay in sync… but loaded up the local CPU so that each server could only handle a small number of VoIP sessions which meant they needed more servers which exacerbated the replication issue and… well, it wasn’t my problem so I could laugh about it. Oh, and it cost the customer a ton to license all of that software for so many servers. Our implementation guide explicitly said not to do dumb things like this, but you cannot fight stupid some days, and IBM level stupid was some serious world class stupid.
Tales from the old days. But Sprint has since sold itself to T-Mobile a deal, like every such large merger, promised to add more jobs to the company and improve consumer choice, and led to huge layoff and less competition in the mobile phone market… which should have been the obvious outcome to anybody alive since the 1980s, but which somehow is always surprise when the lies are revealed.
Anyway, it took about a decade or so for infrastructure to catch up with the idea and for the market to figure out how this was going to be handled. NMS went out of business. IBM spun off Dialogic, which is still around, but is a shadow of its former self. Meanwhile the big network hardware companies, already pals with the IT teams, stepped in and took their place, setting up the IP versions of call queues and call routing.
Once laid out, VoIP just followed the path that the web did. VoIP is more prone to issues with network disruptions, but after years of upgrades and learning, it settled down to being pretty much an analog of how the web works. Voice browsers take the call, routed to the by a load balancing mechanism, then requests the VXML pages, reaching our to the reco or TTS servers at need. Those sit in front of the app servers which dish up the VXML pages and handle all the backend data issues, like querying a database or using some other connection method to support the app.
All in all, it is probably easier in the end as well. I mean, I find it easier to use something like WireShark to figure out what is going on than I did trying to piece together data from a line analyzer and the call detail record that whatever platform we were using might have been keeping.
A win in the end and one that, unlike VXML, lived up to most of the key promises. I mean sure, there was an obsession with “caller presence” and a few other splashy but impractical features early on. But in just replace what the phone system did… seems okay… unless you have to admin a Cisco implementation. But IT people tell me they love that sort of thing.
And all that specialized telephony knowledge I had gained up until then? Mostly just trivia now.
The series so far:
Rapidus and IBM are jointly developing mass production capabilities for chiplet-based advanced packages. The collaboration builds on an existing agreement to develop 2nm process technology.
Vanguard and NXP will jointly establish VisionPower Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (VSMC) in Singapore to build a $7.8 billion, 12-inch wafer plant. This is part of a global supply chain shift “Out of China, Out of Taiwan,” according to TrendForce.
Alphawave joined forces with Arm to develop an advanced chiplet based on Arm’s Neoverse Compute Subystems for AI/ML. The chiplet contains the Neoverse N3 CPU core cluster and Arm Coherent Mesh Network, and will be targeted at HPC in data centers, AI/ML applications, and 5G/6G infrastructure.
ElevATE Semiconductor and GlobalFoundries will partner for high-voltage chips to be produced at GF’s facility in Essex Junction, Vermont, which GF bought from IBM. The chips are essential for semiconductor testing equipment, aerospace, and defense systems.
NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Microsoft are under investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department for violation of antitrust laws in the generative AI industry, according to the New York Times.
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Apollo Global Management will invest $11 billion in Intel’s Fab 34 in Ireland, thereby acquiring a 49% stake in Intel’s Irish manufacturing operations.
imec and ASML opened their jointly run High-NA EUV Lithography Lab in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. The lab will be used to prepare the next-generation litho for high-volume manufacturing, expected to begin in 2025 or 2026.
Expedera opened a new semiconductor IP design center in India. The location, the sixth of its kind for the company, is aimed at helping to make up for a shortfall in trained technicians, researchers, and engineers in the semiconductor sector.
Foxconn will build an advanced computing center in Taiwan with NVIDIA’s Blackwell platform at its core. The site will feature GB200 servers, which consist of 64 racks and 4,608 GPUs, and will be completed by 2026.
Intel and its 14 partner companies in Japan will use Sharp‘s LCD plants to research semiconductor production technology, a cost reduction move that should also produce income for Sharp, according to Nikkei Asia.
Japan is considering legislation to support the commercial production of advanced semiconductors, per Reuters.
Saudi Arabia aims to establish at least 50 semiconductor design companies as part of a new National Semiconductor Hub, funded with over $266 million.
Air Liquide is opening a new industrial gas production facility in Idaho, which will produce ultra-pure nitrogen and other gases for Micron’s new fab.
Microsoft will invest 33.7 billion Swedish crowns ($3.2 billion) to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in Sweden over a two-year period, reports Bloomberg. The company also will invest $1 billion to establish a new data center in northwest Indiana.
AI data centers could consume as much as 9.1% of the electricity generated in the U.S. by 2030, according to a white paper published by the Electric Power Research Institute. That would more than double the electricity currently consumed by data centers, though EPRI notes this is a worst case scenario and advances in efficiency could be a mitigating factor.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced global semiconductor sales increased 15.8% year-over-year in April, and the group projected a market growth of 16% in 2024. Conversely, global semiconductor equipment billings contracted 2% year-over-year to US$26.4 billion in Q1 2024, while quarter-over-quarter billings dropped 6% during the same period, according to SEMI‘s Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) Report.
Cadence completed its acquisition of BETA CAE Systems International, a provider of multi-domain, engineering simulation solutions.
Cisco‘s investment arm launched a $1 billion fund to aid AI startups as part of its AI innovation strategy. Nearly $200 million has already been earmarked.
The power and RF GaN markets will grow beyond US$2.45 billion and US$1.9 billion in 2029, respectively, according to Yole, which is offering a webinar on the topic.
The micro LED chip market is predicted to reach $580 million by 2028, driven by head-mounted devices and automotive applications, according to TrendForce. The cost of Micro LED chips may eventually come down due to size miniaturization.
Semiconductor Engineering published its Automotive, Security, and Pervasive Computing newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:
More reporting this week:
Scott Best, Rambus senior director of Silicon Security Products, delivered a keynote at the Hardwear.io conference this week (below), detailing a $60 billion reverse engineering threat for hardware in just three markets — $30 billion for printer consumables, $20 billion for rechargeable batteries with some type of authentication, and $10 billion for medical devices such as sonogram probes.
Photo source: Ed Sperling/Semiconductor Engineering
wolfSSL debuted wolfHSM for automotive hardware security modules, with its cryptographic library ported to run in automotive HSMs like Infineon’s Aurix Tricore TC3XX.
Cisco integrated AMD Pensando data processing units (DPUs) with its Hypershield security architecture for defending AI-scale data centers.
OMNIVISION released an intelligent CMOS image sensor for human presence detection, infrared facial authentication, and always-on technology with a single sensing camera. And two new image sensors for industrial and consumer security surveillance cameras.
Digital Catapult announced a new cohort of companies will join Digital Security by Design’s Technology Access Program, gaining access to an Arm Morello prototype evaluation hardware kit based on Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions (CHERI), to find applications across critical UK sectors.
University of Southampton researchers used formal verification to evaluate the hardware reliability of a RISC-V ibex core in the presence of soft errors.
Several institutions published their students’ master’s and PhD work:
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a number of alerts/advisories.
Renesas and the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IIT Hyderabad) signed a three-year MoU to collaborate on VLSI and embedded semiconductor systems, with a focus on R&D and academic interactions to advance the “Make in India” strategy.
Charlie Parker, senior machine learning engineer at Tignis, presented a talk on “Why Every Fab Should Be Using AI.”
Penn State and the National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU) in Taiwan partnered to develop educational and research programs focused on semiconductors and photonics.
Rapidus and Hokkaido University partnered on education and research to enhance Japan’s scientific and technological capabilities and develop human resources for the semiconductor industry.
The University of Minnesota named Steve Koester its first “Chief Semiconductor Officer,” and launched a website devoted to semiconductor and microelectronics research and education.
The state of Michigan invested $10 million toward semiconductor workforce development.
Siemens reported breakthroughs in high-level C++ verification that will be used in conjunction with its Catapult software. Designers will be able to use formal property checking via the Catapult Formal Assert software and reachability coverage analysis through Catapult Formal CoverCheck.
Infineon released several products:
Augmental, an MIT Media Lab spinoff, released a tongue-based computer controller, dubbed the MouthPad.
NVIDIA revealed a new line of products that will form the basis of next-gen AI data centers. Along with partners ASRock Rack, ASUS, GIGABYTE, Ingrasys, and others, the NVIDIA GPUs and networking tech will offer cloud, on-premises, embedded, and edge AI systems. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang showed off the company’s upcoming Rubin platform, which will succeed its current Blackwell platform. The new system will feature new GPUs, an Arm-based CPU and advanced networking with NVLink 6, CX9 SuperNIC and X1600 converged InfiniBand/Ethernet switch.
Intel showed off its Xeon 6 processors at Computex 2024. The company also unveiled architectural details for its Lunar Lake client computing processor, which will use 40% less SoC power, as well as a new NPU, and X2 graphic processing unit cores for gaming.
imec released a roadmap for superconducting digital technology to revolutionize AI/ML.
CEA-Leti reported breakthroughs in three projects it considers key to the next generation of CMOS image sensors. The projects involved embedding AI in the CIS and stacking multiple dies to create 3D architectures.
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT-CSAIL) used a type of generative AI, known as diffusion models, to train multi-purpose robots, and designed the Grasping Neural Process for more intelligent robotic grasping.
IBM and Pasqal partnered to develop a common approach to quantum-centric supercomputing and to promote application research in chemistry and materials science.
Stanford University and Q-NEXT researchers investigated diamond to find the source of its temperamental nature when it comes to emitting quantum signals.
TU Wien researchers investigated how AI categorizes images.
In Canada:
Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:
| Event | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| SNUG Europe: Synopsys User Group | Jun 10 – 11 | Munich |
| IEEE RAS in Data Centers Summit: Reliability, Availability and Serviceability | Jun 11 – 12 | Santa Clara, CA |
| AI for Semiconductors (MEPTEC) | Jun 12 – 13 | Online |
| 3D & Systems Summit | Jun 12 – 14 | Dresden, Germany |
| PCI-SIG Developers Conference | Jun 12 – 13 | Santa Clara, CA |
| Standards for Chiplet Design with 3DIC Packaging (Part 1) | Jun 14 | Online |
| AI Hardware and Edge AI Summit: Europe | Jun 18 – 19 | London, UK |
| Standards for Chiplet Design with 3DIC Packaging (Part 2) | Jun 21 | Online |
| DAC 2024 | Jun 23 – 27 | San Francisco |
| RISC-V Summit Europe 2024 | Jun 24 – 28 | Munich |
| Leti Innovation Days 2024 | Jun 25 – 27 | Grenoble, France |
| Find All Upcoming Events Here | ||
Upcoming webinars are here.
Semiconductor Engineering’s latest newsletters:
Automotive, Security and Pervasive Computing
Systems and Design
Low Power-High Performance
Test, Measurement and Analytics
Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials
The post Chip Industry Week In Review appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.
Ubisoft's free-to-play arena shooter XDefiant's first patch has been released.
Entitled "Preseason Patch 1", it addresses a number of specific issues, including one with loading into the Practice Zone – some players found themselves "in a hellscape" outside the world – and another that sees devices dropped at players' feet should they die during device deployment. Up until now, they would still be thrown as if you hadn't just carked it.
This means Practice Zone has been turned back on, although the team warns "it's possible weird things could still happen". So make of that what you will.
JEDEC and the Open Compute Project rolled out a new set of guidelines for standardizing chiplet characterization details, such as thermal properties, physical and mechanical requirements, and behavior specs. Those details have been a sticking point for commercial chiplets, because without them it’s not possible to choose the best chiplet for a particular application or workload. The guidelines are a prerequisite for a multi-vendor chiplet marketplace.
AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, HPE, Intel, Meta, and Microsoft proposed a new high-speed, low-latency interconnect specification, Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), between accelerators and switches in AI computing pods. The 1.0 specification will enable the connection of up to 1,024 accelerators within a pod and allow for direct loads and stores between the memory attached to accelerators.
Arm debuted a range of new CPUs, including the Cortex-X925 for on-device generative AI, and the Cortex-A725 with improved efficiency for AI and mobile gaming. It also announced the Immortalis-G925 GPU for flagship smartphones, and the Mali-G725/625 GPUs for consumer devices. Additionally, Arm announced Compute Subsystems (CSS) for Client to provide foundational computing elements for AI smartphone and PC SoCs, and it introduced KleidiAI, a set of compute kernels for developers of AI frameworks. The Armv9-A architecture also added support for the Scalable Matrix Extension to accelerate AI workloads.
TSMC said its 2nm process is on target to begin mass production in 2025. Meanwhile, Samsung is expected to release its 1nm plan next month, targeting mass production for 2026 — a year ahead of schedule, reports Business Korea.
CHIPs for America and NATCAST released a 2024 roadmap for the U.S. National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), identifying priorities for facilities, research, workforce development, and membership.
China is investing CNY 344 billion (~$47.5 billion) into the third phase of its National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known as the Big Fund, to support its semiconductor sector and supply chain, according to numerous reports.
Malaysia plans to invest $5.3 billion in seed capital and support for semiconductor manufacturing in an effort to attract more than $100 billion in foreign investments, reports Reuters. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the effort to create at least 10 companies focused on IC design, advanced packaging, and equipment manufacturing.
imec demonstrated a die-to-wafer hybrid bonding flow for Cu-Cu and SiCN-SiCN at pitches down to 2µm at the IEEE’s ECTC conference. This breakthrough could enable die and wafer-level optical interconnects.
The chip industry is racing to develop glass for advanced packaging, setting the stage for one of the biggest shifts in chip materials in decades — and one that will introduce a broad new set of challenges that will take years to fully resolve.
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Semiconductor Engineering published its Systems & Design newsletter featuring these top stories:
STMicroelectronics is building a fully integrated SiC facility in Catania, Italy. The high-volume 200mm facility is projected to cost over $5 billion.
Siliconware Precision Industries Co. Ltd.(SPIL) broke ground on an RM 6 billion (~$1.3 billion) advanced packaging and testing facility in Malaysia. Also, Google will invest $2 billion in Malaysia for its first data center, and a Google Cloud hub to meet growing demand for cloud services and AI literacy programs, reports AP.
In an SEC filing, Applied Materials received additional subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DoC) Bureau of Industry and Security related to shipments of advanced semiconductor equipment to China. This comes on the heels of similar subpoenas issued last year.
A Chinese contractor working for SK hynix was arrested in South Korea and is being charged with funneling more than 3,000 copies of a paper on solving process failure issues to Huawei, reports South Korea’s Union News.
VSORA, CEA-Grenoble, and Valeo were awarded $7 million from the French government to build low-latency, low-power AI inference co-processors for autonomous driving and other applications.
In the U.S., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating unexpected driving behaviors of vehicles equipped with Waymo‘s 5th Generation automated driving system (ADS), with details of nine new incidents on top of the first 22.
ASE introduced powerSIP, a power delivery platform designed to reduce signal and transmission loss while addressing current density challenges.
Infineon announced a roadmap for energy-efficient power supply units based on Si, SiC, and GaN to address the energy needs of AI data centers, featuring new 8 kW and 12 kW PSUs, in addition to the 3 kW and 3.3 kW units available today. The company also released its CoolSiC MOSFET 400 V family, specially developed for use in the AC/DC stage of AI servers, complementing the PSU roadmap.
Fig. 1: Infineon’s 8kW PSU. Source: Infineon
Infineon also introduced two new generations of high voltage (HV) and medium voltage (MV) CoolGaN TM devices, enabling customers to use GaN in voltage classes from 40 V to 700 V. The devices are built using Infineon’s 8-inch foundry processes.
Ansys launched Ansys Access on Microsoft Azure to provide pre-configured simulation products optimized for HPC on Azure infrastructure.
Foxconn Industrial Internet used Keysight Technology’s Open RAN Studio solution to certify an outdoor Open Radio Unit (O-RU).
Andes Technology announced an SoC and development board for the development and porting of large RISC-V applications.
MediaTek uncorked a pair of mobile chipsets built on a 4nm process that use an octa-core CPU consisting of 4X Arm Cortex-A78 cores operating at up to 2.5GHz paired with 4X Arm Cortex-A55 cores.
The NVIDIA H200 Blackwell platform is expected to begin shipping in Q3 of 2024 and will be available to data centers by Q4, according to TrendForce.
A room-temperature direct fusion hybrid bonding system from Be Semiconductor has shipped to the NHanced advanced packaging facility in North Carolina. The new system offers faster throughput for copper interconnects with submicron pad sizes, greater accuracy and reduced warpage.
Frore Systems raised $80 million for its solid-state active cooling module, which removes heat from the top of a chip without fans. The device in systems ranging from notebooks and network edge gateways to data centers.
Axus Technology received $12.5 million in capital equity funding to make its chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) equipment for semiconductor wafer polishing, thinning, and cleaning, including of silicon carbide (SiC) wafers.
Elon Musk’s xAI announced a series B funding round of $6 billion.
Micron was ordered to pay $445 million in damages to Netlist for patent infringement of the company’s DDR4 memory module technology between 2021 and 2024.
Global revenue from AI semiconductors is predicted to total $71 billion in 2024, up 33% from 2023, according to Gartner. In 2025, it is expected to jump to $91.9 billion. The value of AI accelerators used in servers is expected to total $21 billion in 2024 and reach $33 billion by 2028.
NAND flash revenue was $14.71 billion in Q1 2024, an increase of 28.1%, according to TrendForce.
The optical transceiver market dipped from $11 billion in 2022 to $10.9 billion in 2023, but it is predicted to reach $22.4 billion by 2029, driven by AI, 800G applications, and the transition to 200G/lane ecosystem technologies, reports Yole.
Yole also found that ultra-wideband technical choices and packaging types used by NXP, Apple, and Qorvo vary considerably, ranging from 7nm to 90nm, with both CMOS and finFET transistors.
The global market share of GenAI-capable smartphones increased to 6% in Q1 2024 from 1.3% in the previous quarter, reports Counterpoint. The premium segment accounted for over 70% of sales with Samsung on top and contributing 58%. Meanwhile, global foldable smartphone shipments were up 49% YoY in Q1 2024, led by Huawei, HONOR, and Motorola.
The National Science Foundation awarded Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Shahin Tajik almost $0.6 million to develop new technologies to address hardware security vulnerabilities.
The Hyperform consortium was formed to develop European sovereignty in post-quantum cryptography, funded by the French government and EU credits. Members include IDEMIA Secure Transactions, CEA Leti, and the French cybersecurity agency (ANSSI).
In security research:
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) seeks proposals for its AI Quantified program to develop technology to help deploy generative AI safely and effectively across the Department of Defense (DoD) and society.
Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) partnered to develop dependable AI for national security applications.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a number of alerts/advisories.
New York continues to amp up their semiconductor offerings. NY CREATES and Raytheon unveiled a semiconductor workforce training program. And Syracuse University is hosting a free virtual course focused on the semiconductor industry this summer.
In research news:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $36 million to three projects chosen for their potential to revolutionize computing. The University of Texas at Austin-led project aims to create a next-gen open-source intelligent and adaptive OS. The Harvard University-led project targets sustainable computing. The University of Massachusetts Amherst-led project will develop computational decarbonization.
Singapore will invest close to S$300 million (~$222 million) into its National Quantum Strategy to support the development and deployment of quantum technologies, including an initiative to design and build a quantum processor within the country.
Several quantum partnerships were announced:
Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:
| Event | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Hardwear.io Security Trainings and Conference USA 2024 | May 28 – Jun 1 | Santa Clara, CA |
| SWTest | Jun 3 – 5 | Carlsbad, CA |
| IITC2024: Interconnect Technology Conference | Jun 3 – 6 | San Jose, CA |
| VOICE Developer Conference | Jun 3 – 5 | La Jolla, CA |
| CHIPS R&D Standardization Readiness Level Workshop | Jun 4 – 5 | Online and Boulder, CO |
| SNUG Europe: Synopsys User Group | Jun 10 – 11 | Munich |
| IEEE RAS in Data Centers Summit: Reliability, Availability and Serviceability | Jun 11 – 12 | Santa Clara, CA |
| 3D & Systems Summit | Jun 12 – 14 | Dresden, Germany |
| PCI-SIG Developers Conference | Jun 12 – 13 | Santa Clara, CA |
| AI Hardware and Edge AI Summit: Europe | Jun 18 – 19 | London, UK |
| DAC 2024 | Jun 23 – 27 | San Francisco |
| Find All Upcoming Events Here | ||
Upcoming webinars are here, including integrated SLM analytics solution, prototyping and validation of perception sensor systems, and improving PCB designs for performance and reliability.
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The post Chip Industry Week In Review appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.
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On Thursday, several major tech companies, including Google, Intel, Microsoft, Meta, AMD, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Cisco, and Broadcom, announced the formation of the Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) Promoter Group to develop a new interconnect standard for AI accelerator chips in data centers. The group aims to create an alternative to Nvidia's proprietary NVLink interconnect technology, which links together multiple servers that power today's AI applications like ChatGPT.
The beating heart of AI these days lies in GPUs, which can perform massive numbers of matrix multiplications—necessary for running neural network architecture—in parallel. But one GPU often isn't enough for complex AI systems. NVLink can connect multiple AI accelerator chips within a server or across multiple servers. These interconnects enable faster data transfer and communication between the accelerators, allowing them to work together more efficiently on complex tasks like training large AI models.
This linkage is a key part of any modern AI data center system, and whoever controls the link standard can effectively dictate which hardware the tech companies will use. Along those lines, the UALink group seeks to establish an open standard that allows multiple companies to contribute and develop AI hardware advancements instead of being locked into Nvidia's proprietary ecosystem. This approach is similar to other open standards, such as Compute Express Link (CXL)—created by Intel in 2019—which provides high-speed, high-capacity connections between CPUs and devices or memory in data centers.
If you got the chance to paint a "Painted Lady," why not paint it an extraordinary way? That's exactly what artist Xavi Panneton did. Last summer, he took the opportunity to give a historic San Francisco Victorian a stunning makeover. Located in Duboce Triangle, this house was transformed to stand out among its traditional neighbors. — Read the rest
The post San Francisco "Painted Lady" gets pixelated makeover appeared first on Boing Boing.
Ubisoft's Tom Clancy-adjacent free-to-play shooter XDefiant has - after several delays last year - been given a release date, and launches for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on 21st May.
XDefiant - a 6v6 mash-up of Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and The Division - was initially revealed as Tom Clancy's XDefiant back in 2021, but Ubisoft later announced it was dropping the prefix following criticism from Tom Clancy fans who felt XDefiant's flamboyant action strayed too far from the franchise's more serious military themes and formula.
Since then, it's seen numerous closed Insider tests and open sessions, but hasn't quite managed to get its foot out the door. It first missed a planned summer launch last year, then received another delay in October, due to "inconsistencies in the game experience".
Good news, people whose day-to-day lives are woefully short on blingy Clancified squad-murdering. Ubisoft's elusive free-to-play shooter XDefiant finally has a release date, 21st May 2024. Or at least, that's when the preseason launches, providing six weeks of access to the modes, maps and factions from last month's server test.
Despite bribing San Francisco city officials for 18 years and being convicted of corruption, developer Sia Tahbazof, 73, was given only probation by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston. He was "fined" $75,000, though, a good example of the old adage that to the rich, the fine is a price. — Read the rest
The post No prison time for developer who bribed city officials for 18 years appeared first on Boing Boing.
By Adam Kovac, Gregory Haley, and Liz Allan.
Cadence plans to acquire BETA CAE Systems for $1.24 billion, the latest volley in a race to sell multi-physics simulation and analysis across a broad set of customers with deep pockets. Cadence said the deal opens the door to structural analysis for the automotive, aerospace, industrial, and health care sectors. Under the terms of the agreement, 60% of the purchase would be paid in cash, and the remainder in stock.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported that North Korea was targeting cyberattacks at domestic semiconductor equipment companies, using a “living off the land” approach, in which the attacker uses minimal malware to attack common applications installed on the server. That makes it more difficult to spot an attack. According to the government, “In December last year, Company A, and in February this year, Company B, had their configuration management server and security policy server hacked, respectively, and product design drawings and facility site photos were stolen.”
As the memory market goes, so goes the broader chip industry. Last quarter, and heading into early 2024, both markets began showing signs of sustainable growth. DRAM revenue jumped 29.6% in Q4 for a total of $17.46 billion. TrendForce attributed some of that to new efforts to stockpile chips and strategic production control. NAND flash revenue was up 24.5% in Q4, with solid growth expected to continue into the first part of this year, according to TrendForce. Revenue for the sector topped $11.4 billion in Q4, and it’s expected to grow another 20% this quarter. SSD prices rebounded in Q4, as well, up 15% to $23.1 billion. Across the chip industry, sales grew 15.2% in January compared to the same period in 2023, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). This is the largest increase since May 2022, and that trend is expected to continue throughout 2024 with double-digit growth compared to 2023.
Marvell said it is working with TSMC to develop a technology platform for the rapid deployment of analog, mixed-signal, and foundational IP. The company plans to sell both custom and commercial chiplets at 2nm.
The Dutch government is concerned that ASML, the only maker of EUV/high-NA EUV lithography equipment in the world, is considering leaving the Netherlands, according to De Telegraaf.
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AMD appears to have hit a roadblock with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) over a new AI chip it designed for the Chinese market, as reported by Bloomberg. U.S. officials told the company the new chip is too powerful to be sold without a license.
JEDEC released its new memory standard as a free download on its website. The JESD239 Graphics Double Data Rate SGRAM can reach speeds of 192 GB/s and improve signal-to-noise ratio.
Accellera rolled out its IEEE Std. 1800‑2023 Standard for SystemVerilog—Unified Hardware Design, Specification, and Verification Language, which is now available for free download. The decision to offer it at no cost is due to Accellera’s participation in the IEEE GET Program, which was founded in 2010 with the intention of providing open access to some standards. Accellera also announced it had approved for release the Verilog-AMS 2023 standard, which offers enhancements to analog constructs, dynamic tolerance for event control statements, and other upgrades.
Chiplets are a hot topic these days. Six industry experts discuss chiplet standards, interoperability, and the need for highly customized AI chiplets.
Optimizing EDA hardware for the cloud can shorten the time required for large and complex simulations, but not all workloads will benefit equally, and much more can be done to improve those that can.
Flex Logix is developing InferX DSP for use with existing EFLX eFPGA from 40nm to 7nm. InferX achieves about 30 times the DSP performance/mm² than eFPGA.
The number of challenges is growing in power semiconductors, just as it is in traditional chips. This tech talk looks at integrating power semiconductors with other devices, different packaging impacts, and how these devices will degrade over time.
Vultr announced it will use NVIDIA’s HGX H100 GPU clusters to expand its Seattle-based cloud data center. The company said the expansion, which will be powered by hydroelectricity, will make the facility one of the cleanest, most power efficient data centers in the country.
Amazon Web Services will expand its presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing a new $5.3 billion infrastructure region in the country that will launch in 2026. The new region will offer developers, entrepreneurs and companies access to healthcare, education and other services.
Google is teaming up with the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) to launch the XPRIZE Quantum Applications, with a $5 million in prizes for winners who can demonstrate ways to use quantum computing to solve real-world problems. Teams must submit a proposal that includes analysis of how long their algorithm would need to run before reaching a solution to a problem, such as improving drug development or designing new battery materials.
South Korea’s nepes corporation has turned to Siemens EDA for solutions in the development of advanced 3D-IC packages. The deal will see nepes incorporating several Siemens technologies, including the Calibre nmPlatform, Hyperlynx software and Xpedition Substrate Integrator software.
Siemens also formalized a partnership with Nuclei System Technology in which the pair of companies will work together on solution support for Nuclei’s RISC-V processor cores. The collaboration will allow clients to monitor CPU program execution in real-time via Nuclei’s RISC-V CPU Ips.
Keysight and ETS-Lindgren announced a breakthrough test solution for cellular devices using non-terrestrial networks. The solution is capable of measuring and validating the performance of both the transmitter and receiver of devices capable of supporting the network.
Nearly fifty companies raised $800 million for power electronics, data center interconnects, and more last month.
SEMI Europe issued a position statement to the European Union, warning against additional export controls or rules on foreign investment. SEMI argued that free trade partnerships are a better method for ensuring security than bans or restrictions.
Revenues for the top five wafer fab equipment manufacturers declined 1% YoY in 2023 to $93.5 billion, according to Counterpoint Research. The drop was attributed to weak spending on memory, inventory adjustments, and low demand in consumer electronics. The tide is changing, though.
Bruker closed two acquisitions. One involved Chemspeed Technologies, a Switzerland-based provider of automated laboratory R&D and QC workflow solutions. The second involved Phasefocus, an image processing company based in the UK.
A Swedish company, SCALINQ, released a commercially available large-scale packaging solution capable of controlling quantum devices with hundreds of qubits.
Solid Sands, a provider of testing and qualification technology for compilers and libraries, will partner with California-based Emprog to establish a representative presence in the U.S.
Tesla halted production at its Brandenberg, Germany, gigafactory after an environmental activist group attacked an electricity pylon, reports the Guardian.
Stellantis will invest €5.6 billion (~$6.1B) in South America to support more than 40 new products, decarbonization technologies, and business opportunities.
The amount of data being collected, processed, and stored in vehicles is exploding, and so is the value of that data. That raises questions that are still not fully answered about how that data will be used, by whom, and how it will be secured.
While industry experts expect many benefits of V2X technology, technological and social hurdles to cross. But there is progress.
Infineon released its next-gen silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET trench technology with 650V and 1,200V options improving stored energies and charges by up to 20%, ideal for power semiconductor applications such as photovoltaics, energy storage, DC EV charging, motor drives, and industrial power supplies.
Hyundai selected Ansys to supply structural simulation solutions for vehicle body system analysis, providing end-to-end, predictively accurate capabilities for virtual performance validation.
ION Mobility used the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio for styling, mechanical engineering, and electric battery pack development for its ION M1-S electric motorbike.
Ethernovia sampled a family of automotive PHY transceivers that scale from 10 Gbps to 1 Gbps over 15 meters of automotive cabling.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved Waymo’s plan to expand its driverless robotaxi services to Los Angeles and other cities near San Francisco, reports Reuters.
By 2027, next-gen battery EVs (BEVs) will on average be cheaper to produce than comparable gas-powered cars, reports Gartner. But the firm noted that average cost of EV accident repair will rise by 30%, and 15% of EV companies founded in the last decade will be acquired or bankrupt.
University of California San Diego (UCSD) researchers developed a cathode material for solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries that is electrically conductive and structurally healable.
ION Storage Systems announced its anodeless and compressionless solid-state batteries (SSBs) achieved 125 cycles with under 5% capacity degradation in performance. ION has been working with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to test its SSB before expanding into markets such as EVs, energy storage, consumer electronics, and aerospace.
Advanced process nodes and higher silicon densities are heightening DRAM’s susceptibility to Rowhammer attacks, as reduced cell spacing significantly decreases the hammer count needed for bit flips. A multi-layered, system-level approach is crucial to DRAM protection.
Researchers at Bar-Ilan University and Rafael Defense Systems proposed an analytical electromagnetic model for IC shielding against hardware attacks.
Keysight acquired the IP of Firmalyzer, whose firmware security analysis technology will be integrated into the Keysight IoT Security Assessment and Automotive Security solutions, providing analysis into what is happening inside the IoT device itself.
Flex Logix joined the Intel Foundry U.S. Military Aerospace Government (USMAG) Alliance, ensuring U.S. defense industrial base and government customers have access to the latest technology, enabling successful designs for mission critical programs.
The EU Council presidency and European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a Cyber Solidarity Act and an amendment to the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) concerning managed security services.
The EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and partners updated the compendium on elections cybersecurity in response to issues such as AI deep fakes, hacktivists-for-hire, the sophistication of threat actors, and the current geopolitical context.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) launched efforts to help secure the open source software ecosystem; updated its Public Safety Communications and Cyber Resiliency Toolkit; and issued other alerts including security advisories for VMware, Apple, and Cisco.
Johns Hopkins University engineers used natural language prompts and ChatGPT4 to produce detailed instructions to build a spiking neural network (SNN) chip. The neuromorphic accelerators could power real-time machine intelligence for next-gen embodied systems like autonomous vehicles and robots.
The global AI hardware market size was estimated at $53.71 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach about $473.53 billion by 2033, at a compound annual growth rate of 24.5%, reports Precedence Research.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers and partners built compact chips capable of converting light into microwaves, which could improve navigation, communication, and radar systems.
Fig. 1: NIST researchers test a chip for converting light into microwave signals. Pictured is the chip, which is the fluorescent panel that looks like two tiny vinyl records. The gold box to the left of the chip is the semiconductor laser that emits light to the chip. Credit: K. Palubicki/NIST
The Indian government is investing 103 billion rupees ($1.25B) in AI projects, including computing infrastructure and large language models (LLMs).
Infineon is collaborating with Qt Group, bringing Qt’s graphics framework to Infineon’s graphics-enabled TRAVEO T2G cluster MCUs to optimize graphical user interface (GUI) development.
Keysight leveraged fourth-generation AMD EPYC CPUs to develop a new benchmarking methodology to test mobile and 5G private network performance. The method uses realistic traffic generation to uncover a CPU’s true power and scalability while observing bandwidth requirements.
The AI industry is pushing a nuclear power revival, reports NBC, and Amazon bought a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania from Talen Energy for $650 million, according to WNEP.
Bank of America was awarded 644 patents in 2023 for technology including information security, AI, machine learning (ML), online and mobile banking, payments, data analytics, and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR).
Mistral AI’s large language model, Mistral Large, became available in the Snowflake Data Cloud for customers to securely harness generative AI with their enterprise data.
China’s smartphone unit sales declined 7% year over year in the first six weeks of 2024, with Apple declining 24%, reports Counterpoint.
Shipments of LCD TV panels are expected to reach 55.8 million units in Q1 2024, a 5.3% quarter over quarter increase, reports TrendForce. And an estimated 5.8 billion LED lamps and luminaires are expected to reach the end of their lifespan in 2024, triggering a wave of secondary replacements and boosting total LED lighting demand to 13.4 billion units.
Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) researchers mined high-purity gold from electrical and electronic waste.
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the University of Utah launched a National Data Platform pilot project, aimed at making access to and use of scientific data open and equitable.
Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:
| Event | Date | Location |
| ISS Industry Strategy Symposium Europe | Mar 6 – 8 | Vienna, Austria |
| GSA International Semiconductor Conference | Mar 13 – 14 | London |
| Device Packaging Conference (DPC 2024) | Mar 18 – 21 | Fountain Hills, AZ |
| GOMACTech | Mar 18 – 21 | Charleston, South Carolina |
| SNUG Silicon Valley | Mar 20 – 21 | Santa Clara, CA |
| SEMICON China | Mar 20 – 22 | Shanghai |
| OFC: Optical Communications & Networking | Mar 24 – 28 | Virtual; San Diego, CA |
| DATE: Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference | Mar 25 – 27 | Valencia, Spain |
| SEMI Therm | Mar 25- 28 | San Jose, CA |
| MemCon | Mar 26 – 27 | Silicon Valley |
| All Upcoming Events | ||
Upcoming webinars are here.
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The post Chip Industry Week In Review appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.
Great moments in unintended consequences—when something that sounds like a great idea goes horribly wrong. Watch the whole series.
Part 1: Game Engine
The year: 2018
The problem: Too many loud vehicles in the city of Edmonton!
The solution: Erect sound monitoring display boards in various locations in the city, alerting motorists if they are exceeding the 85-decibel level limit by displaying their current noise level.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out games are fun! Since the display board went up as part of a pilot program with no accompanying enforcement mechanism, competitive motorists used the scoreboards… er, displays…to see just how loud they could get. As revving engines increased, so did noise complaints. Within weeks the city reversed course and turned off the displays.
Looks like cars aren't the only things that backfire.
Part 2: I Left My Smart in San Francisco
The year: 2016
The problem: States are passing laws San Francisco doesn't like!
The solution: Pressure them to change by prohibiting any city contracts with companies headquartered in states that don't share San Francisco's values.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Turns out, competition drives down prices! With limited bidding options, public project costs ballooned by around 20 percent according to city administrators. The ban also created additional bureaucratic costs, totaling nearly half a million dollars in staffing expenses alone, and made it difficult to support like-minded businesses in verboten states.
More and more waivers and exemptions were granted as the list of covered states grew from 4 to 30, which should have been a clue that these expensive pressure tactics weren't exactly changing hearts and minds. In 2023, the city trashed the bans, probably in a very expensive trash can.
Part 3: Tooned Up
The Year: 1903
The Problem: Cartoonists keep depicting Pennsylvania politician Samuel Pennypacker as a parrot!
The Solution: Introduce a bill banning any cartoon in which a person is depicted as a "beast, bird, fish, insect, or other inhuman animal."
Sounds unconstitutional and entirely self-interested! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Turns out, people who make fun of politicians for a living are pretty comfortable fighting back against politicians. Criticism of Governor Pennypacker and the anti-cartoon bill exploded, with cartoonists nationwide depicting the Governor and others as turnips, trees, chestnut burrs, squash, and beer steins. The blowback was so humiliating that the bill was pulled from consideration and replaced with a new broader bill making newspaper editors and publishers personally responsible for libel lawsuits.
The press ramped up their ridicule, daring Pennypacker to take them to court. But the law was never enforced and was repealed after he left office, having been hounded for his entire term by critical cartoons.
That's one way to draw attention.
Great moments in unintended consequences: good intentions, bad results.
Do you know a great moment in unintended consequences? Email us at [email protected].
The post Great Moments in Unintended Consequences: Road Noise Meters, San Francisco Red State Boycott, and Pennsylvania's Political Cartoon Ban (Vol. 15) appeared first on Reason.com.
On March 5, San Franciscans will have the opportunity to vote on a ballot measure that would decide whether or not to make them into guinea pigs for surveillance experiments by the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
Proposition E purports to streamline the SFPD, with sections on community engagement, recordkeeping, and the department's vehicle pursuit and use of force policies. But its portion on department use of surveillance technology is troubling.
Under an existing ordinance passed in 2019, the SFPD may only use "surveillance technologies"—like surveillance cameras, automatic license plate readers, or cell site simulators—that have been approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city and county legislative body. The process requires that the SFPD, like any other city or county agency, submit a policy to the board for approval before using any new technology. The 2019 ordinance also banned the use of facial recognition technology.
But Prop E adds a clause stipulating that the SFPD "may acquire and/or use a Surveillance Technology so long as it submits a Surveillance Technology Policy to the Board of Supervisors for approval by ordinance within one year of the use or acquisition, and may continue to use that Surveillance Technology after the end of that year unless the Board adopts an ordinance that disapproves the Policy."
In other words, the SFPD could roll out an unapproved method of surveillance, and it would have free rein to operate within the city for up to a year before ever having to ask city officials for permission. And until the city passes a statute that specifically forbids it—that is, forbidding a technology that is by that point already in use—then the SFPD can keep using it indefinitely.
"Let's say the SFPD decides they want to buy a bunch of data on people's geolocation from data brokers—they could do that," says Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "They could use drones that are flying at all times above the city. They could use the robot dogs that were piloted at the border. These are all surveillance technologies that the police doesn't necessarily have right now, and they could acquire it and use it, effectively without any sort of accountability, under this proposition."
If those scenarios sound implausible, it's worth noting that they've already happened: As Hussain notes, the Department of Homeland Security recently tested robot dogs to help patrol the U.S./Mexico border. And in 2012, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department enlisted civilian aircraft to fly over Compton and surveil the entire area.
Not to mention, federal agencies already routinely purchase people's cell phone geolocation information and internet metadata without a warrant.
In a sense, Prop E would make San Franciscans into guinea pigs, on whom the SFPD can experiment with all manner of surveillance technology. If that sounds hyperbolic, a member of Mayor London Breed's staff told the board of supervisors in November 2023 that Prop E "authorizes the department to have a one-year pilot period to experiment, to work through new technology to see how they work."
The San Francisco Ballot Simplification Committee's description of the proposition notes that it would "authorize the SFPD to use drones and install surveillance cameras without Commission or Board approval, including those with facial recognition technology."
The ACLU of Northern California calls Prop E "a dangerous and misleading proposal that knocks down three pillars of police reform: oversight, accountability, and transparency." Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the EFF, wrote that under Prop E, police could "expose already marginalized and over-surveilled communities to a new and less accountable generation of surveillance technologies."
Despite these concerns, Prop E has its share of support. Breed defended the proposal, saying "it's about making sure that our police department, like any other police department around the country, can use 21st century technology." By January, groups supporting Prop E had raised more than $1 million—ten times the amount raised by opponents and considerably more than has been raised for any other proposal on the March ballot.
It also seems to be popular among the public: A January survey released by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce found that 61 percent of San Franciscans favored Prop E, with only 37 percent opposed. (One possible explanation: The same survey found that 69 percent of those polled feel that crime has gotten worse. Recent data indicates that violent crime rose during 2023 even as it declined nationally, and while the rate of property crime fell, state and national rates fell faster.)
San Francisco is no stranger to potentially abusive surveillance practices. In 2022, the board of supervisors passed an ordinance that would allow the SFPD to request and receive real-time access to citizens' private security camera feeds. While city officials like Breed and newly-appointed District Attorney Brooke Jenkins touted that the ordinance would help crack down on smash-and-grab shoplifting rings, a recent city report detailed that in the third quarter of 2023, the vast majority of requests were for narcotics investigations.
The post Proposition E Would Make It Easier for Police To Surveil San Francisco appeared first on Reason.com.
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