New World: Aeternum, the latest expansion/do-over for Amazon's middling MMO New World, is having an open beta on 13th September ahead of its full PC and console release in October.

Aeternum, if you're unfamiliar, emerged back in June, amid some confused messaging that didn't entirely make it clear exactly what it was. And, truthfully, Amazon's marketing remains as baffling as ever. The gist, though, is that this is the same MMORPG released back in 2021, albeit with new features and a bit of finessing ahead of its debut on Xbox Series X/S and PS5.

It's got a pacier story (told through in-game cinematics and pre-rendered cut-scenes), combat improvements, cross-platform play, enhanced controller support, and more - while still retaining its other MMO bits like classes, crafting, and questing. Then there's New World's first-ever large-scale PvP zone, a new 10-player raid, end-game solo trials, and other additions.

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UPDATE 20/8/24: Well, there you go. Following last week's Deadline report, Amazon has officially unveiled Secret Level, a new "adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the most beloved video games".

It's a 15-episode series from the creators of Love, Death & Robots, and it'll feature stories inspired by Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, Warhammer 40,000, and a variety of PlayStation Studios games.

And if that takes your fancy, you'll be wanting to circle 10th December on your calendar - which is when the series arrives on Prime Video - then check out its teaser trailer below.

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Earlier this month, Amazon announced that it had ordered an animated series full of shorts based on video games like Spelunky and Mega Man, called Secret Level. Now we’ve gotten our first look at the teaser trailer for the series, and it certainly looks like there’s a short based on Armored Core, the FromSoftware mech…

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Today during Gamescom, Bethesda announced that it was adding the previously-teased dune buggy to Starfield in a free update that is set to go live later tonight. Bethesda also provided another sneak peek at Shattered Space, the upcoming DLC for Starfield, and revealed that it’s launching September 30 on consoles and…

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Funko Fusion, the upcoming third-person brand-blending action game, is out next month. And to help spread the world, the devs have released a demo for Funko Fusion, as well as confirmed that not even Mega Man is safe from this mish-mash of IP.

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Silent Hill 2 Remake had a rough reveal, between some disappointment that it was being handled by hit-or-miss horror studio Bloober Team and, more recently, divisive takes on protagonist James Sunderland’s new face. But a new batch of glowing hands-on previews is giving fans something to get hopeful for as the…

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Twitch could be considering a further wave of redundancies.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the streaming giant is demonstrating slowing user growth, intimating more cuts may be ahead.

If true, these cuts will come on top of layoffs in March 2023, October 2023, and January 2024, during which at least 900 people were let go.

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The Google Pixel 8a is already one of the best affordable smartphones around, offering great value at a great $499 price point. Deals come often in the tech world, though, and Google’s budget offering is getting a really nice $100 discount right now, bringing the cost down to just $399.

Get the Google Pixel 8a for just $399

This offer is available from Amazon, and the discount applies to the following color variants: Porcelain and Bay. The Obsidian and Aloe models are excluded, but these are currently going for $449, which is still a pretty good discount.

At $499, the Google Pixel 8a is a fantastic proposition, but at $399, it is a total steal. The device is pretty close to being considered a high-end device. For starters, the performance is pretty amazing, considering it has a Google Tensor G3 processor and 8GB of RAM. It’s also packed with a great camera system, primarily because of Google’s AI smarts in computational photography. We were also fans of the OLED screen, which displays rich colors and deep blacks. Not to mention, it has a 120Hz refresh rate, a very nice treat for such an affordable handset.

We were also quite surprised by the battery life improvements, thanks to the Tensor G3 optimizations and slightly larger battery compared to the Pixel 7a. You can learn all about our Pixel 8a battery tests here. And if you want a phone for the long haul, Google is promising seven years of updates with the Pixel 8a, including both Android upgrades and security patches.

This is actually a record-low price tag for the Google Pixel 8a. We’ve never seen the price go this low in the past, and we’re not sure how long the deal will last. If you’ve made up your mind on buying this phone, go get it as soon as possible. The offer might end soon!

If you’ve been streaming the latest shows or movies on Prime, you’ve likely noticed that ads are now part of your streaming experience. This change, introduced earlier in the year, is part of a broader strategy to boost Amazon’s advertising revenue. However, the retailer’s effort has yet to pay off, with the actual gains from its ad segment falling short of analysts’ expectations.

In the second quarter of the fiscal year, Amazon’s ad business grew by only 20% — this has been the slowest growth rate for the company’s ad segment in years (via The Information). As expected from such an announcement, the company’s share price dropped at market open. But what’s surprising is that the second quarter — April to June — was the first complete period to include revenue from video ads.

For a few months now, users have been seeing ads by default when streaming on Prime — that is, unless they agree to pay more for the ad-free plan. During a recent call with reporters, Brian Olsavsky, the Chief Financial Officer of Amazon, emphasized that, as of now, sponsored product ads, which refer to merchant-sponsored ads that appear on the top of your Amazon search page, will continue to be the core focus of Amazon’s ad businesses.

Amazon has taken a more gradual approach to introducing ads in its video platform, which we can only assume is to avoid alienating customers who had gotten used to an ad-free experience on Prime Video. That said, the company now has plenty of new streaming content in the works, which might just help in the success of its ad-supported model, as well as attracting new customers.

Although Amazon’s video ads business has made some pretty significant strides and is coming up strong against competitors like YouTube, its overall ad business is still fairly reliant on traditional merchant-sponsored ads on the Amazon app.

It’s always nice to get some freebies with your electronics purchases, and today Amazon is giving customers a little treat with the purchase of an Amazon Echo speaker. Anyone who gets the Amazon Echo Pop, Echo Dot, Echo, or Echo Spot, will get a free Sengled Smart Color Bulb at no extra price. That’s a $20 value!

Get the Amazon Echo Pop with Sengled Smart Color Bulb for $40

Get the Amazon Echo Dot with Sengled Smart Color Bulb for $50

Star Wars Outlaws is a modern AAA video game launching in 2024 which means that, of course, Ubisoft has released a road map filled with upcoming content for the open-world action game, despite it not even being out yet.

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Getting the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom feels great. After dozens of hours of dealing with ugly fused weapons and broken gear, you finally get the sword of legend. But it’s still far from perfect. While it can’t break, it can lose its power and have to recharge. The Master Sword from the…

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The Google Pixel 8a is already one of the best affordable smartphones around, offering great value at a great $499 price point. Deals come often in the tech world, though, and Google’s budget offering is getting a really nice $100 discount right now, bringing the cost down to just $399.

Get the Google Pixel 8a for just $399

This offer is available from Amazon, and the discount applies to the following color variants: Porcelain and Bay. The Obsidian and Aloe models are excluded, but these are currently going for $449, which is still a pretty good discount.

At $499, the Google Pixel 8a is a fantastic proposition, but at $399, it is a total steal. The device is pretty close to being considered a high-end device. For starters, the performance is pretty amazing, considering it has a Google Tensor G3 processor and 8GB of RAM. It’s also packed with a great camera system, primarily because of Google’s AI smarts in computational photography. We were also fans of the OLED screen, which displays rich colors and deep blacks. Not to mention, it has a 120Hz refresh rate, a very nice treat for such an affordable handset.

We were also quite surprised by the battery life improvements, thanks to the Tensor G3 optimizations and slightly larger battery compared to the Pixel 7a. You can learn all about our Pixel 8a battery tests here. And if you want a phone for the long haul, Google is promising seven years of updates with the Pixel 8a, including both Android upgrades and security patches.

This is actually a record-low price tag for the Google Pixel 8a. We’ve never seen the price go this low in the past, and we’re not sure how long the deal will last. If you’ve made up your mind on buying this phone, go get it as soon as possible. The offer might end soon!

If you’ve been streaming the latest shows or movies on Prime, you’ve likely noticed that ads are now part of your streaming experience. This change, introduced earlier in the year, is part of a broader strategy to boost Amazon’s advertising revenue. However, the retailer’s effort has yet to pay off, with the actual gains from its ad segment falling short of analysts’ expectations.

In the second quarter of the fiscal year, Amazon’s ad business grew by only 20% — this has been the slowest growth rate for the company’s ad segment in years (via The Information). As expected from such an announcement, the company’s share price dropped at market open. But what’s surprising is that the second quarter — April to June — was the first complete period to include revenue from video ads.

For a few months now, users have been seeing ads by default when streaming on Prime — that is, unless they agree to pay more for the ad-free plan. During a recent call with reporters, Brian Olsavsky, the Chief Financial Officer of Amazon, emphasized that, as of now, sponsored product ads, which refer to merchant-sponsored ads that appear on the top of your Amazon search page, will continue to be the core focus of Amazon’s ad businesses.

Amazon has taken a more gradual approach to introducing ads in its video platform, which we can only assume is to avoid alienating customers who had gotten used to an ad-free experience on Prime Video. That said, the company now has plenty of new streaming content in the works, which might just help in the success of its ad-supported model, as well as attracting new customers.

Although Amazon’s video ads business has made some pretty significant strides and is coming up strong against competitors like YouTube, its overall ad business is still fairly reliant on traditional merchant-sponsored ads on the Amazon app.

It’s always nice to get some freebies with your electronics purchases, and today Amazon is giving customers a little treat with the purchase of an Amazon Echo speaker. Anyone who gets the Amazon Echo Pop, Echo Dot, Echo, or Echo Spot, will get a free Sengled Smart Color Bulb at no extra price. That’s a $20 value!

Get the Amazon Echo Pop with Sengled Smart Color Bulb for $40

Get the Amazon Echo Dot with Sengled Smart Color Bulb for $50

If you have ever searched the Internet for recommendations about detective books, your chances of coming across Agatha Christie's works are pretty high.

Over her lifetime, Christie wrote 66 novels and 14 short story collections. While the latter has some great works available in different compilations, the novels helped the author become a household name worldwide. Her evergreen works are based on the exploits of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

While all her works are well-celebrated worldwide, let's take a look at her top 10 works of all time.

A.B.C Murders

A.B.C. Murders is one of the best novels featuring Hercule Poirot. The main plot revolves around a series of murders. While the killings appear to be random, there's a pattern—all the victims had alliterative names. While the plot is enjoyable, the unique blend of first—and third-person storytelling always drew my attention.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, with a name like that, doesn't make any attempt to hide the plot from readers. What begins as a tragic suicide soon turns into a game of blackmail and murder. Every murder mystery has a plot twist, but very few works of literature match this masterpiece. While you might try to guess who the murderer might be, the ending will leave you astonished, to say the least. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has also been adapted to a serialized version under the title "Who Killed Ackroyd."

Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express is one of Agatha Christie's most decorated works and takes Poirot on a wild ride across Europe. What begins as a luxurious train ride starting at Istanbul comes to a halt due to snowfall. A murder is discovered on the train amidst all the chaos, but there are no apparent suspects. The murder is even more interesting as the victim, Samuel Ratchett, had feared for his own life and tried to hire Poirot for protection. While the Belgian does refuse at first, Ratchett's murder forces the Belgian detective to use his grey cells to figure out the truth.

And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None has always felt very different from other works of Agatha Christie. First, there are a lot more murders, and they appear to happen in bizarre fashions. The plot is set on an island where Mr and Mrs Owen invite eight people. However, the hosts are nowhere to be found, and soon, one murder starts happening after the next. While you might find the murders disturbing at first, the end leaves you wondering whether all the actions of the killer were justified or not.

Death on the Nile

Like Murder on the Orient Express, Death of the Nile is very well-celebrated, with a movie adaptation released in 2022. As good as the Gal Gadot-starring movie, reading the book is much more intense. As the young couple of Linnet and Simon, about to get married, starts a cruise on the Nile, they're confronted by Jacqueline, who has a bad history with both. As the cruise begins, Linnet narrowly escapes death from a boulder before the killer eventually gets to her. What starts as a happy and picturesque ride on the river Nile soon turns out to be a race between the killer and Poirot. Like most works of Agatha Christie, the ending will leave you thinking, "Oh, I didn't see that coming."

Appointment with Death

Appointment with Death introduces you to a strange character like Mrs. Boynton, whose death actually feels satisfying to some extent. In fact, Poirot even overhears Raymond telling his sister about how their stepmother needs to be killed. While Mrs Boynton's death might not affect you much, it encourages Poirot to solve the case in 24 hours even though it's not clear whether there's a murder.

Crooked House

Crooked House is one of Christie's lesser-known works since it does not feature Poirot or Marple. The central plot might appear simple, but there are many twists and turns to expect as a reader. I also like the narrative style of Charles, who is tasked with discovering more about Aristide Leonides' murder. The suspect appears to be someone inside the family, but the obvious candidate might not be the killer.

The Body in the Library

The Body in the Library is arguably my favorite Marple story, which revolves around the murders of two teenage girls. It all begins when the body of the first victim is discovered by a maid at Gossington Hall. As Miss Marple starts investigating the first case, reports of another missing girl come up, who turns out to be the second victim. What unravels from there on showcases the depths some might go to fulfill their wishes.

A Murder is Announced

Usually, murders are noticed after they happen, but in this case, the killing is announced in a local newspaper before it happens. Despite all the preparations made by Miss Blacklock, a murder does happen at Little Paddocks, just like it was announced in the newspaper. As Miss Marple starts her investigation, it appears Miss Blacklock could have been the killer. What soon begins as a case of mysterious murder turns out to be a game of stolen identities and absolute chaos.

Five Little Pigs

There aren't many works of Agatha Christie where a dead case is reinvestigated. In Five Little Pigs, Hercule Poirot takes up an old case involving Carla Lemarchant, whose mother had been sentenced to prison for killing her husband, Amyas. Poirot soon discovers that there were five other people present at the Crales on the day of the murder. Five Little Pigs is a testament that the most obvious truth might not be accurate. Despite Caroline's confessions, it soon turns out that the killer was someone else.

The post 10 Best Agatha Christie books of all time appeared first on Destructoid.

MrBeast, one of the most popular content creators in the world, is seen by many as a family-friendly and mostly good dude who does a lot of charity work. But recent controversies, including one over his use of slurs in the past, have put a dark cloud over the famous YouTuber’s massive empire.

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Uber Uniques are supposed to be the rarest, most powerful items in Diablo IV and they’re about to get completely reworked. Blizzard outlined how each item is changing in the upcoming Season of the Infernal Hordes to make the gear stronger across all builds. They’re also getting a new name.

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Amazon has announced that it will give Prime subscribers 20 free games during the month of August, including Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Baldur’s Gate II, and Loop Hero.

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Ubisoft has become almost synonymous with open-world games in the past two decades thanks to franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. So it’s no surprise that people expect the publisher’s next game, Star Wars Outlaws, to take a lot of inspiration from those in-house tent-poles that have come before it. Yet…

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The Elden Ring speedrunning community is hungry for new exploits to crack the open-world FromSoftware game wide open and it might’ve just discovered one. As part of an ongoing $10,000 tournament, someone has found a way to displace the player character just enough to allow them to walk on air and skip huge chunks of…

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This year, we’ve seen digital assistants get serious AI facelifts. Google is by far the most prominent, with its Gemini platform already poised to take over for Google Assistant. Meanwhile, at WWDC24, Apple showed off what a generative AI-powered version of Siri will be able to do later this year.

So far, the major digital assistant platform left out of this conversation is Amazon’s Alexa. Alexa hasn’t had a good couple of years. Amazon considers the platform unprofitable because not enough people use it for what Amazon wants them to use it for, which is buying products on Amazon, naturally. Alexa also doesn’t have the advantage of being baked into your smartphone since the one time Amazon tried to launch a phone was a crash-and-burn failure. This has all culminated with Amazon shrinking the Alexa team and focusing less on it.

But Alexa’s not about to be left behind in the generative AI race. According to a new report from Reuters, Amazon is working hard to bring generative AI-powered Alexa to the masses. Codenamed “Banyan” — a reference to a species of sprawling ficus trees — the “new” Alexa would offer two tiers of service, with the lower tier remaining free and the top tier costing users a monthly fee.

Internally, Amazon is referring to this upgrade as “Remarkable Alexa,” although that is unlikely to be its commercial name. Allegedly, access to “Remarkable Alexa” might cost between $5 and $10 each month. There is not going to be a tie-in with Prime membership, so you won’t get access to the premium tier just by paying for Prime.

According to three current and former Amazon employees speaking anonymously with Reuters, the company has given the Alexa team a hard deadline of August 2024 for the rollout of the “Banyan” project. This would put it nearly a year behind Google’s Gemini announcement and months behind Apple’s Siri announcement. However, if Amazon can actually roll out the new Alexa in August, it might beat Siri’s actual rollout, which likely won’t be completed until early 2025.

Regardless, Amazon’s top brass are calling this a “must-win” situation for the unprofitable Alexa. The team hopes that conversational AI will finally bring Alexa to a profit by allowing users to converse with it about products before making a purchase. However, the people speaking with Reuters admitted that people are too used to using Alexa for free, so paying a monthly fee for it — no matter how useful it might be — isn’t likely to work.

Smart displays have evolved quite a bit since the initial debut of Amazon’s first Echo Show back in 2017. In fact, the category didn’t really come into its own until Google joined the fray with its own line of hardware about a year later. Now, both of these companies are essentially dominating the smart display landscape, with each offering their own take on a smart assistant with a screen.

It’s that screen that can make smart displays much more useful than smart speakers. Rather than just having a voice assistant recite the current weather report, for example, you can see a five-day forecast as well. The same goes for when you ask about your shopping list or calendar; it's simply easier to read the whole list or your day's appointments at a glance. Plus, touchsreens offer other benefits that speakers can't, like watching videos or checking your webcam to see who's at your front door. We've tested and used many smart displays over the years and below are a list of our top picks for the best smart displays you can get today.

Best smart displays for 2024

What to consider before buying a smart display

Amazon vs. Google voice assistants

The first question you should ask when looking for the best smart display for you is whether you prefer Amazon’s or Google’s ecosystem. If you have a lot of Google smart devices in your home, like Nest thermostats and security cameras, or even if you use a Google Pixel smartphone as your daily driver, then a Google-powered model may make more sense. If you have Amazon products, like a Fire TV Stick or a Ring cam, Amazon would obviously be a better choice from a compatibility standpoint. Of course, it's perfectly acceptable to have products from competing companies in the same home, but just realize they might not work seamlessly with each other from the start.

Aside from that, the two systems also offer some unique features. Google, for example, works best if you have an existing Google account and use services like Calendar and Photos. We especially love Google smart displays because they work well as digital photo frames. You can set it up to automatically pull in pictures of friends and family from your Google Photos library, and the algorithm is smart enough to use what it thinks are the best shots — so less chance of blurry photos or images of your eyes half-closed showing up, for example. But although you can use Amazon's displays as digital photo frames, the process is not quite as intuitive as Google’s, and Amazon doesn’t have anything comparable to Google’s photo-sorting algorithm.

It might seem like a minor point, but seeing as the display is on standby 90 percent of the time, its secondary function as a digital picture frame is very welcome. All Google smart displays also support YouTube and YouTube TV, step-by-step cooking instructions and all of the usual benefits of Google Assistant, like weather reports. As with Assistant on the phone, it also has voice recognition, so only you can see your calendar appointments and not others.

Amazon's smart displays, on the other hand, are slightly different. Instead of YouTube, they offer some alternative video streaming options, including Amazon Prime, NBC and Hulu. They also come with two browsers (Silk and Firefox), which you can use to search the web or watch YouTube videos – a handy enough workaround given the lack of a dedicated app. Amazon devices also offer step-by-step cooking instructions as well, thanks to collaborations with sources like SideChef and AllRecipes. The cooking instructions sometimes include short video clips, too.

BAE Systems and GlobalFoundries are teaming up to strengthen the supply of chips for national security programs, aligning technology roadmaps and collaborating on innovation and manufacturing. Focus areas include advanced packaging, GaN-on-silicon chips, silicon photonics, and advanced technology process development.

Onsemi plans to build a $2 billion silicon carbide production plant in the Czech Republic. The site would produce smart power semiconductors for electric vehicles, renewable energy technology, and data centers.

The global chip manufacturing industry is projected to boost capacity by 6% in 2024 and 7% in 2025, reaching 33.7 million 8-inch (200mm) wafers per month, according to SEMI‘s latest World Fab Forecast report. Leading-edge capacity for 5nm nodes and below is expected to grow by 13% in 2024, driven by AI demand for data center applications. Additionally, Intel, Samsung, and TSMC will begin producing 2nm chips using gate-all-around (GAA) FETs next year, boosting leading-edge capacity by 17% in 2025.

At the IEEE Symposium on VLSI Technology & Circuits, imec introduced:

• Functional CMOS-based CFETs with stacked bottom and top source/drain contacts.
• CMOS-based 56Gb/s zero-IF D-band beamforming transmitters to support next-gen short-range, high-speed wireless services at frequencies above 100GHz.
• ADCs for base stations and handsets, a key step toward scalable, high-performance beyond-5G solutions, such as cloud-based AI and extended reality apps.

Quick links to more news:

Global
In-Depth
Market Reports
Education and Training
Security
Product News
Research
Events and Further Reading

Global

Wolfspeed postponed plans to construct a $3 billion chip plant in Germany, underscoring the EU‘s challenges in boosting semiconductor production, reports Reuters. The North Carolina-based company cited reduced capital spending due to a weakened EV market, saying it now aims to start construction in mid-2025, two years later than 0riginally planned.

Micron is building a pilot production line for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in the U.S., and considering HBM production in Malaysia to meet growing AI demand, according to a Nikkei report. The company is expanding HBM R&D facilities in Boise, Idaho, and eyeing production capacity in Malaysia, while also enhancing its largest HBM facility in Taichung, Taiwan.

Kioxia restored its Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants in Japan to full capacity, ending production cuts as the memory market recovers, according to Nikkei. The company, which is focusing on NAND flash production, has secured new bank credit support, including refinancing a ¥540 billion loan and establishing a ¥210 billion credit line. Kioxia had reduced output by more than 30% in October 2022 due to weak smartphone demand.

Europe’s NATO Innovation Fund announced its first direct investments, which includes semiconductor materials. Twenty-three NATO allies co-invested in this over $1B fund devoted to address critical defense and security challenges.

The second meeting of the U.S.–India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) was held in New Delhi, with various funding and initiatives announced to support semiconductor technology, next-gen telecommunications, connected and autonomous vehicles, ML, and more.

Amazon announced investments of €10 billion in Germany to drive innovation and support the expansion of its logistics network and cloud infrastructure.

Quantum Machines opened the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (IQCC) research facility, backed by the Israel Innovation Authority and located at Tel Aviv University. Also, Israel-based Classiq is collaborating with NVIDIA and BMW, using quantum computing to find the optimal automotive architecture of electrical and mechanical systems.

Global data center vacancy rates are at historic lows, and power availability is becoming less available, according to a Siemens report featured on Broadband Breakfast. The company called for an influx of financing to find new ways to optimize data center technology and sustainability.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Manufacturing, Packaging & Materials newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Single Vs. Multi-Patterning Advancements For EUV
• Precise Control Of Copper Plating And CMP
• Ruthenium Interconnects On Tap
• Opportunities Grow For GPU Acceleration

More reporting this week:

• IC Industry’s Growing Role In Sustainability
• What’s Missing In Test

Market Reports

Renesas completed its acquisition of Transphorm and will immediately start offering GaN-based power products and reference designs to meet the demand for wide-bandgap (WBG) chips.

Revenues for the top five wafer fab equipment (WFE) companies fell 9% YoY in Q1 2024, according to Counterpoint. This was offset partially by increased demand for NAND and DRAM, which increased 33% YoY, and strong growth in sales to China, which were up 116% YoY.

The SiC power devices industry saw robust growth in 2023, primarily driven by the BEV market, according to TrendForce. The top five suppliers, led by ST with a 32.6% market share and onsemi in second place, accounted for 91.9% of total revenue. However, the anticipated slowdown in BEV sales and weakening industrial demand are expected to significantly decelerate revenue growth in 2024. 

About 30% of vehicles produced globally will have E/E architectures with zonal controllers by 2032, according to McKinsey & Co. The market for automotive micro-components and logic semiconductors is predicted to reach $60 billion in 2032, and the overall automotive semiconductor market is expected to grow from $60 billion to $140 billion in the same period, at a 10% CAGR.

The automotive processor market generated US$20 billion in revenue in 2023, according to Yole. US$7.8 billion was from APUs and FPGAs and $12.2 billion was from MCUs. The ADAS and infotainment processors market was worth US$7.8 billion in 2023 and is predicted to grow to $16.4 billion by 2029 at a 13% CAGR. The market for ADAS sensing is expected to grow at a 7% CAGR.

Security

The CHERI Alliance was established to drive adoption of memory safety and scalable software compartmentalization via the security technology CHERI, or Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions. Founding members include Capabilities Limited, Codasip, the FreeBSD Foundation, lowRISC, SCI Semiconductor, and the University of Cambridge.

In security research:

• Japan and China researchers explored a NAND-XOR ring oscillator structure to design an entropy source architecture for a true random number generator (TRNG).
• University of Toronto and Carleton University researchers presented a survey examining how hardware is applied to achieve security and how reported attacks have exploited certain defects in hardware.
• University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University researchers explored the potential of hardware security primitive Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) for mitigation of visual deepfakes.
• Villanova University researchers proposed the Boolean DERIVativE attack, which generalizes Boolean domain leakage.

Post-quantum cryptography firm PQShield raised $37 million in Series B funding.

Former OpenAI executive, Ilya Sutskever, who quit over safety concerns, launched Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI).

EU industry groups warned the European Commission that its proposed cybersecurity certification scheme (EUCS) for cloud services should not discriminate against Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, reported Reuters.

Cyber Europe tested EU cyber preparedness in the energy sector by simulating a series of large-scale cyber incidents in an exercise organized by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Education and Training

New York non-profit NY CREATES and South Korea’s National Nano Fab Center partnered to develop a hub for joint research, aligned technology services, testbed support, and an engineer exchange program to bolster chips-centered R&D, workforce development, and each nation’s high-tech ecosystem.

New York and the Netherlands agreed on a partnership to promote sustainability within the semiconductor industry, enhance workforce development, and boost semiconductor R&D.

Rapidus is set to send 200 engineers to AI chip developer Tenstorrent in the U.S. for training over the next five years, reports Nikkei. This initiative, led by Japan’s Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center (LSTC), aims to bolster Japan’s AI chip industry.

Product News

UMC announced its 22nm embedded high voltage (eHV) technology platform for premium smartphone and mobile device displays. The 22eHV platform reduces core device power consumption by up to 30% compared to previous 28nm processes. Die area is reduced by 10% with the industry’s smallest SRAM bit cells.​

Alphawave Semi announced a new 9.2 Gbps HBM3E sub-system silicon platform capable of 1.2 terabytes per second. Based on the HBM3E IP, the sub-system is aimed at addressing the demand for ultra-high-speed connectivity in high-performance compute applications.

Movellus introduced the Aeonic Power product family for on-die voltage regulation, targeting the challenging area of power delivery.

Cadence partnered with Semiwise and sureCore to develop new cryogenic CMOS circuits with possible quantum computing applications. The circuits are based on modified transistors found in the Cadence Spectre Simulation Platform and are capable of processing analog, mixed-signal, and digital circuit simulation and verification at cryogenic temperatures.

Renesas launched R-Car Open Access (RoX), an integrated development platform for software-defined vehicles (SDVs), designed for Renesas R-Car SoCs and MCUs with tools for deployment of AI applications, reducing complexity and saving time and money for car OEMs and Tier 1s.

Infineon released industry-first radiation-hardened 1 and 2 Mb parallel interface ferroelectric-RAM (F-RAM) nonvolatile memory devices, with up to 120 years of data retention at 85-degree Celsius, along with random access and full memory write at bus speeds. Plus, a CoolGaN Transistor 700 V G4 product family for efficient power conversion up to 700 V, ideal for consumer chargers and notebook adapters, data center power supplies, renewable energy inverters, and more.

Ansys adopted NVIDIA’s Omniverse application programming interfaces for its multi-die chip designers. Those APIs will be used for 5G/6G, IoT, AI/ML, cloud computing, and autonomous vehicle applications. The company also announced ConceptEV, an SaaS solution for automotive concept design for EVs.

Fig. 1: Field visualization of 3D-IC with Omniverse. Source: Ansys

QP Technologies announced a new dicing saw for its manufacturing line that can process a full cassette of 300mm wafers 7% faster than existing tools, improving throughput and productivity.

NXP introduced its SAF9xxx of audio DSPs to support the demand for AI-based audio in software-defined vehicles (SDVs) by using Cadence’s Tensilica HiFi 5 DSPs combined with dedicated neural-network engines and hardware-based accelerators.

Avionyx, a provider of software lifecycle engineering in the aerospace and safety-critical systems sector, partnered with Siemens and will leverage its Polarion application lifecycle management (ALM) tool. Also, Dovetail Electric Aviation adopted Siemens Xcelerator to support sustainable aviation.

Research

Researchers from imec and KU Leuven released a +70 page paper “Selecting Alternative Metals for Advanced Interconnects,” addressing interconnect resistance and reliability.

A comprehensive review article — “Future of plasma etching for microelectronics: Challenges and opportunities” — was created by a team of experts from the University of Maryland, Lam Research, IBM, Intel, and many others.

Researchers from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris’s Laboratory of Condensed Matter for Physics developed an approach to investigate defects in semiconductors. The team “determined the spin-dependent electronic structure linked to defects in the arrangement of semiconductor atoms,” the first time this structure has been measured, according to a release.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-led researchers developed a small enclosed chamber that can hold all the components of an electrochemical reaction, which can be paired with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to generate precise views of a reaction at atomic scale, and can be frozen to stop the reaction at specific time points. They used the technique to study a copper catalyst.

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved a clinical trial to test a device with 1,024 nanoscale sensors that records brain activity during surgery, developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego).

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

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.

Our Midgar-raised, spellcasting Flower Girl is pretty handy at this whole magic business. Equipped with the right staff, Aerith can not only ascend to cause dramatic devastation for your enemies, but she can also keep your party healthy via her limit breaks and very high magic stats.

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Shadow of the Erdtree is already bringing Elden Ring players together before they’ve even accessed the expansion’s content. As a requirement to get into the DLC area, you must have defeated Starscourge Radhan and Lord Mohg, and generous folks are currently posting up outside of the latter’s arena to offer help in…

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It is now officially summer. Yesterday, the solstice (Litha, as it’s known to some) brought us our longest day of the calendar year, and now we march on to ever darkening days. But right now, we’re just marching on into the weekend to spend that time off in some delightful digital realms.

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Real talk: there’s nothing that truly prepares you for jumping into a Souls game. But even FromSoftware knows a fair warning about what’s coming can go a hell of a long way. So, take it from one who has traversed the Realm of Shadow and (sorta) lived to tell the tale, there’s a few things I can tell those who will be…

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Shadow of the Erdtree, a mega-sized expansion for Elden Ring that’s basically a whole other game, sounds equal parts magnificent and brutal. That’s by design, according to FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki. He recently said the new enemies and bosses in the DLC are meant to push players to the breaking point.

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With less than a day until Shadow of the Erdtree’s release, it’s sad but predictable that spoilers are already on the internet. But what I didn’t expect was for spoilers to come directly from Bandai Namco, the publisher of Elden Ring and its highly anticipated DLC. However, that’s exactly what’s happened with Shadow…

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UPDATE 11.50pm UK: Tonight's Summer Game Fest show has confirmed New World: Aeternum, which will launch on 15th October and bring Amazon's MMO to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S for the first time.

Also launching on PC, this will be an updated version of New World and its previous Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, plus the game's first large-scale PVP zone, a raid for 10 players, endgame solo trials, an improved levelling experience and more.

PC owners with Rise of the Angry Earth will get the Aeternum version of New World as a free upgrade.

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Televizní pořad Fallout na Amazon Prime Video zaznamenal obrovský úspěch, výrazně podpořil prodeje her a snadno zajistil druhou sezónu.

Přesto byla popularita pro showrunnera Grahama Wagnera „nesmírně překvapivá“, jak vysvětlil pro The Hollywood Reporter. Wagner také uvedl, že tvůrci mluvili o pěti sériích seriálu, což se nyní po všech pozitivních reakcích zdá být reálnější.

Popularita pořadu je obrovským překvapením. Tento pořad jsme nevytvořili pro každého. Dělali jsme ho pro sebe, a to byla důležitá součást přístupu. Ale nikdy nevíte, jak to dopadne.

Mluvili jsme o miliardě sezón jako o žertovném způsobu, jak se vyhnout otázce, protože to neovlivníme. Takže doufáme, že každou sezónu zakončíme polouspokojivým, polootevřeným tvarem. Podívejte, mluvili jsme o třech sezónách a o pěti sezónách. Vzhledem k úspěchu seriálu se mi pět najednou zdá o něco lákavější. Ale průmysl je náladový a my musíme do každé sezóny jít s tím, že „tohle je naše poslední“.

Kdy bude vydána druhá série seriálu Fallout? Graham Wagner řekl, že vše probíhá tak rychle, jak je to jen možné, a mnoho věcí, jako jsou kulisy, prostředky a vizuální efekty, je připraveno z první sezóny.

Internet má zajímavý zvyk činit nezávazná prohlášení závaznými, takže se zdráhám uvést datum, které bude vytrženo z kontextu a bude žít na Redditu asi rok. Ale jdeme na to tak rychle, jak jen to jde, a spoustu těžkých věcí z první sezóny už máme za sebou. Máme kulisy, assety, vizuální efekty, které už jsou hotové. V této sezóně se vrháme do práce. Budeme šlapat na plyn, abychom druhou sezónu vydali co nejrychleji.

Na druhou sezónu, která se bude odehrávat v New Vegas, si budeme muset počkat přinejmenším do konce roku 2025.

Článek Tvůrci tvrdí, že seriál Fallout by po „nesmírně překvapivém“ úspěchu mohl trvat pět sezón se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.

Xbox just had one of its best showcases in years and hot off the heels of that big event, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer sat down with IGN to chat more about some of the games the company revealed, as well as the current health of Xbox, Game Pass, and the closure of studios like Tango Gameworks.

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Amazon has unveiled its Prime Gaming lineup for June, along with the usual monthly bonuses for Prime members.

This month's collection features seven free titles that Prime members can download and keep forever. The most popular of which is Star Wars Battlefront 2, supported by six indie titles including Genesis Noir and Mythforce.

The full list of free games with Prime in June will include:

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Summer is quickly approaching and those of us with pools on their property will surely appreciate the benefits. Having the option to cool yourself down ...

The post Summer-Ready Pools: Discover the Magic of Smorobot Tank C1 Pool Cleaner appeared first on Gizchina.com.

It’s the end of May, and the welcoming of June 2024. Summer is here. Pride month is here. And we’re taking the time this weekend to cram in some more gaming with a few recent titles, a wonderful indie game from a couple of years ago, the return of a GameCube title from 2004, and more.

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Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Ninja Theory’s latest action-adventure narrative journey into the world of Pictish warrior Senua, features a linear, eight-hour trip through Iceland. Over the course of her journey, Senua receives lore lessons from her spiritual companion from the first game, Druth, via totems you can focus…

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Earlier this month, it was announced that Arkane Austin, among a number of other Bethesda-owned studios, was being shuttered by Xbox, meaning that the team responsible for vampire-themed loot shooter Redfall wouldn’t be able to continue supporting the game. The developers were reportedly working on a major update just…

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My best friends and I have a typical rotation of games we play on game nights. These are often competitive shooters or cooperative survival games, which lend themselves particularly well to our needs. However, one night about two years back, we came to an impasse until one of us jokingly tossed out, “Let’s just play Ma…

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The latest season of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone is now live. Unsurprisingly, some players have already started datamining it, and in so doing, have found what appears to be the first in-game look at an upcoming, still-unannounced Fallout crossover.

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