We are officially in summer, with the summer solstice having passed just yesterday.  Happy Midsommar to all who celebrate.  May your sacrifices protect you and bring a bountiful harvest once more.

I was a bit surprised that the Steam Summer Sale did not kick off yesterday.  Steam has a pretty solid track record of landing summer and winter sales on the first day of each season.  But this year it won’t start until the 27th. [Addendum: Though if I had looked back to 2023, I would have seen it didn’t start until the 29th, so just another issue in my brain.]

So no post about that today, as I had sort of planned.  Instead, some things are launching or announcing dates for launch.  Time for a pass through that I guess!

• Tarisland Launches

Tarisland goes live today, doesn’t it?  Technically it is going live world-wide and will have launched everywhere on the list by the time this post gets published.  At 11am eastern time it was supposed to go live here in North America, the last of its launch regions after Asia, Europe, and South America.

Now here and Free to Play

Derided repeatedly as a WoW-clone in a world where it is tough to be an MMORPG without that comparison, it is available on PC, Android, and iOS as a free to play title.

I have said several times that I wanted to give it a try, if only to see if all this WoW-clone talk had any merit.  But I have I downloaded it yet?  I have not.  Maybe it will strike my fancy this weekend.

Anyway, there is a launch announcement with details on how to join in on your platform of choice.  They have even partnered with an emulator to try and make the game playable on MacOS.  You need an M-series Mac, no Intel models need apply, and there are hoops to jump through, but you could make it happen if you were dying to play.

Finally, looking at that logo, is it Tasisland or Taris Land?

Meh, I’m not going to worry about it.

• Throne & Liberty Launch Date

Amazon Games, fresh off their good times trying to pretend New World isn’t an MMORPG, has announced the launch date for their next venture, Throne & Liberty, which promises to bring online RPG gameplay into a new era.

Throne and Liberty and totally not an MMORPG

Also it is multiplayer.  And a lot of people will be able to play together.  I mean, they literally use the word “massive” later on in the text to describe the PvP and PvPvE experience.  It is almost like it is… I don’t know, another MMORPG?

Amazon, why won’t you say that?  They have literally banished the term from their web site.  They make zero MMORPGs if you believe what they say.

Anyway, a title that I nearly put on the “won’t ship in 2024” list for my new year’s predictions… seriously, it was on there, then I realized I had one too many for the point count, so I removed it, will in fact ship in 2024, landing on September 17th.

So I dodged that bullet.  That and the whole refusal by Amazon to use the term “MMORPG” are the key takeaways from this bullet point.

• Valheim Board Game

Valheim has apparently hit the level of success where somebody felt they needed to make a board game out of the experience.

Please Odin… now in physical form

This will be a crowdfunding campaign and run by another company, which is probably good because Iron Gate has like three devs and they still have a biome to finish some time this decade.   The campaign will be run on Game Found, an off-brand Kickstarter clone for board games which you can find here.

There is a teaser video, but I am not going to bother to embed it because it is 17 seconds and tells you less than I’ve already written.  If you are interested you’ll have to go sign up at Game Found to get alerts as to when the campaign will go live… as they haven’t bothered to tell us yet.

• EVE Online Paragon Store for SKINs

The next stage of the Equinox expansion hit yesterday, which included the launch of the Paragon store in game, which allows you to take those rather pricey SKINs you can make with the new SKINR utility and list them on the market.

Want to buy a lime green Harpy SKIN?

And, of course, it is a mess.  The store front is there and you can do some sorting, but as an online shopping experience it rates ahead of the Pokemon Go in-game cosmetic store, but only just barely, and Niantic at least has the poor excuse of having to work within phone sized devices.

Anyway, you can find it in game… not easily, but you’ll get there if you persist… and read the CCP optimistic take on it here.  Or you can go over to r/eve and see what players think.  It isn’t pretty.

• EVE Vanguard Solstice

CCP’s decades spanning desire to make a successful first person shooter game despite all the signs indicating it is a bad idea carries on with a new round of EVE Vanguard testing which starts… wait, it started yesterday, didn’t it?  Yes.

The Solstice is here… which means it will just get darker from now on

The play test… because it is still in alpha so all two dozen fans will get angry and remind you of this should you criticize any aspect of it… features a second map, weapon SKINs, and… um… well, there is still just one gun, but you can now change its stats with chip sets you can find in game.

The play test runs to July 1st, so there is plenty of time to join in.  You’ll need to download it in the EVE Online launcher because CCP is determined to handcuff this potential corpse to its one viable game.  And, of course, they are offering SKINs to people who join in… which feels kind of odd now that they have blown up the SKIN market with SKINR, but whatever.  That is the bribe they have to offer.

You can read more about it here.

• Hearthstone Perils in Paradise

Finally, over at Blizzard they are cranking out yet another Hearthstone expansion.  It isn’t exactly a “month with a vowel in it” level of phenomena, but they do seem to get two or three out every year.

Maybe the WoW team could learn something from them.

Or maybe not, as Hearthstone goes where it pleases with the lore, with the new expansion being called Perils in Paradise, featuring a lot of perhaps unlikely Azeroth activities on the splash screen.

Perils in paradise

Anyway, among the features of the expansion are tourist cards that act as a conduit to bring in cards unrelated to your class in order to spice up your deck.  Blizz is also introducing catch-up packs, which I think was mentioned back at BlizzCon where I made some joke about ketchup packs… wait, here is the joke… was it worth it?

How this helps you with deck building I don’t know…

Anyway, those are here now.  The whole thing launches on July 23rd and you can read more about it here.

That is what I’ve got for Friday.  Did I miss anything?

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.

Quick links to more news:

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

Global

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.

Markets and Money

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.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Automotive, Security, and Pervasive Computing newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• The Uncertainty Of Certifying AI For Automotive
• Why It’s So Hard To Secure AI Chips
• Toward A Software-Defined Hardware World

More reporting this week:

• Chip Design Digs Deeper Into AI
• Why IC Design Safety Nets Have Limits
• Opportunities Grow For GPU Acceleration

Security

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:

• Virginia Tech published a dissertation proposing sPACtre, a defense mechanism that aims to prevent Spectre control-flow attacks on existing hardware.
• Wright State University published a thesis proposing an approach that uses various machine learning models to bring an improvement in hardware Trojan identification with power signal side channel analysis
• Wright State University published a thesis examining the effect of aging on the reliability of SRAM PUFs used for secure and trusted microelectronics IC applications.
• Nanyang Technological University published a Final Year Project proposing a novel SAT-based circuit preprocessing attack based on the concept of logic cones to enhance the efficacy of SAT attacks on complex circuits like multipliers.

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

Education and Training

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.

Product News

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:

• 600 V CoolMOS 8 high voltage superjunction (SJ) MOSFET product family.
• CoolGaN bidirectional switch (BDS) and CoolGaN Smart Sense device.
• New CoolSiC MOSFET discretes 650 V, with two product families housed in the Thin-TOLL 8×8 and TOLT packages to increase system power density.

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.

Research

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:

• Simon Fraser University received funding of over $80 million from various sources to upgrade the supercomputing facility at the Cedar National Host Site.
• The Digital Research Alliance of Canada announced $10.28 million to renew the University of Victoria’s Arbutus cloud infrastructure.
• The Canadian government invested $18.4 million in quantum research at the University of Waterloo.

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.

V roce 2028 jsme objevili data zašifrovaná do krátké sekvence genetického kódu sdílené všemi pozemskými organismy, zděděné po našem posledním společném předkovi. Každá buňka na planetě obsahovala mapu hvězdné oblohy, která ukazovala k místu ležícímu uvnitř našeho galaktického ramene. Trvalo celou další generaci, než došlo k realizaci největšího stavebního projektu lidských dějin: ISS Vanguard, první vesmírné lodi schopné mezihvězdných letů, sestavené kolem jádra mimozemského vraku nalezeného v hloubi Sibiře.

– Kapitán Morgan Wayman, velící důstojník ISS Vanguard

Než začneme, tak bych jenom rád upozornil, že i přes veškerou snahu zamezit jakýmkoliv spoilerům je možné, že něco málo informací vyplyne na povrch. Hra je zkrátka natolik objevitelská, záhadná a příběhová, že zamezit jakémukoliv úniku zkrátka nelze.

ISS Vanguard je silně kooperativní vesmírné dobrodružství pro sice až čtyři hráče, ale silně Vám jej doporučíme hrát maximálně ve dvou a to jenom pro sdílení zážitku. Spolu tak můžete otevřít naprosto gigantickou krabici, vyloupat a složit veškeré komponenty, což Vám na první sezení zabere dobré dvě hodinky a připravit se na tutoriálovou misi, která v našem případě zabrala 6 hodin do prvního oficiálního uložení. Jak už jste asi pochopili, tak se nejedná o herní kousek pro každého. Používání obsahu krabice bych tak přirovnal k jiné obrovské hře Gloomhaven, kde je zkrátka více než vhodné mít k dispozici velký stůl, ze kterého není potřeba sklízet komponenty aby jakékoliv hraní zkrátka mohlo navázat bez opětovného setupu. My tuto možnost měli a tak jsme hráli a hráli a hráli.

Nahlédnout pod víko je jedna velká radost. Ilustrace všech karet krásně vystihuje Sci-fi tématiku cestování vesmírem. Miniatury si přímo říkají o nabarvení. Obaly karet jsou nejenom funkční, ale mají i svůj herní mechanismus a ve finále Sešit pravidel, Planetopedie, Palubní deník, Operační deník, Atlas planetárních soustav, Lodní kniha a komiksový prolog posouvají veškeré herní dění o úroveň víš. Připravte se tak na různá vyhledávání v gamebooku, společné rozhodování v příběhu a ve finále i zapisování mimořádných aktivit. Co nás však poměrně zamrzelo je produkční hodnota spousty komponent. Krabičky sekcí, ve kterých uchováváte svoje akční karty a kostky, jsou z toho nejlevnějšího a nejtenčího plastu a spousty desek jsou z toho nejměkčího  papíru, takže se kroutí co to jenom jde. Ve finále se to však dá i odpustit, jelikož s těmito komponenty běžně neprobíhá manipulace a tak zkrátka mohou jenom ležet.

Hra jako taková by se dala rozdělit do dvou sektorů: Průzkum planety a Řízení lodi. Po odehrání obou jste teprve vyzvání k uložení hry. Je sice pravda, že čím déle hrajete, tím je hra rychlejší, jelikož zkrátka máte osvojená pravidla, avšak stejně počítejte s cca 3 hodinovým hraním obou sektorů dohromady. Průzkum planety je hlavní herní mechanismus, kde zkrátka budete přistávat v různých oblastech a řešit jejich mise, ať už to jsou místní neduhy, sběr materiálů, či zkrátka objevování okolí. V řízení lodi poté využijete nasbírané materiály a zkušenosti k vylepšení posádky, přepravní lodi a samozřejmě samotné ISS Vanguard.

Vyrážíme na první misi! Té se účastní vždy čtyři týmy v čele s veliteli daných sekcí. Ačkoliv jsou sekce rozděleny Bezpečnost, Vědu, Průzkum a Techniku, tak herně kromě práva veta při rozhodujících situacích a v rozdílném počtu kostek, nemají žádný význam. Ve hře dvou hráčů navíc každý ovládá dvě tyto sekce, ale i tak se tváří všechny samostatně. Kostky jako takové jsou velice rozličné. Nejenom, že se liší ve třech barvách což má svůj význam, ale zároveň má každá z nich jiné množství potřebných symbolů na stranách. Tyto symboly si tu vysvětlovat nebudeme, ale asi lze odtušit, že jejich hození je potřeba pro splnění podmínek během misí. Pokud tak nejste fanoušci řešení situací za pomocí kostek, tak tento titul rozhodně nebude pro Vás, avšak pokud na ně máte prostě jenom smůlu, tak je zde spousta situací, díky kterým budete moc přehodit, či přetočit danou kostku. K tomu všemu má každá sekce ještě své akční karty, které Vám během těchto situací napomáhají a při nabírání frček pro své velitele vznikne i decentní deckbuilding, který zajisté ocení labužníci této mechaniky.

Každá „postava“ teď může začít řešit své akce. Těch je v základu pět. Přesun, Odpočinek, Příprava, Odlet a Zvláštní akce, která je alfou a omegou. Tyto akce, alias základní herní mechanismy, jsou velice intuitivní a tak je v celku jasné, že pohyb slouží pro přesun, odpočinek pro obnovení kostek a zvláštní akce pro řešení situací na políčku, na kterém právě stojíte. O čem my si však povíme, je pozadí těchto herních mechanismů. Každá mise vám kromě příběhu přinese i různé podmínky, které musíte plnit. Jednou tak pro pohyb musíte hodit kostkou zranění a jindy rovnou vypotřebovat barevnou kostku. Když budete chtít obnovit své kostky odpočinkem, tak musíte vypotřebovat materiál, který jste si na planetu dovezli a to je samozřejmě v omezeném množství atd. Ve finále se tak můžete čistě hnát pouze za svým cílem a minimalizovat tak potenciální ztráty. My však doporučujeme nespěchat a snažit se objevovat svět co to jenom jde a to i za cenu potenciálního neúspěchu.

Ať už mise skončí úspěchem, či neúspěchem, vracíte se zpět na ISS Vanguard do druhé části hry, což je správa samotné vesmírné lodi. Zde tak očekávejte léčení posádky, výzkum nových organismů, vývoj nových součástek lodi, či vybavení pro jednotky a v neposlední řadě přípravu na další misi. Celý tento proces zabere na začátku přibližně hodinku, ale postupem času se vše zrychlí.

ISS Vanguard obsahuje gigantické množství obsahu avšak pouze jeho minimum Vám mohu zmínit, jelikož objevování už i samotných pravidel je zábava sama o sobě. Můžete tak očekávat zapečetěnou obálku plnou překvapení, několik plot twistů v průběhu samotného hraní, tajné karty, které je velice těžké během průchodu objevit, parádní příběh pro milovníky Sci-fi a spoustu dalšího. Pokud bych to měl shrnout, tak očekávejte nadupanou mezi-planetární hru na desítky, ne-li stovky hodin, plnou kooperace, zvratů, příběhů, objevování a zničených zad u kroucení se na židli. Pokud si nemůžete udělat čas na hraní pár hodin v kuse a musíte odbíhat například kvůli dětem, tak tento opus opravdu není pro Vás a zvažte jeho zahrání až tu možnost mít budete. Ošidili byste se tak o zážitek, který pro někoho může být i na celý život. Pokud jste navíc milovníky vesmíru a her tohoto žánru, tak si i ten poslední bodík v závěrečném hodnocení přičtěte.

CZ Distributor: ALBI

Počet hráčů: 1 – 4

Přibližná herní doba: 120 minut (reálně počítejte 2x tolik na každou partii do uložení)

Doporučený věk: 13+ (doporučíme spíš dospělé publikum)

Článek DESKOVKA: ISS Vanguard – Mezihvězdný survival… se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.