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Chinese Loongson processors have leaky caches, researchers find

The Hot Take: Well now.

Researchers from Germany’s Helmholtz Center for Information Security have found processors made by China’s Loongson have leaky caches that attackers could use to seek specific data. Loongson has developed its own LoongArch instruction set architecture (ISA) that blends approaches used by MIPS and RISC-V. On a site called LoongLeakAttack.com, the researchers explain that they found the leaky cache using a fuzzer, then noticed that the LoongArch ISA manual mentions an instruction that leaves 32 bits of a memory register in an “uncertain” state.…

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Qualcomm won’t be a big datacenter player anytime soon

The Hot Take: They just said that iPhone model loss would be off set by datacenter sales. So i guess they'll be hurting for a bit.

Qualcomm has predicted its entry to the datacenter market will yield $15 billion of annual revenue by FY 2029 – huge growth, but also a modest number compared to its more established rivals. The chip design firm dangled the $15 billion figure on Wednesday along with its Q3 results, which included a warning that revenue from its business selling modems to Apple is about to crater. Execs told investors that supply chain constraints mean Qualcomm expects “an acceleration in the step down of Apple product revenues” as its contribution to the next…

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Intel hands Atom blueprints to Tan’s mate

The Hot Take: Another company given x86 tech? Will it go the way of VIA, or will they run and enhance it to bring a 4th strong competitor to the x86 ISA market?

Intel is handing Atom chip IP to Rosaic, a startup run by one of Lip-Bu Tan’s old mates, Amarjit Gill. Gill has history with Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, who has spent years as a semiconductor investor as well as an industry operator. According to Reuters, Gill invested with Tan in high-performance chip startup Nuvia and worked with him on RISC-V chip outfit Rivos. Chipzilla’s Atom chips are built for low-power jobs, where they mostly scrap with designs from British chip blueprint outfit Arm. At one point, Chipzilla aimed Atom at…

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Intel Nova Lake Desktop APU Rumored With 12 Xe3P Cores and 65W Power Tier

The Hot Take: APU is the cousin of ARM's SoC. Mid-range across the board if you ask me is what I'm seeing the industry shifting to.

Intel is reportedly developing a socketed Nova Lake-S processor with substantially stronger integrated graphics than recent desktop Core products. Information attributed to hardware leaker Jaykihn describes a configuration with twelve Xe3P graphics cores.

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NVIDIA RTX Spark Shows Strong Potential, But Early Prototype Leaves Plenty Of Performance On The Table

The Hot Take: Is ARM going to shine or show it's mid-range performance?

The NVIDIA N1X is surely powerful enough for the Windows-on-Arm market, but the current prototype software prevents it from reaching its full potential. User Puts Microsoft's Unreleased NVIDIA N1X-Equipped Surface Laptop Ultra To Test; Discovers Chip Being Held Back by Unfinished Drivers The NVIDIA RTX Spark laptops will debut in the coming weeks, and if you were wondering about their performance numbers, here is an early sneak peek by a TechPowerUp user, who got his hands on an early prototype from Microsoft. The user "Fouquin" says he found…

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Intel Confirms HyperThreading Returns Starting With Coral Rapids In 2028

The Hot Take: Hopefully better implemented to prevent all the exploits of the past.

Hyper-Threading is what Intel calls its implementation of what is more academically known as "Simultaneous Multi-Threading" (SMT). This describes a method where a single processor core can interleave processing of two or more separate program threads, usually delivering an overall performance uplift on multi-threaded tasks. Intel killed off

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Intel knows it needs to ‘leapfrog’ ARM and AMD, says CEO Lip-Bu Tan

The Hot Take: I don't think so much ARM as AMD.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has acknowledged that the semiconductor giant must catch up to rivals AMD and Arm, and said it now assumes edge AI and robotics will be a business as big as PCs. Tan made those remarks during Intel’s Q2 earnings call, which saw the company report $16.1 billion revenue – a 25 percent year-on-year increase. “Q2 was another quarter of solid execution,” the CEO said. “Revenue, gross margin, and earnings per share were above our guidance. This marks the seventh consecutive quarter of exceeding our financial expectations.” Yet…

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Intel and AMD lock in year-long CPU deals with Chinese AI firms as prices surge 40%

The Hot Take: Well there goes CPU stocks.

Intel and AMD are signing long term agreements with Chinese data center firms to provide them with CPUs for AI computing, says a report from Reuters. CPUs in AI computing rose to prominence earlier this year after agentic AI demand reshaped the market. Agentic computing places a greater emphasis on CPUs, and according to the sources, the deals are motivated by the rapid price rise due to high demand. AMD & Intel Set To Cover A Year's Worth Of CPU Supplies To Chinese AI Data Centers, Says Report The surge in AI demand for CPUs has also led…

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Intel Nova Lake leak points to Core Ultra Series 400 branding, staggered release next year — hotly anticipated flagship 52-core desktop CPU might not arrive until late 2027

The Hot Take: Long wait for the next build I guess.... LOVIN' the Antec Flux Nocua edition until then I guess.

Intel was expected to unveil its next-generation desktop processors later this year. The upcoming Nova Lake lineup has been making the rounds online, and a new report from VideoCardz suggests that Intel could introduce it under the Core Ultra Series 400 branding. For context, the current Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh desktop CPUs follow the Core Ultra Series 200 naming scheme, while Intel's latest Panther Lake mobile processors carry the Core Ultra Series 300 branding.Go deeper with TH Premium: CPU(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)CPU scaling…

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