What’s at stake:
Nvidia is rolling out a 2,000 TOPS central compute engine for highly automated vehicles – something no other chipmaker has offered. Is the new processor overkill? Moreover, is the processing power the main concern for OEMs worried about AV safety?
What’s at stake:
Open systems, lower power, longer-range connectivity and bullet-proof device security will all be required if the much-hyped internet of things is to gain momentum. Silicon Labs is betting the pieces are falling into place and is targeting complete consumer and industrial solutions to achieve IoT dominance. But has it overestimated IoT’s maturity?
It’s time for the automotive and tech industries to rethink whether and why the public actually needs “self-driving cars,” aside from the need to please investors who poured billions into startups working on robotaxis and robotrucks.
After several days last week in Brussels talking to throngs of automotive engineers at AutoSens, I had an epiphany. The whole auto industry might be looking at AVs through the wrong end of the telescope.
Read More »Drive ’Til You Can’t, Then AV Aids Kick In
By Jon Peddie
EVGA came into prominence in 2000 when it developed the first highly efficient cooler for Nvidia’s GeForce 256, affectionally called “the banana” because of its color and shape. The company entered the market with graphics boards targeted at gamers in 2002.
Read More »Taiwan Gamer EVGA Ends Nvidia Relationship
What’s at stake?
Autonomous vehicle company Cruise confirmed it is dumping Nvidia’s GPU and developing its own central compute engine for its AV. Cruise also said it is developing a chip for its radar and for other custom chips. Unclear is whether such an extreme measure – build instead of buy – will eventually help or hurt the fledgling AV company’s prospects.
By Bolaji Ojo
Chipmakers pledging to spend billions of dollars to construct new fabs and related capital equipment are likely to put many of those plans on hold next year, severely cutting back on spending and even mothballing fab shells as the industry braces for a steep downturn in 2023, according to researcher Future Horizons and Ojo-Yoshida Report analysis of spending forecasts.
Read More »Semiconductor Capex Cutback Inevitable as Downturn Looms
What’s at stake:
As the Commerce Department prepares to distribute CHIPS Act funding, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has been moving in parallel to promote chip innovation via a Google-backed open hardware initiative. The goal is making license-free chip design and production as ubiquitous as open-source software.
What’s at stake:
Nvidia’s move to acquire Arm in 2020 made SiFive’s full-fledged foray into the automotive market all but inevitable, as the RISC-V IP vendor wagered that automotive chip companies would seek its help to counter the combined forces of Nvidia automotive systems-on-chip and Arm core-based solutions. While the Arm deal never happened, SiFive prepared a portfolio of three low-power, high-performance automotive RISC-V processors. SiFive thinks it solutions, when used in combination, can compete with Nvidia’s automotive SoCs.
What’s at stake:
Intel needs as many new foundry customers as it can get. In parallel with its commercial efforts, the U.S. chipmaker has helped lead Pentagon semiconductor technology and chip-packaging efforts. Those connections appear to be paying off.
By Rebecca Day
What’s at stake:
While augmented-reality smart glasses have found adopters in industry, thus far consumers have largely failed to see the appeal. Kura Technologies asserts that its Gallium glasses overcome the performance, comfort and privacy hurdles that earlier entries failed to clear, and it is confident that the expanding metaverse will enable applications that will convince the public of smart glasses’ utility. Whether consumers will find smart glasses as indispensable as they now view their phones by the end of the decade, as Kura’s CEO predicts, remains to be seen. But they will get an early glimpse of the Gallium glasses in limited public demonstrations over the next couple of years.
