We’re now in the latter summer months and well into the product release cycles of almost every vendor of 2020. The spring release cycle is well past us and we’ve now transitioned to the second phase of device releases of the year, seeing vendors put out devices with the second take on this current silicon generation.
2020 has been about 5G devices as well as high-refresh rate displays, combined with the adoption of many-camera modules as well as bigger sensors. Pretty much every vendor has followed this formula to date, with many vendors such as Samsung or OnePlus executing the best this year.
In the mid-range, things have been quite shaken up by the release of reasonably priced phones with the new Snapdragon 765 SoC. OnePlus’ release of the Nord marks the company’s return into the sub-$500 market, while Xiaomi’s release of the Mi 10 Lite offers incredible value for its minuscule price. The Pixel 4a also has shaken up the mid-range in the US market offering value that no other device is able to.
Brian Austin Green insists it’s a “never say never” kind of situation when it comes to potentially reconciling with estranged wife Megan Fox. Read More
TORONTO -- Canada's financial regulator said on Monday it will begin phasing out the treatment of deferred loan and premium payments as performing, introduced earlier this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Read More
MOSCOW -- A small independent Russian teachers' union is urging members not to be coerced into accepting shots of the "Sputnik V" coronavirus vaccine which is to be mandatory for military personnel. Read More
Today Qualcomm is announcing an update to its Snapdragon 730G platform, introducing the higher-binned Snapdragon 732G. The new chip gives the platform a slight boost in terms of clock frequencies on the part of the CPU and GPU, and will see a release in the an upcoming POCO device.
The new platform is based on the Snapdragon 730G silicon that was released last year, with Qualcomm boosting the clock frequencies though a higher bin selection. The new chip raises the CPU frequencies of its two Cortex-A76 cores 100MHz to up to 2.3GHz, seemingly retaining the same 1.8GHz clock on the six A55 cores.
Qualcomm is further raising the clock frequencies of its GPU and the new variant of the chip promises a +15 uptick in performance.
In recent times, Qualcomm has evolved the habit of releasing new platforms based on similar silicon designs, such as the earlier in the year announced Snapdragon 768G, which is a higher speed binned 765G. The new 732G seemingly follows the same product formula of adopting a new model name although it’s really the same silicon.
Today’s announcement also came with a partnership endorsement from POCO, indicating that they are planning to release the first device powered by the Snapdragon 732G, although we don’t have more information or details such as a release date.
OTTAWA — The federal government has a deal with a third vaccine developer to get access to an experimental COVID-19 vaccine as early as next spring. Read More
A solid state drive is often the most important component for making a PC feel fast and responsive; any PC still using a mechanical hard drive as its primary storage is long overdue for an upgrade. The SSD market is broader than ever, with a wide range prices, performance and form factors.
SSD prices are trending slightly downward since our last update, and most market forecasts point toward further decline due to weak demand. We're still seeing some inconsistent product availability, but that situation has improved markedly in the past month or two. On the technology front, 128-layer 3D NAND has arrived from one manufacturer, and a few others may start introducing their first 1xx-layer 3D NAND later this year. However, we're still waiting for the new generation of high-end NVMe controllers supporting PCIE 4.0 to hit the market.
KIGALI -- Rwanda said on Monday it had detained Paul Rusesabagina - the man who was hailed a hero in a Hollywood movie about the country's 1994 genocide - on terrorism charges and paraded him in front of media in handcuffs. Read More
Adele has been accused of cultural appropriation after sharing a picture of herself in a Jamaican flag print bikini top with Bantu knots in her hair. Read More
Fans of the late Kobe Bryant were left outraged when the former National Basketball Association (NBA) player was seemingly excluded from the In Memoriam segment at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards. Read More
McDonald's Corp said on Monday former Chief Executive Steve Easterbrook's motion against the company should be dismissed, reiterating that the terms of his separation from the company were based on fraudulent statements. Read More
TOKYO -- A popular Tokyo amusement park on Monday closed its doors for the last time after being in business for more than nine decades, with part of the site set to make way for a "Harry Potter" theme park. Read More
MONTREAL -- Quebec's largest English language public school board is holding its first day of classes this morning amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Read More
A three-year-old girl entangled in the tail of a giant kite survived a terrifying ride after being swept more than 30 metres into the air during a kite festival in Taiwan, video footage posted on social media on Sunday showed. Read More
Brock Nelson scored twice Sunday night for the New York Islanders, who took a commanding lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals by beating the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-2, in Game 4 in Toronto. Read More
Spain's Jon Rahm sunk a breathtaking 66-foot putt to win the BMW Championship on Sunday in a thrilling playoff victory over American Dustin Johnson. Read More
Youth channel MTV dedicated its Video Music Awards show on Sunday to Chadwick Boseman, calling the "Black Panther" star, whose death last week at age 43 shocked fans around the world, a "true hero." Read More
Officials in Portland, Oregon, said on Sunday they were braced for an escalation of protest-related violence that has convulsed the city for three months, citing social media posts vowing revenge for a fatal shooting amid weekend street clashes between supporters of President Donald Trump and counter-demonstrators. Read More
VANCOUVER -- Marine mammal specialists and whale rescue groups say they're not sure how much fishing gear three entangled humpback whales spotted off the coast of British Columbia are still carrying, leaving experts worried. Read More
Danish teenager Rasmus Hojgaard kept his composure to beat South Africa's Justin Walters at the second extra hole of a playoff to win the UK Championship at the Belfry on Sunday. Read More
The Jacksonville Jaguars finally managed to resolve the Yannick Ngakoue situation - two weeks before the start of the 2020 season.
According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the Jaguars have Ngakoue to the Minnesota Vikings for a second-round pick and a fifth-round draft selection. The latter pick will become a fourth-rounder if Ngakoue earns a Pro Bowl selection, or a third-rounder if he's a Pro Bowler and if Minnesota wins the Super Bowl.
Ngakoue has yet to sign his franchise tender for 2020, but the expectation is that he'll do so and join his new team soon.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk added that the 25-year-old "agreed to take less money under his one-year franchise tender" in order to make a trade work. Ngakoue is slated to make $17.788 million, but a source told Florio that his 2020 pay will be closer to $13.5 million.
As Florio noted, it's a giant pay cut for Ngakoue that goes to show how badly he wanted to leave Jacksonville. Not only is he taking less money to play in Minnesota, but Ngakoue is also leaving a state that doesn't carry a state income tax. Minnesota carries one of the highest income tax rates in the country.
Ngakoue joins a Minnesota team that's coming off its third straight winning season. The Vikings won 10 games last season and went to the NFC Divisional Round, where they fell to the San Francisco 49ers.
The Vikings lost four starters on defense in the offseason: Linval Joseph, Everson Griffen, Trae Waynes and Xavier Rhodes. But Ngakoue and fellow pass rushing star Danielle Hunter should keep the defensive line intact. Despite the departures of Waynes and Rhodes, the secondary should still be formidable - led by the safety duo of Harrision Smith and Anthony Harris.
Minnesota opens up Week 1 of the 2020 season against the Green Bay Packers in two weeks.
CROTONE -- At least three migrants, two men and a woman, died when a fire broke out on a boat carrying around 20 of them close to the southern coast of Italy on Sunday, police and health officials said. Read More
OTTAWA -- The federal Conservatives are calling on WE Charity to release a series of documents the Toronto-based youth organization promised to hand over to a House of Commons committee before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament. Read More
Scott Peterson's sister, Anne Bird, supports the court's decision to overturn his death sentence for the murder of Laci Peterson, though she says her brother is “exactly where he should be.” On Tuesday, August 25, Bird told Today's Miguel Almaguer that she was against the death penalty but believes her brother should be in prison for the rest of his life for murdering her sister-in-law and unborn nephew, Connor.
Bird spoke to Almaguer a day after a California Supreme Court ordered that Peterson's death sentence be removed. In her decision, Justice Leondra Kruger wrote that the court had “made a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection” that had undermined Peterson's right to an impartial jury during sentencing. Kruger added that a juror cannot be simply dismissed because they oppose the death penalty.
At the moment, prosecutors have not stated if they will seek to retry the penalty phase in order to reinstate the death sentence. If they choose not to retry the penalty phase, Peterson will automatically be sentenced to life in prison. In the past, Bird has stated that she is convinced her brother is guilty of murdering Laci, who was eight months pregnant at the time of her death. In 2005, she told Dateline, "I just know that he did this. It's very hard to comprehend. And it hurts."
Bird also believes that her brother drowned Laci although the cause of death of was never confirmed since only remains were found on a California beach in April 2003, four months after she went missing on Christmas Eve. "It's a silent death. Nobody would hear anything," Bird thought. "And it's hard for me to think that because I picture Laci and that's hard."
The site where Laci’s remains were found was less than two miles from where Peterson, who was having an extramarital affair at the time, had claimed to be fishing on the day his wife went missing. In November 2004, a jury convicted Peterson of one count of first-degree murder for killing his wife and one count of second-degree murder for killing their unborn son.
His legal team attempted to appeal the conviction, arguing that, among other things, the pre-trial publicity hade tainted the proceedings and influenced the jury. Regarding this assertion, Justice Kruger wrote, "We reject Peterson's claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions of murder."
LOS ANGELES, Aug 30, (Variety.com) - Superhero thriller "The New Mutants," one of the first major movies to open since coronavirus caused theaters to close in March, launched to $7 million over the weekend. Though ticket sales were on the lower end of expectations, the Disney and 20th Century Studios release marks the biggest debut yet for a new release during the pandemic. Read More
Leonard Cohen's estate has issued a statement, along with music publisher Sony, stating that the late singer's song "Hallelujah" was used without authorization at the Republican National Convention. In fact, Sony noted that it had specifically denied the request for permission to use the track.
The song was used twice without permission and the estate is considering legal action. According to Michelle L. Rice, the legal representative of the Cohen estate, the family is “dismayed” that the RNC would knowingly use the song after their request was denied. She also lamented that the RNC would try to politicize the song so shamelessly.
Cohen, a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet, and novelist who died in 2016, was raised in a traditional Jewish family but also studied Buddhism. He even lived at a Buddhist monastery for five years and became a fully ordained monk in 1996. The Montreal-born musician was famously apolitical, but he did oppose the Vietnam War. He also raised money to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Rice added that if the RNC had requested the song, “You Want it Darker,” which includes the lyrics “They were middle class and tame/I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim,” they might have approved it. Meanwhile, Brian J. Monaco, president global chief marketing officer at Sony and ATV Music Publishing, also stated that permission for a live performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was denied.
The Republican party has often been criticized for unauthorized music use. Last June, the Trump campaign was blasted by Tom Petty's family for using the song "I Won't Back Down" at a campaign rally, without being authorized to do so. That same month, the Rolling Stones threatened to sue Trump over the use of their songs, such as "You Can't Always Get What You Want," at campaign rallies. In the past, REM has also condemned Trump for using their song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" at a rally.
The Athletics' series finale against the host Houston Astros on Sunday afternoon has been postponed following a positive test result for COVID-19 within the Oakland organization. Read More
Formula One world championship leader Lewis Hamilton won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday in a one-two with Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas. Read More
A statue of Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John Macdonald was toppled in downtown Montreal by protesters marching in support of defunding police, government officials said. Read More
France's Benoit Paire has tested positive for COVID-19 and will have to pull out of the U.S. Open starting on Monday, French sports daily L'Equipe reported on Sunday. Read More
NICE -- Home favourite Thibaut Pinot said he was concerned by a back injury ahead of Sunday's second stage of the Tour de France after suffering a heavy crash in the opening stage. Read More
One person was shot dead in Portland late on Saturday as protesters from rival groups clashed in the northwest U.S. city, which has seen frequent demonstrations for months that have at times turned violent. Read More
BEIRUT -- The death toll from this month's Beirut port blast has risen to 190 with more than 6,500 injured and three people missing, Lebanon's caretaker government said in a report dated Sunday. Read More
KENOSHA -- Five decades after he came with his migrant-worker family from Texas to Kenosha, Wisconsin to pick cucumbers and potatoes in the fields outside of town, Tony Garcia is a prominent community member who has sat on the several local boards. Read More
Leo Komarov scored the tie-breaking goal in the final seconds of the second period Saturday night for the New York Islanders in a 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 3 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series in Toronto. Read More
MELBOURNE -- Victoria, Australia posted 114 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, a day after they fell to 94 which had put them below triple digits for the first time in nearly two months. Read More
Novak Djokovic has announced his resignation as head of the ATP's Player Council and intends to form a new breakaway body to represent athletes -- but his plans have immediately met with stiff resistance from within tennis. Read More
MONTREAL -- Protesters in Montreal toppled and defaced a statue of John A. Macdonald at the end of a demonstration calling on cities to defund police departments. Read More
Ondrej Palat scored two goals to lead Tampa Bay to a 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon in Toronto, putting the Lightning on the cusp of reaching the next round in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Read More
KENOSHA -- Black Lives Matter organizers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, planned a rally and march on Saturday as reinforced National Guard units stood by with orders to prevent a resurgence of violence that convulsed the lakeside city earlier in the week. Read More
BERLIN -- Berlin police broke up a mass protest against coronavirus curbs on Saturday and arrested 300 in the German capital after demonstrators failed to keep their distance and wear masks as instructed. Read More
OTTAWA -- Canada's Defence Department says two members of the military who recently flew back to Canada from the Middle East have tested positive for COVID-19. Read More
Lewis Hamilton stormed to a dominant pole position in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday ahead of team mate Valtteri Bottas who completed a front-row lockout for Mercedes while rivals Ferrari endured a miserable day. Read More
NICE -- The chances of the Tour de France not being completed because of the COVID-19 crisis are very slim, French sports minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said on Saturday. Read More
LOS ANGELES -- Two TikTok stars were charged on Friday for throwing parties in Los Angeles that flouted coronavirus restrictions on large gatherings. Read More
VANCOUVER — Rental prices have dipped and landlords are facing stiffer competition for tenants in Canada’s two hottest housing markets in the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More
SEOUL -- South Korea recorded its 16th consecutive day of triple digit rises in new coronavirus cases on Saturday, extending a second wave of infections that is fanning concerns about a shortage of hospital beds in Seoul. Read More
According to R. Kelly’s Attorney, Douglas C. Anton, the disgraced singer was recently attacked by a fellow inmate in his jail cell. The incident, which occurred at Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, involved the inmate "punching" Kelly, who was sitting on his bed.
Guards at the federal facility reportedly stopped the assault almost immediately, and Kelly did not sustain any injuries with X-rays indicating that he had no fractures. On Friday, Kelly was moved to solitary confinement at the Special Housing Unit for his own protection.
The inmate who attacked Kelly was apparently angry that the prison's governor had stopped visits at the facility, on several occasions, due to the number of Kelly's fans protesting outside the facility.
Kelly was arrested in early 2019 on 10 charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse linked to allegations that he sexually abused four women, three of whom were minors. He was arrested again on July 11, 2019, in Chicago by NYPD detectives and Homeland Security officers and indicted by a federal grand jury on federal charges for additional crimes, including kidnapping, forced labor, child sexual exploitation and child pornography production and obstruction of justice. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
“I spoke to him and he is not OK," Anton said. "He is not doing well. This even more reason why he needs to be released. They cannot protect him in the facility."
After being arrested, Kelly was ordered held without bail and remains at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago while awaiting trial. Although his attorney has repeatedly requested bail, alleging cruel and unusual punishment, it has been denied. The trial has been delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and no new trial date has been set.
Back in 1989, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, a sci-fi time-traveling comedy about two goofy high schoolers, debuted. What could have been just another mindless 80s comedy has become a cult classic thanks to the charming performances of its two co-stars, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter.
Now, 30 years later, Reeves and Winter have reunited for a third installment in the trilogy, Bill & Ted Face the Music, and manage to retain the sweetness of the duo’s chemistry. The two dudes, who have remained BFFs, now have daughters, Thea and Billie, played by Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine.
Again, the pair embark on an adventure across time and space. This time to write a song that brings the world together and saves humanity before time runs out, a plot point that was mentioned in the first film. It helps that the film arrives at a time when humanity could use a little saving, which makes the innate goodness of its characters all the more endearing.
Critics have received the film warmly. It currently holds an 81% Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with most noting that although the plot may be a little thin at times, the sheer good-heartedness of the film makes it impossible not to love. The site's critical consensus reads, "As wholesomely goofy as its heroes, Bill and Ted Face the Music is a rare long-belated sequel that largely recaptures the franchise's original charm."
It also helps that the film wasn’t rushed just for the sake of making a quick buck. It began development in 2010 and even struggled to get financing. Ultimately, it was greenlit on May 8, 2018, and began production on March 20, 2019.
Bill & Ted Face the Music was originally scheduled to be released on August 21, 2020. After a series of reshuffles due to the COVID-19 crisis, the film was delayed to August 28, 2020, to avoid conflict with the rescheduled release of Tenet. The film has finally been released in a combined theatrical and video-on-demand premiere.
After a four-year battle with colon cancer, Chadwick Boseman, star of the Black Panther and Avengers films has died at the age of 43.
The star of movies such as "42" (he played Jackie Robinson) and "Get on Up" (he played James Brown) Boseman was mostly known for his work as a superhero character named Black Panther in the Marvel cinematic universe film. The film was the first superhero film to get a nomination for best picture at the Oscars.
Gone far too soon, Boseman will be remembered as an actor who could play a variety of roles, but was also a beacon of light for Black actors in film and played Black American icons in much of his work.
A post to his Twitter account confirmed his death late Friday night and the statement read:
“It is with immeasurable grief that we confirm the passing of Chadwick Boseman. It was the honor of his life to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.”
The post goes on to say that he was a true fighter and persevered despite the challenges that came with his illness.
Boseman didn't talk about his diagnosis publicly but it was revealed he was battling colon cancer for most of his acting career. The statement notes that he filmed Marshall, Da 5 Bloods, August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and other films while having countless surgeries and going through chemotherapy.
He died at home in Los Angeles with his wife and family by his side.
Marvel Studios released a statement upon learning of the actor's death, saying, "Our hearts are broken and our thoughts are with Chadwick Boseman’s family. Your legacy will live on forever. Rest In Peace."
Any loss like this is unfortunate but Boseman's passing is being felt all over social media and in Hollywood on Friday. Messages of remembrance and love are being sent to his friends and family and we can only do the same here.
VANCOUVER -- The mother of a bystander killed in one of British Columbia's worst gang shootings says the incident robbed her family of its identity, forcing them to be known forever as victims. Read More
Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg took responsibility and faulted his company for not removing the page and event for a militia group before two people were killed at a protest in Kenosha, saying it was "largely an operational mistake." Read More
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's neuroscience startup Neuralink on Friday unveiled a pig that has had a coin-sized computer chip in its brain for two months, demonstrating an early step toward the goal of curing human diseases with the same type of implant. Read More
MANCHESTER -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday branded as "thugs" people who protested in Washington on Thursday night as he gave his presidential nomination acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention from the White House. Read More
The 20-foot high "unsurvivable" wall of water Hurricane Laura was forecast to send onto the Louisiana coast showed up despite widespread reports of a lower peak, authorities said on Friday, rejecting criticism that they had raised too much alarm. Read More
SANTIAGO -- A Chilean special forces captain has been arrested for assault in relation to an incident in which a woman was blinded by a tear gas canister during the massive social protests that rocked the country in 2019. Read More
NBA games are set to resume Saturday, a restart negotiated between players and owners following a social justice-driven boycott that began Wednesday. Read More
The Pittsburgh Steelers announced that they won't have any fans in attendance at Heinz Field for at least the first two home games of the 2020 season.
In an email to season ticket holders, the Steelers detailed that the "current conditions and state orders" will not allow them to have fans in attendance right now. The team hasn't yet decided if they'll be able to have spectators for the other six home games.
This means that Pittsburgh will play without fans for the Week 2 tilt against the Denver Broncos on Sept. 20, and against the Houston Texans in Week 3 on Sept. 2. The Steelers will open up their season on the road against the New York Giants in Week 1.
"We will continue to work on plans to host fans at games when it is deemed safe to proceed," Steelers President Art Rooney II said. "We will communicate with our ticketholders concerning updates on our plans."
Pittsburgh's other 2020 home games will take place against the Philadelphia Eagles (Week 5), Cleveland Browns (Week 6), Cincinnati Bengals (Week 10), Baltimore Ravens (Week 12), Washington Football Team (Week 13), and Indianapolis Colts (Week 16).
So far, the New York Jets, Las Vegas Raiders, Eagles, Giants and Washington have confirmed that they won't have any fans for their 2020 home games. The majority of teams won't have any fans for at least their first home game.
The Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots previously announced that they won't have fans for the first two home games. The Seattle Seahawks will play without spectators for their first three contests at CenturyLink Field.
The defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs will start by opening Arrowhead Stadium to a capacity of 22 percent. The Miami Dolphins will allow up to 13,000 fans for their Week 2 home opener against the Buffalo Bills.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is also optimistic that the team will be able to have fans at its home games, but they have yet to finalize any plans.
Week 1 of the 2020 season begins on Sept. 10, with Kansas City hosting the Houston Texans in the Thursday kickoff game.
The Baltimore Ravens will not practice on Friday and instead will meet for what franchise called a "team unifying session surrounding social justice reform." Read More
LOS ANGELES — "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling has emerged into a fresh controversy after she returned the Ripple of Hope Award bestowed upon her by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization in December 2019, following criticism from Kerry Kennedy. Kerry is the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, and the president of the organization. Read More
Coca-Cola Co on Friday joined a list of big U.S. companies laying off thousands of workers in response to the coronavirus crisis, offering voluntary deals across its businesses and promising to halve its number of operating units. Read More
LONDON — A 40-year-old Irish haulier pleaded guilty on Friday to the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese men, women and boys found dead in the back of a refrigerated truck near London last year. Read More
Major League Soccer said on Thursday it will investigate allegations made in a report that Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen used racist language. Read More
After a video surfaced of him criticizing Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, New York Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen apologized Thursday for misconstruing the situation. Read More
At least 40 dolphins have mysteriously died in an area of Mauritius affected by an oil spill from a Japanese boat, officials and witnesses said on Friday, as a witness described the moment one mother dolphin died in front of him. Read More
OSLO — A man was killed by a polar bear in the Norwegian Arctic Svalbard islands early on Friday, local authorities said, the first such deadly incident in nine years. Read More
TOKYO — Japan's Shinzo Abe on Friday said he was resigning because of poor health, ending a tenure as the country's longest-serving prime minister in which he sought to revive an economy stricken by deflation and push for a stronger military. Read More
ASUS’s ROG Phones over the last few years have been devices of interesting differentiation, with the company delivering experiences that stood out from the crowd in one way or the other. This year, the new ROG Phone III doesn’t quite represent an as radical change compared to its predecessors, however ASUS makes some important upgrades and improvements to the popular gaming phone formula, updating the ROG3 to the newest Snapdragon 865+ SoC, introducing a 144Hz display, as well as most importantly, improving the every-day camera experience of the device.
OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says the economy posted its steepest decline on record in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of non-essential businesses and slowed the economy to a crawl. Read More
LONDON — A new statue of Britain's Princess Diana will be installed at Kensington Palace next July on what would have been her 60th birthday, the palace said on Friday, after a delay due to the coronavirus pandemic. Read More
WASHINGTON -- The Republicans and Donald Trump rolled out their biggest political guns Thursday on the final night of their national convention, using the south facade of the White House as a backdrop -- literally -- for the president's largest, highest-stakes Make America Great Again rally since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More
RIO DE JANEIRO -- A family held hostage by drug traffickers. A violent police shootout on a busy street. A mother killed while shielding her three-year-old daughter from gunfire. Read More
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - "Bill & Ted Face the Music" has a high-fluff effervescence. It's about how Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves), those chuckle-brained metal heads who speak like Jeff Spicoli with a thesaurus, have just 77 minutes to travel through time and get the song -- from themselves! Because they wrote it already! Whoa!! -- that will unite humanity and save reality as we know it. Read More
The U.S. government sought on Thursday to seize 280 cryptocurrency accounts it said were used by North Korean hackers who stole millions of dollars of cryptocurrency from two virtual exchanges, and used Chinese traders to launder their funds. Read More
Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was arrested in connection with shootings in Wisconsin that led to the death of two people and injury of another, has been charged with six criminal counts, according to the criminal complaint disclosed on Thursday. Read More
One of the overriding central messages to TSMC’s Technology Symposium this week is that the company is a world leader in semiconductor manufacturing, especially at the leading edge process technology. To further hit the message home, TSMC showcased a slide indicating where it stands in relation to others: by using a combination of public ASML statements and their own internal purchase sheets, TSMC predicts that they have ~50% of all the active EUV machines installed worldwide. Beyond that, the company also has a number of ~60% for cumulative EUV wafer production.
Current known public EUV processes from the big fabs include TSMC’s 7+ and N5, as well as Samsung’s 7LPP (and anything below), with Intel’s EUV efforts only entering in its own 7nm portfolio next year. Anything beyond these processes at the leading edge will continue to extend EUV use. EUV machines typically have a lower throughput, anywhere from 120-175 wafers per hour, than regular DUV machines which can reach 275 wph on the latest versions, however since 1 layer of EUV typically replaces 3-4 layers of DUV, the throughput is higher, but nonetheless the desire to scale out to multiple EUV machines to increase the physical number of wafers is a keen target for these foundries.
The only company that makes EUV machines is ASML, and the company publically announces how many machines it sells each year. The details are as follows:
ASML's EUV Shipments
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Actual
2
4
10
3
4
5
6
4
7
7
8
2
9
-
-
-
Target
-
-
-
20
30
35
45-50
2018 and beyond is split per quarter for actual shipped numbers
Data taken from ASML's Financial Reports
Note that each year so far, ASML hasn’t quite hit its targets, but has done near enough, although sales in Q1 2020 were lower than I would expect, indicating that by end of Q2 2020, ASML has only shipped 13 out of the proposed 35 systems. These numbers include all the different types of Twinscan NXE machines that ASML has built, with the more recent ones having better throughput (and sometimes the older ones get retrofitted). As of the end of Q2 2020, we predict that ASML has shipped around 71 of these EUV machines, and will likely hit 90 by the end of 2020. Some observers have noted that ASML may have a backlog of as many as 49 EUV scanner orders, even with these shipment targets.
If ASML has shipped 71 machines, that would mean, according to TSMC’s numbers, the company has around 30-35. Note that TSMC’s numbers are for ‘Installed EUV’ machines – we learned from our trip to GlobalFoundries in Q1 2018 that it takes up to 6 months from getting the parts to calibrating the machine for use. At present, some of these foundries therefore have EUV machines sitting around waiting to be installed, or in the case of Intel, perhaps only in use for early testing or pre-risk trials. We know that GlobalFoundries had two early EUV machines, installed one, but ended up selling both when it decided not to pursue leading edge 7nm, and SMIC ordered one but as far as we know it wasn’t installed due to restrictions imposed by the US.
As TSMC grows its Fab 18 for N5 production, and ramps its EUV integration, it will be interesting to see if TSMC is ever limited by the number of machines it has. At some point Intel is going to want to buy a number when it deploys its 7nm processes (I’ve seen predictions that Intel has at least ~10 machines already, but I can’t confirm that) as well, so there might be a tussle for who gets their order delivered first.
One thing is for sure however, ASML is sitting pretty right in the middle with a monopoly on everything. I still have an invite to visit one of their EUV machine factories in Connecticut, which when the COVID mess is all over I intend to follow up on. It should be exciting.
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One of the overriding central messages to TSMC’s Technology Symposium this week is that the company is a world leader in semiconductor manufacturing, especially at the leading edge process technology. To further hit the message home, TSMC showcased a slide indicating where it stands in relation to others: by using a combination of public ASML statements and their own internal purchase sheets, TSMC predicts that they have ~50% of all the active EUV machines installed worldwide. Beyond that, the company also has a number of ~60% for cumulative EUV wafer production.
Current known public EUV processes from the big fabs include TSMC’s 7+ and N5, as well as Samsung’s 7LPP (and anything below), with Intel’s EUV efforts only entering in its own 7nm portfolio next year. Anything beyond these processes at the leading edge will continue to extend EUV use. EUV machines typically have a lower throughput, anywhere from 120-175 wafers per hour, than regular DUV machines which can reach 275 wph on the latest versions, however since 1 layer of EUV typically replaces 3-4 layers of DUV, the throughput is higher, but nonetheless the desire to scale out to multiple EUV machines to increase the physical number of wafers is a keen target for these foundries.
The only company that makes EUV machines is ASML, and the company publically announces how many machines it sells each year. The details are as follows:
ASML's EUV Shipments
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Actual
2
4
10
3
4
5
6
4
7
7
8
2
9
-
-
-
Target
-
-
-
20
30
35
45-50
2018 and beyond is split per quarter for actual shipped numbers
Data taken from ASML's Financial Reports
Note that each year so far, ASML hasn’t quite hit its targets, but has done near enough, although sales in Q1 2020 were lower than I would expect, indicating that by end of Q2 2020, ASML has only shipped 13 out of the proposed 35 systems. These numbers include all the different types of Twinscan NXE machines that ASML has built, with the more recent ones having better throughput (and sometimes the older ones get retrofitted). As of the end of Q2 2020, we predict that ASML has shipped around 71 of these EUV machines, and will likely hit 90 by the end of 2020. Some observers have noted that ASML may have a backlog of as many as 49 EUV scanner orders, even with these shipment targets.
If ASML has shipped 71 machines, that would mean, according to TSMC’s numbers, the company has around 30-35. Note that TSMC’s numbers are for ‘Installed EUV’ machines – we learned from our trip to GlobalFoundries in Q1 2018 that it takes up to 6 months from getting the parts to calibrating the machine for use. At present, some of these foundries therefore have EUV machines sitting around waiting to be installed, or in the case of Intel, perhaps only in use for early testing or pre-risk trials. We know that GlobalFoundries had two early EUV machines, installed one, but ended up selling both when it decided not to pursue leading edge 7nm, and SMIC ordered one but as far as we know it wasn’t installed due to restrictions imposed by the US.
As TSMC grows its Fab 18 for N5 production, and ramps its EUV integration, it will be interesting to see if TSMC is ever limited by the number of machines it has. At some point Intel is going to want to buy a number when it deploys its 7nm processes (I’ve seen predictions that Intel has at least ~10 machines already, but I can’t confirm that) as well, so there might be a tussle for who gets their order delivered first.
One thing is for sure however, ASML is sitting pretty right in the middle with a monopoly on everything. I still have an invite to visit one of their EUV machine factories in Connecticut, which when the COVID mess is all over I intend to follow up on. It should be exciting.
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Data storage requirements have kept increasing over the last several years. While SSDs have taken over the role of the primary drive in most computing systems, hard drives continue to be the storage media of choice in areas dealing with large amount of relatively cold data. Hard drives are also suitable for workloads that are largely sequential and not performance sensitive. The $/GB metric for SSDs (particularly with QLC in the picture) is showing a downward trend, but it is still not low enough to match HDDs in that market segment. The consumer HDD market has not seen any new introductions since the release of our Q1 HDD guide. However, Western Digital did introduce their EAMR drives, with the 16TB and 18TB WD Gold enterprise models getting retail availability. The company also split their WD Red series of hard drives into the WD Red and WD Red Plus lines.
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The popularity of Netflix is growing fast, especially during the pandemic. People can spend more time watching the streaming platform because they are at home most of the time. For those who are not familiar with it, Netflix is an American streaming service. It offers a membership system that lets subscribers watch a wide variety of movies, TV shows, and many others. The purpose of the platform is to provide entertainment to its members at the comfort of their homes. As Netflix continues to serve its members, additional subscribers continually grow in the USA and internationally. Statistics show that as
One of the side announcements made during TSMC’s Technology Symposium was that it already has customers on hand with product development progressing for its future 3nm process node technology. As we’ve reported on previously, TSMC is developing its 3nm for risk production next year, and high volume manufacturing in the second half of 2022, so at this time TSMC’s lead partners are already developing their future silicon on the initial versions of the 3nm PDKs.
One company highlighted during TSMC’s presentations was Graphcore. Graphcore is an AI silicon company that makes the IPU, an ‘Intelligence Processing Unit’, to accelerate ‘machine intelligence’. It recently announced its second generation Colossus Mk2 IPU, built on TSMC’s N7 manufacturing process, and featuring 59.2 billion transistors. The Mk2 has an effective core count of 1472 cores, that can run ~9000 threads for 250 Teraflops of FP16 AI training workloads. The company puts four of these chips together in a single 1U to enable 1 Petaflop, along with 450 GB of memory and a custom low-latency fabric design between the IPUs.
A future generation of products from Graphcore, according to the TSMC presentation, is set to be developed with the TSMC 3nm process in mind, skipping TSMC’s 5nm. No exact timescale was presented, nor any indication of Graphcore’s strategy. As we can see from the slide, the Colossus IPU line involves big high-transistor count chips, using the extra transistor budget afforded by the more dense process node.
We reached out to Graphcore for a statement, and received the following:
Nigel Toon, CEO & co-founder at Graphcore said: “Graphcore was first to build a completely new kind of fully programmable processor, designed from the ground up for machine intelligence. Many of the innovative features of our IPU architecture and the high yields we see even at the cutting edge of the latest process node, are testament to the close technology partnership we enjoy with TSMC. With 59.4Bn transistors, and built using the latest TSMC 7nm technology, the MK2 IPU, which we announced in July, is the world’s most sophisticated processor. Each GC200 IPU has 1472 independent processor cores and an unprecedented 900MB of In-Processor memory delivering an 8x step up in real world performance vs. our MK1 products. We continue to work closely with TSMC as one of their technology innovation partners to explore the advantages of new process nodes and techniques, including N3, so we can continue to deliver more performance improvements to enable our customers to make new breakthroughs in AI.”
PCIe Accelerator with two IPUs
As it stands, Graphcore has a number of products built on its Mk1 and Mk2 IPUs, including systems in partnership with Dell. Graphcore in Q1 2020 went through an extended Series D funding round earlier this year, and has raised $450 million, valuating the company at $1.95 billion, with investors such as BMW, Microsoft, the CEO of DeepMind, and a number of VC firms. According to TechCrunch, who reported this in February, the company still has $300m in cash reserves. As the cost to develop new silicon on the latest manufacturing node increases, it will be interesting to see at what point Graphcore puts an order in with TSMC’s 3nm, or if TSMC and Graphcore are working together to help optimize the process for large scale chips and if TSMC will bear some of that cost.
