Google announced Monday it will build its own smartphone processor, called Google Tensor, that will power its new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones this fall. From a report: It's another example of a company building its own chips to create what it felt wasn't possible with those already on the market. In this case, Google is ditching Qualcomm. The move follows Apple, which is using its own processors in its new computers instead of Intel chips. And like Apple, Google is using an Arm-based architecture. Arm processors are lower power and are used across the industry for mobile devices, from phones to tablets and laptops.

Google Tensor will power new flagship phones that are expected to launch in October. (Google will reveal more details about those phones closer to launch.) That, too, is a strategy shift for Google, which in recent years has focused on affordability in its Pixel devices instead of offering high-end phones. And it shows that Google is again trying to compete directly in the flagship space against Apple and Samsung. The name Google Tensor is a nod to the name of Google's Tensor Processing Unit the company uses for cloud computing. It's a full system on a chip, or SoC, that the company says will offer big improvements to photo and video processing on phones, along with features like voice-to-speech and translation. And it includes a dedicated processor that runs artificial intelligence applications, in addition to a CPU, GPU and image signal processor. It will allow the phone to process more information on the device instead of having to send data to the cloud. Further reading: Google's New Pixel Phones Features a Processor Designed In-House.

AnandTech: An executive visiting various research divisions across the globe isn't necessarily new, but with a focus on social media driving named individuals at each company to keep their followers sitting on the edge of their seats means that we get a lot more insights into how these companies operate. The downside of posting to social media is when certain images exposing unreleased information are not vetted by PR or legal, and we get a glimpse into the next generation of technology. That is what happened over the weekend.

EVP and GM of Intel's Client Computing Group, Gregory Bryant, last week spent some time at Intel's Israel R&D facilities in his first overseas Intel trip in of 2021. An early post on Sunday morning, showcasing Bryant's trip to the gym to overcome jetlag, was followed by another later in the day with Bryant being shown the offices and the research. The post contained four photos, but was rapidly deleted and replaced by a photo with three. The photo removed showcases some new information about next-generation Thunderbolt technology. In this image we can see a poster on the wall showcasing '80G PHY Technology,' which means that Intel is working on a physical layer (PHY) for 80 Gbps connections. Off the bat this is double the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4, which runs at 40 Gbps.

The second line confirms that this is 'USB 80G is targeted to support the existing USB-C ecosystem,' which follows along that Intel is aiming to maintain the USB-C connector but double the effective bandwidth. The third line is actually where it gets technically interesting. 'The PHY will be based on novel PAM-3 modulation technology.' This is talking about how the 0 and 1s are transmitted -- traditionally we talk about NRZ encoding, which just allows for a 0 or a 1 to be transmitted, or a single bit. The natural progression is a scheme allowing two bits to be transferred, and this is called PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation), with the 4 being the demarcation for how many different variants two bits could be seen (either as 00, 01, 10, or 11). PAM-4, at the same frequency, thus has 2x the bandwidth of an NRZ connection.

Kekke writes: "Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s new foundry will produce 2-nanometer chips," reports Gizmodo. "Construction on the plant in Hsinchu, southwest from Taiwan's capital of Taipei, is expected to start as soon as early 2022. TSMC's 3nm tech is reportedly expected to be put into production in late 2022 -- meanwhile, Intel will be rolling out 7nm chips toward the end of 2022 and into 2023." Will Intel have a genie in the bottle or a rabbit in a hat? Doesn't seem so to me. On Tuesday, Intel unveiled a comeback plan designed to help it reclaim processor manufacturing leadership within four years.

Microsoft has released the first beta of Windows 11, available to those enrolled in its Windows Insider Program. From a report: Until today, getting access to Windows 11 meant installing the Dev preview, which Microsoft says is for "highly technical users" as it has "rough edges." According to Microsoft, the beta release is less volatile, with builds being validated by Microsoft (though it's still probably something you'll want to install on a test machine or second partition). Of course, to install the beta you'll need a compatible computer. Figuring out if your hardware will work with the next version of Windows has been notoriously tricky to pin down, but Microsoft's article about preparing for Insider builds directs people to its system requirements page. The company has said that it will be paying close attention to how well 7th Gen Intel and AMD Zen 1 CPUs work during the testing period, so it's possible those systems could be allowed to run the beta but not the final release.

davide marney writes: Orders for Alienware Aurora R12 and R10 gaming PC configurations placed in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, or Washington will not be honored because of power consumption regulations, reports PC Gamer. "Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled," Dell states in a message.

"The Aurora R12 and R10 are built around the latest generation processors from Intel and AMD, the former featuring 11th Gen Core Rocket Lake CPUs and the latter wielding Ryzen 5000 series chips based on Zen 3," reports PC Gamer. "Unfortunately for both Dell and buyers who reside in affected states, the majority of Aurora R12 and R10 configurations consume more power than local regulations allow. There are exceptions, though [depending on the configuration you select]."

Intel unveiled on Tuesday a smorgasbord of new technologies designed to help it reclaim processor manufacturing leadership within four years. The plans bear the fingerprints of newly installed CEO Pat Gelsinger, who has pledged to restore the company's engineering leadership and credibility. From a report: The developments include a new push to improve the power usage of Intel chips, a key element of battery life, while simultaneously raising chip performance. The technologies involve deep redesigns to how processors are constructed.

One technology, RibbonFET, fundamentally redesigns the transistor circuitry at the heart of all processors. Another, PowerVia, reimagines how electrical power is delivered to those transistors. Lastly, Intel is updating its Foveros technology for packaging chip elements from different sources into dense stacks of computing horsepower. Intel's commitments, unveiled at an online press event, will mean faster laptops with longer battery life, if realized. And the advancements could boost technologies like artificial intelligence at cloud computing companies and speed up the services on mobile phone networks. "In 2025, we think we will regain that performance crown," Sanjay Natarajan, who rejoined Intel this year to lead the company's processor technology development, said in an interview. Further reading: Intel's foundry roadmap lays out the post-nanometer "Angstrom" era.

UnknowingFool writes: An engineering sample of Intel's next flagship processor, the i9-12900K, was shown to beat AMD's current flagship 5950X in Cinebench R20 by 18% in multi-core and 28% in single-core tests. The next generation of Intel processors is believed to use a hybrid big.LITTLE design where 8 of its 16 cores are for low power usage and 8 are for full power. The low power cores only run in single thread where the high power cores can run 2 threads. No official word on pricing or release date from Intel though but engineering samples and B600 motherboards are being sold in China for $1,250 and $1,150, respectively. According to leaker OneRaichu, the results for the 12900K were gathered using water-cooling and without overclocking, so it's possible the final score could be even higher. The rumors suggest the processor will come with 16 cores and 24 threads with a boost clock speed of up to 5.3GHz.

Mobileye, the company that specializes in chips for vision-based autonomous vehicles, is now testing its AVs in New York City -- a difficult and rare move given the state's restrictions around such testing. The Verge reports: The announcement was made by Amnon Shashua, president and CEO of the Intel-owned company, at an event in the city on Tuesday. Shashua said the company is currently testing two autonomous vehicles in New York City, but plans to increase that number to seven "in the next few months." New York City has some of the most dangerous, congested, and poorly managed streets in the world. They are also chock-full of construction workers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and double- and sometimes even triple-parked cars. In theory, this would make it very difficult for an autonomous vehicle to navigate, given that AVs typically rely on good weather, clear signage, and less aggressive driving from other road users for safe operation. But Shashua said this was part of the challenge in deciding where to test Mobileye's vehicles.

"I think for a human it's very, very challenging to drive in New York City," Shashua said, "not to mention for a robotic car." While other states have become hot beds for AV testing, New York has been a bit of a ghost town. Part of the reason could be the state's strict rules, which include mandating that safety drivers keep their hands on the wheel at all times and requiring state police escort at all times to be paid for by the testing company. A spokesperson for Mobileye says the company has obtained a permit from the state to test its vehicles on public roads and is currently the only AV testing permit holder in the state. The spokesperson also said that police escorts were no longer required.

New submitter labloke11 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: Intel is exploring a deal to buy GlobalFoundries (source paywalled; alternative source), according to people familiar with the matter, in a move that would turbocharge the semiconductor giant's plans to make more chips for other tech companies and rate as its largest acquisition ever. A deal could value GlobalFoundries at around $30 billion, the people said. It isn't guaranteed one will come together, and GlobalFoundries could proceed with a planned initial public offering. GlobalFoundries is owned by Mubadala Investment Co., an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, but based in the U.S. Any talks don't appear to include GlobalFoundries itself as a spokeswoman for the company said it isn't in discussions with Intel.

Intel's new Chief Executive, Pat Gelsinger, in March said the company would launch a major push to become a chip manufacturer for others, a market dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Intel, with a market value of around $225 billion, this year pledged more than $20 billion in investments to expand chip-making facilities in the U.S. and Mr. Gelsinger has said more commitments domestically and abroad are in the works.

William Lazonick and Matt Hopkins, writing at Institute for New Economic Thinking: Why has Intel fallen behind TSMC and SEC in semiconductor fabrication, and why is it unlikely to catch up? The problem is that Intel is engaged in two types of competition, one with companies like TSMC and SEC in cutting-edge fabrication technology and the other within Intel itself between innovation and financialization. The Asian companies have governance structures that vaccinate them from an economic virus known as "maximizing shareholder value" (MSV). Intel caught the virus over two decades ago. As we shall see, with the sudden appointment of Gelsinger as CEO this past winter, Intel sent out a weak signal that it recognizes that it has the disease.

In the years 2011-2015, Intel was in the running, along with TSMC and SEC, to be the fabricator of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod chips that Apple designed. While Intel spent $50b. on P&E and $53b. on R&D over those five years, it also lavished shareholders with $36b. in stock buybacks and $22b. in cash dividends, which together absorbed 102% of Intel's net income. From 2016 through 2020, Intel spent $67b. on P&E and $66b. on R&D, but also distributed almost $27b. as dividends and another $45b. as buybacks. Intel's ample dividends have provided an income yield to shareholders for, as the name says, holding Intel shares. In contrast, the funds spent on buybacks have rewarded sharesellers, including senior Intel executives with their stock-based pay, for executing well-timed sales of their Intel shares to realize gains from buyback-manipulated stock prices.

Intel has rehired 28-year veteran Shlomit Weiss into the position of Senior VP and Co-General Manager of Intel's Design Engineering Group (DEG), a position recently vacated by Uri Frank who left to head up Google's SoC development. "Weiss is the latest in an ever-growing list of 're-hiring' Intel veterans, which leads to the problem that at some point Intel will run out of ex-employees to rehire and instead nurture internal talent for those roles," writes Dr. Ian Cutress via AnandTech. From the report: As reported in Tom's Hardware and confirmed in her own LinkedIn announcement, Weiss will be working at Intel's Israel design center alongside Sunil Shenoy and is "committed to ensuring that the company continues to lead in developing chips." [...] In her first 28-year stint at Intel, Weiss is reported to have lead the team that developed both Intel Sandy Bridge and Intel Skylake, arguably two of the company's most important processor families over the last decade: Sandy Bridge reaffirmed Intel's lead in the market with a new base microarchitecture and continues in its 6+th generation in Comet Lake today, while Skylake has been Intel's most profitable microarchitecture ever. Weiss also received Intel's Achievement Award, the company's highest offer, but is not listed as an Intel Fellow, while CRN reports that Weiss also founded the Intel Israel Women Forum in 2014. Weiss left Intel in September 2017 to join Mellanox/NVIDIA, where she held the role of Senior VP Silicon Engineering and ran the company's networking chip design group. In her new role at Intel, Tom's is reporting that Weiss will lead all of Intel's consumer chip development and design, while the other Co-GM of Intel DEG Sunil Shenoy will lead the data center design initiatives. AnandTech goes on to note that Intel has hired 12 veterans since Dec. 20th of last year. "Of these named hires (plenty of other people hired below the role of VP), seven are listed as ex-Intel employees being rehired into the company, mostly into engineering-focused positions," writes Cutress. He continues: It should be noted however that number of engineers that Intel could rehire is limited -- going after key personnel critical to Intel's growth in the last few decades, despite their lists of successful products and accolades, can't be the be-all and end-all of Intel's next decade of growth. If we're strictly adhering to typical retirement ages as well, a number of them will soon be at that level within the next ten years. Intel can't keep rehiring veteran talent into key positions to get to the next phase in its product evolution -- at some level it has to reignite the initial passion from within.

[I]f Intel is having to rehire those who enabled former glory for the company, one has to wonder exactly what is going on such that talent already within the company isn't stepping up. At some point these veterans will retire, and Intel will be at a crossroads. In a recent interview with former Intel SVP Jim Keller, he stated that (paraphrased) "building a chip design team at a company depends on volume -- you hire in if you don't have the right people, but if you have a team of 1,000, then there are people there and it's a case of finding the right ones." In a company of 110,000 employees, it seems odd that Intel feels it has to rehire to fill those key roles. Some might question if those rehires would have left in the first place if Intel's brain drain had never occurred, but it poses an interesting question nonetheless.

Qualcomm's new chief thinks that by next year his company will have just the chip for laptop makers wondering how they can compete with Apple, which last year introduced laptops using a custom-designed central processor chip that boasts longer battery life. From a report: Longtime processor suppliers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have no chips as energy efficient as Apple's. Qualcomm Chief Executive Cristiano Amon told Reuters on Thursday he believes his company can have the best chip on the market, with help from a team of chip architects who formerly worked on the Apple chip but now work at Qualcomm. In his first interview since taking the top job at San Diego, California-based Qualcomm, Amon also said the company is also counting on revenue growth from China to power its core smartphone chip business despite political tensions. "We will go big in China," he said, noting that U.S. sanctions on Huawei give Qualcomm an opportunity to generate a lot more revenue.

MojoKid writes: Intel recently shifted its storage strategy somewhat and is now catering its flagship Optane SSD P5800X, which was formerly targeted solely at data centers, to workstation users. The Optane SSD P5800X is based on a proprietary PCIe Gen 4x4 native controller and it features Intel's second-generation Intel Optane memory. In terms of performance, in some of the first benchmark numbers to hit the web, the drive is an absolute beast in the workloads that matter most for the vast majority of workstation users and enthusiasts. Random reads and writes are exceptionally good and access times at low queue depths are best-of-class. The Optane SSD P5800X's sequential transfers, while strong, aren't quite on the same level as some of today's fastest NAND-based PCIe 4 solid state drives, but they do exceed 7GB/s, which is still extremely fast. Overall, it's essentially the fastest SSD ever made. Endurance is off the charts too. However, all of that SSD horsepower comes at a price though, at a little over $2.50 per Gig and over $2,000 for an 800GB drive. With capacities of 400GB, 800GB and 1.6TB, the new Intel Optane SSD P5800X is shipping and available now.

Mac OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion can now be downloaded for free from Apple's website. "Apple has kept OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion available for customers who have machines limited to the older software, but until recently, Apple was charging $19.99 to get download codes for the updates," notes MacRumors. "The $19.99 fee dates back to when Apple used to charge for Mac updates. Apple began making Mac updates free with the launch of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which also marked the shift from big cat names to California landmark names." From the report: Mac OS X Lion is compatible with Macs that have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor, a minimum of 2GB RAM, and 7GB storage space. Mac OS X Mountain Lion is compatible with the following Macs: iMac (Mid 2007-2020), MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer), MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer), MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer), Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer), Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer), and Xserve (Early 2009). Macs that shipped with Mac OS X Mavericks or later are not compatible with the installer, however.

Intel has delayed production of its next-generation Xeon Scalable CPUs, code-named Sapphire Rapids, to the first quarter of 2022 and said it will start ramping shipments by at least April of next year. From a report: The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company disclosed the delay in a Tuesday blog post by Lisa Spelman, head of Intel's Xeon and Memory Group, who teased the CPU's new microarchitecture as well as two features that will be new to the Xeon lineup: the next generation of Deep Learning Boost and an acceleration engine called Intel Data Streaming Accelerator. Spelman said Intel is delaying Sapphire Rapids, the 10-nanometer successor to the recently launched Ice Lake server processors, because of extra time needed to validate the CPU.

Intel is going to be disabling Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX) by default for various Skylake through Coffee Lake processors with forthcoming microcode updates. Phoronix reports: Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX) have been around since Haswell for hardware transactional memory support and going off Intel's own past numbers can be around 40% faster in specific workloads or as much 4~5 times faster in database transaction benchmarks. TSX issues have been found in the past such as a possible side channel timing attack that could lead to KASLR being defeated and CVE-2019-11135 (TSX Async Abort) for an MDS-style flaw. Now in 2021 Intel is disabling TSX by default across multiple families of Intel CPUs from Skylake through Coffee Lake. [...] The Linux kernel is preparing for this microcode change as seen in the flow of new patches this morning for the 5.14 merge window.

A memory ordering issue is what is reportedly leading Intel to now deprecate TSX on various processors. There is this Intel whitepaper (PDF) updated this month that outlines the problem at length. As noted in the revision history, the memory ordering issue has been known to Intel since at least before October 2018 but only now in June 2021 are they pushing out microcode updates to disable TSX by default. With forthcoming microcode updates will effectively deprecate TSX for all Skylake Xeon CPUs prior to Stepping 5 (including Xeon D and 1st Gen Xeon Scalable), all 6th Gen Xeon E3-1500m v5 / E3-1200 v5 Skylake processors, all 7th/8th Gen Core and Pentium Kaby/Coffee/Whiskey CPUs prior to 0x8 stepping, and all 8th/9th Gen Core/Pentium Coffee Lake CPUs prior to 0xC stepping will be affected. That ultimately spans from various Skylake steppings through Coffee Lake; it was with 10th Gen Comet Lake and Ice Lake where TSX/TSX-NI was subsequently removed.

In addition to disabling TSX by default and force-aborting all RTM transactions by default, a new CPUID bit is being enumerated with the new microcode to indicate that the force aborting of RTM transactions. It's due to that new CPUID bit that the Linux kernel is seeing patches. Previously Linux and other operating systems applied a workaround for the TSX memory ordering issue but now when this feature is disabled, the kernel can drop said workaround. These patches are coming with the Linux 5.14 cycle and will likely be back-ported to stable too.

Neowin: Microsoft today released the first-ever Windows 11 build to Insiders in the Dev channel, bringing build 22000.51. While most of the announced features made it to the build, there are a few missing ones such as support for Android apps. The firm also posted a few known issues for the release. In addition to the build, the company has also posted clarification about the confusion surrounding the minimum system requirements.

The firm starts off by acknowledging that there has been confusion caused by the PC Health Check tool, something that was updated late last week after negative feedback from users about the lack of clarity on Windows 11 compatibility. It says that the tool was "not fully prepared to share the level of detail or accuracy you expected from us on why a Windows 10 PC doesn't meet upgrade requirements," which is why the company is taking down the tool to address the feedback, adding that the tool will be "back online" later in the fall, closer to the general availability of Windows 11. In a blog post, the company adds: [...] Using the principles above, we are confident that devices running on Intel 8th generation processors and AMD Zen 2 as well as Qualcomm 7 and 8 Series will meet our principles around security and reliability and minimum system requirements for Windows 11. As we release to Windows Insiders and partner with our OEMs, we will test to identify devices running on Intel 7th generation and AMD Zen 1 that may meet our principles.

"Linus Torvalds has just released the Linux 5.13 kernel as stable," reports Phoronix: Linux 5.13 brings initial but still early support for the Apple M1 with basic support but not yet accelerated graphics and a lot more to iron out moving ahead. There are also new Linux 5.13 security features like the Landlock security module, Clang control flow integrity support, and optionally randomizing the kernel stack offset at each system call. There is also AMD fun this cycle around FreeSync HDMI support, initial Aldebaran bring-up, and more. Intel has more work on Alder Lake, a new cooling driver, and more discrete graphics bring-up. There are also other changes for Linux 5.13 around faster IO_uring, a generic USB display driver, and other new hardware enablement.
"5.13 overall is actually fairly large," Linus Torvalds posted on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, calling it "one of the bigger 5.x releases, with over 16,000 commits (over 17k if you count merges), from over 2,000 developers. But it's a "big all over" kind of thing, not something particular that stands out as particularly unusual..."

Slashdot reader thegarbz writes: While a lot of focus has been on the TPM requirements for Windows 11, Microsoft has since updated its documentation to provide a complete list of supported processors. At present the list includes only Intel 8th Generation Core processors or newer, and AMD Ryzen Zen+ processors or newer, effectively limiting Windows 11 to PC less than 4-5 years old.

Notably absent from the list is the Intel Core i7-7820HQ, the processor used in Microsoft's current flagship $3500+ Surface Studio 2. This has prompted many threads on Reddit from users angry that their (in some cases very new) Surface PC is failing the Windows 11 upgrade check.
The Verge confirms: Windows 11 will only support 8th Gen and newer Intel Core processors, alongside [Intel's 2016-era] Apollo Lake and newer Pentium and Celeron processors. That immediately rules out millions of existing Windows 10 devices from upgrading to Windows 11... Windows 11 will also only support AMD Ryzen 2000 and newer processors, and 2nd Gen or newer [AMD] EPYC chips. You can find the full list of supported processors on Microsoft's site...

Originally, Microsoft noted that CPU generation requirements are a "soft floor" limit for the Windows 11 installer, which should have allowed some older CPUs to be able to install Windows 11 with a warning, but hours after we published this story, the company updated that page to explicitly require the list of chips above.

Many Windows 10 users have been downloading Microsoft's PC Health App (available here) to see whether Windows 11 works on their systems, only to find it fails the check... This is the first significant shift in Windows hardware requirements since the release of Windows 8 back in 2012, and the CPU changes are understandably catching people by surprise.

Microsoft is also requiring a front-facing camera for all Windows 11 devices except desktop PCs from January 2023 onwards.
"In order to run Windows 11, devices must meet the hardware specifications," explains Microsoft's official compatibility page for Windows 11.

"Devices that do not meet the hardware requirements cannot be upgraded to Windows 11."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Today's announcement from SiFive comes in two parts; this part is significant as it recognizes that Intel will be enabling SiFive's IP portfolio on its 7nm manufacturing process for upcoming foundry customers. We are expecting Intel to offer a wide variety of its own IP, such as some of the x86 cores, memory controllers, PCIe controllers, and accelerators, however the depth of its third party IP support has not been fully established at this point. SiFive's IP is the first (we believe) official confirmation of specific IP that will be supported. Announced earlier this year by Pat Gelsinger, Intel Foundry Services (or IFS) is one prong of Intel's strategy to realign itself with the current and future semiconductor market. Despite having attempted to become a foundry player in the past, whereby they build chips under contract for their customers, it hasn't really worked out that well -- however IFS is a new reinvigoration of that idea, this time with more emphasis on getting it right and expanding the scope.