Intel said it was the victim of a hacker who stole financially sensitive information from its corporate website on Thursday, prompting the company to release its earnings statement ahead of schedule.ÂFrom a report: The US computer chipmaker believed an attacker had obtained advanced details about a strong earnings report it was due to publish after the stock market closed, said George Davis, chief financial officer. It published its formal earnings announcement upon discovering the problem, six minutes before the market closed. Intel's shares rose more than 6 per cent on Thursday, including almost 2 per cent in the final 15 minutes of trading. "An infographic was hacked off of our PR newsroom site," Mr Davis said. "We put [our earnings] out as soon as we were aware." He did not provide more details, but said that the leak was the result of an illicit action that had not involved any unintentional disclosure by the company itself. An Intel spokesperson added: "We were notified that our infographic was circulating outside the company. I do not believe it was published. We are continuing to investigate this matter."

We're following the state of play with Intel's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, very closely. Even as an Intel employee for 30 years, rising to the rank of CTO, then taking 12 years away from the company, his arrival has been met with praise across the spectrum given his background and previous successes. He isn't even set to take his new role until February 15th, however his return is already causing a stir with Intel's current R&D teams. From a report: News in the last 24 hours, based on public statements, states that former Intel Senior Fellow Glenn Hinton, who lists being the lead architect of Intel's Nehalem CPU core in his list of achievements, is coming out of retirement to re-join the company. (The other lead architect of Nehalem are Ronak Singhal and Per Hammerlund - Ronak is still at Intel, working on next-gen processors, while Per has been at Apple for five years.)

Hinton is an old Intel hand, with 35 years of experience, leading microarchitecture development of Pentium 4, one of three senior architects of Intel's P6 processor design (which led to Pentium Pro, P2, P3), and ultimately one of the drivers to Intel's Core architecture which is still at the forefront of Intel's portfolio today. He also a lead microarchitect for Intel's i960 CA, the world's first super-scalar microprocessor. Hinton holds more than 90+ patents from 8 CPU designs from his endeavors. Hinton spent another 10+ years at Intel after Nehalem, but Nehalem is listed in many places as his primary public achievement at Intel. [...]

TSMC is to start making Intel's Core i3 on its 5nm process in 2H21 says TrendForce. From a report: Market analyst Trendforce reports that foundry TSMC is to start making Intel's Core i3 process later in the year on a 5nm process. This follows Intel's well documented problems with its leading edge process technology at 10nm and 7nm. The Core i3 move to a 5nm process is set to be followed by mid-range and high-end CPUs being produced for Intel by TSMC on a 3nm process in 2H22. TrendForce did not give a source for the information, simply referencing "investigations." Intel has long outsourced production significant amounts of its non-CPU chips to TSMC and UMC -- about 15 to 20 percent of its output, according to TrendForce. This is partly because it has often acquired fabless startups that had brought products to market using foundry. It was usually not worthwhile to re-engineer such products to Intel processes. It is also because Intel has wanted to focus on leading-edge specialist processes, although with less success in recent years. That 15 to 20 percent outsource was likely worth $10.5 billion to $14 billion in 2020, given Intel's annual revenue of $70bn.

Apple has plugged a hole that allowed users to sideload iOS and iPad applications to M1 Macs that were never intended to run on desktop. The server-side change ensures that only applications that app developers have flagged as optimized for Mac will run. From a report: Late last year, Apple launched its first Macs running on its own ARM-based custom CPU called the M1, as opposed to the Intel chips that have been used in Macs for several years. These new machines included the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air, and the low-end Mac mini. Since those machines now share an architecture with iPhones and iPads, which also have closely related ARM-based chips, it became possible to run iOS and iPadOS apps natively on Macs that were equipped with the M1 chip. Apple supported this by listing iPhone and iPad apps that passed an automated test on the Mac App Store, provided developers did not opt out of having the app listed. However, many developers did opt out for any number of reasons: because they did not feel the app provided a good user experience on laptops or desktops; because they offer preferred alternative ways to access services or content on Macs; because they don't have the time to support an additional platform; or any number of other reasons.

"The Trump administration notified Huawei suppliers, including chipmaker Intel, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell to the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications," Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter: One of the sources said eight licenses were yanked from four companies. Japanese flash memory chip maker Kioxia Corp had at least one license revoked, two of the sources said. The company, formerly known as Toshiba Memory Corp, could not immediately be reached for comment... Companies that received the "intent to deny" notices have 20 days to respond, and the Commerce Department has 45 days to advise the companies of any change in a decision or it then becomes final. Companies would then have another 45 days to appeal...

Before the latest action, some 150 licenses were pending for $120 billion worth of goods and technology, which had been held up because various U.S. agencies could not agree on whether they should be granted, a person familiar with the matter said. Another $280 billion of licenses for goods and technology for Huawei still have not been dealt with, the source said, but now face a higher likelihood of denial... The United States made the latest decisions during a half dozen meetings starting on Jan. 4 with senior officials from the departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy, the source said. The officials developed detailed guidance with regard to which technologies were capable of 5G, and then applied that standard, the person said.

By doing that, the officials denied the vast majority of the roughly 150 disputed applications, and revoked the eight licenses to make those consistent with the new denials, the source said.

In addition to upgraded MacBook Pros, Bloomberg reports that Apple is also "planning the first redesign of its iMac all-in-one desktop computer since 2012," as it shifts away from Intel to its own silicon. From the report: The new models will slim down the thick black borders around the screen and do away with the sizable metal chin area in favor of a design similar to Apple's Pro Display XDR monitor. These iMacs will have a flat back, moving away from the curved rear of the current iMac. Apple is planning to launch two versions -- codenamed J456 and J457 -- to replace the existing 21.5-inch and 27-inch models later this year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the products are not yet announced. The new models will use next-generation versions of Apple's Mac processors like the upcoming 2021 MacBook Pros. The iMac redesign will be one of the biggest visual updates to any Apple product this year, according to people familiar with the company's roadmap.

Apple is also working on a pair of new Mac Pro desktop computers, its priciest Mac machines that don't come with a screen included, the people said. One version is a direct update to the current Mac Pro and will continue to use the same design as the version launched in 2019. Apple has discussed continuing to use Intel processors for that model rather than moving to its own chips. The second version, however, will use Apple's own processors and be less than half the size of the current Mac Pro. The design will feature a mostly aluminum exterior and could invoke nostalgia for the Power Mac G4 Cube, a short-lived smaller version of the Power Mac, an earlier iteration of the Mac Pro. Apple has also reportedly started development of a cheaper external monitor to sell alongside the Pro Display XDR. "The cheaper monitor would feature a screen geared more for consumer than professional use and wouldn't have the brightness and contrast ratio of the top-tier offering," reports Bloomberg.

Intel's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, doesn't start his new role until February, but he's already prepping the company to take on Apple's M1 chips. From a report: The Oregonian, a local newspaper in Oregon where Intel maintains a large presence, reports that the chip maker held an all-hands company meeting yesterday, and Gelsinger attended. "We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino" makes, Gelsinger reportedly told Intel employees. "We have to be that good, in the future." Intel has been facing increased competition from both Apple and AMD recently. Apple announced its transition to its own silicon back in June, calling it a "historic day for the Mac." The transition has gone well, with M1-based Macs providing impressive performance and battery life compared to existing Intel-based Macs.

Apple is planning upgraded MacBook Pro laptops this year with much faster processors, updated displays and the return of its magnetic charger, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing a person with knowledge of the plans. From the report: The new laptops are planned to come in two screen sizes, a 14-inch model codenamed J314 and a 16-inch version internally dubbed J316. Both will use next-generation versions of Apple's in-house Mac processors, upgraded with more cores and enhanced graphics, the person said, asking not to be named as the products are not yet announced.

These devices will mark Apple's first high-end laptops to move away from Intel components. The company updated its base 13-inch MacBook Pro with its own M1 chip in November, to broadly positive reviews. Beyond the more powerful chips, Apple is also planning to step up the displays in its new MacBook Pros with brighter, higher-contrast panels, the person said. The new Macs will look similar to the current versions, albeit with minor design changes. Apple is aiming to launch the new MacBook Pros around the middle of the year. A major change to the new computers will be how they charge. Over the past five years, Apple has relied on USB-C ports for both power and data transfer on its laptops, making them compatible with other manufacturers' chargers. But the company is now bringing back MagSafe, the magnetic power adapter that means any accidental yanking of the power cable would simply detach it from the laptop rather than pull down the entire computer.

Intel CEO Bob Swan is set to step down effective Feb. 15. From a report: VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger will take over the position, sources told CNBC. Intel's stock was up about 13% in premarket trading following the news. VMWare's stock was down nearly 5%. Swan was named CEO in January 2019 after serving as interim CEO for seven months. During Swan's tenure, Intel has suffered blows from competitors. Over the summer, Intel reported that its latest generation chips would be delayed while AMD's were already shipping inside laptops. Apple announced in the fall that it would use its own proprietary chips in its Mac computers, breaking a 15-year partnership with Intel for its chip supplies.

Advanced Micro Devices showed off some impressive Ryzen 5000 mobile processors today and teased the performance of its 3rd Gen Epyc server chips. From a report: Those chips are aimed at keeping AMD's performance lead over its rival Intel in the mobile and server markets. AMD CEO Lisa Su showed off the new chips in a keynote speech at CES 2021, the online-only tech trade show. AMD is launching its Ryzen 5000 Series mobile processors for gaming laptops and thin-and-light notebooks. These eight-core x86 chips are built with a 7-nanometer manufacturing process (where the circuits are 7 billionths of a meter apart). They are also based on the Zen3 design for processor cores, which can process instructions 19% faster per clock cycle than Zen2 cores.

The H-Series focuses on top performance in laptops for gamers and content creators, while the U-Series focuses on thin-and-light notebooks with great battery life. The chips have four to eight cores and they range in power consumption from 15 watts to 45 watts. AMD said the 5000 Series will be available in PCs in February, and we'll see more than 150 systems using it. That compares to 100 systems for the Ryzen 4000 Series and 70 for the Ryzen 3000.

MojoKid writes: At its virtual CES 2021 event today, Intel's EVP Gregory Bryant unveiled an array of new processors and technologies targeting virtually every market, from affordable Chromebooks to enthusiast-class gaming laptops and high-end desktops. Intel's 11th Gen Core vPro platform was announced, featuring new Intel Hardware Shield AI-enabled threat ransomware and crytpo-mining malware detection technology. In addition, the Intel Rocket Lake-S based Core i9-11900K 8-core CPU was revealed, offering up to a 19% improvement in IPC performance and the ability to out-pace AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X 12-core CPU in some workloads like gaming. Also, a new high-end hybrid processor, code-named Alder Lake was previewed. Alder Lake packs both high-performance cores and high-efficiency cores on a single product, for what Intel calls its "most power-scalable system-on-chip" ever. Alder Lake will also be manufactured using an enhanced version of 10nm SuperFin technology with improved power and thermal characteristics, and targets both desktop and mobile form factors when they arrive later this year.

Finally, Intel launched its new 11th Gen Core H-Series Tiger Lake H35 parts that will appear in high-performance laptops as thin as 16mm. At the top of the 11th Gen H-Series stack is the Intel Core i7-11375H Special Edition, a 35W quad-core processor (8-threads) that turbos up to 5GHz and supports PCI Express 4.0, and is targeted for ultraportable gaming notebooks. Intel is claiming single-threaded performance improvements in the neighborhood of 15% over previous-gen architectures and a greater than 40% improvement in multi-threaded workloads. Intel's Bryant also announced an 8-core mobile processor variant leveraging the same architecture as the 11th Gen H-Series that is slated to start shipping a bit later this quarter at 5GHz on multiple cores, with 20 lanes of PCIe Gen 4 connectivity.

Intel has talked with TSMC and Samsung about the Asian companies making some of its best chips, but the Silicon Valley pioneer is still holding out hope for last-minute improvements in its own production capabilities. Bloomberg reports: After successive delays in its chip fabrication processes, Santa Clara, California-based Intel has yet to make a final decision less than two weeks ahead of a scheduled announcement of its plans, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Any components that Intel might source from Taiwan wouldn't come to market until 2023 at the earliest and would be based on established manufacturing processes already in use by other TSMC customers, said the people, asking not to be identified because the plans are private.

Talks with Samsung, whose foundry capabilities trail TSMC's, are at a more preliminary stage, the people said. An Intel spokesperson referred to previous comments by Bob Swan, the company's chief executive officer. Swan has promised investors he'll set out his plans for outsourcing and get Intel's production technology back on track when the company reports earnings Jan. 21. [...] TSMC, the largest maker of semiconductors for other companies, is preparing to offer Intel chips manufactured using a 4-nanometer process, with initial testing using an older 5-nanometer process, according to the people. The company has said it will make test production of 4-nanometer chips available in the fourth quarter of 2021 and volume shipments the following year. The Taiwanese company expects to have a new facility in Baoshan operational by the end of this year, which can be converted to production for Intel if required, one of the people said. TSMC executives previously said the new Baoshan unit would house a research center with 8,000 engineers.

While Intel has outsourced production of lower-end chips before, it has kept the manufacturing of its best semiconductors in-house, considering it a competitive strength. Its engineers have historically tailored their designs to the company's manufacturing processes, making a shift to outsourcing of flagship products unthinkable in the past. As the provider of 80% of personal computer and server processors globally, Intel produces hundreds of millions of chips each year. That scale dictates that any potential supplier must create new capacity to accommodate Intel.

Dell is launching three new monitors next month, and all of them come with a dedicated Microsoft Teams button. The Verge reports: Dell claims it has created the "world's first video conferencing monitors certified for Microsoft Teams," after Microsoft started certifying displays, webcams, and headsets last year. Three monitors will be available next month, all offering quick access to Microsoft Teams. The button will let Microsoft Teams users quickly launch the app to make and receive video calls. Hands-free commands will also be supported through Cortana and the built-in microphone.

The Teams button is the main surprise with these displays, but Dell's trio of videoconferencing monitors also have some useful specs designed for an era where remote work and video calling is key. Each includes a 5-megapixel pop-up infrared camera, which supports facial recognition with Windows Hello. Dell also bundles a noise-canceling microphone and dual 5-watt integrated speakers. There's even a built-in mode to reduce blue light emissions. Dell is launching a 24-inch (FHD) version for $519.99, a 27-inch (QHD) model for $719.99, and a curved 34-inch (WQHD) variant for $1,149.99. All three will launch on February 16th. In other Dell-related news, the company has announced new versions of its Latitude laptops with Intel's new 11th Gen vPro chips and new features like an automated, integrated webcam shutter to physically block your camera when it's not in use.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Linux creator Linus Torvalds has accused Intel of preventing widespread use of error-correcting memory and being "instrumental in killing the whole ECC industry with its horribly bad market segmentation." ECC stands for error-correcting code. ECC memory uses additional parity bits to verify that the data read from memory is the same as the data that was written. Without this check, memory is vulnerable to occasional corruption where a bit is flipped spontaneously, for example, by background radiation. Memory can also be attacked using a technique called Rowhammer, where rapid repeated reads of the same memory locations can cause adjacent locations to change their state. ECC memory solves these problems and has been available for over 50 years yet most personal computers do not use it. Cost is a factor but what riles Torvalds is that Intel has made ECC support a feature of its Xeon range, aimed at servers and high-end workstations, and does not support it in other ranges such as the Core series.

The topic came up in a discussion about AMD's new Zen 3 Ryzen 9 5000 series processors on the Real World Tech forum site. AMD has semi-official ECC support in most of its processors. "I don't really see AMD's unofficial ECC support being a big deal," said an unwary contributor. "ECC absolutely matters," retorted Torvalds. "Intel has been detrimental to the whole industry and to users because of their bad and misguided policies wrt ECC. Seriously. And if you don't believe me, then just look at multiple generations of rowhammer, where each time Intel and memory manufacturers bleated about how it's going to be fixed next time... And yes, that was -- again -- entirely about the misguided and arse-backwards policy of 'consumers don't need ECC', which made the market for ECC memory go away."

The accusation is significant particularly at a time when security issues are high on the agenda. The suggestion is that Intel's marketing decisions have held back adoption of a technology that makes users more secure -- though rowhammer is only one of many potential attack mechanisms -- as well as making PCs more stable. "The arguments against ECC were always complete and utter garbage. Now even the memory manufacturers are starting to do ECC internally because they finally owned up to the fact that they absolutely have to," said Torvalds. Torvalds said that Xeon prices deterred usage. "I used to look at the Xeon CPU's, and I could never really make the math work. The Intel math was basically that you get twice the CPU for five times the price. So for my personal workstations, I ended up using Intel consumer CPU's." Prices, he said, dropped last year "because of Ryzen and Threadripper... but it was a 'too little, much too late' situation." By way of mitigation, he added that "apart from their ECC stance I was perfectly happy with [Intel's] consumer offerings."

Long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: AMD filed a patent on using chiplets for a GPU with hints on why it has waited this long to extend their CPU strategy to GPUs. The latency between chiplets poses more of a performance problem for GPUs, and AMD is attempting to solve the problem with a new interconnect called high bandwidth passive crosslink. This new interconnect will allow each GPU to more effectively communicate with each other and the CPU.
"With NVIDIA working on its own MCM design with Hopper architecture, it's about time that we left monolithic GPU designs in the past and enable truly exponential performance growth," argues Wccftech.

And Hot Hardware delves into the details, calling it a "hybrid CPU-FPGA design that could be enabled by Xilinx tech." While they often aren't as great as CPUs on their own, FPGAs can do a wonderful job accelerating specific tasks... [A]n FPGA in the hands of a capable engineer can offload a wide variety of tasks from a CPU and speed processes along. Intel has talked a big game about integrating Xeons with FPGAs over the last six years, but it hasn't resulted in a single product hitting its lineup. A new patent by AMD, though, could mean that the FPGA newcomer might be ready to make one of its own...

AMD made 20 claims in its patent application, but the gist is that a processor can include one or more execution units that can be programmed to handle different types of custom instruction sets. That's exactly what an FPGA does...

AMD has been working on different ways to speed up AI calculations for years. First the company announced and released the Radeon Impact series of AI accelerators, which were just big headless Radeon graphics processors with custom drivers. The company doubled down on that with the release of the MI60, its first 7-nm GPU ahead of the Radeon RX 5000 series launch, in 2018. A shift to focusing on AI via FPGAs after the Xilinx acquisition makes sense, and we're excited to see what the company comes up with.

Activist hedge fund Third Point LLC is pushing Intel Corp to explore strategic alternatives, including whether it should keep chip design and production under one roof, according to a letter it sent to the company's chairman on Tuesday that was reviewed by Reuters. From the report: Were it to gain traction, Third Point's push for changes could lead to a major shakeup at Intel, which has been slow to respond to investor calls to outsource more of its manufacturing capacity. It could also lead to the unwinding of some of its acquisitions, such as the $16.7 billion purchase of programmable chip maker Altera in 2015. Third Point Chief Executive Daniel Loeb wrote to Intel Chairman Omar Ishrak calling for immediate action to boost the company's position as a major provider of processor chips for PCs and data centers. The New York-based fund has amassed a nearly $1 billion stake in Intel, according to people familiar with the matter.

"Edmund M. Clarke, the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, has died of Covid-19," writes Slashdot reader McGruber.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Professor Clarke was best known for his work in model checking, an automated method for detecting design errors in computer hardware and software. CMU president Farnam Jahanian said the world had "lost a giant in computer science" with Mr. Clarke's death. "Ed's pioneering work in model checking applied formal computational methods to the ultimate challenge: computers checking their own correctness," Mr. Jahanian said in a statement. "As systems become ever more complex, we are just beginning to see the wide-reaching and long-term benefits of Ed's insights, which will continue to inspire researchers and practitioners for years to come."

In the early 1980s, Mr. Clarke and his Harvard University graduate student, E. Allen Emerson — as well as Joseph Sifakis of the University of Grenoble, who was working separately — developed model checking, which has helped to improve the reliability of complex computer chips, systems and networks. For their work, the Association for Computing Machinery gave the three scientists the prestigious A.M. Turing Award — computer science's Nobel Prize — in 2007.

Mr. Clark's citation on the Turing Award website said Microsoft and Intel and other companies use model checking to verify designs for computer networks and software. "It is becoming particularly important in the verification of software designed for recent generations of integrated circuits, which feature multiple processors running simultaneously," the citation page said. "Model checking has substantially improved the reliability and safety of the systems upon which modern life depends."

KFC unveiled what they're calling the KFConsole -- a VR-ready high-end gaming PC that comes with a built-in chicken warmer. GamesRadar reports: Back in June, just after the PS5 reveal, KFC released a ridiculous trailer for the KFConsole, but everyone just figured they were joking. Turns out, they were dead serious. KFC, the chicken place, has teamed up with Cooler Master and launched a gaming console capable of 4K and 240FPS. The joint press release doesn't mention a price or release date, but I've reached out for clarification and will update this article if I hear back.

The complete specs haven't been revealed, but we know it's got an Intel Nuc 9 CPU, Seagate BarraCuda 1TB SSD, and judging from the prominence of "ray tracing" in the marketing from Cooler Master, an Nvidia GPU. Cooler Master also says the KFConsole has "a first of its kind hot swappable GPU slot" for easy upgrades. But who really cares about all that when it's got a chamber to keep your fried chicken warm?

The Verge reports: Firefox's latest update brings native support for Macs that run on Apple's Arm-based silicon, Mozilla announced on Tuesday. Mozilla claims that native Apple silicon support brings significant performance improvements: the browser apparently launches 2.5 times faster and web apps are twice as responsive than they were on the previous version of Firefox, which wasn't native to Apple's chips...

Firefox's support of Apple's Arm-based processors follows Chrome, which added support for Apple's new chips shortly after the M1-equipped MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini were released in November.
Firefox 84 will also be the very last release to support Adobe Flash, notes ZDNet, calling both developments "a reminder of the influence Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has had and continues to exert on software and hardware nine years after his death." Jobs wrote off Flash in 2010 as successful Adobe software but one that was a 'closed' product "created during the PC era — for PCs and mice" and not suitable for the then-brand-new iPad, nor any of its prior iPhones. Instead, Jobs said the future of the web was HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.

At the end of this year Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari also drop support for Flash.

Senior Apple execs recently reflected in an interview with Om Malik what the M1 would have meant to Jobs had been alive today. "Steve used to say that we make the whole widget," Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing told Malik.

"We've been making the whole widget for all our products, from the iPhone, to the iPads, to the watch. This was the final element to making the whole widget on the Mac."
ZDNet also notes that Firefox 84 offers WebRender, "Mozilla's faster GPU-based 2D rendering engine" for MacOS Big Sur, Windows devices with Intel Gen 6 GPUs, and Intel laptops running Windows 7 and 8. "Mozilla promises it will ship an accelerated rendering pipeline for Linux/GNOME/X11 users for the first time."

Firefox now also uses "more modern techniques for allocating shared memory on Linux," writes Mozilla, "improving performance and increasing compatibility with Docker."

And Firefox 85 will include a new network partitioning feature to make it harder for companies to track your web surfing.

Microsoft is working on in-house processor designs for use in server computers that run the company's cloud services, adding to an industrywide effort to reduce reliance on Intel's chip technology, Bloomberg News reports. From the report: The world's largest software maker is using Arm designs to produce a processor that will be used in its data centers, according to people familiar with the plans. It's also exploring using another chip that would power some of its Surface line of personal computers. The people asked not to be identified discussing private initiatives.