Rumors about TSMC having a silicon photonics program have been around for a long time, and at its Northern American Technology Symposium 2024, the company finally outlined its solution. The goal is to improve on-package connectivity, spanning all the way to 12.8 Tbps of bandwidth.“As we bring more computational capability into the mass packaging, data transfers become a challenge, but we find ourselves often limited by the I/O vendors,” said Kevin Zhang, Vice President of Business Development at TSMC....

Reutersreports that TSMC has notified the U.S. government of a potential violation of export controls involving Huawei. The China-based multinational has attempted to use a proxy to produce its Ascend 910B chips at TSMC. However, the world’s largest foundry uncovered the plot and denied its services, reports theFinancial Times. TSMC raised the alert itself and stated they are not the focus of any investigation now. TSMC reported to the U.S. Department of Commerce after a customer ordered a chip resembling Huawei’s HiSilicon Ascend 910B for large language model training....

In the recent years, TSMC has radically changed its strategy of making chips only in Taiwan and initiated expansion overseas. As a result, the company is now building up fabs in Germany, Japan, and the U.S. However, the world’s top contract chip will charge its customers a premium if they want their chips to be made outside of Taiwan. “If my customer requests to be in some certain area, then definitely, TSMC and the customer had to share the incremental cost,” said C....

TSMC’s 3nm fabrication process accounted for 15% of the company’s revenue in Q4'23. Only one of TSMC’s customers used it at the time: Apple. But as more customers adopt the manufacturing process, 3nm process nodes will account for a considerably larger share of TSMC’s revenue, reportsICSmart.cn.This year TSMC’s N3-series nodes — including N3B and N3E — will account for over 20% of the foundry’s revenue in 2024, the report claims. Apple currently exclusively uses TSMC’s N3B to make its A17 Pro system-on-chip (SoC) for smartphones, as well as the M3-series processors for iMac desktops and MacBook laptops....

TSMC has started producing chips at itsFab 21near Phoenix, Arizona, using its 4nm-class process technology, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo toldReuters. This marks the first time such a cutting-edge production node has been manufactured in the United States. The confirmation from a high-ranking official comes months after the first unofficial information emerged that the fab was mass-producing chips for Apple. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading-edge 4nm chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo told Reuters....

Chinese graphics card manufacturer Zephyr (via孤城Hardware) has launched theRadeonRX 6500, a never-before-seen graphics card from AMD. While the Radeon RX 6500 is unlikely to beat any of thebest graphics cardstoday, the Navi 24-powered graphics card might be a good solution for some budget gamers. The Radeon RX 6500 graphics card is currently absent from Zephyr’s website. Identifying it as part of Zephyr’s lineup relies solely on the logos present on the cooling fans....

I’m in the market for a new laptop this fall, but because of a deal-breaking limitation in Intel’s new chip design, I will not be considering a Lunar Lake system. Formally unveiled this week at IFA Berlin, Intel’s new Core Ultra (Series 2)“Lunar Lake” laptop CPUspromise significant improvements over the prior-generation “Meteor Lake” chips, including much better AI performance, vastly superior battery life, and strong integrated graphics. Premium laptops powered by Lunar Lake, which goes under the brand name Intel Core Ultra 200V series, will be everywhere this fall....

You may see flickers or distorting lines on your Surface display due to some hardware or software issues. Sometimes these are major flickers that hide all the contents of the screen or they may be minor ones that only distort certain areas of the display. These issues may surface due to a damaged display or loose display cable. Another possible reason includes a corrupt display driver or other operating system components....

Xbox thinks AI can make you a better gamer. Xbox has announced its new “Copilot for Gaming”, dropping the news this morning onThe Official Xbox Podcast. A new AI assistant for console, mobile, and perhaps PC, Copilot for Gaming promises to help with all parts of the gaming experience — from picking a new game, to picking up where you left off in an old save file, to getting good at skill-based games....

Super Flower unveiled a new PSU atComputex 2024that blows other consumer power supplies out of the water. Sporting a whopping 2800W rating, Super Flower’s new Leadex SF-2800F14HP 3.1 has enough power and enough 12V-2x6 connectors to handle fourRTX 4090graphics cards all by itself. 1200W and 1600W power supplies have long been some of the highest rated units (in terms of power supplied) that you can buy for the consumer market. If you really need more than that, you’ve usually had to opt for a server PSU, but Super Flower feels there’s room for this in the consumer market....

You recently upgraded your internet but do not seem to notice much difference in its speed. Also, you’ve run different tests online and the results are not what you expected. Did your ISP fool you or is it something else that could be the issue? Well, different factors can fluctuate the network bandwidth. If your laptop is connected via ethernet, you’re already a step ahead. But if you’re a Wi-Fi user, its speed further depends on signal strength, distance from the router, number of devices in the network, interferences, and more....

As hardware gets more powerful and power hungry, makers of power supplies have to keep up to offer relevant PSUs to interested parties, and to that end, we see even more and more powerful PSUs at everyComputex. If last year we thought that 2,800W was crazy, then this year we see that several manufacturers have managed to build 3,000W+ power supplies. Seasonic introduced the Prime PX-2300, a 3,200W 80+ Platinum ATX 3....

Love it or hate it, the3DBenchyis an icon in the 3D printing world. Devised in 2015 as a free printer calibration tool, the little boat has seen millions of downloads across several 3D printing file sharing sites. The file is often included as a test print with new 3D printers, andthe speed with which a printer can spit one outis touted as a major accomplishment. In fact, we started tracking our own Tom’s Hardwarespeed boat tests here....