SmartNIC meets FPGA / smart accelerator growth

Xilinx under Victor Peng has managed to step up the game and take the company to a new high. Part of its data center first, AI and 5G strategy is where the acquisition of smartNIC manufacturer Solarflare fits perfectly.

Lidars are unnecessary

Tesla has shared a vast amount of details about its FSD (Full Self Driving) dual SoC 14nm computer and said that the 12 ARM core chip has a modest GPU, a custom neural network compute part, while the SoC packs 250 million gates, 6 billion transistors at 260 mm2. More importantly, Elon addressed Tesla’s apparent desire to stay away from Lidars.

That is why they walked away

In the last two weeks, there was much discussion about the possible reasons for Intel to walk away from 5G smartphone modems. The real reason is straightforward, the tape out of the 5G smartphone chip was not successful, and it would not be there in time for the 2020 iPhone. Another critical point was that Intel hasn’t made money on smartphone modems either.

Series of products in 2020

Last week Qualcomm announced a Cloud AI 100 data accelerator targeting future AI loads in big data centers. Facebook and Microsoft seem to be interested as they presented  at the Qualcomm AI events in San Francisco.

Huawei, Qualcomm, Apple

TSMC has announced that it is doing a test production of  5nm EUV chips, but real production starts in 2020. A long-term investigation leads us to believe that most chips launching in the latter part of this year or early next year will, unlike the UK, remain on 7nm.

Apple to go alternatives

In a surprising twist of events, Intel has just announced that it plans to exit the 5G Smartphone modem business. The surprising announcement happened just hours after Apple announced that it had settled its years of legal battles against Qualcomm.

Intel can make it

Intel has canceled its 8060 5G modem to speed up things with its new all mode XMM 8160 solution. Intel is likely to sample the 8160 modem later this year which should be more than enough time for Apple to incorporate it in the iPhone 2020 (iPhone 20 anyone?).   

The phone trends in 2019

There is a clear trend toward a whole uninterrupted screen for end users to enjoy on their phones and every year we are getting closer to that. The trend includes more cameras, slide, and pop-up, all helped by computation and AI.

Judge recommends ban on some iPhones

ITC Judge MaryJoan McNamara has declared some verdicts. Apple is infringing one of three patents and she recommends a ban on iPhones manufactured in China being imported into the USA. This is a hardware patent 674 and it doesn’t look that there is a quick workaround.

AI is the elephant in the room

First of all, I want to apologise to all the hard-working people that worked so many hours on the production and material of the keynote, this is not about you. Everyone did a great job, but the content picked was mostly just utterly boring.