The industry everything else quietly runs on. I cover it from the fab up, process nodes and lithography and the foundry wars, plus the export controls now deciding who even gets to build what. This is the manufacturing and geopolitics side of silicon, kept deliberately apart from the chip-and-platform coverage.
Qualcomm is acquiring Modular, the vendor-neutral stack that runs AI models on any chip. The phone NPU benefit is a side effect. The real…
Chiplets and UCIe are unbundling AI hardware the same way Modular unbundles CUDA. Why the moat doesn't vanish, it just relocates to TSMC's packaging…
Over 75 data center projects worth $130 billion were blocked in Q1 2026 alone, matching all of 2025 in three months. The bottleneck is…
Nine months after raising $250 million, Modular is reportedly close to a $4 billion acquisition by Qualcomm, marking a significant valuation increase. Modular specializes…
Xiaomi recently launched a high-performance electric SUV and a competitive smartphone, the Xiaomi 17. While its phone business thrives in China, it struggles in…
The ASML lithography monopoly is the most complete chokepoint in tech. High-NA in fabs, Hyper-NA ahead, China capped, one company holding it all up.…
Snapdragon Insider bias declared. Qualcomm's AI200 data center card plus the five-form-factor Hexagon NPU strategy is a bet that inference is where the real…
TSMC's A16 node brings backside power delivery (Super Power Rail) in 2026, answering Intel's 18A and opening the angstrom era for AI and HPC…
Intel showcased advancements in their 18A-P node at the VLSI Symposium, achieving enhanced performance and reduced power consumption. Key features include improved thermal resistance…
The Fable 5 shutdown highlighted the importance of owning AI models on personal hardware to avoid government restrictions. Although open-source AI is gaining traction,…
Qualcomm's Snapdragon Reality Elite puts the NPU first: 48 TOPS, Android XR, and the XREAL Aura. Here's what the chip actually changes for XR…
Sony's L910 sensor hits 100 dB HDR in one shot using LOFIC and TCG-HDR—eliminating motion artifacts that plagued multi-frame rivals.
The complete OPPO story: from DVD players in Silicon Valley in 2006 to running the BBK empire that owns OnePlus and Realme in 2026.…
SpaceX went public without loosening Musk's grip. The US government picked quantum winners with political ties. AI agents started trading crypto alone. And the…
The US government ordered Anthropic to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users globally, citing national security. The implications for AI sovereignty,…
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