The People Republic of China has always released 5-year plans that have a goal of achieving something. And in the latest, 14th 5-year plan China has an eye on the semiconductor industry. Specifically, China wants to develop independence and self-sufficiency when it comes to semiconductors. With tensions between the US and China raising, it is a smart move to have domestic technology to rely on. The new plan starts next year, 2021, and ends in the year 2025. In that period, China will devote financial resources and human workforce that will hopefully enable its goal. The primary aim for this 14th plan seems to be 3rd generation semiconductor technology. What is meant by that is a technology like gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). These technologies would be a nice addition to China's portfolio of semiconductors, so we should wait and see what comes out of it.

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(PR) Lenovo Launches Linux-Ready ThinkPad and ThinkStation PCs Preinstalled with Ubuntu
Today, Lenovo announced a global expansion of its Linux portfolio, extending its certification program that was announced in June to include PCs preinstalled with Canonical's Ubuntu LTS operating system. Previously only accessible to enterprises via a customized bid, a comprehensive range of nearly 30 Ubuntu-loaded devices will now be available for purchase via Lenovo.com. These include 13 ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series Workstations and an additional 14 ThinkPad T, X, X1 and L series laptops, all with the 20.04 LTS version of Ubuntu, with the exception of the L series which will have version 18.04.



"Lenovo's vision of enabling smarter technology for all really does mean 'for all'. Our announcement of device certification in June was a step in the right direction to enable customers to more easily install Linux on their own. Our goal is to remove the complexity and provide the Linux community with the premium experience that our customers know us for. This is why we have taken this next step to offer Linux-ready devices right out of the box," said Igor Bergman, Vice President of PCSD Software & Cloud at Lenovo.
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AMD "Lucienne" Silicon to Power Certain Ryzen 5000 Series APUs
There's been much chatter in the social media about a new piece of AMD APU silicon, codenamed "Lucienne." It's being rumored that "Lucienne" is a refresh of the current-generation "Renoir" silicon, and is an APU with eight "Zen 2" CPU cores and eight "Vega" NGCUs. One of the first SKUs based on the die is the Ryzen 7 5700U, which surfaced on the AoTS benchmark database.



The 5700U is possibly a 15 W ultra-portable processor, and according to the AoTS benchmark screenshot, it comes with an 8-core/16-thread CPU (the 4700U is 8-core/8-thread). The addition of SMT helps the 5700U shore up much of its performance lead over the 4700U. It also turns out that the Ryzen 5000 will see two APU dies driving AMD's product-stack, with "Lucienne" powering the Ryzen 5 5500U and Ryzen 7 5700U; while the newer "Cezanne" die, which introduces "Zen 3" CPU cores, powers the Ryzen 5 5600U and the Ryzen 7 5800U.

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GALAX Confirms GeForce RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Matches RTX 2080
An alleged event by GALAX targeted at distributors in China revealed up to three upcoming SKUs in NVIDIA's RTX 30-series. This comes as yet another confirmation from a major NVIDIA AIC partner about the 20 GB variant of the GeForce RTX 3080. The RTX 3080 originally launched with 10 GB memory earlier this month, and it is widely expected that NVIDIA fills the price-performance gap between this $700 SKU and its $1,500 sibling. The RTX 3080 uses twenty 8 Gbit GDDR6X memory chips (two chips per 32-bit data-path), much like how the RTX 3090 achieves its 24 GB memory amount.



Elsewhere we see GALAX mention the RTX 3060, a performance-segment SKU positioned under the RTX 3070. You'll notice that the product-stack graph by GALAX suggests performance comparisons to previous-generation SKUs. The RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 are faster than everything from the previous generation, while the RTX 3070, which is coming next month, is shown trading blows with both the RTX 2080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Super. In this same graph, the RTX 3060 is shown matching up to the RTX 2080 (non-Super), a card NVIDIA originally launched at $700.
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(PR) ASTRO Gaming Introduces the Call of Duty : Black Ops Cold War A10 Gaming Headset
ASTRO Gaming, the leader in premium video gaming equipment, today introduced the ASTRO Gaming Call of Duty : Black Ops: Cold War A10 Headset. ASTRO Gaming is the Official Headset licensee of Call of Duty and has been a long time official collaborator of Call of Duty, bringing licensed headsets and accessories to gamers around the world. The new ASTRO Gaming Call of Duty : Black Ops Cold War A10 Headset joins the ASTRO A40 TR, Speakers tags, and A40 TR Mod Kits already on the market today.



"ASTRO has been a key collaborator of Call of Duty esports such as Call of Duty Champs, and the Call of Duty League," said Daniel Siegel, VP of Licensing for Activision. "We're excited to continue our partnership with ASTRO as the Official Headset licensee of Call of Duty. With this latest headset, our fans are sure to get the best audio experience while playing Call of Duty : Black Ops Cold War."
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