Apple's M1 SoC is possibly the year's biggest semiconductor success story, as the chip has helped Apple begin its transition away from Intel's x86 machine architecture, and create its own silicon that's optimized for its software and devices; much like its A-series SoCs powering iOS devices. The company now plans to scale up this silicon with a new 32-core version designed for high-performance Mac devices, such as the fastest MacBook Pro models; and possibly even iMac Pros and Mac Pros. The new silicon could debut in a new-generation Mac Pro in 2022. Bloomberg reports that the new silicon will allow this workstation to be half the size of the current-gen Mac Pro workstation in form, while letting Apple keep its generational performance growth trajectory.



In addition, Apple is reportedly developing a 16-core "big" + 4 "small" core version of the M1, which could power more middle-of-the-market Macs, such as the iMac desktop, and the bulk of the MacBook Pro lineup. The 16B+4s core chip could debut as early as Spring 2021. Elsewhere, the company is reportedly stepping up efforts to develop its own high-end professional-visualization GPU that it can use in its iMac Pro and Mac Pro workstations, replacing the AMD Radeon Pro solutions found in the current generation. This graphics architecture will be built from the ground-up for the Metal 3D graphics API, as well as a parallel compute accelerator. Perhaps the 2022 debut of the Arm-powered Mac Pro could feature this GPU.

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Intel Ice Lake-SP Processor Spotted with 36 Cores and 3.6 GHz Base Clock
Today, in the latest GeekBench 5 submission by ASUS, we have discovered something rather interesting. Intel's Ice Lake-SP processors were rumored to arrive with up to 28 cores and 56 threads at maximum, on a single chip. That was due to the 10 nm process used to make these chips, with suspicions that the yield of the node was not good enough to make any higher core count parts. Thanks to the GB5 listing, discovered by Leakbench on Twitter, the Intel Ice Lake-SP CPU engineering sample appeared with an amazing 36 cores with 72 threads. This is supposedly Intel's efforts to try and match the 64 cores and 128 threads of AMD's EPYC "Rome" CPUs, which are winning many server applications due to their performance.



The 36C/72T chip was paired with another similar chip in a 2P dual-socket configuration, which made the total core count rise to 72 cores and 144 threads, running inside of Asustek's Y4R-A1-ASUS-G1 server. The system was reporting a clock frequency of 3.6 GHz base speed, which means that the possible boost clocks could be higher. The CPU features a 1.25 MB level two (L2) cache per core (45 MB in total) and 54 MB of unified level three (L3) cache. That makes this CPU core quite an improvement over the past Cooper Lake generation. We are waiting for more information about these CPUs, and we are going to report on it in the coming time.

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China Develops Tools for 28 nm Silicon Manufacturing
When the US decided to impose sanctions on all US-made technology use in foreign countries (China), the Chinese semiconductor manufacturing industry seemed at the time that it would just completely stop. Without the tools to manufacture silicon, Chinese manufacturers would need to turn to other countries to search for a possible solution. That, however, turned out impossible as the US administration has decided to stop the silicon from going into the hands of Chinese companies, by making a condition that any US-made technology can not get to China. Many of the parts for silicon manufacturing are designed in the US, so they have the power to restrict the use.



Today, in a surprising turn of events, we have information that Shanghai Micro Electronic Equipment (SMEE) has developed a deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography scanner that is set for delivery in 2021. With a plan to deliver it in the fourth quarter of 2021, SMEE has designed this DUV scanner for the production of 28 nm node. While not being the most advanced node available to date, it is a significant start for Chinese technology independence. ASML, the producer of such scanners, used to be one of the few options there, however, it just gained a competitor. China will deliver its new silicon on a 28 nm process at the end of 2021. Pictured below, you can see how the scanner from SMEE looks like.

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DeepCool Intros MATREXX 40 Micro-ATX Case
DeepCool today introduced the MATREXX 40 Micro-ATX tower case. Its design is characterized by vertical ridges along the front panel, with air inlets between the ridges, which conceal a mesh, and two 140 mm / 120 mm front intakes, which can hold radiators up to 280 mm x 140 mm in size. Other ventilation options include two 140 mm / 120 mm top exhausts (which again, can hold radiators up to 280 mm in size); and a 120 mm rear exhaust.



The DeepCool MATREXX 40 features a conventional horizontally-partitioned interior, with the upper compartment serving up room for graphics cards up to 32 cm in length, and CPU coolers up to 16.5 cm in height. Storage options include two 3.5-inch / 2.5-inch drive bays in the bottom compartment, and two 2.5-inch mounts behind the motherboard tray, where there's a 2 cm crawl-space for cable-management. The case comes with a tempered glass left side panel. The front-panel I/O, located at the top, includes one each of USB 3.0 type-A, USB 2.0, and HDA jacks. The case measures 400 mm x 215 mm x 431 mm; and is made mostly of SECC steel and ABS plastic. The company didn't reveal pricing.
DeepCool MATREXX 40

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Intel to Outsource Atom and Low-Power Xeon Manufacturing to TSMC?
In a bid to maximize utilization of its own semiconductor foundry for manufacturing larger, more profitable processors, Intel could be look at contracting TSMC to manufacture certain processors based on its low-power CPU microarchitectures, according to a new Intel job posting discovered by Komachi Ensaka. The job description for a position in Intel's Bengaluru facility, speaks of a "QAT Design Integration Engineer" who would play a role in the "development and integration of CPM into Atom and Xeon-based SoC on Intel and TSMC process."



QAT is a hardware feature that accelerates cryptography and data-compression workloads. Since the Xeon part in this sentence is referenced next to SoC, Intel could be referring to Xeon processors based on low-power cores, such as "Snow Ridge," which uses "Tremont" CPU cores. The decision to go with TSMC could also be driven by the 5G infrastructure hardware gold rush awaiting the likes of Intel across dozens of new markets, particularly those averse to buying hardware from Huawei.

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(PR) EK Apologizes for Loop Connect Software & Offers Full Refunds
First of all, we would like to make something clear - we are not happy with the current EK Connect software. We are working hard, so one day this product can make us proud, but we have to take care of our customers first. We have to do that instantly since time is already up.



EK was always dedicated to providing water cooling enthusiasts and PC builders with the best of what the market has to offer. We're listening and are aware you're not happy with our Connect software, and frankly, neither are we. The software and the way it was developed do not meet our standards and our customers needs. This was our first venture into software solutions, and we learned many lessons the hard way. Of course, this is not a valid excuse for our customers being left disappointed in the product they have purchased.
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(PR) EK Water Blocks Launches MSI RTX 30-series SUPRIM and Gaming Trio Water Blocks
EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is ready to offer its premium high-performance GPU water block for the MSI Trio and Suprim editions of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards. This new water block is named EK-Quantum Vector Trio RTX 3080/3090 D-RGB and is exclusively engineered for MSI Trio and Suprim RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs.



The new water block is one of the larger ones in the 3000 series, so make sure your PC case can accommodate it. It's 157 mm wide and 320 mm long and cools all key components on the GPU's printed circuit board. This gives the water block advantage on the market of having a clean design, showing off all of the cooling liquid, and cooling each and every necessary component.
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(PR) G.SKILL Memory is The Most Used DDR4 For Breaking AMD Vermeer OC Records
G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is thrilled to be a part of multiple overclocking records during the launch of the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processor, also known as Vermeer. With the launch of a new CPU architecture generation, comes a time where older records are overtaken by the new. Various extreme overclockers on HWBOT.org used G.SKILL memory kits as their memory of choice when achieving their overclock targets. Across various categories, an astounding 51 records from a total of 55 records were achieved with the use of G.SKILL DDR4 memory.

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(PR) SK hynix Unveils the Industry's Most Multilayered 176-Layer 4D NAND Flash
SK hynix Inc. announced the completion of developing the industry's most multilayered 176-layer 512 Gigabit (Gb) Triple-Level Cell (TLC) 4D NAND flash. The Company provided the samples to controller companies last month to make a solution product.



SK hynix has been promoting 4D technology from the 96-layer NAND flash products that combine Charge Trap Flash (CTF) with high-integrated Peri. Under Cell (PUC) technology. The new 176-layer NAND flash is the third generation 4D product that secures the industry's best number of chips per wafer. This allows the bit productivity to be improved by 35% compared to the previous generation with the differentiated cost competitiveness. The read speed of cell increased by 20% over the previous generation adopting 2-division cell array selection technology. The data transfer speed also has been improved by 33% to 1.6 Gbps adopting speed-up technology without increasing the number of processes.
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