Articles by Luke James, Contributor

Nvidia's RTX Spark could capitalize where Qualcomm's Arm-based efforts have not — following the expiration of Qualcomm's Windows on Arm deal, Nvidia stands poised to pick up the slack

By Luke James

Premium Nvidia unveiled the RTX Spark superchip on May 31st ahead of its GTC Taipei event, putting a 20-core Arm-based Grace CPU and a Blackwell RTX GPU on a single package.

Qualcomm aims Snapdragon C laptop chip at the budget laptop segment, as manufacturers feel the DRAM squeeze — analysts warn sub $500 laptop market may disappear before 2028

By Luke James

Premium Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon C Platform on May 28th, ahead of Computex 2026 in Taipei.

colorful optical fiber cables against black background

Negative time experiment clears peer review as photons appear to leave an atom cloud before entering — groundbreaking quantum 'negative time' proven after 1 million test runs

By Luke James

A University of Toronto experiment showing that photons can spend a negative amount of time inside a cloud of atoms has been published in Physical Review Letters.

SoftBank to spend up to $87 billion on French AI data centers — country offers ample nuclear grid that US sites lack

By Luke James

SoftBank carries over $130 billion in debt and took a $40 billion bridge loan in March to fund its latest OpenAI investment.

Crypto mining rigs for the cryptocurrency Pearl

New AI-compute cryptocurrency Pearl sparks a GPU mining rush but profitability is already sliding — RTX 5090 daily revenue has halved to $17.19 since April

By Luke James

A new cryptocurrency called Pearl has set off a short-lived GPU mining rush.

California Assembly passes 3D printer bill that would criminalize bypassing mandated gun-blocking software

By Luke James

California's Assembly has passed AB 2047, the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act, sending the amended bill to the state Senate.

Nikon weaponizes lower prices to break ASML's lithography monopoly — tech giant leverages in-house manufacturing to slash prices to lure back American chipmakers

By Luke James

Nikon will try to claw back lithography customers by selling argon fluoride (ArF) tools for less than the market leader, ASML.

Independent cyber audit finds zero malware or backdoors in DJI drones — U.S. firm's hardware analysis challenges FCC ban amid ongoing $1.56 billion legal battle

By Luke James

DJI has published the results of an independent security assessment by U.S. cybersecurity firm OnDefend.

Trailing-edge foundry roadmaps for GlobalFoundries, UMC, and SMIC — mature node chipmakers each pursue differing strategies and IP

By Luke James

Premium We explore Globalfoundries, UMC, and SMIC's individual trailing-edge roadmaps, as each company is pursuing a fundamentally different strategy shaped by geography, regulation, and technology choices.

Researchers say they can spy on your browsing by measuring SSD activity through a browser API — claim FROST attack requires no permissions or user interaction to identify which apps and websites you're using

By Luke James

FROST exploits the Origin Private File System (OPFS), a browser API that lets websites create and store files on a user's local disk.

Chinese university builds 3D chip design tool tailored to Huawei's ‘LogicFolding’ architecture — 3D design delivers increased performance and better thermal management

By Luke James

The announcement came two days after Huawei presented LogicFolding and its accompanying Tau Scaling Law at ISCAS 2026.

China adds homegrown AI chips to 'secure and reliable' procurement list for the first time — nine options added as move away from Nvidia continues

By Luke James

The certifications are valid for three years and were issued jointly by the China Information Technology Security Evaluation Centre and the National Secrecy Science and Technology Evaluation Centre.

Samsung chip workers vote to accept $340,000 average bonus, ending months-long strike threat — resentment over deal has slowed down Samsung foundry division

By Luke James

The agreement allocates 10.5% of Samsung's semiconductor division operating profit as stock-based bonuses.

IBM spins off America's first quantum chip foundry with $2 billion in federal and private funding — newly-minted 'Anderon' foundry to offer 300mm quantum wafer fab and manufacturing services

By Luke James

Premium Headquartered in Albany, New York, Anderon will operate a 300mm quantum wafer fab and offer its manufacturing services to competing quantum hardware vendors.

Samsung $400,000 worker bonuses near approval after clearing legal challenge — non-chip employees in line for just $4,000 launch last-minute bid to scupper deal with union

By Luke James

The Suwon District Court rejected the injunction filed by five employees from Samsung’s Device eXperience division.

Angry TSMC employees considering strikes, unionization over employee bonuses, report claims — company reportedly considering 15% payout cut to fund capex despite record revenues fuelled by AI surge

By Luke James

TSMC responded by saying it expects employee profit-sharing bonuses to grow at a faster rate in 2026 than they did in 2025.

Researchers identify people through ordinary Wi-Fi routers with 99.5% accuracy — technique works with standard Wi-Fi routers

By Luke James

The system requires no specialized hardware, no access to the target Wi-Fi network, and works even if the person being tracked isn't carrying a wireless device.

After $2.5 billion Supermicro smuggling bust, Nvidia CEO urges company to fix export control compliance — Taiwan also begins to crack down on AI GPU chip smuggling to China

By Luke James

Huang told reporters at Songshan Airport that Nvidia insists its partners follow U.S. trade rules.

Ubisoft reportedly testing generative AI in Far Cry 7, insider says it 'looks like sh*t' — company recently posted a record €1.3 billion loss

By Luke James

Ubisoft is using an early build of its unannounced Far Cry 7 as a testbed for generative AI tools, according to Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming.

Samsung's $400,000 payout for memory workers sparks revolt as other divisions get only $4,000, fueling intentional production slowdowns — internal resentment disrupts packaging operations, major AI chip project decisions to a complete halt

By Luke James

It’s understood that meetings are being canceled across Samsung's non-memory and shared business units.

Micron's Virginia fab begins producing America's most advanced DRAM memory — fab expansion to quadruple output, easing DDR4 shortage for automotive and defense sectors

By Luke James

Micron is scaling up DDR4 production as the supply of the older memory standard has become unexpectedly tight.

EU forced to exempt banned Chinese chipmaker after auto industry warns of supply crisis — European car factories warn of imminent supply chain collapse

By Luke James

The European Commission is preparing to propose a temporary exemption for a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer from the EU's 20th Russia sanctions package.

The custom AI ASIC state of play (May 2026) — Broadcom deals, Google TPUs, Meta MTIA & beyond

By Luke James

Premium ASIC-based AI server shipments are projected to reach 27.8% of the market in 2026, the highest share since 2023, and custom ASIC shipments will grow 44.6% year-over-year.

AMD begins production ramp of 256-core EPYC Venice — first 2nm HPC chip claims 70% performance leap

By Luke James

AMD has announced that its 6th Gen EPYC processor, codenamed Venice, has entered production ramp on TSMC's N2 process in Taiwan.

ASML CEO says Elon Musk is 'very serious' about TeraFab chipmaking megaproject, confirms direct talks — Musk targets $119 billion Texas semiconductor facility

By Luke James

ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said on Wednesday that he has spoken directly with Elon Musk about the TeraFab semiconductor project.