Semiconductors
17 posts
DirtyClone (CVE-2026-43503): Linux local root with no log trail, by overwriting /usr/bin/su
Linux kernel DirtyClone (CVE-2026-43503) lets any local user root the box via XFRM/IPsec packet cloning. No log trail. Patched in 7.1-rc5 — update now.
Apple A20: first 2nm Apple Silicon, DRAM moves off-stack for thermals, 96-bit LPDDR6
Leaks show Apple's A20 will be the first 2nm Apple Silicon, repackaging DRAM to the side of the SoC (WMCM) for thermals, and jumping to 96-bit LPDDR6.
Apple Silicon's first generation skip: M6 ships base-only, M6 Pro/Max cut to make room for M7
Bloomberg reports Apple will skip M6 Pro and M6 Max entirely, pushing pro-tier Mac chips to the M7 family in late 2027 — the first break in Apple Silicon's annual Pro/Max cadence since 2020.
Samsung's $648B Korean AI bet — SK Hynix joins, 2040s expansion pulled into mid-2030s
Samsung will announce a ₩1,000T (~$648B) ten-year plan, with SK Hynix joining. Korean chip expansion planned for the 2040s is being pulled into the mid-2030s by AI memory demand.
Cook signals more Apple price hikes coming — memory chip costs up 4× in three quarters
24 hours after raising Mac/iPad prices, Tim Cook tells the Wall Street Journal more hikes are coming. Memory chip prices have risen 4× in three quarters; iPhone 18 (September) is next.
IBM ships first sub-1nm chip: 0.7nm (7Å) at Albany, ~100B transistors on a nail-sized die
IBM unveils a 0.7nm (7-angstrom) chip — humanity's first sub-1nm node. Density 2× its own 2nm, ~100B transistors on a nail-sized die. Mass production in ~5 years.
Apple's first broad price hike in 40 years — Mac Studio Ultra +$1,300, iPhone untouched
Apple raises prices across Mac, iPad, Vision Pro on June 25, averaging +$246. Mac Studio Ultra alone gains $1,300. iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods stay unchanged. Cook calls it «a once-in-a-century flood».
Trump announces Apple–Intel US foundry deal — ends Apple's decade of TSMC exclusivity
Trump confirms an Apple–Intel US foundry deal on Truth Social. Intel stock jumped 9% pre-market. Apple's decade-long TSMC exclusivity gets its first crack.
MacBook Neo 2: 12GB isn't an upgrade — it's the A19 Pro's stock config
MacBook Neo 2 will reuse A19 Pro binned chips left over from iPhone 17 Pro — which means 12GB LPDDR5X is standard, since the A19 Pro doesn't ship with 8GB. This unlocks AFM 3 Core Advanced.
NVIDIA's N1X drops tomorrow — Qualcomm's Windows-on-Arm monopoly is ending
NVIDIA, Microsoft and Arm posted in sync: a Computex Taipei keynote from Jensen Huang on June 1 will unveil N1 and N1X chips. Dell XPS, Lenovo Legion 7, ASUS ProArt, MSI, and Surface are all queued.
DeepSeek's valuation: $10B → $50B in three weeks, National Big Fund in talks
DeepSeek's valuation jumped four times in three weeks — from ~$10B in early April to potentially ~$50B by May 6. China's National Big Fund is in talks to lead — its first investment in a domestic LLM.
iOS 27 Siri's new brain: a Gemini-distilled on-device model, with Google Cloud fallback
iOS 27 Siri will run a small model distilled from Google's full Gemini for on-device queries; some requests will go to a licensed Gemini in Google Cloud. Apple pays Google ~$1B/year for it.
Huang admits it: China AI chip market handed to Huawei
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang on CNBC: «Huawei is very, very strong.» Q2 outlook excludes any China revenue. China used to be ~20% of NVIDIA's data center business.
Anthropic in talks with Microsoft for Maia chips — pays SpaceX $1.5B monthly
Anthropic faces severe compute shortage. Q1 demand grew 80× annualized; plans accounted for 10×. Now in talks to rent Microsoft Maia servers, while paying SpaceX $1.25B/month for compute.
AMD pours $10B+ into Taiwan — Helios AI servers ship H2 2026
AMD commits over $10B to Taiwan's semiconductor ecosystem on May 21 — partnerships with ASE and SPIL for advanced packaging, and Helios rack-scale AI platform shipping H2 2026.
US bets $2B on quantum — IBM gets half, government takes equity
US Commerce Dept commits $2.01B to 9 quantum computing companies via CHIPS Act — IBM gets ~$1B alone. Government takes minority non-controlling equity in return.
AMD Ryzen AI Max 400 — first x86 chip to run a 300B model locally
AMD's new Ryzen AI Max PRO 400 (Gorgon Halo) bumps unified memory from 128GB to 192GB, up to 160GB dynamically assignable as VRAM. First x86 chip to run 300B+ parameter LLMs locally.