industry

Copper has reigned in the chips industry for decades. It already has an unbeatable substitute: Ruthenium

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Rare earth monopolize the prominence in the field of semiconductors and other industries since they began The tensions between the US and China. Gallic, Germanio and antimony do not belong to this group of exotic chemical elements, but they are also being used as exchange currency For these two great powers To assault yourself. Anyway, in the domain of integrated circuits there is a chemical element that is much more humble, but that is also essential. And it is not the essential silicon. It is copper. This transition metal is not one of the most abundant chemical elements on our planet, but it is not uncommon either. And fortunately, it is relatively simple to extract and process it. It stands out for its high electrical conductivity and good thermal conductivity, as well as its ductility and corrosion resistance. These properties have caused it to be one of the essential elements in the manufacture of semiconductors for decades, but little by little an alternative is being made that seems to be called to unseat it. And it is really exotic. Ruthenium is making its way in the integrated circuit industry Before we investigate the properties of Ruthenium, it is good for us to know precisely what the chips manufacturers use the copper. And they use it first of all in the connections of the transistors within the integrated circuits. Copper links are responsible for transmitting electrical signals between some transistors and others, so their intervention is essential within the semiconductors. In fact, the electrical properties that I have highlighted in the previous paragraph are responsible for this metal having such a relevant role. However, its adoption was initially not simple. And it was not because copper can be filtered in silicon. This process is known as the diffusion of copper in silicon, and is similar to the electromigration of which We talk to you in this other article To explain why this last phenomenon represents a threat to our electronic devices. In any case, during the diffusion the copper atoms move and infiltrate the crystalline structure of the silicon, degrading it and conditioning its physicochemical properties. “Now I think the industry is probably considering ruthenium as the next great advance in interconnections beyond copper.” Fortunately, IBM found the solution to this problem in 1998. His researchers realized that it was possible copper infiltrate silicon. This strategy was so effective that the semiconductor industry adopted it and has maintained it so far. However, innovation makes its way, and Ruthenium, as I mentioned a few lines above, seems to be called to replace copper in connections between transistors. Jon Yu, the person in charge of the Newsletter The Asianometryhe has suggested very rightly During the conversation who has maintained with Ben Thompson, the author of the interesting publication Stratechery. “The entire industry followed the steps of IBM And copper had to be treated in an innovative way that has worked well for more than 20 years. Now I believe that the industry is probably considering ruthenium as the next great advance in interconnections beyond copper. “ Like copper, Ruthenium is a transition metal. The two properties that make it so interesting to occupy the place of copper within the integrated circuits are its high electrical conductivity and its excellent corrosion resistance. However, we cannot overlook something very important: Ruthenium is very scarce in the earth’s crust. Very scarce. Only 0.0000002% of the cortex of our planet is Ruthenium. The main reserves of this metal are found in South Africa, Russia, Zimbabue, Canada and the US. We will see if it is finally consolidated as one of the essential ingredients of The next generation of integrated circuits. If so, in all likelihood it will become another object of desire for the great powers. Image | TSMC More information | The Asianometry Newsletter In Xataka | The 2 Nm chips race will start in 2025. And it will be the most fierce of all

Spain will go from an opposite olive oil crisis in less than a year. The industry begins to see the ears to the wolf

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Two weeks. Two weeks of consecutive falls in the price of olive oil in origin have enough to put the entire sector on red alert. But … why? Wasn’t high prices They were also suffocating To the industry causing millionaire losses? What are low is also a problem? Let’s go in parts … how much has the price of oil dropped? As reported Agroinformationas of January 31, the average price in extra virgin olive oil was 4,275 euros/ton, in the virgin oil of 3,701 euros/ton and in the lampante of 3,452 euros/ton. That represents a fall of 3.20%, 6.80% and 2.80% respectively compared to last week and a 50.55% drop, 52.55% and 56.55% compared to the year past. And why is this a problem? Because, As we explained a few weeks agothe historical profitability limit for the traditional dry land olive tree is around four euros. If the low price of that figure, the farmers (dry) will not be able to cover the fixed costs. And this would not be a problem if it were not because more than two thirds of the Spanish olive grove is dry (1.913,531 hectares in front of 874,553 of irrigation). From a crisis to the opposite. It is curious because, in recent years, the situation has been the opposite: but the result is the same. The Olivareros de dryo did not have enough olive to compensate for fixed expenses – although the price was in the clouds. In addition, the distributors could not impact all the rise in the final prices (deoleo, the largest oil company in the world, owner of brands such as hojiblanca or carbonell, It was left 34.3 million euros in 2023). Isn’t it a bit weird? The truth is that no. In recent years, we have seen exactly the same problem with The lemons, The almonds either bananas. The olive grove has been relatively protected because it is a product with a limited international competition: what was not protected is of climate change. In fact, those who have been (those of irrigation who have not suffered cuts) have not had this problem. The irrigation has been the great beneficiary (or the least harmed) of these successive crises: they had more olives when prices were expensive and have less costs now than prices are low. Can the olive grove be saved? That is the big question. If the industry continues to hook financially complicated years, the problems can be increasing. Therefore, the Olivar tendency has been “go passing“To irrigation (or to ultraintensive models). There is no water for everyone. “The difficult thing is to have water because the Guadalquivir basin is already deficient, so there are no new concessions,” explained in DAP Diego BarrancoProfessor at the University of Córdoba. These concessions do have “historical plots of other crops that were always irrigated or the olive groves that emerged” directly as “irrigation”. However, transforming 1,901,529 hectares of olive groves before it is too late one of the most important agricultural challenges of the century. And it is not clear that we can do it. Image | Kostas Morfiris | Visual Karsa In Xataka | Spain faces the problem contrary to a year ago: an olive oil so cheap that it is no longer profitable for farmers

After setting upside down the AI ​​industry, Depseek launches its first model that understands and creates images: Janus Pro

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In full hangover for its model R1Deepseek has just launched Janus Pro 7ban AI model to generate images from text and understand other images that are introduced. And yes, it is also open source, although with An asterisk similar to the flame. Why is it important. Until now, multimodal models have had to juggle between understanding and generation of images, sacrificing efficiency or performance. Janus Pro 7B resolves this dilemma with a new proposal: unifies the understanding and generation of images in a single architecture. Innovation. The model introduces a “double track” system for visual processing: Separate the coding paths to understand and generate images. It maintains a single transformer to process all the information. Use Siglip-l as visual encoder for 384×384 pixels. Janus Pro comparative in the face of your predecessor for several applications. Image: Deepseek. This resolution is its main inconvenience, it seems much more oriented to already experience uses of little ambition than to the applications that we can assume other proposals such as Midjourney either Freepikwhich usually start from 1024×1024 pixels. However, Janus Pro is not a generator of images to use, but a multimodal model with several capacities. Of course, this resolution allows an optimal balance between quality and processing speed … for uses that are conducted with it. Between the lines. Janus Pro 7B’s architecture is especially relevant for its efficiency: Compact size of 7,000 million (“7b”) of parameters. Higher performance to larger specific models. Open source under MIT license for the repository, although the model itself requires accepting the Deepseek license. The MIT license It allows anyone to use, modify and distribute the code freely, even for commercial purposes, provided that the original copyright notice is maintained. It is one of the most permissive licenses that exist. The Deepseek licenseon the other hand, it is free and allows commercial uses, but includes specific ethical restrictions, such as the prohibition of military use or the generation of misinformation. In perspective. Janus Pro 7B is not only another multimodal model, but a new paradigm in the architecture of IAS that can see and create. Its unified but decentralized approach may well end up influencing future developments. The model is built on Deepseek-Llm-7b-Basethe base language model of the Chinese startup, announced in August 2024. of it inherits its language processing capabilities while adding advanced visual abilities. Its 16X subsample system for the generation of images allows you to maintain efficiency without compromising quality. Outstanding image | Deepseek, Xataka with Mockuuuups Studio In Xataka | We knew that US Big Tech had a problem with the costs of their AI. Deepseek has just shown to what extent

Bluray has been the last refuge of “physical” collectors for years. Now the industry is strangling it

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Sony has announced that Abandon the production of physical formats Like Blu-ray. They are not the only ones: Panasonic, Sony and Oppo They stopped manufacturing playback devices in 2018, Samsung In 2019 and, at the end of last year, also did LG. We can be in favor or against physical formats, considering them more or less superfluous, but the position of the industry is clear: the players will increasing Games in physical format and the world of film disc edition, increasingly dedicated to collecting, disappears. It is not definitive, but almost. Although Sony’s pass is more radical, as we counted yesterday, LG has given some extra nuance to its decision to stop manufacturing players: it has eliminated the section of these devices from its website, According to Arstechnicabut from LG Korea they have not affirmed that this cessation is permanent. Although they are going to make a parenthesis in the manufacture and sale of their devices, of which he also did not take any new model since 2018, being the Ubk90 and Ubk80 The last ones that updated. Consoles are no longer the last redoubt. To this growing shortage of players is added that consoles are no longer that safe specio for physical format devotees. Both the Xbox Series X and S and PlayStation 5 took the market with Blu-ray player, but soon they joined Options without disk reader. But more than four years ago of that, and the trend begins to blow in the opposite direction: PlayStation 5 Pro leaves, by default, without disk (which can be bought independently at a completely deterrent price). And Microsoft’s turn towards a philosophy of “Any device is an Xbox“It favors the game in the cloud and the abandonment of the physical. Et tu, brute? Less records. Of course, accompanying this fall we have the descent of releases of the games themselves and, above all, films on the support. There are less and fewer stores that take care of it: the chain Best Buyone of the most important in the United States, has stopped selling Blu-rays and DVDs in 2024, and the extended Target He announced that he would only do so on indicated dates. In Spain, there is nothing more to take a walk through businesses that were once unavoidable appointment for the physical format collector: in El Corte Inglés, for example, the film zone has been reduced to the minimum expression, and serve on request in the most cases. The market is compressed. At a speed of infarction, in addition: between 2019 and 2023, the US DVD market and the Blu-ray 40% were reducedand the situation is complex enough to make it difficult to find a single guilty. The main and most striking is the streaming. Who sees movies to hang out finds more than satisfied their needs with the streamingdo not need to accumulate films in physical format that yes, they look better, but with nuances that only interest experts (we live times in which television come, by default, with Activated options that tasting the photography and color work of any movie). But Netflix and Prime Video are not the only villains of this story. It is the market, friend. The public that consumes physical format has also changed: before the arrival of the platforms, the economic formats such as the DVD and the latest VHS spoils made it economy to buy movies. Now it is a luxury article, on a parallel path to which they have followed The vinyl of music Let us add to this circumstance that the space for storing physical formats has been reduced in these times of rented rooms of 60 square meters, where every centimeter of bucket is vital, and we will have circumstances that are not favorable to the pile chaotic and compulsive of the DVDs: Do you remember when it was impossible to buy the newspaper without half dozen records?) Nor are the producers for the work. And finally, we have the companies themselves, little interested in the business of the physical, since the streaming It is much more profitable: a platform that includes its catalog or that of its partners in its offer bridges intermediaries such as stores, and gives more benefits. The digital format, in addition, means that if we want The same product, something that does not happen when a physical copy of a film is owned. We will always have collecting. Interestingly, while Majors They gradually distance from the physical market (Disney recently announced that he would edit less 4K movies, a witness that Sony would collect with part of his catalog, while the least commercial options of his cinema Possibly they would disappear), collecting and special editions live a golden age, on a new path very similar to the one traveled by the vinyl. Recoverations of classics, attention to unknown and worship as it was not seen from the first explosion of the VHS, and stamps as criterion, Arrow, 88 films, Eureka or indicator, among many others making some classical and modern cinema editions as not It had ever seen it. That is The authentic future of the format: A remnant for cinephiles and cinephagos. Header | Diego Correa In Xataka | I have been testing the best teles that come to the market for more than 20 years and these are the films I use to analyze its image quality

The spearhead of the Chinese industry to “highlight” its cars in Europe

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In April of last year, a news shook the automobile industry in Spain: Chery, owner of brands such as Omoda, It was done with the Nissan factory in Barcelona. Thus ended a long soap opera that had begun In 2020 with the departure of the Japanese firm of the city and for which it was not possible to find a clear future. The news came with surprise. Ebro, a Spanish brand from rural past, reborn within the facilities They are now owned by Chery. Then there was talk that Ebro would have electric cars and that they would be the first to arrive. Finally, they will opt for a strategy that seems more logical, taking into account the market in which we move. Ebro already produces his second car: The Ebro S800. A future marked by China The first units have to arrive next February and production has already begun. We talk about the Toyota Ebro S800, a gasoline SUV with seven seats and the promise to position itself as one of the most affordable cars of its segment. On his arrival in Europe and Spain, Chery has already confirmed that they would follow the plan marked by MG. This last Chinese group has a supervent in the MG4 Electric for being one of the models with Best autonomy/price ratio of the market. But your offer and muscle go much further. Aware that There is an affordable market to conqueryour options with combustion engines are numerous. For something very similar, Chery has chosen. The omoda 5 is a compact SUV, of disruptive appearance and that has a completely electric option. But its greatest strength is in its gasoline versions. And the data says they are working well. In 2024, The omoda 5 placed 7,578 units (208 of them electric)the triple that Alfa Romeo and more units than the Hyundai i30 or the Ford Focus, for putting another two examples. All in less than a year. Chery has also added in the last months of the year 1,099 Jaecoo units. This Chinese firm is focused on higher price segments but, again, as a cheaper option than its rivals. In our first impressions We verify that it can be a really interesting car for those who need a large car and certain capabilities Offroad. It is now Ebro that will be added to the list to this list. The company, as such, does not belong to the Chery group but the cars that will assemble are Chinese. It is something similar to what it carries out Dr automobiles in Italy … and in Spain. It is not accidental because, in fact, the Ebro S800 is a Dr 7.0. An Italian car that, in reality, is almost identical to Chery Tiggo 8. We could say that Ebro S800 is a very up -to -date version of these two models. On the outside, it barely measures two centimeters more than Dr 7.0 but inside the environment is much more careful and gives a greater sense of modernity. The latter achieves it with two huge screens (10.25 inches for the instrument frame and 15.6 inches for the plant) but also with compatibility with Android Auto and Apple Carplaythe sound system signed by Sony or two wireless loaders at the front. The business, obviously, is that the effort that Ebro has to make in development is minimal. His great asset is the plant itself that Nissan had in Barcelona. In an interview with electionomista.esits managers pointed out that one of the key factors to achieve the greatest possible profitability was the association with Chery. “Part of the technological effort is put by this company, which helps us reduce costs, to make fewer investments that start from scratch and will allow us to have good profitability margins. In addition, Spain is a competitive country in working costs compared to other economies European “. The answer gives us several clues. First, the technological effort of Ebro herself in passenger cars that launch the market is very small because we talk about remarking Chinese cars. A strategy that can be interesting to put on the market a very cheap car of seven seats with gasoline engine. Ebro S800 part, without discounts of 36,990 euros (On its website it is already announced for 33,500 euros). With a powerful starting equipment, it is below rivals such as the Peugeot 5008, Skoda Kodiaq or Renault Espace. In fact, below it only has the aforementioned DR 7.0 and the DFSK. In both cases, Chinese cars. And later the plug -in hybrid version will arrive, a land where The Chinese car has a lot to win in Europe. The second remarkable point is that way of emphasizing that “Spain is a competitive country in labor costs”. The lowest salaries than those of other countries in our environment and energy costs that are also lower have attracted the interest of Chinese companies such as Chery but also They have allowed Vigo and Zaragoza staying alive. All this has two approaches. The optimistic tells us that the production of Ebro S800 is a new opportunity to maintain a new living productive plant, giving work to centers of people. The pessimist reminds us that the car is nothing more than a remarked Chinese vehicle and that it keeps Spain in the most basic industry stepthe one that manufactures the cars and not the one that develops them. The great challenge is to make Spain part of both aspects, that it is able to develop cars and create an engineering industry at the height that contributes value to the vehicle itself. And at the same time, Do not lose purely industrial work that assembles cars and that has so much history in our country. Photos | Ebro In Xataka | “The transition to the electric car has to be paid by people with pasta”: manufacturers are reaffirmed with sales stopping

Steven Soderbergh: ‘I am the cockroach of this industry. I can survive any version of it’

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NEW YORK — Steven Soderbergh is not only the director and cinematographer of his latest film. In some ways, he is also its central character. “Presence” is filmed entirely from the point of view of a ghost inside a house that a family has just moved into. Soderbergh, who acts as his own cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews (his father’s name), essentially plays the presence, a floating point of view that watches as the violence that killed the mysterious ghost threatens to repeat itself. For the prolific Soderbergh, the film, which opens in theaters Friday, was a unique challenge. She shot “Presence” with a small digital camera while wearing slippers to soften her steps. The 62-year-old filmmaker chatted in a recent interview in Manhattan, in the midst of post-production on his next film (“Black Bag,” a thriller that Focus Features will release on March 14), and the start of production in a few weeks his next project, a romantic comedy that he says “feels like a George Cukor movie.” Soderbergh, whose films include “Out of Sight,” the “Ocean’s 11” films, “Magic Mike” and “Erin Brockovich,” tends to do a lot in small windows. of time. “Presence” took 11 days to film. That skill has made Soderbergh one of the most respected Hollywood evaluators in the film business. In a wide-ranging conversation, he discussed why he thinks streaming is the most destructive force cinema has ever faced and why he is “the cockroach of this industry.” Steven Soderbergh attends the premiere of “Presence” at AMC Lincoln Square on Thursday, January 16, 2025 in New York. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) You use pseudonyms for yourself as director of photography and editor. Were you tempted to credit yourself as an actor for “Presence”?SODERBERGH: No, but what I did is subtle. For the first and only time Peter Andrews has a camera operator credit. That’s not a credit I usually take because I don’t need it and I typically have another operator working with me. But I felt like this was training. It was complicated, but really fun. It was another level of performance anxiety because I ruined more takes than anyone else in the movie by a major factor. I was the one saying, “Cut. I ruined it. “We have to start over.” You made this quickly and cheaply, and then sold it to a distributor. Was working outside the system attractive to you?The beauty of projects on this scale is that I can do them without having to talk to anyone. It’s not because I don’t want comments. It’s because it’s just the trusted group and none of the psychic space is occupied by things that have nothing to do with what you’re going to film. I went from that to a more traditional project where a lot of psychic space is consumed in the process of having a studio finance your film. I like these people, it’s just that there are a lot of lawyers. Many lawyers. You’ve called streaming the most destructive force in the history of cinema. What irritates you the most about it?It removes a key reference point for an artist. It’s useful to know how something is working, or how it worked. You need to know that to gauge whether you achieved what you wanted to achieve, whether you can work at a certain level. That’s one of the most confusing things about it, the black box of it. Aside from the economic invisibility of what’s going on there — the fact that we can’t really look under the hood of how these streaming companies operate economically — there’s another kind of guardrail that’s missing that I find really useful. At the end of the day, at least, I want to know. The market will tell you how you are doing. I want to know that so I can adjust or go in another direction. Being irrelevant is not very attractive. What’s the overlap between what people seem to be responding to and what I like? Because I don’t want to do these things and have no one see them. I’ve had enough people say, “Oh, that came out?” It is a public art form. West Mulholland, from left, Callina Liang, Steven Soderbergh and Eddy Maday attend the premiere of “Presence” at AMC Lincoln Square on Thursday, January 16, 2025 in New York. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) How do you suspect the audience is changing?The good news is, if you talk to Focus Features and Neon and A24, young people are going to the movies. This is the generation of (the social network of movie buffs) Letterboxd. That’s fantastic. I hope that spreads outside of the United States. They are movie buffs and expect something unique. They want the signature, they want the seal of a filmmaker. And that is becoming a real business. One of the things, I think, that we all need to do, but especially people who cover the industry, is to stop using the studio metric for what is a success. That is not a template that you should apply to everything. Do you ever regret that the movies that made you want to be a filmmaker like “All the President’s Men” and “Chinatown” occupied a different place in the culture than movies today?There was a period of about 10 to 14 years where the best movies of the year were also the most popular movies of the year. That’s not necessarily true today. You can pick one of the movies that’s in the competition this year and say: That’s a movie from the ’70s. It’s just as good and interesting as one of those. But it’s not going to do the business that one of those would have done. It is the artist’s job to adapt. When you’re trying to control what people want to see, you’re in a place like, “If I really wish hard, it won’t rain.” The weather is the weather. To some degree, the audience is a weather system. Fortunately, … Read more

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