processor

China finally has a competitive desktop processor. Its problem is that it is six years behind Intel

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China has your own alternative to processors for PCs, servers and data centers made by Intel, AMD and other companies. Loongson is one of the few Chinese companies that can manufacture advanced microprocessors. We have been following it for several years because in the current climate of geopolitical tension it has acquired more relevance than ever, and there is no doubt that its cruising speed is high. At the end of December 2022 this company launched its CPU 3A5000 32 corea general-purpose processor with LoongArch microarchitecture implemented by this company on the MIPS architecture. And in February 2024 it presented its LS3C6000 server processor, a CPU with DragonChain technology that could be scaled up to 64 cores. Its latest milestone is not the presentation of a new chip. The reason why we have decided to talk to you again about this Chinese company is that just a week ago it confirmed that it has distributed more than one million units of its flagship desktop processor, which represents a milestone in China’s efforts to build a self-sufficient semiconductor industry. The 3A6000 CPU has been designed and manufactured entirely in China Loongson implements its processors on the MIPS architecture, but the microarchitecture of these chips has been expressly designed by engineers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. By not using x86-64 or ARM architectures, this company has been able to continue refining its designs without being conditioned by US sanctions. Be that as it may, Loongson is dedicated to the design of microprocessors, but does not have the capacity to manufacture them itself. China recently had no alternative to US-made CPUs SMIC takes care of this (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp), what is the largest semiconductor manufacturer from China, in the same way that TSMC produces the integrated circuits designed by AMD, Apple, NVIDIA or Qualcomm. According to the publication Fast Technology, the third generation of Loongson chipsto which the 3A6600, 3B6600 and 3C6600 CPUs belong, has a performance comparable to that of the 12th Intel Core and 13th generation. Curiously, according to Fast Technology, the 3B6600 model in particular is the one that rivals these Intel CPUs and comparable AMD proposals. In fact, according to SCMP Loongson herself has acknowledged that the performance of her desktop processors is comparable to that of Intel chips launched around 2020. Six years is a long time in this sector, but it is important that we do not overlook that China recently did not have any alternative to US-made CPUs. This achievement by Loongson is part of Beijing’s effort to channel resources to reduce China’s dependence on foreign semiconductor technology. However, this strategy has been accelerated in response to restrictive export controls Americans who limit China’s access to advanced chips, integrated circuit design software and next-generation semiconductor manufacturing services. It will be interesting to see if Loongson finally catches up with Intel and AMD. Image | TSMC More information | SCMP In Xataka | China takes off in quantum computers: it already has the first dual-core and 200 qubits on the planet ready

Nvidia and Samsung are the names of AI. Quietly, someone is eating up the server processor market

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Artificial intelligence is about to enter a new era. After plunder the internet and drink all human knowledgetraining is no longer the obsession of the big AI companies and the inference is about to take the baton. That inference will reach its climax with the explosion of AI agents and that implies a change in balance: GPUs will continue to be key, but CPUs will take on a greater role. Inference requires other types of resources other than training and that is why Nvidia is preparing with its platform Vera Rubinbut also the rest of the industry. Intel has already said that is moving its production lines towards the Xeon, the server processors, while ARM It is seeing green numbers because a few months ago it presented a powerful processor for AI. The one that is also seeing the ‘stonks’ grow is AMD. Although its name sounds less than that of Nvidia, AMD is very present in the AI ​​race. It has secured the best memory for its new platform, it has a GPU for training and also the processors EPYC for servers. These are precisely the ones that are giving you joy. AMD EPYCo record According to analysts Mercury Researchboth ARM and AMD have had a spectacular quarter. Both have continued to eat market share from Intel (which is why it seeks to respond) and, in the case of AMD, in the first quarter of this year they have reached a record 46.2% revenue share in x86 CPUs for servers and 30% of the CPU segment. Here are two numbers to keep in mind. The first is that AMD was already coming from a fairly comfortable position, with a 41.3% revenue share in servers in the last quarter of 2025. Thus, it seems that this growth to 46.2% is not too big, but the second number that must be taken into account is the one that allows us to see the company’s leap in this segment. It is estimated that the company It had only between 1% and 2% CPU share for servers in 2018. Since then, AMD has been doing things very well both in consumer computers with their Ryzen as in servers with its EPYC, which has allowed it to eat Intel’s share by leaps and bounds. And just as important as the quota are the company’s results, not because they interest us in terms of money, but because it gives us an idea (just like what is happening with Nvidia, SamsungSK Hynix or Micron) of how far we are from being able to see competitive prices again in the consumer market. Because it is estimated that this part of the business focused on data centers left 5.8 billion dollars in AMD, an increase of 57% year-on-year. It surpasses Intel (5.1 billion), being the first time this has happened in the data center sector and, in addition, AMD projects a growth of more than 70% year-on-year in the data center segment. In this particular battle, we have already commented that Intel is not sitting idle and has new processors for data centers, a great projection being the great american foundry and we will have to wait to see the efforts to reconvert their production lines to return to the Xeon. What is evident, according to estimates, is that the server processor market is experiencing an impressive increase due to this new generation of AI and is wait that goes beyond 30,000 million in 2025 up to 170 billion dollars by 2030. Landing this for us, the users, this implies one thing: if it was already expensive to build a PC due to RAM and SSDnow other components such as processors or motherboardswho are also reorienting the business. In Xataka | The US confesses its worst nightmare: if China invades Taiwan and controls TSMC, the US economy will collapse

It takes 7,000 GPUs to simulate a tiny quantum processor. Although it may not seem like it, it is excellent news.

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The complexity of quantum computers It is extraordinary. In their construction it is possible to rely on several very different strategies, such as, for example, superconducting qubits, ion traps or neutral atoms, among other technologies, but they all have something in common: to a large extent its power is a consequence of its complexity. Of the complexity inherent in any device designed to take advantage the laws of quantum physics. The surprising thing is that, despite its sophistication and exoticism, it is already possible to accurately simulate a small quantum processor using conventional hardware. In fact, has achieved it a research group from the Quantum Systems Accelerator and the Division of Applied Mathematics and Computational Research at the University of California at Berkeley (USA). This is not the first time that a quantum processor has been simulated, but until now no one had managed to do it by emulating every physical detail before its manufacture. A new era begins in quantum chip design Here’s a shocking fact: the Berkeley researchers I mentioned in the previous paragraph have carried out their simulation of a quantum chip using the Perlmutter supercomputer, which contains 7,168 NVIDIA GPUs. To achieve their purpose, they used almost all of these GPUs for 24 uninterrupted hours, so it is evident that the computational effort was titanic. But they got it. They managed to model a multilayer quantum chip 10 mm wide and 0.3 mm thick, accurately simulating how signals travel and interact within this processor. This statement from Andy Nonaka, one of the scientists at the Berkeley Quantum Systems Accelerator, express clearly Why this milestone is so important: “I am not aware of anyone who has ever performed physical modeling of microelectronic circuits at the full scale of the Perlmutter system.” “I’m not aware of anyone having ever done physical modeling of microelectronic circuits at the full scale of the Perlmutter system. We were using almost 7,000 GPUs (…) We divided the chip into 11 billion grid cells and were able to run over a million time steps in seven hours, allowing us to evaluate three circuit configurations in a single day. These simulations would not have been possible in this time frame without the complete system” What really what makes the difference is precision with which they have managed to carry out the design and simulation of their quantum processor. “We perform a full-wave physics-level simulation, which means we care about what material is used in the chip, its design, how the metal is wired (using niobium or other types of metal wires), how the resonators are built, what the size, shape and material used are (…) We care about those physical details and we include them in our model,” Nonaka says. A priori we can conclude that using almost 7,000 GPUs for 24 hours with the computational effort and energy expenditure involved in this process to simulate a quantum chip just 10 mm wide and 0.3 mm thick is not a success. But yes it is. Thanks to this technology, it will now be possible to design quantum hardware in less time and in a more efficient way. Bert de Jong, director of the Berkeley Quantum Systems Accelerator, invites us to look towards the future of quantum computing with optimism: “This unprecedented simulation is a critical step in accelerating the design and development of quantum hardware. More powerful, higher-performance chips will unlock new capabilities for researchers and open new avenues in science” Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | ScienceDaily In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

Samsung no longer sells you a great processor. A good intermediary sells you

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He Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 It is surely the most powerful processor that has ever come to an Android phone. Samsung has it in S26 Ultra. And in the launch communications of this mobile he has barely mentioned it, contrary to his modus operandi of yesteryear: the chip used to be one of the big arguments along with the camera and battery. What Samsung has developed with the S26with a lot of time and detail, has been AI. Specifically, the S26 will work with three: Gemini, Bixby and Perplexity. That you choose. That each one does different things. That the device is responsible for coordinating them between them. High-end hardware has reached a point where the differences are marginal for most users. Nobody buys an Ultra anymore because it has 20% more performance in the vapor chamber. But he can buy it because the phone asks him for the Uber only when he has an event on the calendar and calculates the times without him doing anything.to. Or because it filters the calls from spam (there will be trials for this), because it answers for you if you don’t want to pick up the phone, or because it suggests photos of the trip when a friend asks for them via chat. Samsung calls this ‘agentic upgrade’although what it describes is easier to understand: the mobile phone does things in the background without you asking it. There is the twist that the briefing already hinted. Samsung no longer sells itself as the maker of the best hardware. It is sold as the one that best connects you with the intelligence that others have built. It’s not Google, which has Gemini. It is not Perplexity, which has its search engine. It’s not even the chip, which is sometimes an Exynos but sometimes it’s from Qualcomm. Samsung is the layer that unites all thatthe operating system that decides how those agents talk to each other, the hardware that runs them. He is, in the most literal sense, an intermediary. And that’s where he’s focusing now. Perplexity in action, integrated into the S26. Image: Xataka. Galaxy AI. It is not its own AI but rather the integration of someone else’s. Image: Xataka. The bet makes sense as long as that role is difficult to replicate. One UI, Samsung DeXthe integration between native apps and Bixby, the brutal hardware privacy screen that only the Ultra has… All of these are things that you can’t have on another device even if you use the same AIs. For now, at least. The uncomfortable question is what happens when Gemini, Perplexity and Bixby are free on any Android. When what matters is not what AI you access, but how the manufacturer integrates it. Samsung is betting that this difference will be enough of a purchase argument. That’s why it doesn’t sell you the processor. You already assume it’s good. In Xataka | Samsung has a plan to become the greatest AI power in mobile phones. And that is why it has teamed up with Perplexity Featured image | Xataka

The first processor without a single silicon atom is ready. It is a prototype and still its benefits are a dream

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Integrated circuits of 2 nm They will disembark in the market in style for 2025. Users know that nanometers have lost a good part of their usefulness, and that, in reality, They represent a category of semiconductors. In fact, they no longer faithfully reflect the length of logical doors or other physical parameter, such as the distance between transistors. However, the very quick development of the chips reminds us that every step we take place a little closer of the physical limit of silicon technologyalthough, in reality, this challenge is not new. The main manufacturers of integrated circuits and numerous research groups linked to some of the most important universities on the planet have been working on a solution to this challenge. Decades, even. There are currently several open research lines, and possibly the solution will require betting on one of them, but it is even more likely that the way to follow invites us to allow several of the proposals to be working on. The first 2D computer in the world is here A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) has published in Nature An interesting article in which he explains the procedure that has followed to manufacture the first functional CMOS processor using two -dimensional materials (2D) of a single thick atom. The really revolutionary thing is that they have used molybdenum disulfide and tungsten dyslelenex with the purpose of producing more than 2,000 transistors capable of executing logical operations. They have not used a single silicon atom. “We have first demonstrated a CMOS processor built completely with 2D materials” However, it is also important that we do not overlook that the materials they have used, which, as I have mentioned, have only one thick atom, maintain their properties at that scaleunlike silicon. The leader of this project, Professor Saptarshi Das, has pointed out that “silicon has promoted notable advances in electronics for decades by allowing continuous miniaturization of field effect transistors (FET or Field-Effect Transistors) “. “However, as silicon devices miniaturize their performance begins to degrade. 2D materials, however, maintain exceptional electronic properties at the atomic level, placing a promising path before us,” Explain das. “We have demonstrated for the first time a CMOS processor built completely with 2D materials combining molybdenum disulfide transistors and tungsten tungsten dysleeniuro cultivated in large areas.” All this sounds very good, but there is no doubt that for users the most relevant is to know what impact this technology will have in our experience if it becomes popular. “Our 2D CMOS processor operates with low power voltages, Minimum energy consumption and can execute simple logical operations at frequencies up to 25 kHz “, He has specified Ghoshone of those responsible for the project. This is the heart of the matter. We are only at the dawn of the technology known beyond silicon, but presumably the chips with molybdenum disulfide transistors and tungsten dislendiuro will allow the manufacture of much faster and more compact computers than the current ones, as well as perceptibly more efficient from an energy point of view. More information | Nature In Xataka | Intel and TSMC lead the revolution of photonic chips. His problem is that China has just done fully in this war

Samsung is playing his future with the Galaxy S26 processor. Exynos 2600 is in critical phase

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Samsung needs a plan to make its chips cast competitive again. Korean sources They point out that the smartphone industry giant is working on its new Exynos 2600 processor, with the aim of installing it in the Galaxy S26 series next year. It will be your first processor manufactured in the process of two nanometers, something that translates quickly: risk. The race for the two nanometers. We know Samsung It has been drawing a plan for years Not to be the last in the career of the two nanometers. Kye Hyun Kyung, general director of the Samsung semiconductor division, predicted in 2023 that his company would exceed TSMC and its other competitors (Intel) over the next five years. It is something that They also predicted in Intel. But, except geopolitical crisis in Taiwan and While China works on its own UVE lithography teamsTSMC seems simply unbeatable for now. Samsung, Intel and TSMC will begin this 2025 the massive production of chips with 2NM lithographic process, but the starting points are very different. Samsung keeps moving forward, but slowly. Korean sources point out that Samsung Foundry has started mass production of exynos 2600 chip TSMC 2nm lithography. In Europe it is key to be a leader (or at least, be up to it) in semiconductors for smartphones. Samsung has not taken long to give up its own processors when the performance has not been enough, and has even made artificial distinctions between members of their family S: in 2023 the S24 arrived with exynos, The ultra model, with Qualcomm. It is not being easy. Samsung has reached a 50% wafer performance for its 2 nm lithography. They remain far from the minimum necessary (70%) to make it viable to produce it on a large scale, but there is still more than half a year for the end of 2025. On the other hand, both Intel and TSMC They have shown confidence in which their nodes have enough maturity to enter mass production. In fact, TSMC already has its eyes on its 1.4 nm lithographyscheduled for 2028. Samsung will have to demonstrate that your They cannot afford to lose. Samsung He is losing money with his semiconductor division. Business Post Korea sources They collected a rumored complete restructuring of the samealready 2024 we knew that Samsung Electronics had delayed reception of some of the key ASML teams for its new chips plant in Taylor Texas. This plant is Samsung’s trick to attract US clients who do not want to depend on Taiwan or Korea. The sources pointed out that their facilities were not yet prepared to house EUV systems, fundamental to manufacture under advanced lithographic processes. Both this new factory and the lithography of 2 Nm will be key for the Samsung division to face the current situation. At a time when China drives its own nodes with SMIC and ASML faces restrictions to sell your most advanced machinesthe global industrial balance in chips depends on how many players can manufacture in this process. Future steps are already given. At the end of 2024, Samsung made the greatest change ever made in its dome. It is a movement that talked about Samsung’s position both in semiconductors and in key components to fight with giants such as SK Hynix (DRAM memories, NAND, HBM, etc.), One of the main HBM memories suppliers for NVIDIA. To lead, Samsung needs customers, and to attract them you need to recover your competitiveness. This is no longer only technical or economic: it is also geopolitical. Samsung not only competes for buyers, but for being a strategic partner for the West, a reliable alternative to TSMC. With Google betting on TSMC and abandoning exynosThe company needs to give a blunt message: launch its S26 family with its own processor. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Best Samsung mobiles: which buy and recommended models based on budget, tastes and quality price

Google have been with a problem in the processor of their pixel for years. There is a potential alliance to solve it

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If you buy a Google Pixel you do it for its camera, the clean Software of Google or the years and years of support. But, rarely, you do it for its processor. The tensor google have been showing behind their direct competition in something key in the high range: the power. There are two responsible here: Google, and the company in which it has trusted during these years to develop its processors: Samsung Foundry. The agreement seems to have ended, and rumors about a new Google Tensioner Manufactured by TSMC they have been on the table for months. Reuters He now collects new news in this regard: the company is finalizing an alliance with Mediatek for the next tensioner versions. Specifically, those that will be implemented in the 2026 Google Pixel. The company has not made statements about this decision or (still) official. The reasons for betting on MediaTak is clear: the direct relationship of the Taiwanese giant with TSMC and the tight price relationship against Broadcom, Google’s current partner. The company will not close relations with the American giant yet, since a good part of the hardware used to process functions of AI will remain in charge. MediaTak is one of the strongest manufacturers currently in the semiconductor industry. He has managed to leave the ghosts of the past behind, and offers solutions at height (and even in some cases, above) of Qualcomm. The Samsung semiconductor division, on the contrary, It does not go through its best moment. Years of performance problems with exynos make rumors on the table about a Division restructuring. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Analysis: A great candidate for Best Android of the Year … with a big pending matter

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