Ahead of Intel’s upcoming board meeting in mid-September, rumors have been circulating that the struggling giant may be mulling to selling its FPGA unit Altera, with AMD and Marvell being potential buyers. However, according to an interview with Altera’s CEO by CRN, Altera’s plan for an initial public offering (IPO) remains unchanged, as it pursues to be listed by 2026.

The information is confirmed by Sandra Rivera, Altera’s CEO. Citing her remarks, CRN notes that the FPGA unit is working on its plan, which involves selling a stake in Altera, not the entire company. Rivera further stated that this has been Altera’s communicated strategy for over a year, with an IPO planned for 2026.

Citing Rivera, the report pointed out that though Altera began operating independently from Intel at the start of 2024, it is still in the process of separating from many of the general and administrative functions of its parent company, with a target completion date of January 1, 2025.

Intel acquired Altera in 2015 for USD 16.7 billion, and the latter dropped its name afterwards, known as the Programmable Solution Group under the U.S. semiconductor giant.

It was not until 2023 that Intel announced its intention to spin off the Programmable Solutions Group into a separate, wholly-owned company. In February, 2024, the FPGA unit announced that it would revive the Altera brand, CRN reported.

The spin-off of the FPGA business is intended to achieve two goals: providing Intel with additional liquidity to fund CEO Pat Gelsinger’s costly revitalization strategy and enhancing the business opportunities for the FPGA company, according to CRN.

Intel’s board is set to meet this week to discuss restructuring plans, which may include separating its design division from its foundry operations. Citing Intel CFO David Zinsner’s comments at an investor meeting last week, a report by CNBC notes that dividing the two businesses would be a logical move, as the company is trying to create more separation between these two businesses.

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• [News] AMD Could Emerge as a Prospective Buyer for Intel’s Potential Sale of Altera
• [News] Intel Reportedly Considering Foundry Spin-Off or Merger to Mitigate Losses

(Photo credit: Intel)

In a last-ditch effort before the upcoming board meeting this week, Intel is said to be seeking assistance from the U.S. government. The latest report by CNBC notes that Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger, turned to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo recently, expressing his disappointment with the heavy dependence of U.S. companies on TSMC, the Taiwanese foundry heavyweight.

According to CNBC, after meeting with Intel, Raimondo followed up by meeting with several public market investors to emphasize the significance of U.S. chip manufacturing amid the rising geopolitical risks surrounding Taiwan. Her aim was to encourage shareholders in companies like NVIDIA and Apple to understand the economic advantages of having a U.S.-based foundry capable of producing AI chips, the sources cited by the report said.

Interesting enough, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, mentioned yesterday that the U.S. chip giant heavily relies on TSMC for producing its most important chips, saying TSMC’s agility and ability to respond to demand are incredible. Thus, shifting orders to other suppliers could reportedly lead to a decline in chip quality.

Intel has introduced its Lunar Lake processors in early September, with the target to shake up the AI PC market. However, the chips are outsourced to TSMC, manufactured with the foundry giant’s 3nm node.

Getting stuck in its current situation, Intel is said to be pushing U.S. officials to expedite the release of funding, another report by Bloomberg notes. Earlier in April, Intel and Biden administration announced up to USD 8.5 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS Act.

The company is slated to receive USD 8.5 billion in grants and USD 11 billion in loans under the 2022 Chips and Science Act, but this funding is contingent on meeting key milestones and undergoing extensive due diligence, according to Bloomberg. Therefore, like other potential beneficiaries, Intel has not yet received any money.

An official cited by CNBC said that disbursements are anticipated by the end of the year.

Both the U.S. Commerce Department and an Intel spokesperson declined to comment, according to CNBC.

Regarding the latest development of Intel’s plan to shedding more than 15% of its workforce, a report by CTech notes that Intel may lay off over 1,000 employees in Israel as global cuts begin.

CTech states that Intel has been mindful of geopolitical factors and the timing of local holidays in Israel. Therefore, it would be rather unexpected for the company to initiate layoffs in the country before or during the holiday season, which begins in early October and extends through most of the month.

Citing Gelsinger’s remarks, the report notes that the restructuring process will continue until the end of the year, allowing Intel’s Israeli branch a window of time to start the layoffs after the holidays.

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• [News] CEO Jensen Huang Highlights Strong Demand, Stating that Everyone is Counting on NVIDIA
• [News] Intel Reportedly Outsources All Sub-3nm Process Production to TSMC

(Photo credit: Intel)

At its 2024 semi-annual results briefing, Loongson Zhongke Technology announced that the 3B6600 processor is expected to begin sampling in the first half of next year and be officially released in the second half.

Per a report from IThome, Chairman and General Manager Hu Weiwu emphasized that this iteration involves significant structural changes, with anticipated single-core performance ranking among the “world-leading” levels.

Hu previously revealed that the 3B6600, an eight-core desktop CPU currently in development, utilizes a mature process and is expected to achieve mid-to-high-end performance levels comparable to Intel’s 12th to 13th generation Core-i CPUs.

Regarding product cycles, he mentioned that Loongson aims to release at least one server or PC chip each year.

Per Loongson’s previous roadmap, the next-generation 3B6600 processor will feature eight LA864 cores with a clock frequency of 3.0 GHz and include the LG200 integrated graphics card.

Additionally, a faster 3B7000 variant, currently in development, is expected to reach a frequency of up to 3.5 GHz and offer a comprehensive range of I/O interfaces, including PCIe4, SATA3, USB3, GMAC, and HDMI.

Last year, Loongson introduced the desktop CPU Loongson 3A6000, which officially matched the performance of Intel’s 10th-generation Core i4 processor released in 2020.

This year, Loongson successfully developed the 16-core and 32-core versions of the Loongson 3C6000 and 3D6000 server CPUs, which are officially claimed to perform at levels comparable to Intel’s Xeon 4314 and 6338.

As per another report from the global media outlet tom’s Hardware, the rumored new 7nm process may have achieved faster clock frequencies, increased core counts, and other improvements. However, it is still awaiting the release of the latest products.

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• [News] Rising Chinese GPU Contender Emerges? Achieving Local GPU Production in Three Years, Claims “Outperforming AMD”

(Photo credit: Loongson Zhongke Technology)

According to a report from The Register, DPU developer Xockets recently filed a lawsuit, accusing AI chip giant NVIDIA, Microsoft, and intellectual property risk management company RPX of colluding to avoid paying Xockets the fees it is owed, violating federal antitrust laws, and intentionally infringing on its patents.

The report states that in addition to seeking monetary compensation, Xockets is also requesting an injunction. If granted, this injunction would prevent NVIDIA from selling its upcoming Blackwell architecture GPUs.

Per Reuter’s report, Xockets, founded in 2012, claims that its invention, the Data Processing Unit (DPU), plays a critical role in some of NVIDIA’s and Microsoft’s systems. The company states that its technology helps offload and accelerate tasks that would otherwise place a heavy burden on server processors.

Reportedly, Xockets founder Parin Dalal began filing a series of DPU technology patents in 2012. These patents describe architectures used for the linear downloading, acceleration, and isolation of data-intensive computational operations from server processors.

Xockets claims that its DPU-related patents cover various applications including cloud computing, machine learning, security, network overlay, stream data processing, and cloud computing architectures. Xockets alleges that Microsoft and Mellanox, which was acquired by NVIDIA in 2020, which was acquired by NVIDIA in 2020, have infringed on these patents.

In a recent statement, Xockets claimed that NVIDIA has utilized DPU technology patented by Xockets, allowing NVIDIA to monopolize the AI server market using its GPUs. Meanwhile, Microsoft has allegedly monopolized the AI platform market using NVIDIA GPUs.

Xockets further claimed that it has made effort to engage in sincere negotiations with NVIDIA and Microsoft, but these attempts have been rejected.

Xockets’ lawsuit reveals that it actually demonstrated the relevant technology to Microsoft in 2016, and the technology was subsequently adopted by Mellanox within the same year for cloud computing downloads used by Redmond and other clients.

Additionally, NVIDIA’s ConnectX smartNIC, BlueField DPU, and NVLink switch, which are crucial for extending AI training and inference deployments across large GPU clusters, are said to infringe on Xockets’ patents.

Regarding this matter, NVIDIA has declined to comment, while Xockets’ spokesperson has also not provided any additional explanation.

The report highlights that Microsoft and NVIDIA may not be Xockets’ only targets but are at least the most profitable ones. Other companies, such as Broadcom, Intel, AMD, Marvell, Napatech, and Amazon, are also actively developing products similar to NVIDIA’s ConnectX, BlueField, and NVLink.

Regarding the lawsuit, the judge overseeing the case has approved a preliminary injunction hearing to be held on September 19.

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• [News] NVIDIA’s Blackwell Overcomes Delays, as GB200 Reportedly Sets for December Mass Production
• [News] Foxconn Remains Unfazed Despite NVIDIA’s GB200 Delay, with Customers Aim to Secure Their Orders

(Photo credit: Xockets)

As silicon photonics has become a key technology in the AI era, semiconductor giants, including Intel and TSMC, have joined the battlefield. Now another tech giant has engaged in the war, while U.S. chip giant AMD is reportedly seeking silicon photonics partners in Taiwan, according to local media United Daily News.

According to the report, AMD has reached out to Taiwanese rising stars in the sector, including BE Epitaxy Semiconductor and best Epitaxy Manufacturing Company. The former focuses on the design, research and development of silicon photonics platforms, while the latter possesses MOCVD machines to produce 4-inch and 6-inch epitaxy wafers.

Regarding the rumor, AMD declined to comment. Recently, the AI chip giant announced a USD 4.9 billion acquisition of server manufacturer ZT Systems to strengthen its AI data center infrastructure, with the aim to further enhance its system-level R&D capability. Now it seems that AMD is also eyeing to set foot in the market, as silicon photonics is poised to be a critical technology in the future.

Earlier in July, AMD is said to establish a research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan, which will focus on several advanced technologies, including silicon photonics, artificial intelligence (AI), and heterogeneous integration.

Here’s why the technology matters: As chipmakers keep pushing the boundaries of Moore’s Law, leading to increased transistor density per unit area, signal loss issues inevitably arise during transmission since chips rely on electricity to transmit signals. Silicon photonics technology, on the other hand, by replacing electrical signals with optical signals for high-speed data transmission, successfully overcomes this challenge, achieving higher bandwidth and faster data processing.

On September 3, a consortium of more than 30 companies, including TSMC, announced the establishment of the Silicon Photonics Industry Alliance (SiPhIA) at SEMICON.

According to a previous report by Nikkei, TSMC and its supply chain are accelerating the development of next-generation silicon photonic solutions, with plans to have the technology ready for production within the next three to five years.

AMD’s major rival, NVIDIA, is reportedly collaborating with TSMC to develop optical channel and IC interconnect technologies.

On the other hand, Intel has been developing silicon photonics technology for over 30 years. Since the launch of its silicon photonics platform in 2016, Intel has shipped over 8 million photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and more than 3.2 million integrated on-chip lasers, according to its press release. These products have been adopted by numerous large-scale cloud service providers.

Interestingly enough, Intel has also been actively collaborating with Taiwanese companies in the development of silicon photonics, United Daily News notes. One of its most notable partners is LandMark Optoelectronics, which supplies Intel with critical upstream silicon photonics materials, such as epitaxial layers and related components.

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• [News] Silicon Photonics Reshapes the Future; TSMC, ASE Ready to Seize Market Share
• [News] TSMC’s Latest Advancements in CFET, 3D Stacking, and Silicon Photonics

(Photo credit: AMD)