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Advanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ: AMD) recorded another day of strong gains in Friday's daily trading. The semiconductor company's share price closed out the session up 5.3%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. While there wasn't any business-specific news for AMD, its share price surged in conjunction with the latest bullish indicators for AI demand and growth opportunities. Dell published its fourth-quarter report after the market closed Thursday, and its results have spurred another round of bullish momentum for artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. Dell's Q4 results are the latest bullish catalyst for AI stocks If Wall Street was looking for...

As levels of nighttime artificial outdoor light rise, so do the odds for a leading cause of vision loss, age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Researchers found that people living in areas of that country with the highest levels of streetlights and other artificial light had more than double the odds for AMD, compared to those living in areas with the lowest levels. That risk remained even after they accounted for confounding factors such as sleep issues and depression, said a team led by Dr. Ahnul Ha. City dwellers may be at particular danger for macular degeneration, since the link between the...

Research led by Nicolas Bazan, MD, Ph.D. suggests that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) decreases an essential fatty acid, preventing the formation of a class of protective molecules and reducing repair potential. The discovery may also open new therapeutic avenues for AMD. The study shows that AMD decreases peripheral retinal docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) 22:6 in rod photoreceptor cells, limiting the elongation of fatty acids to form very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLC-PUFAs). VLC-PUFAs are precursors of elovanoids, bioactive chemical messengers made from omega-3 very- long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. Elovanoids, discovered by the Bazan lab, have been shown to restore the structure and...

Researchers have identified the role that two key genes associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) play in the disease. The team have for the first time found that the genes TMEM97 and POLDIP2 play a role in regulating oxidative stress—a part of aging in the macula. The findings provide a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of AMD and help prioritize new gene targets for treatments. AMD affects the macula—the central part of the retina at the back of the eye—causing cells to gradually break down, often leading to blurred central vision. Previous studies have identified many genes that are...

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has defended the company's plan to become a chipmaker for hire after the company's profits plunged 134 percent year over year and it recorded a $2.8 billion loss during the first quarter of 2023. Intel has traditionally built fabrication plants to manufacture its own chips, but has seldom built silicon for third parties. Gelsinger reversed that policy, deciding that Intel must develop a substantial foundry business. "While everyone understands that we are establishing an internal foundry model, I'm not sure we have fully explained the importance and impact of this change," he said, insisting that hiring...

Dietary nitrate intake is associated with a lower risk for progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a study. Geoffrey K. Broadhead, M.D., Ph.D., from the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues examined the association between dietary nitrate intake and AMD progression using data from the prospective Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) and AREDS2 randomized clinical trial cohorts and extended follow-up studies. Data were included for 7,788 participants in the combined AREDS/AREDS2 cohort, with 13,511 eligible eyes. The researchers found that in the combined AREDS/AREDS2 cohort, dietary nitrate intake was associated...

A pilot, "look-back" study of information about 106 patients with "wet" age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has revealed that nearly half of patients treated with aflibercept could safely stop eye injection therapy after one year without further vision loss. Only 17% of patients taking another commonly used wet AMD therapy, bevacizumab, were able to safely wean from the drug at a year. The findings build on evidence from a previous study that found potentially a third of patients with wet AMD could safely pause therapy after one year of monitoring by a physician. "Our results suggest that many patients with macular...

Patients with a specific form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness, are also highly likely to have either underlying heart damage from heart failure and heart attacks, or advanced heart valve disease, or carotid artery disease associated with certain types of strokes, according to a study. This research, is the first to identify which types of high-risk cardiovascular and carotid artery disease are linked to the eye disorder. "We have been able to connect these specific high-risk cardiovascular diseases to a specific form of AMD, the one with subretinal drusenoid deposits (SDDs)," explains R. Theodore Smith,...

... "Our ambition is to be the No. 2 foundry in the world by the end of the decade, and [we] expect to generate leading foundry margins," Randhir Thakur, the president of Intel Foundry Services, told Nikkei Asia. IFS was set up last year to turn Gelsinger's vision into a reality. For Intel, such a move is not only a new potential revenue source, but also a way to regain a technological edge in chip manufacturing lost to Asia over the past decades. Investors, however, do not seem entirely convinced: Intel's share price has more than halved since it embarked...

Samsung and TSMC are facing an investigation by the US International Trade Commission (USITC) over allegations of patent infringement involving chips and mobile devices containing those chips. The USITC said that it will begin an investigation based on a complaint filed by Daedalus Prime LLC of Bronxville, New York, in September. The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the import into the US of semiconductor devices, and mobile devices containing those chips, which allegedly infringe patents claimed by the company. According to the USITC's notice of investigation [PDF], the patent infringement claims cover...

IC Insights reduced its worldwide IC market growth forecast for 2022 from 11% to 7% in its August Quarterly Update to The McClean Report. The downgraded expectation for this year is almost entirely due to the collapse of the memory market in the second half of 2022. As discussed below, it was as though someone “flipped a switch” to the off position for the memory market beginning in June! The few memory companies that have made statements about the recent developments in the memory market have attributed the swift downturn to a massive inventory adjustment currently underway by their customers....

To solve the semiconductor shortage, companies now have to deal with a labor shortage… We have extensively covered how major semiconductor companies have been responding to the global chip shortage over the last couple of years. One of the most notable companies to take action has been TSMC, who is in the process of building a $12 billion chip fab in Arizona, not far from where Intel is expanding their campus. TSMC’s project is racing to come online by 2024, but there remains a major obstacle for both companies: securing labor. “Simply finding enough workers to build the facilities has...

HSINCHU, Taiwan -- Consumer electronics demand is showing signs of slowing amid geopolitical uncertainties and COVID-related lockdowns in China, the chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said on Wednesday. The slowdown is emerging in areas "such as smartphones, PCs, and TVs, especially in China, the biggest consumer market," TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said. A key Apple supplier, TSMC is the world's biggest contract chipmaker and a barometer of global electronics demand. Liu also warned that the cost of components and materials are rising sharply, pushing up production costs for tech and chip companies. "Such pressure could eventually be passed on...

Destroying the world’s major semiconductor market might be more of an invasion deterrent than actual open conflict, military paper suggests; Taiwan should adopt a ‘scorched earth policy’ and wipe out its own semiconductor foundries in the wake of any Chinese invasion as a deterrent, US military academics have suggested. First spotted by Nikkei, a paper in the US Army War College’s quarterly academic journal Parameters suggests the US and Taiwan can detour Chinese invasion of the island by creating a ‘deterrence by punishment approach via a legitimate and credible threat' to destroy the country’s own chip fabs if invaded. The...

At the beginning of May, we noted that Taiwan Semiconductor was considering bolstering its production in the U.S., and that President Biden's Commerce Secretary was urging more domestic production. Now, it looks like TSMC could be within striking distance of a serious U.S. expansion. The chipmaking giant is "weighing plans to pump tens of billions of dollars more into cutting-edge chip factories in the U.S. state of Arizona than it had previously disclosed", a Reuters exclusive revealed Friday morning.The company had already said it was going to invest $10 billion to $12 billion in Arizona. Now, the company is mulling...

TSMC and other major high-tech firms in Taiwan have reported little impact from a five-hour rolling power blackout that affected many parts of the country on May 13. TSMC stated some of its fabs saw brief voltage drops as a result of the outage following electricity distribution issues at a power plant in Kaohsiung, but the foundry house soon activated emergency backup generators to maintain normal production and minimize possible impact. The STSP administration also noted that only seven out of some 40 companies using 22.8kV power supply system in the park were affected by the power blackout, and most...

It is a risky bet for US President Donald Trump’s administration to push for building advanced semiconductor factories in the US due to growing fears about the US’ heavy reliance on Asia for chip supply and potential disruptions from uncontrollable factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The US government is in discussions with chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), to build new fabs in the US to create a self-sufficiency in chips, the latest in a slew of Trump’s renewed “Make in the US” efforts, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Even before the pandemic, the US had...

A lot might change for the tech industry in the near future. Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president has left a lot of companies double minded. At one end, they’re pressured to move manufacturing facilities to the United States – at the other, the decision is simply economically unfeasible. Out of all the companies, it’s Apple which has faced the most pressure to move iPhone production back to the States. Today, we’ve got more details on the matter.TSMC Will Decide On Whether To Build Plant In The U.S. Or Not Next Year, According To Company Spokesperson Apple and TSMC have had...

Hot Chips Microsoft today revealed a first look at the inside of its Holographic Processing Unit (HPU) chip used in its virtual reality HoloLens specs. The secretive HPU is a custom-designed TSMC-fabricated 28nm coprocessor that has 24 Tensilica DSP cores arranged in 12 clusters. It has about 65 million logic gates, 8MB of SRAM, and a layer of 1GB of low-power DDR3 RAM on top, all in a 12mm-by-12mm BGA package. We understand it can perform a trillion calculations a second. It handles all the environment sensing and other input and output necessary for the virtual-reality goggles. It aggregates data...

TSMC wins Spy Case against a Former Employee who gave Secrets to Samsung that helped Win Apple's Chip Business (full title) In February we posted a detailed report titled "TSMC Sues Former Employee for Giving Samsung Trade Secrets". The report was about TSMC suing a former employee by the name of Liang Mong-song for giving away their crown jewels to Samsung. With TSMC and Samsung fighting it out for Apple's business every year, this story was an interesting one being that Samsung came out the winner with Apple, of all companies, rewarding Samsung unknowingly. Dick Thurston, former chief counsel for...