The value of Softbank’s Vision Fund has fallen by $16.7 billion. The fund invested $98 billion in 88 businesses including WeWork which went from a $40 billion valuation to $8 billion. The Vision Fund is backed by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates among others. Softbank has a one third stake in the fund. The ...

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The virus is having a spotty effect on chip sales. It’s having a bad effect on some industry areas like smartphone chips but having a positive effect on chips for PCs and datacentres. TSMC’s calendar Q1 revenues of $10.4 billion were up 42% y-o-y compared to Q1 2019 revenues of $7.3 billion. March revenues of $3.76 ...

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The chip industry will decline 0.9% this year, says Gartner, although memory will grow 13.9% and NAND will grow 40%. Overall, 2020 global semiconductor revenue is forecast at $415.4 billion. Memory will account for 30% of the total worldwide semiconductor market in 2020. The memory market is forecast to reach $124.7 billion in 2020, an ...

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A 30% spike in denand for tablets and notebooks to supply home workers and students has caused European retailers and distributors to run out of stock, reports IDC. “Disruption to the supply chain in China following the lockdown in Wuhan over the Chinese New Year cut deliveries into the European market by approximately 15%–20% in ...

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A project to build a Google Home device using a Raspberry Pi has been described by Jamie McKane. With a minimal amount of hardware and setup, you can create a functioning home assistant linked to your Google account and controlled by voice commands. Follow the steps below to install the Google Assistant SDK on your ...

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How does the coronavirus change the chip market forecast? At the start of the year, after a 15% fall in 2019, IC Insights’ forecast was for 8%  growth in 2020. Figure 1 shows how the virus knocked that  forecast back to minus 4%: Figure 1 The current forecastof $345.8 billion is $39.0 billion less than ...

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Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have calculated the parameters of photodetectors comprised by layers of graphene and a combination of black phosphorus and black arsenic. These sensors are able to detect radiation with energy less than the band gap of the constituent layers without graphene. It is also easy to modify ...

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BrainChip and Socionext expect engineering samples of their neural net processor Akida in Q3. They are being made on a TSMC MPW run. BrainChip has developed the Akida  neural networking processor which brings AI to Edge devices in a way that existing technologies are not capable. This event-based processor can be used in a wide ...

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