SK Hynix and SanDisk want to put 512 GiB of flash next to your GPU and call it HBF

HBM proved the trick HBM has shown that stacking and co-packaging storage media close to the GPU can relieve the data-movement bottleneck in AI compute. Now SK Hynix and SanDisk are applying the same idea to NAND, using HBF to put large-capacity flash next to GPUs and other xPUs in order to relieve the inference … Read more

AI has knocked down the wall around chip design, and RISC-V is walking through it

The pot of tea in Zeng Yi’s office was refilled several times, and the conversation unwound at that pace, in the manner typical of Guangdong hospitality. Nothing formal, nothing vague either. He speaks with the residue of a Chaoshan accent, unhurried, finishing his sentences with a smile that narrows his eyes and tips him slightly … Read more

Huawei veteran’s LPU startup YuanChuan Micro closes a new nine-figure round

YuanChuan Micro’s LPU inference chip. Source: LeiPhone Before Groq’s LPU became famous on the back of Nvidia’s spotlight, Yang Bin, founder and CEO of YuanChuan Micro, had already been sketching an inference chip of his own. LeiPhone has learned exclusively that LPU startup YuanChuan Micro has closed a Pre-A round of several hundred million yuan. … Read more

Etched raises $800 million for a chip that runs only Transformers

Image related to the story. Source: LeiPhone A single piece of news lit up both the AI and chip worlds yesterday: Silicon Valley startup Etched has closed $800 million in cumulative funding, pushed its valuation to $5 billion, and landed a $1 billion chip order. The company has been quiet. Founded in 2022 by three … Read more

ChangXin Memory tells Apple no, holds DRAM pricing above Samsung and SK Hynix

For most of the past decade, large buyers operated with a dependable lever: if a Chinese supplier would not meet their terms, they could pivot to a Chinese-made alternative anyway, since domestic capacity was abundant and hungry. The threat disciplined pricing on both sides, and almost always against the local supplier. ChangXin’s refusal inverts that … Read more

Why lidar makers are betting on their own chips

Lidar was once the most contested sensor in autonomous driving. Supporters argued it supplies 3D information cameras cannot, a safety redundancy high-level driver assistance cannot do without. Opponents, led by Tesla, called it expensive, bulky and transitional. Yet since 2025, as advanced driver assistance spread, lidar has not exited, it has entered mass production, and … Read more