Bit-Rauschen: Linus Torvalds doesn't believe in the Easter bunny
The Linux inventor doesn't believe in cryptocurrencies and AI world domination. A wave of ARM notebooks is approaching. 3D DRAM appears on the horizon.
Linus Torvalds doesn't believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. But neither does he believe in cryptocurrencies nor general artificial intelligence (AGI) as a technical "singularity" that will change the world. In the forum of the Real World Technologies website, where Torvalds posts frequently, he lashed out in his usual rustic manner. He emphasized that he understood the blockchain concept and considers AI to be useful and important in itself. He compares the exaggerated AGI prophecies to children's stories such as that of the little caterpillar Nimmersatt. The only difference is that the AGI fairy tale is manipulatively inflated. And Torvalds sees only one sensible application for cryptocurrencies: Ponzi scams.
As is well known, Nvidia found a legal method to earn insane to insane amounts of money. Nvidia's stock market value was more than a third higher than that of all 40 DAX companies combined after the announcement of the latest quarterly figures. Consequently, Nvidia is still well advised to sell every square millimeter of silicon that TSMC can supply as an AI accelerator. Nvidia's share of sales from graphics cards and car chips can only be recognized with a magnifying glass. Nevertheless, there is speculation about new Nvidia chips for private customers. Allegedly, a GeForce RTX 5000 series is to come, which – of course! – pulverizes everything that has gone before. And in an interview on Bloomberg's business TV channel, Michael Dell, the man behind the PC company Dell, announced AI PCs with Nvidia technology for 2025: "Come back next year," he replied to the presenter, who had actually asked the Nvidia boss sitting next to him, Jensen Huang, about this.
(Image: Neo Semiconductor)
ARM clouds over x86
There have been rumors for some time that the Taiwanese company MediaTek is planning an ARM processor for Windows notebooks with a GeForce chiplet from Nvidia. This would certainly also be a capable AI accelerator. The CPU core could be the Blackhawk from ARM, which is expected to be a Cortex-X5.
The announcement of more than 16 different Windows 11 laptops with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X at Microsoft Build in May was a sensation. This is because it is the only chip to date that meets Microsoft's requirements for the "Copilot+" device class, as it has an NPU for AI apps that performs more than 40 TOps. Microsoft is thus offending its long-standing business partners AMD and Intel. Even Intel intimus Dell is launching an XPS13 with Snapdragon – not even AMD had previously made it into the XPS13. And as already mentioned, Michael Dell demonstratively appears on TV with Jensen Huang. This in turn signals to Qualcomm that the ARM horse can be changed quickly.
It is difficult to say whether the ARM revolution of the PC market is actually beginning. Things are certainly getting more uncomfortable for AMD and Intel. Speculation was rife before Computex in Taipei at the beginning of June. Gaming consoles, from which AMD in particular earns a lot of money, should also be kept in mind. The structure of Apple's M-SoCs is also reminiscent of typical chips for games consoles: powerful integrated GPU plus superfast RAM. AMD is planning something similar with Strix Halo, and plug-in LPCAMM2 modules with LPDDR5X RAM are now available. Instead of Zen 5 cores, AMD could perhaps also install some from ARM, perhaps even easier than ever before thanks to chiplet technology. The only question is how sustainable this business model can be if Microsoft ends up developing its own ARM chips itself, such as the Cobalt-100 for Azure servers.
3D DRAM
The typical structures of DRAM chips with one transistor and one storage capacitor per (1T1C) cell can hardly be made any smaller. For more capacity per chip, the aim is to move into the third dimension: In about five years, the remaining DRAM companies, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron want to manufacture 3D DRAM. This does not involve several DRAM dies that are stacked on top of each other after production, as is the case with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) or in Multi Chip Packages (MCPs). Instead, as with 3D NAND flash, the chips themselves should consist of several functional layers. Neo Semiconductor from California believes it has found a solution with 3D-X-DRAM: The chip is built similarly to 3D NAND. However, instead of conventional capacitors, Neo uses flash-like floating body cells. Meanwhile, Samsung is researching its own concepts, such as the Vertical Channel Transistor (VCT).
