Author: easyfilo

Enlarge / A sample chiplet design, with the CPU dies made with a more advanced manufacturing process and the chipset and some other functions made on older, cheaper processes. (credit: Universal Chipset Interconnect Express)

Some of the CPU industry’s heaviest hitters—including Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Arm, TSMC, and Samsung—are banding together to define a new standard for chiplet-based processor designs. Dubbed Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe for short), the new standard seeks to define an open, interoperable standard for combining multiple silicon dies (or chiplets) into a single package.

Intel, AMD, and others are already designing or selling chiplet-based processors in some form—most of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs use chiplets, and Intel’s upcoming Sapphire Rapids Xeon processors will, too. But these chips all use different interconnects to enable communication between chiplets. The UCIe standard, if it succeeds, will replace those with a single standard, in theory making it much easier for smaller companies to take advantage of chiplet-based designs or for one company to include another company’s silicon in its own products.

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  The UCIe (which is the name of the specification and the organization) lays out its goals in defining the UCIe standard. [credit:
  Universal Chipset Interconnect Express ]

Chiplet-based designs are advantageous when making large chips on cutting-edge manufacturing nodes partly because they cut down on the amount of silicon manufacturers need to throw out. If a manufacturing defect affects one CPU core, tossing (or binning) a single 8-core chiplet is a whole lot cheaper than having to toss a huge 16- or 32-core processor die. Chiplet designs also let you mix-and-match chips and manufacturing processes. You could, for example, use an older, cheaper process for your chipset and a newer, cutting-edge process for your processor cores and cache. Or you could put an AMD GPU on the same package as an Intel CPU.

Enlarge / Well, we didn’t see this one coming. But based on rumors that Ars Technica is familiar with, maybe we should have. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Epic + Bandcamp)

At some point, Epic Games might need to drop the word “Games” from its moniker and admit what kind of company it wants to be.

Today the game maker moved to acquire Bandcamp, an online music-streaming service that revolves around DRM-free purchases of MP3s, FLACs, and other audio files. The news emerged via press releases from both Bandcamp and Epic on Wednesday. As of press time, neither side of the deal has clarified its financial terms.

The move follows increasingly aggressive steps by Epic to become an entirely new kind of digital media company in the near future.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino)

A Ukraine government official on Monday asked the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) to shut down DNS root servers in Russia and revoke Russian domains such as .ru, .рф, and .su. The letter to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was posted here, and ICANN has confirmed that it received the letter.

Several Internet experts say that granting Ukraine’s request would be a bad idea. Executive Director Bill Woodcock of Packet Clearing House, an international nonprofit that provides operational support and security to Internet exchange points and the core of the domain name system, wrote a Twitter thread calling it “a heck of an ask on the part of Ukraine. As a critical infrastructure operator, my inclination is to say ‘heck no’ regardless of my sympathies.”

Sent days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, the letter said that Russia’s “atrocious crimes have been made possible mainly due to the Russian propaganda machinery using websites continuously spreading disinformation, hate speech, promoting violence and hiding the truth regarding the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian IT infrastructure has undergone numerous attacks from the Russian side impeding citizens’ and government’s ability to communicate.”

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

The time has come for another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes a modest but notable discount on the Nintendo Switch Lite at Amazon subsidiary Woot. It’s just $10 off, and you’ll have to be an Amazon Prime member to access the deal, but since the console hardly ever receives any kind of discount, the offer is worth noting for anyone who is in the market for the console in the first place. If that includes you, Woot says the deal will be available for today only, and you’ll need to log in to Woot with your Amazon account to see the discount at checkout.

As a refresher, the Switch Lite is the smaller, portable-only version of Nintendo’s console: its 5.5-inch LCD display isn’t as big or vibrant as that of the newer Switch OLED, and it can’t be docked to a TV for use on a bigger screen. But it’s just as powerful, so it works with the same library of games, and it’s naturally easier to take on the road. It’s still well-built, too, with a genuine d-pad and slightly softer face buttons that also make less noise when pressed. Most importantly, it’s less expensive, here marked down to $190 compared to the $300 Switch and $350 Switch OLED.

If you don’t need any new video game hardware, the Dealmaster also has a sale on Fully’s Jarvis line of electric standing desks, which we’ve previously recommended in our guide to good home office gear. A number of Jarvis configurations are currently 15 percent off at Amazon and Fully’s own online store. The desks still aren’t all that cheap, and they’re generally on the heavy side, but they continue to offer high-quality builds, an appreciable range of customizations, and long warranties of five years on desktop surfaces and 15 years on desk frame components.