After major shows, there are always a few items that slipped by us at the time and we report some from IFA.
Huawei impressed with its new Kirin 980 chip and the Honor sub-brand also announced a new smartphone, the Honor Magic 2, that uses the chip. It has a hidden front camera (using a ‘sliding display) and a fast charging (40W) feature that comes into operation if the PSU and cable are correctly identified. More details are expected later.
Honor’s Magic 2 at IFA. Image:Honor
One of the topics that came up several times with PC-related vendors at IFA was a problem with the supply of Intel CPUs at the moment. We were told that Intel is explaining this as an unexpected bump in demand, but those that we spoke to were not convinced that this is the reason and think that Intel has a supply problem. TaIwan sources are pointing to restrictions in supply of 14nm process chips and there are reports that Intel may even be looking to outsource some production to TSMC during the second part of the year. The firm already supplies Intel with some chips.
We don’t generally track semiconductor developments, but we did notice a recent article that highlighted the costs of developing chips with the latest sub-10nm processes. HiSilicon (part of Huawei) said that it was planning to spend $300 million to develop a new SoC using 7nm process technology.
