Chips as a Service?
Lots of people think chip companies should build “services” businesses to capture more value. The list of companies that have accomplished this is very close to zero.
Category Archives: The Cloud
The Changing Face of Compute
A recap of our emerging thesis on the changing nature of compute and what that means for semis companies large and small.
Is Qualcomm Going Back into the Data Center?
We think Qualcomm is expanding its “ASIC” business, helping hyperscalers in designing their own chips.
Pioneers are the ones with arrows in them
MobiledgeX has reportedly been acquired by Google for a modest price. This demonstrates the challenges that small, innovative companies are starting to face when going up against the Giants.
Semis read through from Amazon’s earnings
There is a real chance that AWS’s purchase of semis may decline year-on-year in the second half as they, like everyone else, moderates pandemic spending. Not a cause for panic, but worth remembering that we tend to take data center growth for granted.
Networking: The More Things Change…
Google’s new Aquila protocol is interesting because it begs the question what do they need it for? But it also harkens back to the days of packet switched networks, in an ironic sort of way.
Wave of Computation
Nvidia’s Analyst Day demonstrated the company is now the leading force in the data center. They have risen to this crest on the back of some incredible execution, and their rise shows the very powerful wave washing through the market for compute semis。
Vicarious MWC – The Fight Over Open RAN
MWC is once again the venue for the global persuasion campaign between competing visions of the O-RAN project. The big swing factor this time around is the growing presence of hyperscalers, notably Microsoft Azure.
Ten Lessons from Google’s TPU
Google recently published a paper on the history of its TPU chip. There are some valuable nuggets of information in here that can help others think about building chips, and also help outsiders understand many of the changes in the semis industry today.
We’re from the telco, and we’re here to design software
Vodafone is doubling down on its internal software team – we think this model will not work for most other telcos.