Computer hardware
Physical components of a computer
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We include updates on Moore's law, Pentium F00F bug, List of Intel chipsets, Punched card, Magnetic-core memory, History of Apple Inc., Pentium FDIV bug, Emulator, List of devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips, JTAG, White-box testing, Black-box testing, List of Mac models grouped by CPU type, History of laptops, Traitorous eight, History of the floppy disk ... and more.
| 2025 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Samsung to launch Galaxy S25 series (S25, S25+, S25 Ultra) with Snapdragon 8 Elite (SM8750-AB) chip.
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| March 2025 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple launched the Mac Studio with an M4 Max chip.
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| March 2025 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple released the MacBook Air (13-inch, M4) with 10 CPU cores.
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| March 12 2025 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple released the Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra processor, which combines two M3 Max dies in one package, featuring 28-32 CPU cores and 60-80 GPU cores.
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| 2025 |
Moore's law
Forecasters, including Gordon Moore, predict the potential end of Moore's law due to physical limitations in semiconductor technology.
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| February 2025 |
Open-source mobile phones
FuriLabs releases FuriPhone FLX1, an open-source mobile phone with FuriOs operating system, priced at $550.
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| January 2025 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 (SM6650) chip sampling planned for Q1, targeting Realme 14 5G and P3x smartphone models
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| January 2025 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers published two whitepapers on Data Speculation Attacks: 'Data Speculation Attacks via Load Address Prediction on Apple Silicon (SLAP)' and 'Breaking the Apple M3 CPU via False Load Output Predictions (FLOP)', revealing new transient execution vulnerabilities in CPU architectures.
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| January 2025 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
Arm disclosed a critical vulnerability where an unprivileged context can trigger a data memory-dependent prefetch engine to fetch data from a privileged location, potentially enabling unauthorized access. Arm recommended mitigating the issue by disabling the affected prefetcher through a specific system configuration (setting CPUACTLR6_EL1[41]).
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| 2024 |
Apple Inc.
Faced a lawsuit by two female employees claiming bias in hiring and performance-review practices.
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| 2024 |
Apple Inc.
Charged by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for violations of the National Labor Relations Act, including maintaining unlawful employee contracts and illegally firing labor activist Janneke Parrish.
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| 2024 |
Open-source mobile phones
SHIFTphone 8 becomes available for pre-order, featuring preinstalled ShiftOS (Android 14) with mainline Linux support.
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| 2024 |
Cache hierarchy
Intel releases Xeon Emerald Rapids processor with an advanced cache hierarchy, featuring up to 64 cores with L1 cache of 80 KB per core, L2 cache of 2 MB per core, and L3 cache of 5 MB per core, totaling up to 320 MB of cache memory.
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| November 2024 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple launched the MacBook Pro (14-inch, M4) with the new M4 chip.
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| November 2024 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple introduced the iMac (24-inch, M4) with 8-10 CPU cores, 8-10 GPU cores, and a 16-core Neural Engine.
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| October 2024 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple first introduced the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips for MacBook Pro models, featuring enhanced 3 nm process and improved core configurations.
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| October 2024 |
Open-source mobile phones
Volla Systeme GmbH launches Volla Phone Quintus with multiple operating system options including Volla OS, Ubuntu Touch, and multiboot capability, priced at €719.
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| September 2024 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 (SM6475-AB) becomes available, with initial devices from Motorola and Samsung
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| July 2024 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Qualcomm releases Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 (SM4635) chipset, with initial device being the Redmi A4 5G (also known as Poco C75 5G).
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| July 2024 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
UC San Diego researchers unveiled the Indirector attack against Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs, using high-precision Branch Target Injection (BTI). Intel downplayed the vulnerability's severity, claiming existing mitigations were sufficient. No CVE was assigned.
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| June 2024 |
Apple Inc.
Announced iOS18 and macOS Sequoia at WWDC 2024, introducing Apple Intelligence AI features and partnering with ChatGPT to improve Siri.
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| June 2024 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
Samsung Research and Seoul National University researchers revealed the TikTag attack against ARM v8.5A CPUs' Memory Tagging Extension, creating proof-of-concept exploits for Google Chrome and Linux kernel.
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| June 2024 |
Row hammer
ETH Zürich researchers announced RISC-H, the first Rowhammer exploit for RISC-V chips.
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| April 2024 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 (SM6375-AC) becomes available, with initial devices from Motorola
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| April 2024 |
Apple Inc.
Laid off more than 600 employees working on the electric car project and microLED development.
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| April 2024 |
Noisy intermediate-scale quantum era
Microsoft researchers announced a significant breakthrough in quantum computing, demonstrating a substantial reduction in error rates that would only require 4 logical qubits, potentially accelerating the timeline for large-scale quantum computing from decades to years.
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| April 2024 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
BHI vulnerability in certain Intel CPU families discovered to be exploitable in Linux entirely in user space without kernel features or root access. Intel recommended additional software hardening. Assigned CVE-2024-2201.
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| March 2024 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Snapdragon 6s 4G Gen 1 (SM6115-AC) chip sampling planned for Q3, targeting Oppo A3, A3x, and A5 Pro models
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| March 2024 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple introduced the MacBook Air (15-inch) with the M3 chip.
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| March 2024 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple launched the MacBook Air (13-inch) with the M3 chip.
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| March 2024 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
Intel Atom processors vulnerability called Register File Data Sampling (RFDS) was revealed, assigned CVE-2023-28746, with mitigations causing slight performance degradation.
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| March 2024 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
GhostRace, a variant of Spectre-V1 attack, was published affecting major microarchitectures from Intel, AMD, and ARM. Assigned CVE-2024-2193. AMD dismissed the vulnerability, and Linux kernel developers chose not to add mitigations due to performance concerns.
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| March 2024 |
Row hammer
Researchers at ETH Zürich announced ZenHammer, a Rowhammer exploit for AMD Zen chips, and the first use of Rowhammer to exploit DDR5 SDRAM.
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| January 2024 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Qualcomm releases Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 (SM7675-AB) chipset, sampling in Q1 2024, with devices like OnePlus Nord 4, Realme GT 6T, and Sharp Aquos R9.
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| January 2024 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Samsung launches Galaxy S24 series with special Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (For Galaxy) variant, specifically for US, Canada, Japan, China, and Taiwan markets.
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| 2023 |
Apple Inc.
Launched 'Apple Pay Later' service, allowing users to apply for loans between $50 and $1,000 for online or in-app purchases, repayable in four installments over six weeks.
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| 2023 |
Overclocking
Researchers Åkerblom et al. published work on adaptive methods like Thompson Sampling for optimizing system responses, drawing parallels to overclocking technologies such as real-time voltage adjustments and adaptive cooling systems.
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| 2023 |
Power cycling
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft stopped responding to commands after an anomaly. After gentler troubleshooting techniques failed, NASA successfully rebooted the spacecraft using a remote power cycle.
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| 2023 |
Cache hierarchy
AMD released the EPYC 9684X processor, featuring a 96-core design with a sophisticated cache hierarchy: 64 KB L1 cache per core, 1 MB L2 cache per core, and a massive 1152 MB shared L3 cache.
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| November 2023 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple introduced the M3 chip, first used in the iMac (24-inch) and MacBook Pro (14-inch), featuring 8 CPU cores (4 performance and 4 efficiency), up to 10 GPU cores, and a 16-core Neural Engine.
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| October 2023 |
Devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips
Qualcomm introduces Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 (SM7550-AB) chipset, sampling in Q4 2023, with devices like Honor 100/200, HTC U24 Pro, Motorola Edge 50 Pro, and Vivo S18/S19/S20 series.
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| October 2023 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Production of the initial M3 iMac and MacBook Pro models was discontinued.
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| October 2023 |
Mac models grouped by CPU type
Apple introduced the M3 Pro and M3 Max SoCs, first used in MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch models, fabricated by TSMC on the 3 nm process.
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| October 2023 |
Noisy intermediate-scale quantum era
Atom Computing achieves a milestone by developing a quantum processor with 1,180 qubits, becoming the first to pass the 1,000 qubit mark in quantum computing technology.
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| August 2023 |
Open-source mobile phones
Fairphone releases Fairphone 5, supporting multiple open-source operating systems like /e/OS, CalyxOS, IodéOS, LineageOS, postmarketOS, and Ubuntu Touch, with two storage/RAM configurations priced at €549 and €629.
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| August 2023 |
IBM
IBM announced the sale of The Weather Company to private equity firm Francisco Partners.
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| August 2023 |
Transient execution CPU vulnerability
The Inception vulnerability (CVE-2023-20569) was revealed, affecting AMD's Zen 1, Zen 2, Zen 3, and Zen 4 microarchitectures. AMD noted the vulnerability is not practical but will release a microcode update.
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This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Noisy intermediate-scale quantum era, Power cycling, Transient execution CPU vulnerability, List of Mac models grouped by CPU type, History of computer hardware in Yugoslavia, Acceptance testing, Row hammer, Cache hierarchy, Overclocking, List of open-source mobile phones, History of IBM, History of Apple Inc., Moore's law & List of devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.