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Dutch scientists pipe office urine into bacteria-filled cells that generate electricity and recover nitrogen and phosphorus, while a related system can produce hydrogen
Pee breaks are one of the most relaxing times in the office when you finally get to have some sane moments to yourself. Which is why most employees take numerous such breaks within a day.
WA's political leadership pipeline grows as 21 women complete Pathway to Politics
Twenty-one women from across WA have graduated from the 2026 Pathways to Politics for Women program at The University of Western Australia.
Bentley Awarded $235,000 to Strengthen Life Sciences Talent Pipeline
Bentley University will use $235,000 grant to prepare students for business roles in life sciences to meet Massachusetts workforce need.
Texas Sunset Review offers chance to address the mental health crisis-to-prison pipeline
Updates in policy for people with developmental disabilities and serious mental illness could reduce repeated cycling through the carceral system, advocates say
Colombia business association labels hydrogen a $20bn ‘investment opportunity’
The National Business Association of Colombia (ANDI) believes the country’s hydrogen sector is an “investment opportunity worth over $20bn,” saying a pipeline of announced projects could attract enormous capital.
Walter Piper - Loons and the health of lakes
On Monday, Sept. 14, Walter Piper will talk about what loons can tell us about the health of lakes.
Walter Piper - Loons and the health of lakes
On Monday, Sept. 14, Walter Piper will talk about what loons can tell us about the health of lakes.
The core anti-Pangram constituency is phony writers
Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week. The Verdict, by Kelsey Piper A lot of people hate AI for drowning the internet in slop and displacing human creatives. You might think that these people would be thrilled by a program that can identify and flag AI-generated work. But many people who hate AI also hate Pangram, an impressively accurate AI detector that produces very few false positives, according to high-quality independent research. This loathing found its most recent expression in a bizarre Wired article that amplifies a wide range of false arguments from Pangram skeptics: that AI detectors are racist (they’re not) or ableist (they’re not)1 or don’t work (this one does)2. Rather than starting from the premise that it would be really valuable to have a working AI detector and scrutinizing Pangram to make sure it lives up to that promise, the article starts from the premise that Pangram obviously has bad vibes and sets out to discover why. (One answer: The CEO microwaved lunch during an interview!) Why aren’t writers who resent Pangram more eager to distinguish themselves from posters who are having ChatGPT ghostwrite all their work? There are a few different things at play, but I think one key dynamic is this: These are often the same people. A core constituency for arguments like Wired’s is “writers” who are using AI to write their posts but resent this fact being made public. They stand to lose from AI detectors because AI detectors call them out. Share When Substack announced a partnership with Pangram, a sizable fraction of the platform’s authors rose up in outrage. Some people had experience with other AI detectors that didn’t work, and some felt that AI writing ought to be encouraged — both of which are fair enough. But the fury was fueled by authors passionately insisting that Pangram kept wrongly accusing them on almost every post they published. Pangram can be wrong, especially on short passages. But in the overwhelming majority of cases where Pangram looked at a whole blog post rather than a single paragraph, the program correctly detected work as AI. Even if we can’t be 100% sure in any individual case, we can notice the trend in the aggregate. Wired quotes Sam Illingworth, a professor of critical AI literacy at Edinburgh Napier University, who said, “I don’t think [AI detectors] work. … I think that detectors are prejudiced against certain people.” This spring, he said that he used AI for research and editing; this summer he acknowledged that in addition to research and editing, he also uses it “now and then for a turn of phrase I keep.” Pangram informs us that most of his posts are 100% AI-written (some are mixed AI-and-human) and that 100% AI-written posts started appearing last year. The favorable interpretation is that, as someone whose recent work Pangram consistently mistakes for AI, Illingworth sees Pangram’s flaws firsthand. The unfavorable interpretation is that the tool’s credibility trades off against his own, because its account of who writes his posts is not consistent with his. Illingworth is not alone in insisting the detector does not work. “It’s a Monday night in late July, and I’m pasting my own Substack draft into an AI detector for the first time. Not because I’m worried. Because I’m curious. I wrote every word of it myself, the way I write everything, out loud in my head first, in a rhythm that still carries the accent of a language I learned to think in before I learned to write in this one,” begins one Substack post by an author indignant that Pangram flags her writing as AI. “That’s the part I had to sit with before I could write this.” If you, like me, have worked with AIs a lot, you won’t even need Pangram there. The author of that piece is AI. It is obviously AI! I checked 10 other posts on the blog, and they were also obviously AI! “I have spent 22 years as an award-winning author and essayist. And now this bullshit tool that learned from MY writing is going to accuse me of plagiarism,” popular Substack writer Carlyn Beccia wrote in an anti-Pangram post. “For the last and final time, AI DETECTORS DO NOT WORK.” Here’s what her writing sounded like in 2020: “Most success stories revolve around one person who believed enough in you to say — give it a try. We call these people muses, but they are so much more than that. They are the strong man giants whose shoulders we stand on so we can see the horizon. Throughout the editing process, I am sure my editor felt less like a giant of greatness and more like Atlas with the world on her shoulders.” Pangram says it was 100% human-written. (So were other articles of hers in 2020.) And here’s what it sounds like now: “And then there is the reshuffling, which sounds like paperwork until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork. The Trump regime recently moved special education oversight from the Education Department to HHS. That is not a minor bureaucratic transfer. It changes the frame.”3 Pangram says this is mostly AI. I am not convinced that Pangram is wrong. In my own experience, Pangram is very effective on long texts — if it marks a long essay as AI, the essay was either written by AI or deliberately written to sound like AI. On tweet-length or paragraph-length texts, it’s not perfectly reliable. It seems to work just as well for non-native English speakers as for native speakers. While I have seen dozens of claims of pre-2022 text returning a positive result on Pangram, I have tried repeatedly to corroborate those and have never once succeeded. To be clear, I’m absolutely not saying that complaining about Pangram suggests a writer is a cheat. There are plenty of other concerns. Most are mistakenly premised, such as the false claim that Pangram trains on work you put into it, but others are reasonable: It’s unreliable on sufficiently short text segments; it creates an internet witch-hunt mentality when there are defensible uses of AI; people who are open about their AI use are sometimes blamed, when the only people really doing something wrong are the ones who hide it; and it isn’t perfect, so a single positive result shouldn’t be taken as decisive proof of misconduct. I’m happy to concede that Pangram is imperfect and possible to over-rely on. If an author’s posts are mostly non-AI and one scans as partially AI, this could be a mistake. It’s also possible to defeat Pangram with intentional effort. If you think we need something more robust and more reliable, fine! But if you don’t like AI and don’t like Pangram, your attitude really ought to be that it’s a shame that our existing tools for AI detection are imperfect, and it’s important to invent better ones. If your stance is instead that AI is evil and so is looking for AI, then ultimately you’re contributing to the sloppification of the internet. You’re making it harder for people who write their own text to distinguish themselves, and providing cover for authors who are definitely not writing their own text. Subscribe Top stories this week, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs Commentators often worry that the decline of reading could mean the decline of liberal democracy — but deliberative governance actually predated widespread literacy. This week, Maibritt Henkel pointed out that many liberal cultures thrive on a culture of raucous, interactive debate, which can happen in-person as easily, if not more so, than in text. Read on, dear reader, to learn more. It may actually cheer you up: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) [ Reading won’t save liberalism ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) Maibritt Henkel · Sep 1 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) It used to be bad to downplay climate change (if we mean denying its reality). Today, it’s actually good to downplay climate change (if we mean keeping the issue out of political fights so we can make real progress). This counterintuitive view is called “climate hushing,” and contributor Alex Trembath argued that it’s the key to enacting good policy going forward. Get up to speed on the latest in climate politics: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) [ We won’t stop climate change by talking about it ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Alex Trembath · Sep 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing up for the forces of liberalism against Donald Trump’s assault on our closest ally. So, why is one prominent left-wing commenter attacking Carney? Columnist Matthew Yglesias explains: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) [ When "economic liberty" means central planning ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) Matthew Yglesias · Aug 31 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) 🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟 Shout out to my home state of California, whose legislature passed two housing bills this week. One requires a housing density minimum in transit-oriented areas of the state’s most transit-rich cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Long Beach). Another bill closes two common loopholes used by third parties to delay housing projects, including an opportunity to challenge maps of a given lot created by the developer after a project has been approved. Shout out to our big-state rival, Texas, where pro-housing SB 785 took effect this week. The new state law requires municipalities to have at least one district permitted for manufactured housing without a special permit. This will promote zoning changes in 44% of municipalities. The company Fervo Energy signed a deal with Google for what is set to be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility, proving a technology can work at a scale that could be crucial to a decarbonized, energy-abundant economy. Share Worth watching… This week, forecasting legend Nate Silver joined Jerusalem, Matt, and Jeremiah on a crowded episode of the pod. It was a party. And speaking of parties, our round table debated the factional lines within the Democratic Party: Is it possible to be center-left and also anti-establishment? Watch or listen to find out: The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the areas that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024, but musician Bobby Pulido is running to flip it back. Right now, The Argument/Split Ticket’s model has him running 1.1 points behind his Republican opponent in a district Trump won by 18 points. Tune in to find out how he differs from national Democrats and what he thinks he can to do win this seat. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders was among the first politicians to call for a ban on superintelligence. My guest this week, Andrea Miotti, has been lobbying to ban superintelligence for several years, most recently in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. I asked him how he gets legislators to take speculative risks seriously, and we dug into what plans might look like to actually pass a ban. Listen to learn more: What’s News with The Argument The Argument recommends, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs If we ever lose track of Justin Zuckerman, I’ll have the team split up and check all the movie theaters in the city. I’m shocked (and a little jealous) at how often he gets out to see good cinema. This week, he brings us It Ends, a “horror-ish movie,” which he described as a “Gen Z Waiting for Godot.” I was intrigued before he added that it was “funny, dark and existential” — at which point I was fully locked in. I guess I also had existential themes on the mind this week. One morning, a single line from a poem I read long ago just came to me: “Is death a stretch of time in which a life is just a flash?” The poem is called “From 20,000 Feet” by Heather McHugh. I suggest the version in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, which, by tradition, my best friend and I always bring backpacking, extra weight be damned. We’ll stay thematically dark for just one more rec from senior editor John Robert Thomason, whose upcoming trip to Baltimore reminded him to suggest Michael Clune’s memoir White Out (about being addicted to heroin in Baltimore in the 1990s). Ben Lerner’s blurb called it _“_Disturbing, brilliant, hilarious—it’s as if Proust had written Jesus’ Son.” John told me this “seems accurate, with the caveat that I’ve never read Proust.” I, personally, have also shelved Proust until retirement. At this point, I was a little concerned for the team since all of us tossed out such psychologically grim material — maybe we’re all down about the end of summer — but thankfully, at least a few of us were into more upbeat selections. Milan Singh recommended Made In’s 5-quart stainless clad saucier, suggesting he had some fun in the kitchen. Jeremiah Johnson asked if he could recommend yet more Carly Rae Jepsen. Once denied, he offered up Game Changer instead_,_ calling it “the most wildly creative game show, maybe in the entire history of the genre.” Eli Richman mentioned _Lucky, “_a B-tier show with an A-tier cast and an S-tier theme song.” I suppose he was recommending the song, Horns of a Bull. Still, despite these cheerier recs, I couldn’t help but be concerned that we were subconsciously worried about racing toward summer’s end — the end of swim trunks and splashing around. Then a message landed reminding me of the three-day weekend to come. A whole extra day for sunshine. One more swim in the lake. I was grateful this called to mind yet another line from a poem, one by Mary Oliver, the patron saint of every gorgeous summer day (and about whom a documentary is now out). Speaking to God in the poem “Thirst,” she wrote: grant me, in your mercy,a little more time. Love for the earthand love for you are having such a longconversation in my heart. We have merch! We have quarter-zips, keychains, hats, and stickers. Each one is a great conversation starter in its own way. Buy them here. Subscribe More to read: [ The Opening Argument ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite)[ Seeing like an elite ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) Kobe Yank-Jacobs · Sep 4 What do Americans hear when they watch Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President JD Vance rail against the elite? Are they thinking of right-wing tech billionaires? Imperious college professors? Liberal magazine writers? [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) [ The Weekly Scroll ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline)[ God is back on the timeline ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) Jeremiah Johnson · Sep 5 This week, we’re talking about Substack’s new religious debates, the continuing MAGA influencer scandal, how to retire from YouTube, and aura battles. [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) 1 This was a legitimate thing to worry about, but doesn’t seem to be a problem given the actual technology: Marijke Van Vlasselaer, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, and Bram Spruyt’s 2026 paper looks at whether Pangram is less accurate when evaluating the work of non-native speakers of English. It isn’t. That’s because Pangram isn’t really looking at how “unusual” a piece of writing is but whether it has the characteristic patterns of LLMs. The Wired article makes an odd gesture at a different Pangram-is-racist argument. There were several controversies this summer during which upcoming books were canceled after being discovered to be AI-written: “The three novels mentioned earlier — Shy Girl, Daggermouth, and Call Me, easily publishing’s biggest AI-detection scandals — were all written by writers of color.” But come on! As Zvi Mowshowitz put it: “They were not primarily written by people of color. They were primarily written by AIs.” That’s the whole problem! And as my colleague Jeremiah Johnson recently observed with respect to Cambridge’s Arday scandal, a community being unwilling to call out fraud if it’s perpetuated by people of color is not an anti-racist tendency; it is ultimately quite racist. 2 Many non-Pangram detectors don’t work, but many possible airplane designs also don’t work, and no one considers this a general argument against aviation; the thing that matters is whether any detection works. 3 The phrase “empires have always loved” mysteriously became all the rage in the last few years. See here, here, here, here and here. Before 2025, the only use of that phrase I have been able to find is a single Tweet. The logic of the sentence, too, is incoherent in an AI-characteristic way. “...sounds like paperwork, until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork”? Does remembering that make it sound less like paperwork? It’s a craft-ful sentence, but what is it actually saying??
Rocket Boys induct Freida Riley into West Virginia Hall of Fame at Pipestem
Hickam and Cooke shared stories about Riley, their science teacher at Big Creek High School who inspired Hickam and his friends to pursue rocket science.
Abigail Breslin, Yasmin Kassim & Booboo Stewart Set To Star In Road Comedy ‘Pipe Cleaner Boy’
EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Yasmin Kassim (You, Always) and Booboo Stewart (Twilight) are set to star in Pipe Cleaner Boy, a female-led road comedy written and dir...
Opinion: Getting new hires in the door is only half the workforce challenge
Chicago has invested heavily in talent pipelines. Employers must now focus on the workplace culture that determines whether new hires stay and succeed.
Sony's PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90
Sony’s PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90 Sony won’t license disc pressing to anyone else, Microsoft does, and a former PlayStation boss thinks that’s the whole problem. When Sony DADC chief Dietmar Tanzer spoke with an Austrian broadcaster in July about PlayStation disc production at the Thalgau plant, a number of press outlets misunderstood the report, writing that production would fall to a tenth of current levels. It won’t. Sony DADC confirmed to Game this week that the figure is a 10 percent decline, not a decline to 10 percent. “To clarify and avoid any misleading information: in that statement Dietmar anticipated an overall product volume decline by 10 percent, not a decline down to 10 percent,” a spokesperson with Sony DADC told Game. That figure covers 2028. Tanzer didn’t put a number on the years after, and the spokesperson declined to comment further. What we do know is that on July 1, PlayStation announced that physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028 and that the transition has no impact on games that have already released in disc format or will be releasing in disc format prior to that month. “So, there will be reorders going to the market after January 2028,” the Sony DADC spokesperson said. “For details around that I would ask you to liaise with the PR team from PlayStation, as we can’t speak or comment on their behalf.” PlayStation officials did not respond to questions about reorders or other disc-related matters. But I did recently speak with Shawn Layden, Game Industry Strategic Advisor and former chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, who called a future without physical PlayStation discs “depressing, but solvable.” then added, “I think.” The chief hurdle to third-party manufacturing of collector’s editions or any other version of a PlayStation game disc is that Sony owns the proprietary process to press those discs, Layden said. “And unless they decide or determine a way to license that to some of these bespoke disc manufacturers, there’s no way to make it happen,” he said. Layden was careful to add that he understands the concept but doesn’t have “line of sight on the particulars.” “Depressing but solvable, I think.” — Shawn Layden Microsoft already licenses replication to outside plants. Xbox discs are pressed by manufacturers Microsoft certifies as Authorized Replicators, a term defined in its publisher agreements, with the approved list set at the company’s sole discretion and Microsoft retaining the right to halt manufacture. The structure is still in place today: publishers select an Authorized Replicator in Partner Center and submit a bill of materials created with a Microsoft representative. Sony, by contrast, presses PlayStation discs through Sony DADC, its own manufacturing subsidiary. No one I spoke with said they were in discussions with Sony about doing that, and PlayStation hasn’t responded to questions about whether it would be open to a licensing deal. There is an obvious reason Sony might not want to. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed it out on the day of the announcement: it’s a platform-led decision, he wrote, designed to cut costs, eliminate the resale market, and drive all revenue through the PlayStation Store. The math is not subtle. On a $70 third-party game sold through the PlayStation Store, Sony keeps $21. Sold at retail, Ahmad says, it earns about half that. Licensing disc replication to an outside manufacturer might not be worth it. And even if it were, it seems unlikely that such a deal would come from boutique companies like iam8bit, which sells collector’s editions of video games. “We would absolutely love to find a way forward to continue making physical PlayStation games,” said Jon Gibson, co-owner and co-creative director of the company. “We are big believers in giving humans the option to truly own media. If we can play a role in helping make that a reality for the future of PlayStation games, count iam8bit in!” If it were to happen, it would most likely be with a company like Conectiv Supply Chain Solutions, a Memphis-based manufacturer of optical discs and vinyl records that also runs third-party logistics, fulfillment and distribution for packaged media. The company, which was formed in 2025 when Los Angeles private equity firm Variant Equity Advisors purchased Vantiva’s Supply Chain Solutions division, traces its lineage back to Technicolor. When it sold the division, Vantiva described the business as having served video game creators for more than 25 years. Conectiv is also buying, not shrinking. Last month it acquired SDS, the distributor for Universal and Warner Bros. home entertainment, consolidating those studios’ packaged-media pipeline from pressing plant to retail shelf. I reached out to Conectiv and its CEO, but haven’t heard back. Layden pointed to music and books in our discussion about the ongoing value of physical media. “No one ever saw the comeback of cassette tape,” he said. “And vinyl didn’t so much come back. The flame went down, the fire’s dying, but the ember was always there, and it just kind of came back. Much like the book business. We thought we’d all be on Kindles right now. “I believe that physical media is crucial and important. One of the things that makes us gamers, one of the core game mechanics, going back to the beginning of time, is collecting stuff. “Did you get all the diamonds in Crash Bandicoot? Did you get all the stars in Mario? And we like to collect our games. And we have a game shelf. And we put all our boxes up there. And if you’re super hardcore, when you buy a game, you buy two copies, right? One stays in the shrink wrap, and you play the other one. What happens to that important cultural part of the gaming world? You know, we buy the steelbook and the three-disc Final Fantasy set and the figurine and, you know, you can’t download any of that. “What happens to that?” And Layden believes it shouldn’t have been a revenue question for PlayStation. “This was a core thing to the experience of our most devoted fans,” he said. “Yeah, it’s fan service. Why would we take that away? Well, we can’t afford to. It’s already 120 bucks, you know, limited edition special purchase onyx box version of whatever, and those sell at a higher rate than the box selling at $69.99 does. So yeah, the market has said they will continue to buy them. You’re just saying you just don’t want to make them anymore.” Layden said he was recently talking with someone about these sorts of business decisions and how they’re made. Too often, he said, it’s all about the financials and nothing else. “OK, we can do this and save this much money, or we can invest this to look at that outcome, or we can do this and have this happen over there, or move this team to Sri Lanka,” he said. “But each one of those, someone also has to have a ledger there saying, ‘OK, what is the brand impact from that move?’ “Iif you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” — Shawn Layden “If we do that, dollars and cents work out. I get it. That’s just math. But what’s the brand impact? Are people going to say, ‘Good move, you guys?’ Or are they going to say, ‘We hate you guys. Quit doing that.’ And sometimes they say, ‘We hate you.’ Then you take a note and say, OK, how much of that can we live with? How much ‘we hate you’ is OK. And when does it go over the line? “I see a lot of companies making decisions which, objectively speaking, I don’t know what the dollar end of that was for you, Mr. Company, but your brand value just dropped 30 percent. So I hope it was worth it.” Of course, shifting to a digital-only model for games raises other issues beyond simply wanting to collect. The biggest is ownership. Layden pointed out that once you go to a streaming-only or download-only model, it’s just a digital footprint on a hard drive. “What does ownership mean anymore?” he said. “It’s a genuine question. Well, in fact, it’s not even a question anymore. It’s like you are shifting the model from ownership to accessibility. “And what’s always been true, which people forget, is you’ve never been able to sell your iTunes library. And you can’t sell your PlayStation download library. So if you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” The touching tribute found in the credits for Star Wars Zero Company. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Interview and Hands-On with a Minoan Masterpiece Star Wars Zero Company hands-on: Attack Astromechs, permadeath, and delightfully fatal Rube Goldberg tactics Control Resonant opens up as you get stronger — and as characters start trusting you
North Carolina invests in childcare while testing how to sustain family childcare homes
The data points to more than childcare capacity: The state also needs a sustainable pipeline of people willing and able to provide that care.
Editorial: Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela is an imperialistic pipe dream
As a businessman, Donald Trump often cut corners, broke promises, and made bad deals. Now that he has the power of the U.S. government at his disposal, the submission of
Senator Kim Visits Warren County to Talk Healthcare and Jobs
Yesterday, Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) visited Warren County with focused visits on expanding affordable healthcare and improving New Jersey’s workforce development pipeline as part of his Einstein Corridor initiative. “I leave these visits inspired by the dedication I witnessed from those in Warren County who are training NJ’s next generation of workers and pushing to ensure access to quality healthcare in some of our most rural communities,” said Senator Kim. “There is so much unique potential in each corner of our state – I’m excited to bring the ideas discussed with[...]
Defense Dept., SBA aim to revamp US defense industrial pipeline
SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler discusses how small businesses are working with the US government to replenish defense supplies amid the Iran conflict on 'The Claman Countdown.'
Report: Apple Watch Series 12 may feature always-on heart-rate tracking, new Fitness app
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has a couple new features in the pipeline for Apple Watch Series 12 and...
Proposed CT gas line project roils new debate. It’s amid politics over role of natural gas in energy
The local fight is amid increasingly political debate over what role, if any, natural gas has in the New England scheme of energy generation
David M. Shribman: Politics fuels a push for separatism in Canada
CALGARY — A wildfire is sweeping the western Canadian province of Alberta. It’s not the one you are thinking of. And a Canadian province...
CT AHEC’s Healthcare Workforce Interagency Symposium Emphasizes a Unified Strategy and Financial Incentives, hosted by CT SLRP
The Connecticut Area Health Education Center (CT AHEC), based at UConn Health, has long played a leading role in strengthening the healthcare workforce pipe ...
Enbridge to buy Houston pipeline co.'s crude oil business in $600M Permian deal
Enbridge is buying Houston-based Salt Creek Midstream's crude oil business in the Permian Basin.
Seoul National University of Science and Technology researchers explore how probabilistic analysis can help improve nuclear safety
Traditional approaches for designing primary coolant pipes in nuclear power plants consider highly unlikely, extreme scenarios. Estimating pipe rupture frequency is a more practical approach. In a new study, researchers investigated the pipe rupture frequency of coolant pipes using a probabilistic framework that accounts for material properties, degradation pathway, and even inspection performance, offering a risk-informed approach to design and evaluation.
Pancakes, Politics, and Pipelines: The Political Winds Supporting the Development of Canadian Crude Oil Pipelines
The Political Winds Supporting the Development of Canadian Crude Oil Pipelines
Okay, Boomer: Preparing for the generational ownership transfer
The Colorado Succession Through Apprenticeship Program would turn two problems into one solution: a state-coordinated pipeline that trains graduates to evaluate and operate existing businesses, then connects them to owners ready to show them the ropes and eventually hand over the keys.
Patrick Mahomes Leads Texas Tech’s NFL Pipeline Into 2026
Patrick Mahomes is tracking toward Week 1, while Skyler Gill-Howard and several former Texas Tech defenders fight to lock down NFL roster spots.
The first NFL player to return to college, plus a controversial WNBA ejection
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Congrats, you’re the Browns’ starting quarterback. Coming up: 📝 NFL –> CFB pipeline? ⏏️ Freedom’s ejection 🔥 Pristine vibes in Philly Last week, we discussed the concept — and your malaise — of the select group of NFL rookies eligible to return to college football via a judge’s order. In the time since, the situation has developed. Last night, former Ole Miss and Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright,...
Zoetis Earnings Reveal a Divided Business, But Can its Pipeline Restore Growth?
Zoetis Inc. (NYSE:ZTS) entered 2026 as a leader in animal health, but its latest earnings show that even a strong market position cannot fully insulate the company from weaker consumer demand. Fiscal Q2 2026 revenue remained flat at $2.5 billion and declined 1% on an organic operational basis, as pressure in the U.S. companion-animal market […]
Reimagining how scientists study the chemistry of the air
Professor Victoria Barber and doctoral student Cooper Crabtree are spearheading Keck Foundation-funded project charting a path toward better understanding atmospheric oxidation. by Álvaro Castillo, UCLA College of Letters and Science From the vantage point of Victoria Barber, a UCLA assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, understanding the chemical reactions that shape air quality and climate are among the most pressing scientific challenges of our time. And thanks to a recent grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, she and doctoral student Cooper Crabtree will spearhead a new research project exploring exactly how pollutants form in the atmosphere. Specifically, the project will examine how volatile organic compounds transform through atmospheric oxidation and explore how pollutants, like smog, form in the atmosphere. VOCs are released by sources ranging from trees and wildfires to vehicle exhaust pipes and consumer products such as cologne and perfume. As they undergo atmospheric oxidation, they can transform into a wide range of other compounds. Anyone in Southern California can attest to the urgency of this area of research — for example, in late July of this year, Los Angeles County was under an active ozone pollution advisory for almost a full week. While many people associate ozone with the protective ozone layer high in the stratosphere, ground-level or tropospheric ozone is a harmful secondary pollutant formed through atmospheric oxidation. Understanding how VOCs transform into pollutants like ozone is therefore critical to improving air-quality forecasts and informing strategies to reduce exposure. “My group is focused on trying accelerate our understanding of these networks of reactions so that we can do a better job of predicting how those pollutants form,” Barber said. “When we make decisions about how we might alter emissions, we can understand how that’s going to influence the production of these downstream pollutants.” With support from the W. M. Keck Foundation, Barber and Crabtree are developing new experimental approaches that will combine — and improve — techniques to study hundreds of chemical systems more efficiently than traditional methods allow. Instead of spending years decoding a single VOC, the project seeks to dramatically expand the pace and scale of discovery. The grant comes at a particularly important moment for environmental research. Barber, who joined UCLA in 2023, says funding for climate and air-quality research, especially for early career scientists, has become increasingly difficult to secure, a challenge compounded for ambitious projects that require building entirely new research infrastructure. The Keck Foundation’s support, Barber said, provides the flexibility to pursue bold early-stage, high-risk ideas that may be more difficult to fund using conventional federal funding sources. “It’s really, really hard to do environmental research under the current federal paradigm,” Barber said. “By stepping in and providing stable and flexible funding to explore this new idea, the Keck Foundation is making a huge difference to my research program.” In addition to funding early-career faculty, the Keck Foundation’s support is also focused on empowering graduate students like Crabtree in their scientific growth. The project gives Crabtree the opportunity to help develop an entirely new experimental approach to studying atmospheric chemistry — an experience that will provide him with valuable technical skills, scientific training and preparation for the next stage of his career. Stable funding also allows doctoral students like Crabtree to devote themselves more fully to research rather than balancing their scientific work with additional teaching responsibilities needed to cover funding gaps. “Getting to devote more of my time to research this past school year has greatly improved the pace and quality of our experiments, data analysis and planning for our future work,” said Crabtree, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry. “I feel very lucky — especially amid the current uncertainty surrounding scientific funding — to be able to continue exploring exciting knowledge gaps in our field and growing as a scientific researcher.” For Barber, mentorship is among the most rewarding and important aspects of her role as a faculty member. “Our jobs as faculty are to do good science and make good scientists,” she said. “I believe the Keck Foundation shares this belief and sees the potential positive impact this project can have.”
When Leadership Leads to Wellness: School Health Index (SHI) as a Strategic Tool for Superintendent Decision Making
Learn how superintendent leadership can strengthen principal preparation, professional learning, coaching, and leadership pipelines to build stronger schools and improve student success.
Stewart named VP of workforce development, small business at GOEDC
Skyler Stewart has been named vice president of workforce development, small business, and entrepreneurship for the Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corporation, where officials say she will focus on strengthening the local workforce pipeline and supporting small businesses and startups.
Roundup: ExxonMobil / SBA workforce initiative / New HoganTaylor CEO
Anti-trust charges tossed: A Texas Business Court judge dismissed Clean Hydrogen Works’ antitrust claims against ExxonMobil’s Denbury subsidiary, ruling Texas courts cannot address alleged antitrust injuries occurring outside the state. Clean Hydrogen Works alleges Exxon used its control of Denbury’s 620-mile carbon dioxide pipeline network to block a planned $7.5 billion clean-fuels project in Louisiana, […]
Following Andy’s Footsteps: Luke Petittte Begins Yankees Career In Tampa
Luke Pettitte, the son of former Yankees left-handed pitcher and five-time World Series champion Andy Pettitte, will begin his Yankees career in Low-A Tampa, according to MLB Pipeline and the Yankees transaction logs.The Yankees drafted the younger Pettitte in the eighth round (248th overall) out of Dallas Baptist University, a Division I program in Dallas, […] The post Following Andy’s Footsteps: Luke Petittte Begins Yankees Career In Tampa appeared first on HEAVY.
Savannah Downtown Business Association Host University to Business Pipeline with GSU and SSU
August 12, 2026 - The Savannah Downtown Business Association held their August Luncheon on Wednesday, August 12th, where they heard from special guests from GSU and SSU President, Dr. Jermaine Whirl. Check out the photos here!
Get to Know Your Orange Man: #93, DL Alex Haskell
Philly pipeline produces another prospect
The NSF’s Ph.D.-to-Industry Pipeline Push
The majority of STEM Ph.D.s take jobs outside academia. While some universities help them prepare, the National Science Foundation is now investing millions to boost those efforts.
Saber's newest game trailer takes a shot at Gearbox's CEO, if you look closely
The first hint that something might be up with the recent debut trailer for Saber Interactive’s Rideshare Stimulator is an unusual choice of words—aside from that second one in the game’s title. “Don’t take your passengers too seriously,” the trailer’s narrator says, as he describes this upcoming game. It a car game about the gig work of driving eccentric people to their destinations, a riff on Crazy Taxi. And then, he says: “When I think I’ve met the randiest of passengers, someone even stranger gets in.” “Randiest”? That suggests “randy,” which usually means having strong sexual desire. Yet none of the oddball backseat occupants featured in the trailer seem particularly lustful. One is an old man who considers his grandson a failure, another shares the theory that birds might control traffic lights, another says he’s banned from an aquarium. A little later, there’s a license plate, shown 63 seconds into the trailer, on the front of an SUV: USB DRV It’s a Texas plate. The symbol between those letters is a cog wheel. If you know, you know. That’s a reference to Texas-based Borderlands game development studio Gearbox Software (their logo features a cog wheel). More specifically, it’s a reference to Gearbox’s CEO Randy Pitchford, who in 2018 found himself explaining the nature of video he’d saved on a USB drive that was found at a Medieval Times restaurant before being returned to the studio: “It was ‘barely legal’ porn. This girl’s handle was ‘Only 18.’” The “girl” in the video had committed a solo sex act that Pitchford, an avid practitioner of magic, found remarkable. “I realized, this is not a sex worker…This is a fucking magician.” Back then, the USB drive was central to competing lawsuits against Gearbox by the studio’s former lawyer and by Gearbox against him. A settlement in late 2019 “exonerated” Pitchford, per the Hollywood Reporter. The USB story has resurfaced at times, now in a trailer from a company that not long ago was corporate brethren with Gearbox. Saber vs. Gearbox The head of Saber told Game File that the reference is payback. “The dig is because Randy took shots at Embracer in Borderlands 4,” Saber CEO Matt Karch told me when I asked him about the license plate. “Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties for a living.” Having interviewed Karch during a cross-country flight in late 2024, I can confirm that Karch was unimpressed with Pitchford during their time both working in the Embracer group. I’d approached him not out of surprise that there was animosity but that it was manifesting publicly now. Gearbox was founded in 1999, worked on a port of Halo early on, and developed hit series such as the loot-based sci-fi shooter Borderlands before it was purchased by The Embracer Group in early 2021 for $363 million (with a possible earn-out of over $1 billion, if certain targets were hit by 2027). Saber was founded in 2001, worked on a remaster of Halo early on, had a big hit with zombie shooter World War Z and was purchased by Embracer in early 2020 for $150 million, with a potential earn-out of up to $375 million. For a few years, the Embracer group was a voracious acquirer of game studios. Then, as investment dried up, it choked. In March 2024, Embracer sold Saber to an investment company controlled by Saber CEO Matt Karch, and it sold Gearbox in an all-stock deal to long-time Borderlands publisher Take Two Interactive. Other studios were shut down. Hundreds of developers were laid off. Gearbox didn’t say much about their Embracer experience, nothing too direct, at least. In the summer 2024, Pitchford told reporter and occasional Game File contributor Nicole Carpenter that Borderlands 4’s story was in some way thematically connected to Gearbox’s experience at Embracer: “There’s this cultural and emotional shift in me, personally, and at the studio. What does it mean to trade some autonomy for organization?” When Borderlands 4 came out, there was something stranger: the matter of “Embracer’s Bluff,” a location in the game featuring an AI-powered toilet and a large trash dump, according to a detailed Kotaku account of the place. Gearbox never commented on it; Take Two never got back to me about it when I asked them last year. By contrast, since Saber exited Embracer, Karch has been one of Embracer’s biggest defenders, casting their management as well-meaning and supportive despite the layoffs and studio closures that resulted from their excessive expansion. Like others, Saber’s Karch saw Embracer’s as a shot. With Rideshare Stimulator’s trailer, he’s returned fire. “It’s amazing to me how fast people forget those who went above and beyond for them,” Karch told Game File. A rep for Gearbox did not comment by press time. Game File is a reader-supported publication. Your backing makes my reporting—including any coverage of trailer-based beefs—possible. Good news! I’m currently running Game File’s first big sale of 2026. You can get a one-year subscription for 23% off. Click here to take advantage of the limited-time offer. And thank you for your support! Item 2: In brief… 🚫 Wal-Mart has laid off the staff of Restart, a games media outlet launched in 2024, Aftermath reports. 🟥 A GTA VI preview is on the way, at last, via an “extended look” that will premiere, unusually, on Netflix at 3pm ET on August 27, then officially go live elsewhere six hours later. Last week, Game File noted that Take Two label Rockstar Games is overdue for showing off GTA VI, based on the timing of the initial hands-off previews of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. During a call with investors, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said pre-orders for GTA VI were “unprecedented and astonishing,” but added the company can’t predict how many of those pre-orders represent bonus sales vs. sales that otherwise would have been made at launch. During the same call, Zelnick was noticeably bullish on the future of playing games over streaming cloud connections (predicting wider adoption in three or so years). He sounded unbothered by Sony’s plans to stop making discs for new games (he said the business is 90% digital already and predicted that there could still be limited edition physical editions of games “in the same way there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business.”) 👀 Take Two wrote off $43 million in their spring quarter after deciding “not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title in its pipeline from a third-party developer.” 🤔 Some rare age-demographics from a big publisher: Capcom recently told investors that “users in their 20s account for approximately half of the users of both Pragamata and Resident Evil Requiem.” Item 3: The week ahead Tuesday, August 11 Game releases: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Switch 2; already out for PC, PS5, Xbox) continues the Bethesda strategy of putting Elder Scrolls games on everything; Royalty Free-For-All is a Smash Bros.-style fighting game featuring public domain characters such as Mother Goose brawling with Oliver Twist in a stage based on the original Little Shop of Horrors movie. Wednesday, August 12 Game release: Pro Jank Footy (PC, console) is an arcade-style Australian Rules Football game with increasingly ridiculous rules, the more you play (I enjoyed the Steam demo) Thursday, August 13 Game release: Super Mario Sunshine (Switch 2, originally released in 2002 on the GameCube) is released for Switch 2’s Nintendo Switch Online service. This game is the black sheep of 3D Mario games. It’s the successor to the breakthrough Super Mario 64 and the rare Mario game built around a single (vacation resort) theme. Mario’s got a water-spraying backpack, a Yoshi pal and a lot of blue coins to collect.
Watch NYSE President on Asia Business, IPO Pipeline
Lynn Martin, President at the NYSE Group, discuses the exchange's business strategy and priorities in Asia, as well as the IPO pipeline in the US. She speaks with Paul Allen on Insight with Haslinda Amin.
Who's Next? TCU's Best Bet to Restart Its NBA Pipeline
After a rare draft drought, Xavier Edmonds and Gavin Sykes headline a new wave of Horned Frogs aiming to impress scouts and restore TCU’s professional pipeline.
Sanofi suspends chronic lung disease phase 2 study, tied to ‘strategic business reasons’
Sanofi halted a phase 2 trial testing a monoclonal antibody, SAR445399, in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, Fierce Biotech has learned. The trial, which began only back in April, was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to measure the reduction in mucus plug score following treatment with SAR445399 compared with placebo in adults aged 18 to 80 years with NCFB, a chronic lung disease. The trial was officially reported as halted on July 29, the day before Sanofi’s second-quarter earnings call. The decision to pause the trial was made “as part of a company-wide portfolio review for strategic business reasons,” and not due to safety concerns, a Sanofi spokesperson told Fierce. The move to pause the NCFB trial comes during a trying time for Sanofi following a year filled with a series of trial fails. In February, the French pharma ousted CEO Paul Hudson and appointed Merck KGaA leader Belén Garijo, M.D., Ph.D., to steer the ship. Since then, Garijo has been doing a deep dive on correcting the company’s strewn R&D and clinical strategies. On July 24, Sanofi scrapped amlitelimab for atopic dermatitis, despite its lore as being a potential $5 billion blockbuster. During its second-quarter report, the company abandoned two more assets, balinatunfib and itepekimab, following failed trial results in psoriasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respectively. SAR445399, only first revealed by Sanofi in 2023, is an anti-interleukin-1 receptor 3 monoclonal antibody developed to block the interleukin 1, 33, and 36 cytokine pathways. These pathways can be important in chronic immune-related dermatologic diseases, such as atopic dermatitis and hidradenitis suppurativa, as well as respiratory conditions, such as NCFB. Related Sanofi’s new CEO ‘looking deeply’ at late-stage pipeline as clinical clearout continues NCFB affects roughly half a million people in the U.S., with a global incidence of greater than one million cases. In August 2025, Insmed received FDA approval for Brinsupri, a DPP1 inhibitor targeting neutrophil activation, for treatment of NCFB in adults and kids ages 12 and older. The British biotech Infex Therapeutics showed promising NCFB phase 2a data using their monoclonal antibody, INFEX702, which acts by disabling Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria known to be a major pathogen of NCFB. Sanofi is currently running a separate phase 2 study testing SAR445399 as a potential treatment for the inflammatory skin condition hidradenitis suppurativa.
Malaysia Says Investment Pipeline Holds Despite Political Angst
Malaysia continues to attract strong foreign investor interest despite growing political uncertainty following a string of local election setbacks for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition.
Colorado’s youth mental health corps improves student attendance and behavior
"Near-peer" mental health navigators work in Colorado schools as part of a program designed to improve the professional pipeline, too
Wall Street’s hidden recruiting pipeline isn’t an Ivy League diploma—it’s the teammate who triples your odds of getting hired
A new study of more than 120,000 Ivy League graduates finds locker room ties, not diplomas, do the real gatekeeping into finance's top firms
Canada's Enbridge postpones plans for second phase of Mainline oil pipeline expansion
Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge said on Friday it was postponing the 250,000-barrel-per-day second phase of its Mainline crude pipeline network, partly due to Canadian oil producers not committing to significant output increases.
Retaining Neurodivergent Talent Will Strengthen the STEM Pipeline
Learn how neuroinclusive management, training, and improving workplace culture can help retain neurodivergent talent and strengthen the STEM pipeline.
St. Louis Development Corp. hires Gerard Hollins Jr. to oversee city's real estate pipeline
Gerard Hollins Jr. joins St. Louis Development Corp. as executive vice president of development, overseeing the city's real estate projects and business investments.
Game AI Expert on Where AI Actually Belongs in Game Development
Luke Dicken has been researching AI technology for gaming for decades, and he joined us to share his perspective on the history of AI in games, modern generative AI, game development, production pipelines, player personalization, and why the industry's biggest opportunity doesn't lie in replacing human talent.
Thieves caught on camera stealing backflow preventers from Kingwood businesses, cost thousands in repairs
Thieves are accused of repeatedly targeting Kingwood businesses, stealing backflow preventers and leaving property owners with flooded parking lots, broken pipes and repair bills in the thousands.
Ph.D. admissions have dropped 15% for the new school year
That could weaken the doctoral pipeline — and spell trouble for the future of science and innovation in the U.S.
Supreme Court tees up new test of FERC’s political independence
A recent ruling could spell trouble for the agency that oversees gas pipelines and the nation’s grid.
Why 3 secretive biotechs are keeping their science close to the chest
Startups like Altos Labs are keeping pipeline details scarce to protect their ideas from competitors — but some experts say stealth only works for biotechs with deep pockets.
Made Here in Clarksville: Trane helps keep businesses comfortable around world
From its Clarksville facility, Trane produces commercial HVAC systems used by businesses and institutions in a wide range of industries.
Kuwait Oil Company Signs US$ 16.0 Billion Infrastructure Partnership Involving Its Crude Oil Pipeline Network With a Consortium Comprising Blackstone, Brookfield and KKR
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation ("KPC"), the state-owned corporation overseeing Kuwait's oil and gas sector, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, K...
Haverhill Schools, Merrimack College Receive Grants to Support Life Science Careers
Haverhill schools scored more than $100,000 in grants from Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, while Merrimack College took away $375,000 as part of a program to strengthen the state’s life sciences talent pipeline and prepare students for careers in the life sciences. Haverhill Public Schools was awarded $81,823 in the category of Elementary and Secondary Education
Israeli startup is using AI to shorten cloud architecture timeline
With most IT projects failing, AutoPipe believes AI can turn weeks of cloud planning into hours
A Photo of a Croissant Got 1.6 Million Views and Filled Their Restaurant for Four Months. Here's the Simple Strategy Behind It.
One photo of a croissant changed everything. Here's how a London restaurant turned a scrappy content habit into a customer pipeline.
Anthropic's life sciences plans: Mystery programs, Nobel hires, M&A and big ambition
Anthropic pushes into life sciences with a $400M Coefficient Bio deal, Nobel hire John Jumper, Claude Science launch and its own drug pipeline.
Water main break cleanup continues as West Hollywood businesses count losses
Officials have replaced the ruptured pipe but still need to test it to ensure it is functioning properly.
West Hollywood Flooding Forces Road Closures Around Sunset Strip
A 110-year-old pipe rupture sent thousands of gallons of water into the street Thursday, shut down major roads, and forced Dialog Cafe and other local businesses to close.
How a Baton Rouge skincare company spread across the U.S. in one year
Erin Piper founded Saint Crewe after her 9-year-old daughter asked to buy some skincare products that contained harmful ingredients.
'Crisis' in youth sports comes into focus after early US World Cup exit
Another early World Cup exit underscores a fractured youth sports culture in the United States, as the nation hopes to catch up with footballing powerhouses that have no clogs in their talent pipeline.
‘Water rushing through the bricks’: Pipe burst floods Cleveland business, impacts service
Council President Blaine Griffin said he’s going to see what he can do to address Cleveland’s aging infrastructure after a water main break left people without water and flooded a local business.
AB Science cuts three trials in pipeline reset
French biotech AB Science is discontinuing three masitinib trials as it concentrates its clinical resources on an ALS phase 3 programme and the early-stage development of AB8939 in acute myeloid leukaemia.
Reds Draft Seminoles P Brodie Purcell in the 12th Round
Cincinnati continues its Florida State pipeline, snagging the hard-throwing reliever after a dominant season featuring 58 strikeouts and a stingy .207 opponent batting average for the Seminoles.
Microsoft goes all in on new AI-powered Windows security strategy - what it means for you
An elite security team at Microsoft has built an AI-powered pipeline to find vulnerabilities in Windows and get them to engineers to build fixes.
Princeton collaborators celebrate start of observatory's ‘ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our Universe’
Princeton researchers have played a major role in developing software pipelines to process the massive amounts of data the Legacy Survey of Space and Time generates as it scans the cosmos.
NAVER D2SF Invests in 23i, a Virtual Entertainment Startup
NAVER D2SF, the corporate venture capital arm of NAVER, has made a new investment in 23i (CEO, Hyungmin Kim), a virtual entertainment startup. As the global virtual entertainment market continues to grow rapidly, particularly in Korea and Japan, NAVER D2SF decided to invest in the team based on its ability to create expanded entertainment IP through strong content production capabilities and an in-house technology pipeline designed to maximize the strengths of virtual artists.
Alibaba entertainment arm Damai launches artist development label ORCA and a worldwide audition to build
The audition, run by ORCA in partnership with All My Anecdotes, will act as a talent pipeline for the label’s future projects, and runs from July 3 to August 3.
NC’s top business recruiter on rivals, foreign tourism dip and project pipeline
From Trump to Biden to Trump: how Christopher Chung chases jobs as federal policy shifts.
America’s entrepreneurial boom begins long before venture capital
Latino-owned businesses added 180,000 net new firms between 2017 and 2023 while white-owned firms declined — and the talent pipeline behind that growth runs through Minority-Serving Institutions now facing funding uncertainty.
Anthropic Launches Claude Science Beta: A Multi-Agent AI Workbench for Reproducible Genomics, Proteomics, and Cheminformatics Pipelines
Anthropic released Claude Science, a beta multi-agent AI workbench that runs end-to-end research pipelines and checks every citation.
MacBook Pro overhaul: entry-level model to gain new design sooner than expected
Earlier this week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman revealed that Apple has a new M7-powered entry level MacBook Pro in the pipeline...
Draw down of Pineview Reservoir creates recreation, business concerns
Pineview Reservoir will be significantly drawn down towards the end of this summer as Ogden city prepares to replace part of an aging water pipeline, despite concerns from small businesses.
Anthropic’s Claude Science bets on workflow, not a new model, to win over scientists
Anthropic's Claude Science is a workbench that gives scientists one environment to do computational research, saving them from the need to bounce between databases, pipelines, and tools.
The Supreme Court handed Trump an election case defeat. Is a bigger win for him coming?
The Supreme Court’s ruling letting more than a dozen states keep their post-election grace periods for mail ballots is a defeat for President Donald Trump and Republicans ahead of the midterms, but the GOP can still capture significant victories in major election-related cases coming farther down the pipeline.
Talawar Therapeutics and JATT II Acquisition Corp. Announce Definitive Business Combination Agreement to Create Publicly Listed Biotechnology Company Developing Potentially Best-in-Class Bispecifics for I&I Diseases
Oversubscribed $225 million concurrent private investment in public equity ("PIPE") with available cash to the combined company at closing anticipated to fund...
3 Michigan Hockey players selected during 2026 NHL Draft
Michigan Hockey maintained its pipeline to the pros with 3 Wolverines hearing their names called during the 2026 NHL Draft, including a first-rounder by the Detroit Red Wings:
Efzimfotase alfa demonstrated improvements in bone health in treatment-naïve pediatric patients with hypophosphatasia achieving median difference of 1.67 vs placebo in RGI-C Score at week 25 in MULBERRY Phase III trial
Positive results from the MULBERRY Phase III trial showed that efzimfotase alfa (ALXN1850), an investigational enzyme replacement therapy, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in bone health in children (2 to
Entertainment Firms Face AI Copyright Uncertainty
Editorial analysis: For AI and ML practitioners, unclear copyright rules raise the legal risk and compliance cost of using generative models in production content pipelines. According to The Economic Times, Indian entertainment firms are investing heavily in AI for content creation, but current copyright law, which is tied to human creativity, may not clearly protect AI-assisted or AI-generated works. The Economic Times reports lawyers warn that, without specific legislation or case law, such works face risks of duplication and misuse, complicating licensing, attribution, and monetization for studios and creators. The article highlights that creators and rights holders in India currently have limited legal recourse under existing statutes, per The Economic Times.
Adidas’ NIL pipeline is producing NBA rookies who already know the business
Mikel Brown Jr. reached the NBA with a head start few rookies have. Long before being selected sixth overall by the Brooklyn Nets at Tuesday’s NBA Draft, the 20-year-old guard had been embedded in Adidas’ ecosystem through a name, image and likeness deal that began in high school. “By the time our athletes walk across […]
FDA's breakthrough pipeline fills up with generative AI devices
In this edition of STAT Health Tech: FDA drops enforcement against Whoop, more AI devices get FDA 'breakthrough' label, and more.
Octoberfest adds country stage for 2026; see the full lineup
Organizers of the annual party in downtown Appleton announced the entertainment lineup for the 2026 event.
South Carolina small business summit connects owners with government resources
Local leaders gathered to enhance the small business pipeline and connect business owners with resources they might not know exist.
Breaking Business News: AbbVie To Acquire Apogee Therapeutics
AbbVie is set to acquire Apogee Therapeutics and its pipeline of multiple clinical-stage candidates in development across inflammatory and immunological diseases, including its lead asset, zumilokibart (APG777), a subcutaneous half-life extended monoclonal antibody targeting interleukin (IL)-13 in atopic dermatitis (AD). Under the terms of the transaction, AbbVie will acquire all outstanding shares of Apogee for $135.11 per share in cash. […]
Science Saru's New 'Ghost In The Shell' Takes Shape In Annecy
At Annecy, the studio detailed its manga-inspired approach, handcrafted production pipeline, and rejection of GenAI tools.
Solar storms don't shock people directly — they induce electric currents in long metal, meaning power lines, pipelines and undersea internet cables become the very antennas that channel the damage into modern life
Solar storms do not electrocute people. They induce slow electric currents in long conductors — power lines, pipelines and undersea internet cables — which then channel the damage into substations and shore stations. The 1989 Quebec blackout took down a continent's grid in 90 seconds without a single direct strike from the Sun.
Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Philadelphia in 1976 was mysterious and deadly – 50 years later, scientists know the cause but outbreaks continue
The source was a newly discovered bacterium called Legionella pneumophila that can thrive in household pipes, whirlpools, cooling units and outdoor fountains.
REV Ocean Begins First Operational Research Season With Ten-Mission Science Program
The missions cover seamount ecosystems off Brazil, in the Sargasso Sea, and across the Eastern Tropical Pacific—alongside Sargassum dynamics, mesophotic and deep-sea biodiversity, transboundary MPA networks, and the science-to-policy pipeline.
What business leaders are getting wrong about AI's impact on entry-level jobs
Companies that fail to reshape early-career roles for the AI economy risk cutting off their future talent pipeline.
GTA 6 May Shatter All Sales Records with 45+ Million Units Sold on Launch Day, According to Piper Sandler
Piper Sandler says GTA 6 could sell more than 45 million copies at launch, setting an incredible new record for the franchise and industry.
Is SMIC N+3’s Metal Pitch Smaller than Intel 18A’s?
Almost four years ago, we published that SMIC had started shipping 7 nm (N+1) chips. Now, SMIC is shipping its third-generation 7 nm (N+3) process in Huawei’s Kirin 9030, with a minimum metal pitch of 32.5 nm, about 10% tighter than the 36 nm minimum metal pitch shipping in Intel’s latest Panther Lake CPUs on 18A. The headline is true, but incomplete cherry picked metric. N+3 reaches the density of TSMC N6 through aggressive DUV multi-patterning and design-technology co-optimization (DTCO), but it pays for that in complexity, efficiency and process control. We found this and more in our reverse engineering and teardown where we cover SMIC’s N3 process technology, Huawei’s packaging, memory, architecture, and more. SemiAnalysis has been building a state-of-the-art teardown lab in Oregon capable of analyzing the world’s most advanced and important chips over the last year and half. We have already generated revenue on advanced datacenter chip teardowns including our recent reverse engineering of a major TSMC customer’s COUPE CPO optical engine + EIC 3D stack. This is the first public report from the SemiAnalysis Teardown Engineering & Evaluation Lab, or STEEL for short. The lab is aggressively scaling up and out and we’re excited to announce it publicly. This is a bit of inconvenient timing for TechInsights as they are private equity owned and currently being sold while having enjoyed virtually no credible competition for decades. This has led to TechInsights underinvesting in CAPEX. SemiAnalysis exceeds TechInsights in revenue despite no venture or private equity ownership and being founded only 6 years ago. Because we have no external investors and are founder led, we move faster, build faster, and we can release client chip teardowns for free regularly, while focusing on datacenter for our major clients. Here’s the first public image from our lab, the HiSilicon Kirin 9030 Pro SoC: This report will detail our teardown of the Kirin 9030 and our findings on SMIC’s N+3 process, the most advanced in China. For comparison, we’ll show our teardown of the MediaTek Helio G99, made on TSMC N6. Through this comparison, we can look at the effect of export controls – SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 are comparable nodes, but one is heavily export-controlled, the other free to use the West’s most advanced equipment. Here we see both China’s progress and constraints. SMIC N+3 reaches TSMC N6-class logic density, but it requires far more aggressive DUV multi-patterning, so it does not match N6 on process maturity or cost. The Kirin 9030 Pro performs similarly to three-year-old Android flagships, and trails far behind the current flagship SoCs from Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Samsung. The efficiency gap is even wider. Export controls have not stopped Huawei and SMIC from shipping advanced silicon, but they have forced a different path. Without EUV, SMIC is leaning harder on DUV multi-patterning, DTCO, and increasingly complex integration. The roadmap continues forward through tighter design rules and backside power, but each step adds cost and process risk. Huawei’s τ scaling and LogicFolding show another path: stacking active logic and recovering density through advanced packaging and system-technology co-optimization (STCO). To understand the Kirin 9030, we must first understand Huawei’s SoC history. HiSilicon is Huawei’s chip design arm, responsible for the Kirin smartphone SoCs, Kunpeng server CPUs, Ascend AI accelerators, and switch/router networking silicon. Before export controls, Huawei was TSMC’s largest customer – the only customer on TSMC’s first EUV node, N7+, and among the first on N5, alongside Apple. That ended in late 2020. Huawei switched to Qualcomm SoCs in its flagship smartphones, though export controls limited them to 4G-only variants. In late 2023, Huawei returned to in-house silicon with the Kirin 9000s, a successor to the Kirin 9000, fabricated on SMIC N+2 instead of TSMC N5. In the following years, they released the Kirin 9010 and 9020 on the same N+2 process. These chips used Huawei’s in-house TaiShan CPU cores and Maleoon GPU. We have not torn down a Kirin 9020 ourselves, so the predecessor die shot is from Kurnal. The die shots show how Huawei spent its silicon budget: which functional blocks are where, and how their areas compare to the predecessor. First, a quick guide to the major blocks on the die. The total die area is nearly identical, but the 9030 uses that area more aggressively. A denser process lets Huawei fit an extra middle CPU core, more GPU and NPU cores, and larger caches into the same footprint. In contrast, the Helio G99 is a much smaller, low-cost SoC, built for budget smartphones rather than a flagship device. While the Kirin 9030 is ~140 mm², the G99 is only ~29 mm², roughly one-fifth the area. The underlying TSMC process technology, however, is directly comparable as a baseline for analyzing SMIC’s. The Kirin 9030 is an evolutionary refresh, not a clean-sheet design. Its CPU, GPU and NPU cores carry over the 9020’s families, and the gains come from three levers: the SMIC N+2-to-N+3 process step, DTCO and floorplan work, and incremental microarchitecture. Area is where the first two show up, and the 9030 scales well here. Performance and efficiency are the harder test. Huawei’s design holds up better than its node would suggest, but the chip still trails, both because N+3 sits behind the leading-edge nodes and because its cores, while competent, remain a few generations behind the newest designs. The new prime core is an incremental update. The main changes are a 10% frequency increase from 2.5 GHz to 2.75 GHz and a doubling in the L2 cache from 1 MiB to 2 MiB. Despite the increased cache, the core size decreased by 7.6%. Excluding the private L2 cache, the core size decreased by 21%. This is a large reduction for an incremental node. Compared with the TaiShan New V120 core in the Kirin 9020, the Kirin 9030’s middle core is almost unchanged architecturally, yet each core shrinks by ~22%. Most of that comes from the move from N+2 to N+3, with layout likely accounting for the rest. Visually, the most noticeable change is the increase from 3 middle cores to 4. There is also a 20% increase in the shared L3 cache of the big cluster. This helps to improve multi-core performance without sacrificing much in terms of area. Even with each core shrinking, the big CPU cluster’s total area is essentially unchanged. The per-core savings went back into an additional middle core and larger caches. The tiny cores shrank less than the prime core (excluding its L2 cache) and less than the middle cores. This is likely because fixed overhead is a larger share on a small core. We cannot resolve any architectural changes from the die shot alone, but the per-clock and efficiency gains shown below point to more than pure process and layout scaling. The area reduction was offset by a doubling of the shared L2 cache from 2 MiB to 4 MiB, leaving the total tiny CPU cluster area slightly larger. Area is the easiest improvement to see from a die shot, but it is only one part of PPA (power, performance, area). For modern logic, power and performance matter just as much, and often more. Since Dennard scaling broke down in the mid-2000s, voltage and frequency have not scaled in step with transistor dimensions, so each node has had to fight harder for gains in performance and efficiency. The starkest comparison is not Kirin 9020 versus Kirin 9030 Pro. Apple’s efficiency cores run circles around Huawei’s prime core. Apple’s low-power core delivers 20% higher integer performance while drawing only 1 W, compared with 4.5 W for Huawei’s prime core. N+3 matches TSMC N6, but N6 is several generations old. Apple and Qualcomm build on N4 and N3P, which are denser and sit on a better voltage-frequency curve, giving them a larger transistor budget and more performance per watt. The 9030’s own cores did improve. The middle and tiny cores gained 17% and 14% in per-clock integer performance over the 9020, with floating-point flat on the middle core and up 11% on the tiny. The tiny core improves cleanly, with performance rising while power falls and efficiency increases by 45% in integer and 24% in floating point. The middle core is mixed: integer performance rises but power rises faster, cutting integer efficiency by 7%, while lower power lifts floating-point efficiency 16%. Per-clock gains at the same or lower frequency are microarchitectural, so the cores are tuned, not just shrunk. Both also failed to hold their rated maximum frequencies, pointing to thermal, power, or stability limits. Per clock, the middle core sits around Arm Cortex-A720 and the tiny core near the Cortex-A520; absolute performance trails because Huawei clocks them much lower. The prime core is roughly Cortex-X2 class per clock, a 2021 design. Apple’s 2020 M1 Firestorm core is still 35% higher per clock and 57% faster in absolute integer performance at a similar 4.5 W. The current leading edge is further ahead again: the Apple M5 P-core is 60% higher per clock and 2.7× faster, the Arm C1 Ultra 45% higher and 2× faster. Matching older high-end cores per clock is a genuine design achievement. What Huawei cannot match is the voltage-frequency curve and transistor budget of leading-edge nodes, which let Apple, Qualcomm and others spend more transistors in the same area on wider cores, larger caches and deeper buffers while running at lower voltage. Huawei’s LogicFolding roadmap is one answer, stacking active logic to recover density and shorten signal paths. We return to it later. The GPU compute units (CUs) changed more visibly than the CPU cores, moving to a more rectangular layout for both the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) clusters and the CU overall. Even with ray-tracing support added, a CU shrank ~28%. However, that shrink is offset by the increase from 4 to 6 CUs and the area outside the CUs grew 33%. Overall, the GPU cluster is larger by ~10%. The GPU is where Huawei makes its biggest gains. The Maleoon 935 is not competitive with current flagships, but it is a large step up from the 920 and reaches older-flagship territory. In 3DMark it is 70% faster in Wild Life Extreme (WLE) and 79% faster in Steel Nomad Light (SNL) than the 920; with 11% higher clocks and 50% more CUs, the ~67% theoretical uplift roughly matches WLE and is beaten by SNL. It edges ahead of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in WLE and SNL, and the Dimensity 9200 and Apple A16 in WLE, but stays far behind newer parts: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500 are ~2.4–2.6× faster in WLE and ~3.2× faster in SNL. The Maleoon 935 is Huawei’s first GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing; there it lands slightly ahead of the Exynos 2200, and on par with the Apple A16, with current flagships up to 3.7× faster. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) saw the largest structural changes of any block, moving from a Lite and a Tiny core in the Kirin 9020 to a Lite and two Tiny cores in the Kirin 9030. Both core types also show significant layout changes. This is a reversal in Huawei’s NPU design. The Kirin 9000 5G, its last flagship chip on TSMC N5, used two Lite and one Tiny core. The series of SoCs on SMIC N+2 moved to one Lite and one Tiny core, likely for area savings. With the Kirin 9030, Huawei has shifted back toward a larger multi-core NPU cluster, but with the additional area going to a Tiny core rather than a Lite core. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. Before diving into the process stack, the package and memory are worth separating from the SoC itself. The Pro variant of the Kirin 9030 carries 12 GB of Samsung DRAM, with two stacks of four dies each. The dies were identified as the K4L2E165YD, a 12 Gb LPDDR5X-9600 device fabricated on Samsung’s 1a node, the fourth generation of its 10 nm-class DRAM after 1x, 1y and 1z. 1a has shipped in volume since 2022, so this is current memory rather than older-node inventory. The 16 GB Pro Max variants we obtained were found with both CXMT and Samsung packages. The CXMT package is marked CXDD7JEDM, with two stacks of four dies, packaged in week 45 of 2025. The inferred die dimensions from X-ray computed tomography (CT) are consistent with a known density of ~0.3 Gib/mm² for the CXMT G4 process, roughly equivalent to other manufacturers’ 1z processes. The Kirin 9030 uses a typical integrated package-on-package (iPoP) stack: multiple DRAM dies in a memory package sit above an organic redistribution layer (RDL) interposer, which sits above the SoC and package substrate. The full package is then mounted to the printed circuit board (PCB) through ball-grid array (BGA) solder bumps. The memory package substrate is a thin bismaleimide-triazine (BT) laminate carrying the LPDDR5X stack. The organic RDL interposer over the SoC routes the PoP signals around the die and carries possible dummy thermal copper pillars. The package substrate, a thicker Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF) build-up over a BT core, fans the flip-chip bumps out to BGA pitch and embeds the power planes. The whole stack is organic. The only silicon is the SoC and the LPDDR5X dies; there is no silicon interposer. Keeping it all-organic brings the package’s coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) close to the PCB’s, reducing board-level warpage, and avoids the cost of a silicon interposer the SoC’s bandwidth does not need. In an iPoP stack, the memory package connects to the organic RDL interposer through an array of solder bumps. Underfill fills the gap around those bumps, adding stiffness and protecting the joints from mechanical stress. The Pro and Pro Max variants differ here, which we cover behind the paywall. The die shot and architecture tell us how Huawei allocated its silicon budget. The process tells us what SMIC can manufacture. We use the Helio G99 as the process reference for TSMC N6. Both SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 are evolutions of previous 7 nm-class nodes. We used targeted TEM cross-sections through logic and memory regions, imaged in both fin-cut and gate-cut directions. Each cross-section caption gives its horizontal field width (HFW), the real width of the imaged area. We start at the transistor fins, then move up through standard cells, local interconnect, and SRAM. SMIC has not overtaken Intel or TSMC. It uses aggressive DUV scaling and DTCO to reach N6-class density, but that density doesn’t translate into comparable performance and efficiency, for two reasons: the node gap to leading-edge nodes, and Huawei’s core designs. Fin Profile One of the most important knobs in a FinFET process is the fin profile: the shape of an individual fin and the channel where current passes from source to drain. The ideal fin is tall, narrow, and nearly vertical. A taller fin increases effective channel width, while a narrower fin improves electrostatic control by thinning the body the gate must control. Push either too far, and the process pays for it: weaker drive current, fragile fins, taper, footing and line-edge variation that hit yield and device variability. The Intel 22 nm, 14 nm, and 10 nm fin cross-sections show how FinFET nodes have improved over time. 22 nm fins were a first-generation structure, relatively short, wide and strongly tapered. The shape limits current density and reduces gate control uniformity across the height of the fin. At 14 nm and 10 nm, Intel pushed the fins taller and narrower while also making the sidewalls more vertical. Rather than shrinking the device, these changes increase the effective channel width per fin and improve electrostatic control. The trade-off is that taller fins at tighter pitches are much more difficult to manufacture. Now, let’s compare the Helio G99 on TSMC N6 with the Kirin 9030 on SMIC N+3. Both processes are in the same class, with fin pitch of 30-32 nm on N+3 and 34 nm in our N6 cross-section. The pitch for N6 is especially interesting as N7’s HD library is generally listed with a 33 nm fin pitch, and N6 did not shrink pitches directly. Its density gains came from DTCO instead of tighter pitches. The 34 nm pitch was stable across our sampled region and serves more as a comparison against the SMIC N+3 we have not investigated further. Pinning down N+3’s fin patterning scheme takes more than one core unit. The CPU cores show a dense ~32 nm pitch, with the pitch between N-P fin pairs alternating between 78 and 88 nm. Logic alone may be consistent with dual-pitch mandrels of 120 and 110 nm, but this is a complex and unusual approach. Combining the pitch from the the 8T SRAM, which has more complex repeat unit, with the CPU core sequence allows us to reverse engineer the patterning steps with more confidence. As both the logic and SRAM should share the same base grid, a single CD mandrel lithography pattern with 128 nm pitch undergoing SAQP produces a die-wide ~32 nm grid (128 nm/4), which supports the pitch sequencing seen in both logic and SRAM cells. In the sampled cross-sections, N+3 shows a taller, narrower, higher-aspect-ratio fin than N6. The measured fin aspect ratio is ~9.5:1 on N+3 versus 7.8:1 on N6. N+3 also shows less top rounding, with an estimated radius of ~2 nm, compared with 2.8 nm on N6. Even though the fin widths differ, the ratio of top rounding to fin width tells the same story, with N+3 at 0.37 and N6 at 0.44. In a geometric sense, lower is better; a perfectly rectangular fin would have no top-rounding penalty. These are single-digit-nanometer features measured from a handful of cuts, so treat the absolute numbers as approximate. The important result is the relative gap: N+3’s fins are consistently taller, narrower and less rounded than N6’s. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. Standard Cell A standard cell is the basic building block of chip layout: a fixed-height row pairing one NMOS and one PMOS transistor that share a gate, tiled in a grid to build logic blocks. The key dimensions are contacted gate pitch (CGP), cell height (CH), fin count, and the lower-metal routing grid. To measure density, we use the Bohr metric: a weighted average of NAND2 gate area (60%) and scan flip-flop area (40%). This represents a realistic mix of combinational and sequential logic. This metric has its limitations, especially for complex cell layouts like TSMC’s FinFLEX, which alternates cells with different fin counts. Even so, it is the best metric for a pure process-level comparison. Another important measurement is the fin pitch; it refers to the distance between two fins of the same transistor. In a FinFET process, multiple fins are used in each transistor to increase the drive current and thus performance. TSMC N6 ships both a high-density (HD) library with 2 PMOS and 2 NMOS fins per cell, and a high-performance (HP) library with 3 of each. More fins under the shared gate mean more effective channel width. HP cells switch harder at the cost of area. Designers mix the two on a die, primarily spending HP cells on timing-critical paths, and matching their PPA targets. In the Cortex-A55 core of the Helio G99, we found a cell height of 240 nm for the HD cell. MediaTek has used HD cells in the G99 to minimize die size and thus cost. As an SoC for budget smartphones at ~$100, this is essential. By contrast, we found only one library in the Kirin 9030, with 2 NMOS and 2 PMOS fins. This suggests a narrower library strategy than TSMC N6, where both HD and HP libraries are widely used. This likely reflects the smaller customer base and the more constrained domestic design and electronic design automation (EDA) ecosystem. In all three CPU cores of the Kirin 9030, we found cell heights of 228 nm, 5% smaller than on N6. This is also a reduction of 9.5% over SMIC N+2’s cell height of 252 nm. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6’s HD library both feature a CGP of 57 nm. For SMIC, this is a 9.5% shrink over N+2. In the past, CGP and cell height alone may have been enough to compare transistor density. Now, however, we must consider scaling boosters and DTCO as well. SMIC’s density gain does not come from EUV. It comes from using every available DTCO booster aggressively. First is fin depopulation: reducing the number of NMOS and PMOS fins in each cell. The first FinFET nodes started with 3 or 4 fins for each transistor. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 HD both use only 2 fins per transistor, trading drive strength for density. Next is contact over active gate (COAG). By landing the gate contact directly over the active gate, instead of out over the isolation region, the cell height drops. N+3 integrates COAG while N6 does not. Our N+3 gate-cut cross-sections indicate COAG, with the gate contact sitting over the active region, while N6 shows an off-gate contact. Last is single diffusion break (SDB). Diffusion breaks are inserted between cells in the same row to provide electrical isolation, but they also introduce local layout effects (LLE), layout-dependent shifts in electrical characteristics. In the past, a double diffusion break was used, consuming the space of two CGPs. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 instead use SDB, saving area but increasing LLE sensitivity. This must be controlled at the process level and accurately modeled in the process design kit (PDK) so that EDA tools can account for it. Overall, SMIC N+3 has a transistor density of 113.4 MTr/mm², slightly above TSMC N6 at 107.7 MTr/mm². Even without EUV, SMIC has achieved density beyond TSMC’s mature N6 node which utilizes EUV. Metal Stack The smallest critical dimension in the teardown is M0; SMIC N+3 uses a 32.5 nm local metal pitch. That is smaller than the 36 nm M0 pitch on Intel 18A in Panther Lake. However, this does not mean that SMIC has a better process than Intel 18A or TSMC N3P. M0 is a local intra-cell routing layer. Its usefulness depends on the full interconnect stack: M1 and M2 pitch, track count, via and line resistance, design rules, mask count, overlay control, and routing flexibility. The 32.5 nm M0 is consistent with self-aligned quadruple patterning (SAQP), whose four-population line-width loading we read coarsely as alternating widths of 21.5 to 24 nm; M1 and M2, at 38 and 40 nm, are consistent with self-aligned double patterning (SADP), a single A/B split. On TSMC N6, M0, M2, and M3 sit at a relaxed ~40 nm and are consistent with SADP-class double patterning, with no need for quadruple patterning. That said, we measure M2 for example at ~43 nm, likely inflated by sparse routing. We do not assign any specific layer to EUV from our cross-sections; the distinction we can draw is double versus quadruple patterning, not lithography wavelength. Transistor-level density in the front-end-of-line (FEOL) sets an upper bound, but the design is ultimately limited by what the interconnect stack can route. The lowest metals are the most important for standard-cell density, but the semi-global and global layers determine how usable that density is at the block and chip level. Two axes are commonly used for chip cross-sections: the fin-cut and the gate-cut. The micrograph above is a fin-cut and shows metals 0 through 3. This axis lets us see the even-numbered metals, with M0 right above the fins. There are two kinds of M0 lines. The first are the power rails; these are wide wires for the VDD and VSS running horizontally at the top and bottom edges of each standard cell. The wide wires measure 55 nm across, more than double the other M0 lines. Their width minimizes resistance and reduces IR drop. The second kind are intra-cell wires, short segments within the cell that connect terminals to M1. These have alternating widths between 21.5 and 24 nm. The M0 pitch is 32.5 nm, a 19% reduction versus N+2 and N6. At this pitch, DUV patterning requires more aggressive multi-patterning, increasing mask count, overlay sensitivity, process complexity and cost. M0 is below what a single DUV-defined spacer (SADP) can resolve, so SMIC cascades a second spacer step (SAQP). The cross-section reflects the cost: the M0 trenches are visibly more re-entrant (narrower at the bottom than the top) than M1 or M2 on the same chip and carry a bright barrier-rich foot where the trench meets the etch-stop layer. That shape is partly the intended damascene profile, as a slightly narrow bottom helps void-free copper fill, but its magnitude at M0 is driven by the tight pitch and the higher trench aspect ratio. Intel 18A supports an M0 pitch of 32 nm, although Panther Lake has only shipped with a looser 36 nm pitch. This is due to Intel’s heavy usage of HP libraries. Among leading-edge nodes, 18A has the loosest M0 pitches due to PowerVia. With power routing moving to the backside, congestion is reduced, and the entire front-side metal stack can be used for signal routing. M2 is the first true inter-cell routing layer. It runs horizontally like M0 but spans across multiple cells to carry block-level signals. The M2 pitch sets the cell’s track height – the number of M2 tracks that fit between the VDD and VSS rails, defining what the library calls a 6-track or 7.5-track cell. This layer is the most important, limiting the routing of entire blocks. SMIC N+3 features a 5.7-track cell. The M2 pitch is 40 nm, a 5% decrease over N+2 and the same as N6. This shrink keeps the pitch at the edge of what is possible with double patterning. Future nodes will need to increase the number of masks for M2 as reducing the number of tracks is much harder due to the limitations in routing. The micrograph above is in the perpendicular direction, the gate-cut, and shows metals 0 through 4. This allows us to see and measure the odd-numbered vertical metal layers. The M1 pitch is 38 nm, 9.5% less than N+2 and 33% less than N6. The M1-to-gate ratio matters because it sets local routing flexibility. N+2 and N+3 use a 3:2 ratio, while N6 uses a 1:1 ratio, explaining the huge differences in M1 pitch. The more M1 lines there are compared with the gates, the more flexibility there is for power and signal crossing within the cell. Routing flexibility enables more complex and better cells. Clean fractional ratios are also preferred as a grid is periodic and improves layouts. The 3:2 ratio gives SMIC more local routing flexibility than a strict 1:1 grid, but it also complicates layout and patterning. This is a DTCO choice, with SMIC increasing process complexity to recover density and routability without EUV. This 3:2 ratio is not very popular in the leading-edge nodes. TSMC has only used it on N7+, the N5 family, and the short-lived N3(B). They have switched back to a 1:1 ratio for N3E. Intel has only used it on the 10 nm/Intel 7 family, with Intel 4, 3 and 18A all using a 1:1 ratio. Samsung is the only one still using a 3:2 ratio at the leading edge, using it in the SF4 and SF3 families. It remains to be seen if SMIC will remain at a 3:2 ratio or move to a 1:1 ratio with its future nodes. The industry is still actively exploring these local-routing ratios. At VLSI 2026, imec will be presenting work on even higher ratios, including a 2:1 scheme that can reduce area by up to 14%. We will be covering the conference in a future newsletter article. Subscribe We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. The final local interconnect layer for N+3 is M3, with a pitch of 44 nm. The M3 pitch is the same as on N+2 and 10% larger than on N6. The semi-global layers carry the majority of block-level signal routing. They have a coarser pitch than the lower local layers. On leading-edge nodes, they are designed to sit at the limit of DUV single patterning. M4 through M11 pitches were found divided between 80–82 nm (M4–M6), 128 nm (M7–M10), and 148 nm (M11). Given limited sampling, it is possible these are divided further in dense routing areas. At the top are two giant metal layers, M12 and M13. These have kept the same pitches as N+2 at 1920 nm and 4600 nm respectively. While the lower layers’ pitches are generally fixed by the process and library, the upper layers vary much more in pitch and count, depending on the design. Even two smartphone SoCs on the same process can have wildly different metal stacks. The Helio G99 carries fewer routing layers, reaching coarse metal pitches of 850 nm by M9, while the larger and higher-performance Kirin 9030 keeps fine pitches until M11. SRAM At the leading edge, SRAM is much more difficult to scale than logic. TSMC’s latest nodes have seen little to no bitcell scaling, while logic still has more DTCO levers to pull. While looking for other logic libraries in the GPU compute units, we stumbled upon the SRAM. The most common type of SRAM has 6 transistors (6T), but this cell had 8 transistors (8T) instead. 8T SRAM adds two transistors to form a dedicated read port. Unlike a 6T cell, where reading disturbs the storage, the decoupled read port removes read-disturb, improving read stability and letting the cell be pushed harder for performance. At first glance, the cut looked like an unusual logic library, with each cell row having 3 fins of one polarity and 5 fins of another. The rows also alternated in orientation. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) resolved our confusion. The cut had not landed on the GPU logic, but on the SRAM macro beside it. The unusual fin pattern was due to the SRAM library. We return to EDS in the process flow analysis behind the paywall. SRAM libraries are not like traditional logic libraries. Due to the unequal number of PMOS and NMOS transistors, they require specialized rules and layout libraries. They do not need the flexibility of logic libraries, so they are hyper-optimized for one purpose: dense, reliable memory. The SRAM cell we found is a 1:2:2-2:2 cell. This means there is 1 fin per pull-up (PU) PMOS transistor, and 2 fins per pull-down (PD) and pass-gate (PG) NMOS transistor. These 2 PU, 2 PD and 2 PG transistors would usually form a single 6T high-current cell (HCC). An 8T HCC adds a read-pull-down (RPD) and a read-pass-gate (RPG) NMOS transistor, each with two fins. We measured a cell height of 406 nm, which brings the bitcell size to 0.0463 µm². That is a theoretical peak density of 21.6 Mib/mm². We estimate that a 6T HCC would have a cell height of 292 nm and a size of 0.0337 µm². This is ~12% larger than a 6T HCC on Intel 3 and 4. We also estimate the 6T high-density cell (HDC) to have a cell height of 228 nm and a size of 0.0260 µm². This is coincidentally the same as the logic standard-cell height measured earlier. The estimate puts the cell near Samsung 7LPP/5LPP and slightly below TSMC N7/N6. That is a theoretical peak density of 38.5 Mib/mm². 6T HDC is arguably the most important cell as it is used for the largest caches in a chip, the L3 caches and system-level cache (SLC). Both the Kirin 9020 and 9030 have split the SLC into 4 banks to raise total SLC bandwidth. In the Kirin 9030, the SLC increased from 2 MiB to 3 MiB per bank. Correspondingly, the number of arrays within the bank also increased by 50%, from 16 to 24. Each array can store 128 KiB and forms an orderly pattern on the die shot. From the Kirin 9020 to the Kirin 9030, the area of a 128 KiB SLC array decreased from 0.0477 mm² to 0.0392 mm², an 18% shrink. The achieved density is 25.5 Mib/mm², 66% of the theoretical maximum. While the SLC was quite similar across both chips, the L3 has seen some major changes, particularly in terms of its layout. The total capacity also went up from 10 MiB to 12 MiB. Much like the SLC, the L3 is also split into 4 banks. In the Kirin 9020, an L3 bank consisted of 16× 128 KiB arrays and 16× 32 KiB arrays. However, an L3 bank in the Kirin 9030 instead consists of 48× 64 KiB arrays. In the Kirin 9020 L3, a 128 KiB array was 0.0513 mm² and a 32 KiB array was 0.0154 mm². The size of the 128 KiB array is different on the L3 and SLC as the assist circuitry for the two arrays differs depending on their purpose. In the Kirin 9030 L3, a 64 KiB array is 0.0210 mm². Although not a like-for-like comparison, normalized for capacity, it is 18% smaller than the 9020’s 128 KiB L3 array and 31% smaller than its 32 KiB L3 array. The achieved density is slightly lower than the SLC, at 23.8 Mib/mm², 62% of the theoretical maximum. Unlike the L3 and SLC, the prime cores’ private L2 cache uses a 2-bank design. As the prime cores’ L2 is latency-critical, it likely uses 6T HCC instead of 6T HDC. The 9020 has 16 arrays in each bank while the 9030 has 32. Each array has a capacity of 32 KiB. A 32 KiB array in the L2 shrank from 0.0171 mm² to 0.0142 mm², ~17% smaller. The density is 17.6 Mib/mm², ~59% of the theoretical maximum for 6T HCC. SRAM scaled well from N+2 to N+3, shrinking by ~19%, close to the theoretical logic shrink. The caveat is that N+2’s bitcells were unusually large, bigger than comparable 7 nm-class nodes, so part of the gain is catch-up rather than true scaling. With the insights from STEEL’s teardowns, we will be doing a deep dive into SRAM in a future newsletter article. Subscribe Everything above came out of a single STEEL teardown: die annotation, block-level area analysis and TEM cross-sections through logic and SRAM. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Future Roadmap The same cross-sections that pin down N+3 also show where SMIC can go next. Although N+3 is already close to the practical limits of DUV multi-patterning in several layers, SMIC still has a few scaling levers left. A theoretical N+4 would likely start with cell height. N+3 uses 5 M0 tracks between its power rails. Moving to 4 M0 tracks, as on SMIC N+2 and TSMC N6, could reduce cell height by roughly 15%. The routing grid is only one side of the shrink; the front end also must fit into the smaller cell. One possible FEOL lever is reducing the p-to-n isolation spacing from two diffusion grid units to one. Intel used this scaling booster on Intel 4, and TSMC did so on its N3 family. This path trades layout flexibility for density. Fewer M0 tracks reduce local routing resources, while tighter p-to-n spacing raises integration and design-rule difficulty. M2 is also constrained by the cell height shrink. For SMIC to maintain a ~5.7-track cell, M2 would need to move toward ~35 nm. That would move another layer into SAQP territory. SMIC could also reduce the CGP from 57 nm to 54 nm. Intel reached a similar CGP on Intel 10 nm/Intel 7 without EUV. The local interconnect is also tougher. If SMIC keeps the 3:2 M1-to-gate ratio, M1 would need to shrink to 36 nm and would likely require SAQP as well. If SMIC moves to a 1:1 ratio, M1 could relax to 54 nm, but it would give up routing flexibility. Under this theoretical path, we estimate that SMIC N+4 could reach a cell height of 198 nm and a CGP of 54 nm, implying a Bohr density of 137.8 MTr/mm², on par with TSMC N5 or Samsung SF4. However, the difficulty is cumulative. Each step is individually plausible, but together they make N+4 harder than the transition from N+2 to N+3. It will likely take longer, cost more, and carry less process margin. A theoretical N+5 would require a larger integration shift. One possible path is backside contacts (BSCon), moving power routing and source/drain contacts to the backside, which would reduce front-side routing pressure and enable another reduction in cell height. The front-side metal pitches could relax to reduce the process complexity. M0 would likely relax slightly to ~34 nm, and M2 and M4 pitches could relax further. CGP is unlikely to shrink much further. Even with EUV, 48 nm has been the practical limit for yield and process control. This approach would allow N+5’s cell height to fall to 170 nm and its CGP to 53 nm. This implies a Bohr density of 163.6 MTr/mm², on par with Intel 18A’s HP library. However, this would not make N+5 cost-competitive with the leading edge. It would reach a similar density through a much more expensive route. The integration difficulty rises sharply, with new process flows for backside alignment, wafer thinning, contact reveal, and backside metallization. Past this point, standard density and interconnect scaling become increasingly unattractive. That is where Huawei’s roadmap stops looking like a normal foundry roadmap and starts looking like a packaging roadmap. At ISCAS 2026, Huawei unveiled its tau (τ) scaling law, reframing process scaling in the time domain. τ is the time cost of data movement and processing: switching delays in transistors, RC signal propagation delays in circuits, compute, memory, and networking latency. Outside Huawei’s terminology, this is called system-technology co-optimization. This is Huawei’s answer to its lack of EUV lithography. Without EUV, planar density cannot keep pace with TSMC, Intel, or Samsung. If transistor density cannot shrink further, Huawei’s alternative is to shorten wires, reduce buffering, and stack logic vertically. “LogicFolding”, Huawei’s implementation of this new scaling idea, is, in practice, an aggressive 3D stacking approach. AMD V-Cache places SRAM above or below a CPU die. AMD’s MI350X places active interposer dies (AIDs) underneath accelerator and compute dies (XCDs), with the AIDs handling cache, IO interfaces, the network-on-chip (NoC) and embedded metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. With LogicFolding, parts of the same logic block are split across multiple active dies bonded face-to-face at ultra-fine pitch. This allows Huawei to shorten some critical paths and reduce buffer overhead, not merely add cache capacity or offload the IO and interconnect. Shortening wires is where the higher clocks come from. A large share of a modern core’s delay and energy budget goes into driving long interconnects and the repeater buffers along them. LogicFolding distributes a block’s critical-path gates across multiple stacked tiers bonded at a very fine pitch, so the bond interface behaves like an additional metal layer and the longest paths get shorter. That is how Huawei expects to recover frequency and efficiency it cannot get from the process alone. Huawei’s roadmap shows its intent. Prime core frequency is targeted to rise from 2.75 GHz in the Kirin 9030 to roughly 5 GHz by 2031, far beyond what planar scaling alone could deliver. Prime cores with 3.1 and 3.39 GHz clocks are being tested in its labs, although their power consumption is unknown. Beyond that, chips are in the design, simulation or pathfinding phase, meaning the frequencies are targets. However, the direction matters more: LogicFolding also helps with performance, not just density. The catch is that Huawei’s density claim is not directly comparable to foundry densities. A stacked design can report more transistors per package footprint by adding active layers, even if each patterned die remains well behind TSMC or Intel in front-end density. This is how Huawei can claim to reach foundry 14A-equivalent density by 2031. This is not a like-for-like foundry comparison, with Huawei using stacked logic and measuring density per package footprint. On a normalized Bohr-density basis, SMIC N+3 is ~114 MTr/mm², 38% less than Intel 18A’s HD library. Huawei’s 3D roadmap closes the gap by stacking active logic, reaching 215 MTr/mm² by 2030. In 2031, the roadmap density jumps to 295 MTr/mm², implying either a third active layer, partial EUV insertion or aggressive planar DUV scaling. Huawei’s methodology makes other foundries look much denser as well. Applying it to AMD’s MI450X with an N2 top die on an N3P base die yields a theoretical density of 460.2 MTr/mm² in 2026, compared with Huawei’s 295 MTr/mm² in 2031. This Kirin 9030 does not use LogicFolding, remaining in a conventional mobile SoC package. Instead, it forms the baseline for how far Huawei and SMIC can push planar scaling. Future teardowns of Kirin and Ascend chips will show both planar logic density and Huawei’s hybrid bonding solutions. Export controls changed China’s optimization problem rather than ending it. EUV restrictions raised the cost and complexity of leading-edge manufacturing without freezing it. SMIC reaches N6-class logic density through DUV immersion, SAQP and DTCO, while Huawei shifts more of the burden onto architecture, packaging and system-level integration. Future nodes will be tougher. N+3 still had room to tighten local metals and reduce cell height and CGP. Further scaling without EUV leaves fewer levers. More aggressive multi-patterning adds masks and overlay error. SMIC can keep pushing DUV, but each step will get more expensive and less forgiving. The design side is just as critical. Huawei had domestic EDA tools and flows before the Kirin 9030, with the Kirin 9000s, 9010 and 9020 making that clear. Huawei was able to ship multiple consumer SoCs on SMIC N+2 and N+3 while cut off from the Western EDA stack. US export controls restricted EDA tools for advanced chips in 2022 but did not target tools for more mature chips. In 2025, the US government briefly placed much broader restrictions on EDA software from Synopsys, Cadence, and others, before lifting them less than two months later as part of a trade deal tied to rare earths. Huawei has been unable to access those tools because it remains on a US trade blacklist. That forced Huawei, SMIC and Chinese academic institutions to build their own tools and flows. Researchers at Peking University recently announced a prototype EDA tool for Huawei’s LogicFolding architecture, which requires a new flow to handle the multilayer layout and floorplan. This is not the same as replacing the full Synopsys or Cadence stack, but it shows where domestic EDA is headed: toward tighter co-optimization between architecture, process and packaging. These advances are also diffusing into the Chinese ecosystem. SMIC is licensing its N+2 and N+3 processes to HLMC/Hua Hong at the government’s direction rather than by choice. If the same process learning feeds into Ascend accelerators for AI training and inference, the choke point shifts from one named fab to an ecosystem. Alibaba’s T-Head silicon arm and Cambricon, a Chinese AI chip designer that is expected to supply ByteDance, could also be major beneficiaries. Sanctions aimed at SMIC alone become less effective once the manufacturing knowledge has spread to other fabs and design houses. China is not closing the gap with Intel, Samsung and TSMC. The teardown shows the opposite in several places: no EUV, no backside power, higher process complexity, and visible trade-offs. But China is still advancing. If domestic chips become good enough for phones, inference, networking and security-sensitive workloads, they can matter strategically without matching TSMC at the leading edge. Behind the paywall, we show what else STEEL can do, with material and process flow analysis of SMIC N+3, and analysis of the Kirin 9030 package. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline, access the full Kirin 9030 and SMIC N+3 analysis or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com.
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