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St. Louis Cardinals vs Milwaukee Brewers Game Discussion Saturday
The St. Louis Cardinals will invade American Family Field again Saturday night for game 2 against the Milwaukee Brewers. Quinn Mathews will put on the pearls for his final start of the season Saturday night for St. Louis while it will be former Cardinals starter Dustin May taking the mound for the Brewers. First pitch […]
Oscar Health (OSCR) Stock May Be Undervalued Following Its AI Marketplace Launch
Oscar Health has delivered very strong long term gains for shareholders, yet the recent pullback raises a simple question for anyone looking at the stock today: is the current price still in line with what its earnings can support? Over the past 3 years, Oscar Health has produced a very large share price return, which puts extra focus on whether its earnings can justify that kind of move. Management is talking about higher future earnings per share and better medical loss ratios, which can...
Asteroid Bennu may have formed much closer to the Sun than scientists thought
Returned asteroid grains link Bennu, Ryugu and CI meteorites to a mixed dust reservoir shaped by ice and the young Jupiter.
Intel Panther Lake Teardown, 18A, BSPD, GAAFET, SemiAnalysis STEEL
Panther Lake debuts the first commercial implementation of backside power delivery (BSPDN), introduces Intel’s first iteration of gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, and showcases their advanced packaging capabilities with its Foveros-S assembly. With Panther Lake, Intel’s manufacturing arc has shifted from nebulous roadmaps to shipped silicon, a significant milestone on their long road back to competitive semiconductor manufacturing. To evaluate the extent of Intel’s comeback, we tore down Panther Lake. The SemiAnalysis STEEL teardown lab breaks down advanced datacenter and AI hardware. To learn more about our pipeline or to commission a teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. WE’RE HIRING: Architecture, floorplan, packaging, manufacturing, and labs experts. Opportunities from system to transistor and everywhere in between. Check out our Careers page. Our teardown traces 18A from its four-sheet RibbonFETs (Intel’s marketing name for GAAFETs) and gate stacks through contacts, frontside and backside wiring, and the bonded carrier. We explain how these material and integration choices improve gate control and reduce resistance, while adding capacitance, thermal resistance, and process complexity. Our measurements put Panther Lake’s 18A compute logic and TSMC N3E GPU logic at similar logic density. However, 18A does not lead TSMC N3P, N2 or Samsung SF2 in peak density. Panther Lake’s CPU cores are incremental updates, and the high-end GPU still uses TSMC N3E. Panther Lake assembles one compute tile, one GPU tile, and one I/O tile atop a passive base tile using Intel’s Foveros-S advanced packaging. Both compute tile variants use Intel 18A. The Xe3 GPU options are a 4-core GT1 tile on Intel 3 and a larger 12-core GT2 tile on TSMC N3E. Both I/O tile variants use TSMC N6. [1], [2] Our analysis centers on the PTL-U compute tile, both the 4-core and 12-core GPU tiles, as well as the 12-lane I/O tile. In conventional chips, power and signal are routed through the same frontside metal stack towards the device frontend. Power rails consume scarce routing resources near the transistors, while tall via stacks carry VDD and VSS from the coarse upper wires to local rails. Backside power delivery (BSPD) moves the main power network behind the transistor layer, to the backside, separating it from frontside signal routing. We covered BSPD and its impacts in 2024. [3], [4], [5] Intel’s BSPD implementation, branded as “PowerVia”, routes power through dedicated backside metals to nano-TSVs, which connect those rails to local source/drain (S/D) contacts. Implementing that separation requires Intel to build the interconnect stacks from both sides of the wafer. The frontside comprises the M0-M14 signal stack, while the backside comprises the BM0-BM5 power stack. M0 and BM0 are closest to the transistors. The nano-TSVs connect the two sides, but Intel patterns and etches each via from the front after forming the contacts. A narrow via runs from the side of the contact deep into the silicon substrate. Intel then completes the frontside signal metal stack, bonds the wafer to a carrier, flips it and removes the original substrate until the buried via tips are exposed. The backside metal stack is then deposited directly on the revealed vias. The nano-TSV and backside-via profiles taper in opposite directions because Intel forms them from opposite sides of the wafer. The transistor structures form the FEOL. Local contacts and nano-TSVs connect them to the wiring. M0 begins the frontside interconnect stack. The silicon carrier remains attached above the frontside interconnects. It supports the device wafer during substrate removal and backside processing and remains part of the finished chip’s thermal path. PowerVia removes the main power distribution from the congested frontside metals, routing supply through shorter and wider backside wires. Its lateral landing still occupies area in the standard cell, so it recovers less cell area than a direct backside contact. [3] Nano-TSVs beside the logic devices carry VDD or VSS from the backside power network, while signal connections continue upward through the frontside metals. Backside Interconnects Samsung SF2 data is included for comparison to Panther Lake’s within this article. SF2 is the incumbent GAA foundry node but lacks BSPD, serving as a useful reference to evaluate 18A. A full teardown of Samsung’s S26 products, processed on SF2, will be shared soon.Nanosheet-cut EDS comparison. The PowerVia supply path runs from the backside Cu rails through Mo-lined W nano-TSVs to the local transistor contacts. In this cross section, the tapered connection spans roughly 150 nm from the contact level to BM0. The Ta liner confines Cu and promotes adhesion to the surrounding stack; the AlOₓ etch stop controls the next dielectric etch above the rail. Dielectric beneath the ribbons electrically separates the devices from the backside wiring and removes the conducting silicon body below the channel. [6] AlOₓ serves as an etchstop (ES), enabling endpointing and protecting the underlying layers. Low-volatility aluminum fluoride reaction products resist the fluorinated plasma, allowing a thin AlOₓ film to protect the metal while the surrounding low-k dielectric is removed. [6], [7]. While the BM0 and layers above the M1 lines show double AlOx layers, Our SMIC N+3 teardown showed single AlOₓ layers. SMIC uses a simpler local AlOₓ substack, while the remaining cap and etch sequence provide the required landing protection. So why double layers? The closely spaced AlOₓ doublets provide two protected endpoints in the etch sequence. Intel documents an AlOₓ/SiN/AlOₓ stack that explains the benefit. The main dielectric plasma etch stops on the first AlOₓ film; a selective wet clear opens that film; a second plasma etch removes the intermediate SiN and stops on the second AlOₓ film. The final wet clear exposes the metal landing surface. SiN is the intermediate dielectric in Intel’s published example. [8] The second stop protects the metal through a cap breakthrough. Wide openings can etch faster than narrow ones, and etch depth varies across the wafer. Metal under an early-clearing opening would otherwise be exposed while other openings still need more etching. Staged protection widens the process window and reduces metal erosion, corrosion and void formation. [8] TSMC documents AlN/AlOₓ/SiOC/AlOₓ above Cu, with AlN blocking Cu diffusion, and a simpler AlN/SiOC/AlOₓ variant that omits one AlOx film. [9] Levels with different opening sizes, aspect ratios, pattern densities and cap materials need different etch margins. A double AlOx stop is useful where another protected endpoint justifies the added processing. The extra film adds formation, selective opening and cleaning steps, plus another set of interfaces to control adhesion, moisture, and stress. These blanket films are opened through the existing via pattern, so each film does not require another lithography mask. AlOₓ adds parasitic capacitance when it replaces lower-k dielectric; two thin AlOₓ films can nevertheless contain less AlOₓ than one thick film. Total thickness, placement, and theintermediate dielectric determine the electrical cost. Deposition chemistry also changes AlOx permittivity and residual hydroxyl content, which can oxidize the underlying metal. [7], [8], [10], [11] The backside stack separates into relatively fine BM0-BM2 wiring near the devices and coarser BM3-BM5 power distribution. The largest pitch increase occurs between BM2 and BM3. BM0’s pitch closely matches the logic-row height, fitting local power delivery to the cell rows. Higher levels aggregate current through larger conductors: routing density becomes less important than low resistance and current capacity as the network approaches the package. This hierarchy provides wide power wiring for the power delivery network without consuming scarce frontside signal-routing resources. [3] The SemiAnalysis STEEL teardown lab breaks down advanced datacenter and AI hardware. To learn more about our pipeline or to commission a teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. WE’RE HIRING: Architecture, floorplan, packaging, manufacturing, and labs experts. Opportunities from system to transistor and everywhere in between. Check out our Careers page. Frontside Interconnects Intel 18A combines Mo-lined W contacts and nano-TSVs with a separate backside Cu power network. Samsung SF2 keeps power on the frontside, using Ti-based contact interfaces and Ta-based barriers and Co liners around Cu wiring. In 18A standard-cell rows, backside power rails supply the devices through nano-TSVs within the cells, freeing frontside routing resources. Samsung’s M0 accommodates both power and signal connections. From the device toward M0, the connection runs through a Ti-based S/D interface, W contact fill, a Mo-lined W via, and the Cu M0 wire. Mo supplies a conductive nucleation and adhesion layer for W, replacing the resistive TiN liner used in conventional W integration. This increases the effective conduction volume within the feature while retaining W fill and its established polishing, cleaning and etching processes. Intel’s Mo/W patent describes this integration tradeoff. The nano-TSV uses the same Mo-lined W construction in the backside supply path. [12] The move from TiN to Mo is an incremental change. While a full Co or Mo fill can also reduce the volume lost to liners in very small features, it requires new integration schemes that increase complexity and risk. Cu remains attractive for wider wires due to its low resistance. As wires and vias shrink, the diffusion barrier consumes an increasing fraction of their cross-section. [12], [12], [14] Intel uses Co/Ru liners at M0-M1, Co at M2-M4, and Nb at M5-M9. The lower-level liners help Cu adhere and reduce void formation during trench fills. Applied Materials’ Endura has new thermal control that facilitate wetting process, so the thin film continuity is good enough that good capillary pressure will drive Cu atoms to the via bottom without voiding. Intel’s choice to use Nb is particularly interesting. Intel’s Nb patent describes a conductive diffusion barrier intended to reduce the barrier’s contribution to resistance relative to conventional Ta-based barriers, particularly at via bottoms where all current crosses the barrier. The patent pairs Nb in coarser levels with the option of lower-cost PVD processing. [15], [16] The upper metal layers support thicker barriers formed through physical vapor deposition (PVD) despite its worse coverage and uniformity. Meanwhile, the lower metal layers require thinner barriers deposited through conformal atomic layer deposition (ALD). Co/Ru adds another material interface and requires controlled deposition and Cu fill. Changing liners and barriers by metal layer allows Intel to optimize interconnect resistance, process complexity, and reliability. [15, 16] RibbonFET, Intel’s name for its gate-all-around FETs (GAAFETs), replaces the FinFET’s vertical fins with four stacked horizontal silicon nanosheets, allowing the gate to surround the channel on every side. The path to GAAFET begins with the planar transistor. A planar MOSFET places the gate above the channel between its source and drain. Pairing an NMOS with a PMOS transistor creates a CMOS inverter, in which the NMOS pulls the output low for a high input, and the PMOS pulls it high for a low input. The gate must retain electrostatic control of the channel to ensure clean switching. As gate lengths shrank, the drain began to compete with the gate for that control, increasing off-state leakage. Electrostatic control was restored through an architectural evolution that raised the channel into a vertical fin and wrapping the gate around three sides. Called “FinFET”, this new architecture packed more effective channel width into a smaller footprint. Further scaling made it harder to maintain both drive current and leakage within smaller cells, and reintroduced the same problems planar MOSFETs faced. Nanosheet GAAFETs close the fourth side by replacing the vertical fin with a stack of horizontal nanosheets, each surrounded by the gate. The tighter electrostatic control suppresses leakage at shorter gate lengths while stacking adds effective channel width within the cell footprint. In a FinFET process, channel width changes in discrete steps as designers must add or remove whole fins. Nanosheet width can instead be adjusted continuously within the process’s design rules. Wider sheets increase drive current, while narrower sheets reduce capacitance at the cost of drive current. Intel 18A uses stacks of four nanosheets each and varies their widths across logic and SRAM. At the process level, adding more sheets to each stack increases effective channel width and drive current, but complicates fabrication. RibbonFET vs MBCFET Samsung began GAAFET production in 2022 with SF3E, following with SF3 and now SF2. Its ‘MBCFET’ provides a useful structural comparison with Intel’s first RibbonFET implementation. [17] STEEL is digging deeper into SF2, used in the Exynos 2600, and TSMC’s GAAFET N2, used in Apple’s A20 Pro, in upcoming newsletter articles. We’re throwing some teasers on X. Let’s compare Samsung SF2’s MBCFET with Intel 18A’s RibbonFET. Subscribe Even to the untrained eye, Intel’s extra nanosheet is obvious. Intel stacks four ribbons to Samsung’s three. Samsung’s sheets are much wider in these fields, so both sheet count and width matter to the available channel perimeter. Sheet width also changes which silicon surfaces carry current. On conventional (001) silicon, wide nanosheets emphasize the broad top and bottom surfaces, favoring electron transport; the larger sidewall contribution in a narrow sheet favors hole transport. Thinner sheets improve gate control but increase confinement and scattering. This makes width and thickness part of the NMOS/PMOS balance, alongside strain and threshold voltage. [18], [19] GAAFET designs like 18A use different work-function-metal (WFM) stacks for NMOS and PMOS. Around each ribbon, a thin SiOx interfacial layer separates the silicon channel from the HfOx high-k dielectric, with La providing dipole tuning and the WFM wrapping the dielectric. NMOS uses a TiAl-based stack, while PMOS uses TiN WFM. W fills the remaining gate trench, providing a lower-resistivity path where the work-function layers are no longer needed. In this field, the PMOS stacks leave room for W between ribbons, while the NMOS stacks occupy more of those gaps. A silicon-based dielectric marks the P/N boundary, allowing the PMOS and NMOS gates, sharing the same gate trench, to be processed sequentially. Fast logic paths, retention circuits, and SRAM need a family of threshold options. Changing threshold without substantially changing device dimensions, capacitance or fabrication complexity is valuable. FinFET processes typically use different work-function-metal stacks. In a four-ribbon GAA stack, the narrow sheet-to-sheet gap limits how much WFM can fit around each channel. La in the gate dielectric creates interfacial dipoles at the SiOx/HfOx boundary, shifting effective work function and tuning threshold voltage. This gives Intel another control alongside its NMOS and PMOS WFM stacks. Low-threshold devices improve critical-path drive; higher thresholds reduce leakage elsewhere. Dipole tuning is especially useful in GAA because it changes threshold without consuming the narrow intersheet gap with thicker WFM. Precise control of La incorporation, diffusion and interface quality has long been a challenge, limiting viability in high volume production but is now seen from every leading-edge foundry. Intel’s patent describes depositing a dipole-forming oxide above HfOx and annealing it toward the interfacial oxide before completing the work-function and fill metals. This separates threshold tuning from the space available for metal. Newer research addresses the thermal cost: imec’s 2026 dipole-middle research inserts the shifter between two HfOx depositions, shortening the diffusion path while protecting SiOx during patterning. [20], [21]Matched-cut EDS, Intel 18A (left) vs. Samsung SF2 (right). Intel retains raised source/drain epi beneath its contacts, while Samsung recesses W deep into the epi to form a V-shaped Ti-lined interface. The deeper contact increases metal-to-semiconductor area and shortens the current path from the lower sheets, reducing contact and spreading resistance. It also removes epi volume and brings the contact etch closer to the channel ends. Retaining more epi preserves the material available for strain transfer, especially from SiGe into PMOS. These geometries balance contact access against stress engineering and etch margin. [22], [23] Samsung stacks three sheets to Intel’s four ribbons, and both processes use sheet width to tune drive strength. In our Samsung cross-sections, widths range roughly from 19 to 30 nm in the NPU rows and 37 to 50 nm in the CU cell. The Samsung nanosheets taper, with the widest sheet at the bottom and the narrowest at the top. Both processes use HfOx gate dielectric and Ti-based work-function stacks, with Al in the NMOS stack. In the Samsung devices shown here, the dielectric and WFM occupy the intersheet gaps, leaving W above the top sheet. Intel’s PMOS stack leaves more room between ribbons, and W fills those gaps while the thicker NMOS stack leaves W mainly in the upper trench. Gate-stack EDS maps. The W between Intel’s PMOS ribbons provides a conductive path close to the lower gates. Where WFM fills the entire gap, the gate still surrounds the channel, but voltage reaches it through the more resistive work-function films. Thinner WFM and dipole tuning preserve room for low-resistivity fill; Mo and Ru are alternative fill metals being developed for further scaling. [24] A masked, sequential WFM flow explains the different gate heights and inter-nanosheet fill. The proposed sequence below shows how separate NMOS and PMOS work-function steps produce that geometry. Enabled by the BSPDN process, Intel replaces the dense-logic silicon subfin with dielectric, removing the parasitic conduction path below the ribbons and reducing substrate-related capacitance. A retained silicon body as in classical, non-SOI, planar and FinFET designs needs junction and punchthrough-stop engineering to suppress leakage. Dielectric isolation makes that leakage less sensitive to the subfin doping profile but adds removal and fill steps. It also weakens the direct thermal path through silicon, making the contacts, metal stacks and package more important for heat extraction. [24], [26] Fluorine is concentrated around selected Intel device structures in the maps. WF6 is a standard precursor for W nucleation and fill, while barrier films protect adjacent dielectrics from fluorine attack. Low-fluorine W processes reduce the residual-F burden. Chloride-based precursors avoid introducing F during W deposition, but require control of chlorine attack, nucleation and fill quality. The integration target is a continuous, low-resistance W path with a thin protective liner and minimal chemical damage to the surrounding stack. [20], [27], [28] The SemiAnalysis STEEL teardown lab breaks down advanced datacenter and AI hardware. To learn more about our pipeline or to commission a teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. WE’RE HIRING: Architecture, floorplan, packaging, manufacturing, and labs experts. Opportunities from system to transistor and everywhere in between. Check out our Careers page. We measured cell height, gate pitch, metal geometry, and ribbon dimensions at the XTEM sites shown below. The tables group these dimensions by site and device polarity. Our “sheet cuts” cross the silicon channel and show the ribbons end-on. “gate cuts” run along the channel through successive gates. The 18A logic cell dimensions point to a five-track logic library while the N3E and Intel 3 cell dimensions evidence a seven-track logic library. The DDR-PHY uses wider M0 wires and much larger spacing than core logic. That trades routing density for lower wire resistance and weaker coupling between neighboring nets. The geometry suits the current delivery and coupling requirements of analog, clock, and I/O circuitry. PowerVia lets 18A combine a compact cell height with wider M0 geometry by moving the main power rails off the signal-routing tracks. That relaxes local wire scaling while preserving a small cell footprint. Cell height and gate pitch set the geometric density; pin access and routability determine how much of it a real block can use. [29] The biggest takeaway from our gate-pitch measurements is that Intel 18A compute logic and TSMC N3E GPU logic have similar density in the Bohr representative-cell model. The 18A example is 18.6% denser than the Intel 3 GPU example. Gate pitches are nearly identical across the three sites, so cell height drives most of the difference. The Bohr model combines a four-transistor NAND2 spanning three gate pitches and a 32-transistor scan flip-flop (SFF) spanning nineteen pitches, weighting their densities 60:40. The sensitivity column shows how independently changing cell height and gate pitch by ±1 nm changes the result. This compares representative cell geometries; whole-die density also depends on cell mix and placement. The 18A P-core gives M0 substantially more metal cross section than the N3E vector engine. Treating each profile as a trapezoid gives 2.63 times the area per line and 1.84 times the area after normalization by routing pitch. The larger section reduces the geometric contribution to line resistance and lowers current density for a given current. Taller and wider wires also add capacitance, so circuit delay depends on the balance of resistance and capacitance. The DDR-PHY has less metal area per routing width than the 18A core fields, while remaining above N3E. [30] Area = height × (top CD + bottom CD) / 2, including liners. Area/pitch normalizes by routing width. Taper is the symmetric sidewall angle from vertical, with the largest angle belonging to the DDR-PHY. Compute tile The measurements show how ribbon dimensions and gate-stack geometry vary across the compute tile and between NMOS and PMOS to balance channel drive, gate load and the space needed for the dielectric/WFM stack across logic, SRAM and the DDR-PHY. Width mainly changes available channel perimeter; thickness also changes electrostatic control and carrier confinement. Gate-stack thickness then determines the space left for low-resistivity fill P-core and LP E-core logic Both the P-core and LP E-core use multiple nanosheet widths. Widths are measured on high-magnification XTEMs while wider-field images demonstrate additional width choices within the LP E-core. Multiple widths are expected even within an LP E-core. Timing-critical paths, buffers and cells with different fanout need different drive strengths. The lower-magnification fields show this width diversity beyond the sites quantified in the table. L2 and L3 SRAM GAA gives SRAM designers another way to balance the pull-up (PU), pass-gate (PG), and pull-down (PD) transistors. FinFET bitcells set device strength through fin count while GAA adds nanosheet width as a sizing knob. In a 6T SRAM cell, a strong pull-down relative to the pass-gate limits read disturbance, while a strong pass-gate relative to the pull-up improves writability. During a write, the pass-gate and write driver pull the node storing “1” below the inverter trip point. During a read, the pull-down holds the node storing “0” low. Bias, threshold voltage, mismatch and assist circuitry set the remaining margin. FinFET high-current cells commonly use a PU:PG:PD fin-count pattern of 1:2:2, a device-sizing ratio rather than a current ratio. Ribbon width lets Intel balance SRAM strengths without adding whole fins. The L2 cell uses its narrowest ribbons for PU and widest for PD, improving writability and read stability respectively. Intel’s disclosed HCC operates without assist; its denser HDC uses negative-bitline write assist. Pulling the selected bitline briefly below ground increases pass-gate overdrive so it can overpower the pull-up at lower supply voltage. That buys density and low voltage writability at the cost of boosting circuitry, switching energy, and additional voltage stress that must be controlled. [31], [32] Four rectangular ribbons give the perimeter = 8 × (width + thickness), before corner rounding. PG/PU is 1.49 and PD/PG is 1.16. The L3 structures closely resemble L2 in layout and cell height. Fewer L3 nanosheet widths are tabulated because fewer high-magnification images were available. DDR PHY The DDR-PHY trades density for controlled analog behavior and reliable off-chip signaling. It contains drivers, receivers, delay circuits, and calibration logic that set drive strength, sampling time, and voltage margin. Repeated four-sheet devices with similar widths fit the use of regular transistor units for matching and programmable drive. Its wider local wiring provides room for current delivery and separation of sensitive signals, while consuming more area than a dense core-logic grid. The layout serves the memory channel’s electrical requirements as well as digital logic density. [33] The SemiAnalysis STEEL teardown lab breaks down advanced datacenter and AI hardware. To learn more about our pipeline or to commission a teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. WE’RE HIRING: Architecture, floorplan, packaging, manufacturing, and labs experts. Opportunities from system to transistor and everywhere in between. Check out our Careers page. Intel 3 GPU devices Vector engine logic Intel 3’s XVE logic uses two-fin PMOS and NMOS devices with power rails in M0. Its cell height and M0 pitch give a seven-track geometry, two tracks more than the 18A logic. One-fin groups also appear among the two-fin devices. Intel 3 L2 SRAM The Intel 3 L2 SRAM uses the familiar HCC sizing pattern: one PU fin, two PG fins, and two PD fins. N3E GPU devices Vector engine logic The N3E XVE field contains repeated two-fin devices with seven-track cell geometry. N3E remains a FinFET process, giving Panther Lake a direct FinFET-to-RibbonFET comparison. N3E L2 SRAM The N3E L2 SRAM uses the same PU:PG:PD fin-count pattern of 1:2:2. Panther Lake-U follows Lunar Lake’s floorplan quite closely. Both pair 4 P-cores with 4 LP E-cores and NPU, media and display engines in similar locations. Lunar Lake also uses Xe2, the direct predecessor to Panther Lake’s Xe3 GPU. This makes Lunar Lake the most direct basis for our comparisons. Arrow Lake differs in core count and uses the older Xe-LPG GPU architecture, so we only use it where it offers a more direct component-level comparison. Compute tile Panther Lake compute-tile floorplans remain sparse even months after launch. Intel 18A’s backside metal and dielectric stack must be removed without damaging the underlying structures before a clean transistor-level floorplan can be imaged. Most published die shots hide or heavily process the background, but we are quite proud of the die shot we achieved and are excited to show the work we have done. We measured the areas of the key components on the compute tile and compared them with their Lunar Lake predecessors on TSMC N3B. These help us to capture changes in block area and compare the two chips across process nodes and designs. Our total tile areas exclude the scribe-line area. The compute-plus-GPU subtotal below uses the PTL-U compute tile and GT1 GPU; it excludes the I/O tile and passive base. Individual block areas use the boundaries marked on the floorplans The compute-plus-GPU row is recomputed from the displayed PTL-U and GT1 areas. Component rows use their stated per-region counts and are not an additive partition of the whole tile. The P-core area remains almost unchanged between Lunar Lake and Panther Lake, despite L2 capacity increasing from 2.5 MiB to 3 MiB. Arrow Lake uses the same Lion Cove core as Lunar Lake but also has a 3 MiB L2. Cougar Cove fits 20% more L2 into the same P-core area. The larger private cache keeps more of each core’s working set close to its execution units, reducing access to shared L3 and DRAM. Extra capacity adds storage leakage and lookup energy, so designers balance it against avoided lower-level accesses. The shared P-core L3 cache also shrank by 14.8%. [2] Cougar Cove combines a similar footprint with Intel’s reported power-efficiency improvements. RibbonFET’s tighter channel control reduces leakage, while PowerVia reduces supply droop and allows tighter voltage guardbands. [1] Darkmont’s four-core LP E-core cluster is 5.0% smaller than Skymont’s on Lunar Lake, with most of the reduction in its L2 regions. The 1 MiB region shrank by 8.4% and the 1.5 MiB region by 14.9%. The tag arrays also use one fewer visible row. Tags identify which memory addresses the data array holds, so rearranging them changes the cache’s layout and wiring without requiring less data capacity. [2] The LP E-cores share one L2. This pools capacity and avoids duplicating all the cache machinery, but the four cores contend for its banks and bandwidth. Their separate cluster also keeps light work away from the performance cluster and its L3, allowing that larger domain to sleep. [1], [2] Cache area includes more than the storage cells. Tags identify each line, decoders select rows, sense amplifiers read the small bitline signal, and wires connect to the banks. Splitting an array into smaller sections shortens wordlines and bitlines, improving access speed, but duplicates peripheral circuits. Panther Lake’s smaller cache regions therefore reflect the complete memory implementation, including how much of each region is devoted to storage. [34] Unlike Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake, Panther Lake has no separate SoC tile. The NPU, LP E-cores, memory controllers, PHYs, media and display engines now share the compute tile. This removes an active die and keeps CPU memory traffic on one die. The cost is moving PHY and I/O-related circuitry onto 18A: drivers, receivers and analog circuits must still meet external voltage, loading and signal-integrity requirements, so their area does not shrink like dense digital logic. [1], [2] The biggest shrink comes from the NPU, which occupies 36.9% less area. NPU 5 consolidates the same total INT8 MAC count into half as many neural compute engines. Each of the three NCEs has a larger MAC array to make the complete NCE envelope 22.6% larger than an NPU 4 engine. Consolidation also halves the number of scratchpads and SHAVE DSPs, from 12 to 6. The MAC array handles matrix multiplication and convolution, while SHAVE executes vector and custom operations that fit the array poorly. [1], [2], [35] The paired floorplans identify each NCE envelope and its scratchpad, MAC, and SHAVE regions. Each measured MAC polygon is counted once per NCE in the area accounting below. The scratchpads store weights, activations, and intermediate results near the MAC arrays, allowing repeated use without fetching them again from DRAM. Halving their number delivers the largest measured area saving but leaves less local storage for the same total MAC count. Layers that no longer fit locally require smaller working tiles or more transfers of intermediate data. The benefit depends on keeping the enlarged arrays busy while managing that tighter storage budget. [36] NPU 5 also adds native FP8. Using half the operand width of FP16 reduces storage and transfer demand, helping workloads fit the smaller local memory budget. Lower precision and format-dependent range make scaling and model validation part of deployment. Hardware activation functions further reduce work that would otherwise occupy the programmable DSPs. [1], [2] Microsoft requires an NPU to deliver at least 40 TOPS for Copilot+ PCs. Both Lunar Lake and Panther Lake meet this threshold, but Panther Lake uses significantly less silicon. GPU tiles Panther Lake is Intel’s first product with Xe3, its latest GPU architecture. It offers two different GPU tiles: a smaller GT1 tile with 4 Xe3 cores on Intel 3 and a larger GT2 tile with 12 Xe3 cores on TSMC N3E. Panther Lake allows us to compare the same GPU architecture across both Intel 3 and TSMC N3E. Wildcat Lake adds a third Xe3 implementation on Intel 18A. A future newsletter will detail Xe3 and its implementation differences across all three process nodes. GT2 scales Xe3 to a different physical layout, with render slices arranged vertically instead of GT1’s horizontal arrangement. Slice placement sets the distances to shared cache banks and the D2D interface. Those wires consume area and add delay, so scaling the number of Xe cores also requires a new balance of cache placement, routing and timing. [1] What’s immediately obvious is that the GT2 tile on TSMC N3E has much smaller Xe cores than GT1. These block areas include logic, caches, and routing. An Xe core on the GT1 tile is ~69% larger than one on Lunar Lake, and ~55% larger than one on GT2. Intel 3 therefore uses substantially more area per Xe core. The block-area gap exceeds the measured logic and SRAM density gaps, bringing routing, timing targets, cell mix, and floorplan allocation into the comparison. The measured vector/matrix engine region is almost unchanged between Lunar Lake and Panther Lake’s GT2 tile. Xe3 retains eight 512-bit vector engines and eight 2048-bit XMX engines per core. Its gains also come from feeding those engines more effectively: more resident threads hide stalls, and variable register allocation lets shaders trade registers per thread against the number of threads kept active. [1] The shared L1/SLM capacity increased by 33% from 192 KiB to 256 KiB, while its area increased only 5%, raising effective density by 27%. L1 retains reused cache lines, while software-managed SLM lets a thread group share data locally. Both reduce traffic to more distant memory. Allocating more SLM per group can also limit how many groups reside on a core at once. [1], [37] The GT1 tile carries 4 MiB of L2 against 16 MiB on the GT2 tile. GT1 divides its L2 cache into four 1 MiB banks, while GT2 uses eight 2 MiB banks. Each bank contains 128 macros, but each N3E macro stores 16 KiB, twice the Intel 3 macro’s 8 KiB capacity. The N3E macro is only 54% larger while holding twice as many bits, giving it 30% higher density: ~23.7 Mbit/mm² versus 18.3 Mbit/mm². Including bank-level circuitry, the gap widens to ~16.9 Mbit/mm² on GT2 versus ~10.4 Mbit/mm² on GT1. GT2 gains density with its macros storing more bits per unit area, and those macros occupy more of each cache bank. Larger macros spread decoder and sense-amplifier overhead across more storage, while a more compact bank layout reduces the share spent on control and routing. The compromise is longer wordlines and bitlines that carry more capacitance. [34] I/O tile Panther Lake uses two I/O tile variants, both fabricated on TSMC N6. The smaller one provides 4 PCIe 5.0 and 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes and serves lower-tier systems as well as those without a discrete GPU, while the larger one adds 8 PCIe 5.0 lanes, bringing the total to 20 lanes, for discrete-GPU connectivity. Panther Lake SKUs with the larger 10- or 12-Xe GPUs use the smaller I/O tile. [38] The smaller I/O tile adds a PCIe 4.0 block and a Thunderbolt block to Lunar Lake’s I/O layout, providing four additional PCIe 4.0 lanes and another Thunderbolt 4 port. Its repeated N6 blocks retain nearly identical areas and layouts. Reusing these proven PHYs and controllers avoids porting and requalifying external interfaces on 18A, where faster digital logic offers less benefit to circuits constrained by the off-chip link. [38] SemiAnalysis’s teardown lab (STEEL) dives deep into the world’s advanced datacenter and AI hardware. To learn more about our pipeline or to commission a teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. We’re hiring technical experts from system to transistor and everywhere in between. Check out our Careers page. Panther Lake offers scalability and modularity through its disaggregated packaging that partition compute, GPU, and I/O silicon into separate tiles allowing for a suite of tile configurations. This partitioning makes the package part of Intel’s node economics as it determines how much leading-edge wafer area each product consumes, which functions can remain on other processes, and how much configuration freedom Intel can offer from a shared set of tiles. Furthermore, fabricating the compute and GPU tiles separately confines the new 18A process to the compute tile and allows graphics and I/O to use other, more established, and more cost-effective processes. For Panther Lake, the GPU and I/O tiles are assembled alongside the compute tile on a passive silicon base using Foveros-S. Intel’s current technology brief lists a nominal 36 µm pitch for Foveros-S. Through-silicon vias (TSVs) in the base connect the fine wiring above to the larger package connections below. The functional tiles sit side by side on that passive base in a 2.5D configuration. [39] Our cross-section through the compute and GPU tiles shows the package’s wiring hierarchy. Microbumps connect each active tile to the passive silicon base; its fine redistribution layer (RDL) carries the short, dense tile-to-tile links. TSVs carry connections through the base to the package substrate, which fans them out to the much coarser motherboard solder joints. The base supplies interconnect, while computation remains in the active tiles above it. [39] At the compute-tile edge, the higher-magnification inset shows a local microbump spacing of approximately 25.24 µm and a feature width of 12.33 µm. These local spacings are finer than Intel’s nominal Foveros-S value. The X-ray fields further confirm tighter neighboring bumps, consistent across every die-to-die area found on each tile. Additional X-ray analysis is offered after the paywall. Putting the memory controller beside the CPU removes the D2D transfer that CPU memory requests required in Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake. This avoids the extra transmitter, receiver, and link traversal, saving interface energy and latency. Panther Lake’s separate GPU still crosses a D2D link to reach DRAM, so its larger local caches also help contain package traffic. [1], [40] Smaller dies are less likely to contain a random fatal defect, and screening them before assembly prevents one bad tile from consuming a complete package of good silicon. Reuse also spreads design and qualification work across more products. Against those gains, Intel pays for the passive base, D2D circuits, extra bonding and test steps, and losses during assembly. Cost per working product across the portfolio captures the combined effect of wafer yield, reuse, test, and assembly. [29] Wildcat Lake packaging Intel launched Core Series 3, formerly Wildcat Lake, on 16 April 2026 for value mobile and edge systems. Wildcat Lake keeps 18A but removes the passive base and combines more functions on one die to simplify the package. The two products therefore reveal two distinct ways to commercialize the same leading-edge process. [41] Wildcat Lake’s 18A die combines up to two Cougar Cove P-cores, four Darkmont LP E-cores, two Xe3 cores and a smaller NPU. A separate platform-controller die supplies I/O, connected through UCIe, Intel’s first processor implementation of the standard. Consolidating graphics remove a tile boundary and the passive base, reducing assembly complexity for a modest-bandwidth value product. It also ties CPU and graphics scaling to the same die, giving up Panther Lake’s ability to swap in a much larger GPU. [42], [43] In July 2021, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger set out an ambitious process roadmap aimed at regaining performance leadership by 2025, later described as five nodes in four years. Five years and one CEO later, Intel’s comeback story is not as unambiguously positive as Pat may have hoped. [44], [45] Intel once set the pace for process technology, bringing high-k metal gate technology and FinFETs into volume production years ahead of the rest of the industry. Its 22 nm FinFET process reached consumers with Ivy Bridge in 2012. [46] Intel’s integrated device manufacturing (IDM) model allowed its architects and process engineers to co-optimize products and processes. Starting with Sandy Bridge, Intel dominated x86, while AMD struggled with Bulldozer. That lead faltered at 14 nm and broke at 10 nm. Intel targeted a massive 2.7× density increase, but the node arrived years late and required several revisions before it could support Intel’s full lineup. This delay forced Intel to stretch 14 nm across six generations, while TSMC moved ahead in process technology and AMD recovered in x86. By 2019, Intel was still shipping 14 nm across most of its product stack, with its 10 nm client ramp focused on Ice Lake mobile processors. Meanwhile, TSMC was shipping N7 and N7+, and AMD’s Zen 2 compute chiplets used N7 to raise core counts and improve efficiency. Intel’s process failures were central to its decline, but unsound business decisions furthered their downward slide. Product delays compounded product mistakes, pushing client, server, and FPGA roadmaps off schedule. Several attempts to enter AI (Nervana and Gaudi) and networking (Tofino) also failed to establish lasting businesses. Intel’s recovery has focused on consumer CPUs and advanced packaging. Tiger Lake, Alder Lake, Lunar Lake and now Panther Lake have restored Intel’s consumer roadmap. On the process side, Intel 4 shipped with Meteor Lake, Intel 3 with Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest, and Intel 18A with Panther Lake. Intel has also made advanced packaging part of its foundry offering. However, Intel is still playing catch-up in servers. Several Xeon generations arrived years late and trailed contemporary AMD and Arm server CPUs in performance, efficiency, and core count. The process roadmap is back, but Intel does not hold the same process-technology leadership position it held prior to 10 nm. The introduction of gate-all-around nanosheets and backside power delivery are two of the biggest changes to transistor integration in a decade. Intel took on both changes at once: 18A paired its first RibbonFET with PowerVia in Panther Lake. Panther Lake is a substantial manufacturing milestone. Our cross-sections show how RibbonFET and PowerVia reshape local contacts and wiring, while the floorplans show where architectural consolidation and process choices save area. A sustained competitive lead depends on product performance, cost, yield, and the next implementation. The SemiAnalysis STEEL teardown lab breaks down advanced datacenter and AI hardware. To learn more about our pipeline or to commission a teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. WE’RE HIRING: Architecture, floorplan, packaging, manufacturing, and labs experts. Opportunities from system to transistor and everywhere in between. Check out our Careers page.. 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The Entrepreneurial Impact Awards Gala provided a formal night out for Fayetteville’s business community. The event took place at the Rudolph Jones Student Center on Thursday, Sept. 10. Photo by GFBJ. Fayetteville State University (FSU) and the Fayetteville-Cumberland Regional Entrepreneur and Business HUB (FSU HUB) came together to celebrate Fayetteville’s business community. The two organizations rolled out the blue carpet at the Rudolph Jones Student Center for their inaugural Entrepreneurial Impact Awards Gala held on Thursday, Sept. 10.The gala honored outstanding entrepreneurs and business leaders who demonstrate excellence, foster growth and inspire the next generation of innovators within the FSU and broader business community.FSU HUB Director Dr. Tamara Colvin was able to highlight that this new milestone was a great way to show local success stories, not just tell.“That one-stop shop that’s across the street, we never promised that everyone would be successful, but what we did promise was access. Four years ago, we opened up an entire ecosystem: counseling, capital, contracts, connections, certifications,” shared Colvin. “I want to thank the judges who took up hard work for choosing tonight’s honorees. That’s never an easy task when the whole region is full of people worth recognizing at the HUB. We practice what we preach: Res Non Verba: Deeds, not words.” A few of the inaugural recipients of the awards shared their statements with the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal.STUDENT ENTREPRENEUR Boolean Wiring LLC, Esean Rose, owner “I am truly honored and grateful to receive the Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award. I want to thank Fayetteville State University, the judges and everyone who has supported me throughout this journey. This award represents more than recognition for where Boolean Wiring is today. To me, it represents the potential of where we are going. I am excited about growing the company, creating jobs, serving our community and building something that can have an impact far beyond Fayetteville.”VETERAN-OWNED BUSINESS SpeediPrint Inc., Dazrell Fleming, owner “I’m honored to accept the Veteran-Owned Business Award on behalf of the entire SpeediPrint team. A special thank you to Dr. Tamara Colvin for creating this opportunity through the Entrepreneurial Impact Awards, and to my mentor, Mr. Julius Cook, whose guidance during the Boots to Business program truly paid off. This recognition reflects the hard work of my staff and the trust our customers place in us every day — I’m grateful to serve this community and excited for what’s ahead.”MULTI-GENERATIONAL EXCELLENCE BJL Construction, Cleopatrice Robinson, president“This award is especially meaningful because we are more than a business — we are the continuation of a family legacy built through faith, hard work, craftsmanship, integrity and service. I gratefully acknowledge my grandfather, Deacon Benjamin “BJ” Lacy, Jr., whose example helped establish the foundation upon which our family’s entrepreneurial legacy was built. I also honor my father, the late Dr. Wilson Lacy, former president of BJL Construction. Working alongside him was both an opportunity and an education. He taught me that a business’s reputation had to be earned on every project through honesty, excellence, quality and service. As the current president, I recognize that I did not arrive at this moment alone. I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me, and I am sustained by those who continue to walk beside me.”MICRO BUSINESS Maybridge Development, LLC, Latisha Perkins, owner “I accept this award with so much pride and a whole lot of gratitude. First and foremost, I want to thank my higher power for continuing to guide me and give me the strength to keep going.When I first started this business and moved here to Fayetteville, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. This business has turned me every which way but loose, and I definitely had some moments where I was ready to just pack it up and head back to Georgia. I want to thank my Maybridge team, my village, The Hub, the FCEDC team and all the people and organizations here in Fayetteville who have believed in me and Maybridge and helped us get here.”COMMUNITY IMPACT Greater Life of Fayetteville, Georgeanna Pinckney, CEO & executive director “We are deeply honored to be recognized by FSU and the FSU HUB with the Community Impact Award presented to Greater Life of Fayetteville. I am especially grateful for this recognition because it tells us that you see what we do – and, more importantly, why we do what we do. Our commitment is to serve, empower and create meaningful opportunities for youth and families in our community. Most importantly, we give God first and foremost all the glory. We thank Him for giving us the wisdom, strength, vision and unity to continue doing this great work in our community.” SMALL BUSINESS OF THE YEAR Crowder Trucking LLC, Carlos & Valerie Morrison Crowder, owners “I want to thank God for always keeping his hands on Crowder Trucking. I’m truly honored and grateful to receive the Small Business Award from the FSU HUB. Running a small business is not always easy. There are long days, difficult decisions, unexpected challenges and plenty of moments when you have to remind yourself why you started. But there are also incredible moments like this one that remind you that the hard work is worth it,” shared Valerie Morrison Crowder.OTHER WINNERS INCLUDE: Alumni Entrepreneur - The Two-Six Project, Grant Bennett, founder and president Fayetteville State University Faculty Award - Dr. Christy Swinson Emerging Business Award - Genuine Luxury Beauty Salon Legacy Award - Gillis Farms Inc. Industry Titan of the Year - Eaton Corporation Entrepreneur of the Year- Let Me Cater to You, Chef Judith Cage, owner
Axios House: Politics complicates U.S. ambitions in energy race
Politics is an obstacle to the country's competitive energy and climate efforts at a critical time, industry leaders say.
Music Industry Moves: Chvrches Sign With Futures Music Group; MSG Entertainment Names Josephine Vaccarello President
Scottish pop trio Chvrches have signed with Futures Music Group and alongside that announcement have released their first single in three years, “Roses.” The group will play two shows in the U.K. next...
Political psychology: Why extremist parties are thriving and what democratic politicians can do
Far-right and far-left parties are celebrating success after success, leaving moderate politicians in the dust. Many Germans worry about this. Political psychology helps us understand what's behind growing polarization.
From the Classroom to the Laboratory: Experiential Learning Shapes Food Science Student’s Future
Two semesters of experiential learning in Rutgers’ food packaging laboratory helped Daniel Burd transform classroom knowledge into award-winning research with real-world applications for the food industry. When Daniel Burd first arrived at Rutgers after earning an associate degree from Brookdale Community College, he knew he loved food science because it brought chemistry and biology to […]
"I assume someone is being greedy somewhere" - Tim Schafer discusses current game industry woes following Double Fine's split with Xbox
Tim Schafer speaks to the BBC about Double Fine going independent, Game Pass, and the games industry in general.
Oracle Health rolls out AI solutions for RCM, oncology as part of broader healthcare, life sciences strategy
ORLANDO, Fla.—Healthcare is entering an AI era, and the industry needs a fundamentally different architecture designed for AI from the start, Oracle Health executives said Wednesday. | Healthcare is entering an AI era, and the industry needs a fundamentally different architecture designed for AI from the start, Oracle Health executives said Wednesday.
Ed Sheeran at Gillette: Will Kraft's move keep artists away?
Most music industry observers agree that profit, not politics, is king in the concert business.
Nick Clegg plays down fears ‘godlike’ AI could exterminate humanity
Former deputy PM now involved in tech industry says many within the sector are ‘winding themselves up into a lather’
Kim Kardashian’s Team Moms highlights the ridiculous excess of the US youth-sports industry
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Black Lung Disease Remains a Threat, but Federal Officials Delay Effort To Address It
The disease has long been a risk of coal mining, an industry the Trump administration is trying to reinvigorate.
Taanusiya Chetty open to joining entertainment industry after Miss World success
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Hands-on science can be cool
After spending many long days conducting experiments to find a new way to combat bacterial infections in crops, Misha Hegde and Mia Soleil Maurer have been rewarded with international recognition and access to top research facilities. But these are not typical scientists. They are 16-year-old German high school students.“Our supervisor told us that in order to start a project, you need to begin with either a question or a problem,” says Misha, adding that she and Mia had read about antibiotic resistance in certain plants being treated for bacterial infections. “We found out that antibiotics overuse is very common in agriculture,” explains Mia. “Our aim was to create an alternative to antibiotics and to try to raise awareness of the problem of overusing antibiotics.”Their subsequent research has focused on harnessing bacteriophages, the natural predators of bacteria, to eliminate pathogens threatening food crops treated with antibiotics. At the Schuldorf Bergstraße Jugend forscht MakerLab in Seeheim-Jugenheim, located in the German state of Hesse, they discovered a novel phage that infects the Rhizobium rhizogenes bacterium, which causes the hairy root disease that can reduce yields of tomatoes, carrots, soya beans and other food staples.The students believe their method could curb antibiotic use, while protecting plants from infections without disturbing the natural soil microbiome. “The application of phages is host-specific, so they would only kill the targeted pathogen or disease-causing bacteria,” explains Mia. It may also offer environmental benefits, since applying antibiotics can contaminate groundwater.Getting to this point has not been easy. The childhood friends admit to feeling frustrated when their trials did not yield the expected results. “We spent six months on our first experiment, just doing the same thing over and over and over again, to the point where we thought, is it even worth it? Why are we doing this?” Misha says. “You just need to be brave enough to take that first step and keep going.”The benefits of inquiry-based learningTheir determination has paid off. In 2025, the pair won first prize in biology at Jugend forscht, Germany’s national competition for young people interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They were also among the winners of the German Research Foundation Europa-Preis, which is awarded to selected national winners at Jugend forscht, and took third place in the 2025 European Union Contest for Young Scientists.The Jugend forscht Foundation opens doors for young people to connect with scientists as well as industry professionals. Jessica Bönsch, executive director of the Foundation, sees Misha and Mia as prime examples of how young people can develop a deeper understanding of science through their own research projects. “The experience of working on your own research question is very important,” she explains, adding that “inquiry-based learning engages with real-life problems in a way that can be more motivating than traditional classroom teaching.”The Jugend forscht Foundation offers financial support through sponsor pools in Germany’s federal states. Some projects are developed in cooperation with student research centres, university labs or informal collaborative learning areas called makerspaces. Other activities start as hands-on “garage projects” and can grow within the Jugend forscht network and infrastructure.The Jugend forscht Foundation is also a partner of Science Comes to Town, an EU initiative to strengthen public awareness about science and create bridges between researchers and communities. The EU-financed project involves universities, research institutions and other stakeholders in three host cities — Brest (France), Kiel (Germany) and Split (Croatia).“It's so important for people not to live in a bubble, because I think science can be very scary if you misunderstand it,” Mia says of SCTT. The initiative’s aim of raising awareness about science is “absolutely amazing,” Misha adds. “I think it's the best way to kind of make science digestible for the public. In a world where misinformation in science is getting more radical, more dangerous, becoming more of a threat to the trust in scientific infrastructure and foundations, we need such programmes.”Misha and Mia also believe that SCTT can help break down gender stereotypes in science by encouraging young women to study and pursue careers in scientific fields. Both students have benefited from female mentors and encouragement they had when they were much younger. Mia’s love of science began with a class trip to a lab, while Misha — with a smile on her face — says she wanted to study history until “a teacher kind of coerced me into joining a school science club.”Recognition beyond EuropeIn May, Misha and Mia were among the finalists at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair held in Phoenix, Arizona, and involving nearly 1,700 pre-university students from over 60 countries. “It was very crazy because there were so many people and so many teenagers interested in science,” Mia recalls. The event was also challenging. “It was eight hours of continuously presenting your project,” adds Misha.Attending the fair was a chance for the young women to see first-hand the value of international collaboration as well as how research cultures differ. “America is a bit more willing to take risks, and I think that's something we can learn about here in Europe,” Misha explains. However, she continues, “I think Europe has the talent, has the innovation and has the resources” to be competitive.Misha and Mia plan to continue their phage experiments in the new school year, inspired by the project’s hands-on nature and the support they receive from their supervisors. They have also attracted the interest of professional scientists and received invitations to leading research facilities, including the Centre for Synthetic Microbiology, jointly run by the University of Marburg and the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Germany. “It is so cool that we can do something to try to move the world in our school and at this age,” Mia says.After completing secondary school, Mia plans to study microbiology and pursue a career in medical research, focusing on Ebola and other infectious diseases. “This has been my dream for so long,” she says. Her friend Misha is interested in biological research with a focus on medicine. “I've gotten addicted to the process of going to the lab, planning out experiments, then failing, trying again,” Misha says. “I think there's just so much to be discovered, so much to be done.”The students' names and photos were published with the permission of their parents.Science|Business, which connects policymakers, academics and industry through its news reporting, analysis and events, is an SCTT partner.
Double Fine Founder Tim Schafer Questions Economics of the Game Industry Amid Mass Layoffs and Studio Closures
Double Fine founder Tim Schafer says he no longer “understands the economics” of game development following Xbox’s mass layoffs and industry-wide studio closures.
Globant (GLOB) Following The TCI Entertainment Deal And The Undervalued Narrative
Globant (NYSE:GLOB) has become a development partner for TCI Entertainment through a new Master Services Agreement, establishing the legal and commercial framework for projects related to interactive commerce technology. Despite the new TCI Entertainment agreement, Globant’s recent share price performance has been weak, with the stock down 12.69% over the past week and 44.49% year to date, while the 1-year total shareholder return has declined 38.29%. This suggests sentiment has been under...
State Chamber CEO: Data centers need to be ‘regulated properly’
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‘I just assume someone is being greedy’: Double Fine’s Tim Schafer says he doesn’t know why the industry isn’t recovering
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Health Care Partnership outlines workforce progress
More local nursing graduates are staying in the region, according to officials offering an update on the progress of the New Hanover Healthcare Career Partnership at a public forum last night. According to Jack Watson, dean of UNCW’s College of Health & Human Services, the number of UNCW nursing graduates choosing to remain in the area after graduation has climbed from 27% to the mid-40% range. The New Hanover Healthcare Career Partnership aims to address the region’s healthcare worker shortage, with a key focus on nursing through strategic partnerships between UNCW, Cape Fear Community College (CFCC), New Hanover County Schools and the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce Foundation. "Each of the partners had pathway programs,” said Watson, “but they were almost at times done in a silo." One of the New Hanover Community Endowment's largest commitments to date, the collaborative received a $22.3 million grant in 2023, to be disbursed over three years, beginning in 2024. At the public forum, leadership addressed the nursing bottleneck created by the pandemic, and Laurie Whalin, president of the Novant Health Coastal Region, acknowledged that Novant Health had relied heavily on travel nurses during that period, with travel nurses making up about 47% of staff and nursing turnover at 35% at the height of the pandemic. "I can say we are in a tremendously different place today,” Whalin said at the forum. The number of travel nurses employed by the Novant Health Coastal Region has dropped to around 100 today, which Whalin says accounts for less than 4% of the workforce. Roughly two years into the grant term, major stakeholders in the collaboration pointed to various accomplishments tied to the initiative. According to Stephen Hill, vice president of talent development with the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, 250 more nurses live in New Hanover County in 2026 than in 2023. Whalin added that between 2021 and 2025, the Novant Health Coastal Region has hired close to 1,200 registered nurses. Additionally, according to Whalin, over the past two years, hiring and retention of nursing graduates from UNCW increased by 103%, while hiring and retention of nursing graduates from CFCC increased by 70%. Mandy Mills, director of career & technical education at New Hanover County Schools, pointed to the launch of its first Health Sciences Academy program, established across the county's four traditional high schools (Hoggard High School, Laney High School, Ashley High School and New Hanover High School), which started with 38 students last year. Mills also pointed to growth in the district’s Nursing Fundamentals course, which grew from 10 seats in 2023 to 50 in 2025-2026 and is now offered at all four traditional high schools. Watson emphasized the growing nursing class sizes and offered an update on the school’s accelerated nursing degree, which launched last year. Eleven students graduated in the first class, and all passed their boards on the first try, Watson said. This year’s class has 24 students. When the endowment announced its $22.3 million grant for the collaborative in 2023, UNCW and CFCC were each slated to receive the bulk of the funds, at about $10 million each. UNCW’s plans for the grant money included expanding its simulation lab, Watson said. He added that construction is expected to begin on the simulation lab this year and will likely extend through next year. According to Mary Ellen Naylor, dean of Health & Human Services at CFCC, the college has experienced growth in its associate degree nursing retention, rising from 59% in 2023 to 76% for the May 2026 class. CFCC used part of its endowment funding to support wraparound services, including a housing stipend, tuition assistance, exam assistance, emergency assistance, drop-in daycare and clinical and educational supplies. "We have very strong … students, but once they get into the program, there are competing priorities,” Naylor said. “They are working multiple jobs. They have children. They're single parents." According to Naylor, in 2026, 94% of students who used support services are still enrolled or have graduated. Addressing a question from an audience member about an approaching “enrollment cliff,” driven largely by dropping birth rates, Watson and Naylor said demand remains strong at both schools. “Right now … we do have more applicants than we have spots in our nursing program, and it is still a competitive process to get into,” Watson said. “I do not foresee that changing.” "(We've) doubled enrollment in our nursing programs over the last few years, but just as Dean Watson said, we still have very robust applicant pools, so it is still very competitive to get in,” Naylor said. "We have the applicant pool to support that, but again, it's not as easy as just saying, 'Okay … we're going to take another 90 students.' It's making sure all the resources and infrastructure that we need to educate the students outside the classroom is there as well." In response to a question about applying the collaborative model to other healthcare positions besides nursing, Sophie Dagenais, CEO and president of the endowment, said she sees the potential for the model to expand to other healthcare jobs and even other industries, but that the endowment hopes to learn from this model first. “This is a grant that is in year two of three years, and first we wanted to learn what is this going to demonstrate, what will we learn and then how may we scale it possibly,” she said. According to endowment spokesperson Amber Rogerson, funds for the program are set to expire after June 2027. “It's too early to discuss what happens after that,” wrote Rogerson in an email, “though we know the partners are considering the future, and some of the work supported by the grants is now built into their regular operations.”
Health Care Partnership outlines workforce progress
More local nursing graduates are staying in the region, according to officials offering an update on the progress of the New Hanover Healthcare Career Partnership at a public forum last night. According to Jack Watson, dean of UNCW’s College of Health & Human Services, the number of UNCW nursing graduates choosing to remain in the area after graduation has climbed from 27% to the mid-40% range. The New Hanover Healthcare Career Partnership aims to address the region’s healthcare worker shortage, with a key focus on nursing through strategic partnerships between UNCW, Cape Fear Community College (CFCC), New Hanover County Schools and the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce Foundation. "Each of the partners had pathway programs,” said Watson, “but they were almost at times done in a silo." One of the New Hanover Community Endowment's largest commitments to date, the collaborative received a $22.3 million grant in 2023, to be disbursed over three years, beginning in 2024. At the public forum, leadership addressed the nursing bottleneck created by the pandemic, and Laurie Whalin, president of the Novant Health Coastal Region, acknowledged that Novant Health had relied heavily on travel nurses during that period, with travel nurses making up about 47% of staff and nursing turnover at 35% at the height of the pandemic. "I can say we are in a tremendously different place today,” Whalin said at the forum. The number of travel nurses employed by the Novant Health Coastal Region has dropped to around 100 today, which Whalin says accounts for less than 4% of the workforce. Roughly two years into the grant term, major stakeholders in the collaboration pointed to various accomplishments tied to the initiative. According to Stephen Hill, vice president of talent development with the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, 250 more nurses live in New Hanover County in 2026 than in 2023. Whalin added that between 2021 and 2025, the Novant Health Coastal Region has hired close to 1,200 registered nurses. Additionally, according to Whalin, over the past two years, hiring and retention of nursing graduates from UNCW increased by 103%, while hiring and retention of nursing graduates from CFCC increased by 70%. Mandy Mills, director of career & technical education at New Hanover County Schools, pointed to the launch of its first Health Sciences Academy program, established across the county's four traditional high schools (Hoggard High School, Laney High School, Ashley High School and New Hanover High School), which started with 38 students last year. Mills also pointed to growth in the district’s Nursing Fundamentals course, which grew from 10 seats in 2023 to 50 in 2025-2026 and is now offered at all four traditional high schools. Watson emphasized the growing nursing class sizes and offered an update on the school’s accelerated nursing degree, which launched last year. Eleven students graduated in the first class, and all passed their boards on the first try, Watson said. This year’s class has 24 students. When the endowment announced its $22.3 million grant for the collaborative in 2023, UNCW and CFCC were each slated to receive the bulk of the funds, at about $10 million each. UNCW’s plans for the grant money included expanding its simulation lab, Watson said. He added that construction is expected to begin on the simulation lab this year and will likely extend through next year. According to Mary Ellen Naylor, dean of Health & Human Services at CFCC, the college has experienced growth in its associate degree nursing retention, rising from 59% in 2023 to 76% for the May 2026 class. CFCC used part of its endowment funding to support wraparound services, including a housing stipend, tuition assistance, exam assistance, emergency assistance, drop-in daycare and clinical and educational supplies. "We have very strong … students, but once they get into the program, there are competing priorities,” Naylor said. “They are working multiple jobs. They have children. They're single parents." According to Naylor, in 2026, 94% of students who used support services are still enrolled or have graduated. Addressing a question from an audience member about an approaching “enrollment cliff,” driven largely by dropping birth rates, Watson and Naylor said demand remains strong at both schools. “Right now … we do have more applicants than we have spots in our nursing program, and it is still a competitive process to get into,” Watson said. “I do not foresee that changing.” "(We've) doubled enrollment in our nursing programs over the last few years, but just as Dean Watson said, we still have very robust applicant pools, so it is still very competitive to get in,” Naylor said. "We have the applicant pool to support that, but again, it's not as easy as just saying, 'Okay … we're going to take another 90 students.' It's making sure all the resources and infrastructure that we need to educate the students outside the classroom is there as well." In response to a question about applying the collaborative model to other healthcare positions besides nursing, Sophie Dagenais, CEO and president of the endowment, said she sees the potential for the model to expand to other healthcare jobs and even other industries, but that the endowment hopes to learn from this model first. “This is a grant that is in year two of three years, and first we wanted to learn what is this going to demonstrate, what will we learn and then how may we scale it possibly,” she said. According to endowment spokesperson Amber Rogerson, funds for the program are set to expire after June 2027. “It's too early to discuss what happens after that,” wrote Rogerson in an email, “though we know the partners are considering the future, and some of the work supported by the grants is now built into their regular operations.”
NJ Business Council for Childcare Launches to Strengthen NJ’s Workforce and Economy
ATLANTIC CITY — Today, the New Jersey Business Council for Childcare officially launched, bringing together some of the state’s most influential business organizations and employers to address childcare as a critical workforce and economic issue. Advised by Moms First, the statewide, business-led coalition includes the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA), New Jersey Chamber of[...]
DHS plans ‘large investments’ in biosurveillance as it ramps up capabilities
The agency’s Science and Technology Directorate wants to add testing and evaluation sites, forge partnerships with industry and create internal roles to lead the work.
Populous’ Jonathan Mallie Named a 2026 VenuesNow All-Star
Jonathan Mallie, Global Director and Managing Director of the Americas at Populous, has been named a VenuesNow 2026 All-Star, an annual list that honors those in the live events and venue management industry, celebrating their leadership, innovation, and impact on the global live entertainment environment.
Science Applications International (SAIC) After ORBIT Launch Narrative Puts Valuation In Focus
Science Applications International (SAIC) has recently drawn investor attention after its shares closed at US$129.69. The move comes amid steady government IT contract activity and mixed short term price performance. Recent trading has been choppy, with the share price slipping 2.7% over the last day and 3.0% over the past week. However, Science Applications International still shows building momentum, reflected in a 19.6% three-month share price return and a 33.4% one-year total shareholder...
Nuclear power startup founded by SpaceX alums is building its headquarters in Bywater
The year-old private company, which plans to build and operate small modular reactor powerplants, will spend more than $8 million transforming an existing 18,500-square-foot industrial facility at 3333 Chartres Street into office space, a light fabrication shop and training center.
Minnesota Craft Beer’s Next Round
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Trump to meet China’s Xi as Congress mulls bill banning artificial superintelligence
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Manufacturer GAF Earns Salute to Business Award
GAF , a Standard Industries company and North America’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer, was recently honored by the Economic Development Corporation Michigan City (EDCMC) with a …
Canada's boycott forces the sale of a California winery
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AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) Begins $3.97 Billion Debt Refinancing
AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE:AMC) launched a US$3.97b debt refinancing effort aimed at reshaping its capital structure. The package includes new secured note offerings designed to retire existing 2029 notes through a comprehensive tender offer. AMC is also pursuing new first and second lien term loans that are intended to replace upcoming debt maturities. This large refinancing of 2029 notes and new secured financing only captures part of what could reshape AMC’s risk profile. Check out...
Entertainers face mental health pressures behind the Las Vegas spotlight
More than one in 10 Nevadans work in the hospitality or entertainment industry, and experts say the pressure of that work can come at a high cost for the people who make it happen.
Entertainers face mental health pressures behind the Las Vegas spotlight
More than one in 10 Nevadans work in the hospitality or entertainment industry, and experts say the pressure of that work can come at a high cost for the people who make it happen.
Merck Life Science Expands Bengaluru Manufacturing with €13 Million Investment
Merck Life Science is expanding its manufacturing capabilities in Bengaluru with an investment of approximately €13 million, strengthening the company’s ability to supply critical materials to customers across India and the wider Asia-Pacific region. The expansion at Merck Life Science’s Jigani site in Bengaluru will introduce biological buffer manufacturing alongside the facility’s established chemistry capabilities. The investment is designed to enable faster and more reliable access to critical materials used by customers across research, diagnostics, biotechnology and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The development further advances Merck Life Science’s “in-region, for-region” approach, under which the company is expanding manufacturing capabilities closer to the markets and customers it serves. By adding biological buffer production in India, the Jigani expansion will broaden the site’s manufacturing capabilities while strengthening Merck Life Science’s regional supply infrastructure for the rapidly developing life sciences sector across India and Asia-Pacific. The company said the expansion reflects both the contribution of its teams and its collaboration with government and industry stakeholders. Merck Life Science acknowledged the support of India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the German Embassy New Delhi, and Invest India in helping strengthen life science manufacturing capabilities in the region. The investment comes as India continues to expand its role across pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics and biomanufacturing value chains, increasing demand for dependable regional access to materials supporting research and manufacturing operations. The Bengaluru expansion reinforces Merck Life Science’s focus on building manufacturing capacity within Asia-Pacific and supporting customers through a more regionalised supply network.
The potential local impact of Spanberger's data center 'framework'
Gov. Abigail Spanberger released her blueprint for regulating data center development last week, billing it as “a new way forward for how this industry does business in the Commonwealth.”
Worsening El Nino threatens Asia with severe drought, potentially threatening global food security
El Nino already is depleting water supplies, hurting fish catches and jeopardizing Asia's globally important agriculture industry.
How Index Switches Will Impact Tencent Music Stock Investors
Tencent Music Entertainment Group was removed from the FTSE All-World Index on its NYSE listing and added on its SEHK listing in September 2026, while fresh research updates highlighted mixed views on its core music operations and broader platform trajectory. The index switch concentrates liquidity closer to Tencent Music Entertainment Group’s onshore business footprint. This may sharpen investor focus on how its streaming, social entertainment, and offline initiatives line up with...
Day-into-night music, entertainment. Popular Turlock eatery to mark summer’s end
It’s a family friendly celebration with no cover charge.
LABI Names 2026 Business Excellence Award Honorees
BATON ROUGE, La. — The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) has announced the nine honorees of its 2026 Louisiana Business Excellence Awards,
NSSF’s Lawrence Keane Appointed to Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council
WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, celebrates the appointment of Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President & General Counsel, to the Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council (HSSCAC). The Council will provide the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture with advice regarding the establishment […]
Xbox transfers Rare and Halo franchise to Activision, proposes closure of Ninja Theory and confirms another 268 roles cut amid studio restructure
Major staff cuts at former 343 Industries and other teams; consultation begins at Ninja Theory; Obsidian transferred to Bethesda, buyer found for Undead Labs
What’s Next for Paramount
Hollywood watchers believe the studio prevailed over states seeking to block its deal for Warner Bros. Discovery. It’s now free to reshape the media industry.
Toy Association Op-Ed Published in Real Clear Politics Makes the Case for Tariff-Free Toys
The Toy Association™ is continuing to amplify the toy industry’s call for preferential tariff treatment of toys, with a new op-ed by Kathrin Belliveau, chief legal & policy officer at The Toy Association, published online today i
Health Infrastructure Security Act reintroduced to strengthen healthcare cybersecurity standards, resilience and oversight
Health Infrastructure Security Act reintroduced to strengthen healthcare cybersecurity standards, resilience and oversight
Caesars Entertainment (CZR), Why Is It Getting Fresh Attention Now?
Caesars Entertainment (CZR) has drawn fresh attention after two directors, Jesse Lynn and Ted Papapostolou, resigned from the board on September 16, 2026, prompting investors to reassess governance and long term positioning. Recent trading around Caesars Entertainment has been relatively muted, with the share price at $29.65 and a year to date share price return of 25.85% that sits alongside a 1 year total shareholder return of 15.19% and a 5 year total shareholder return that has declined...
BTA at 100: Our Top 8 Takeaways
The office technology industry gathered to celebrate a century of Business Technology Association (BTA) advocacy and evolution.
Midterms' new populism: Taking on health industries
Anxiety over health care costs is driving a new brand of populism and talk about taking on health industries.
‘Healthy and Delicious Can Coexist’: Experts Discuss Making Food More Joyful and Sustainable
At a TIME100 Talks event in New York City on Sept. 21, chefs and food industry experts discussed the challenges our communities face in making food healthier, more accessible, and more joyful for ever...
‘Healthy and Delicious Can Coexist’: Experts Discuss Making Food More Joyful and Sustainable
At a TIME100 Talks event in New York City on Sept. 21, chefs and food industry experts discussed the challenges our communities face in making food healthier, more accessible, and more joyful for ever...
A 12-year-old in California built a Braille printer from a $350 Lego robotics kit for a school science fair, at a time when the cheapest commercial machine cost about $2,000, and Intel invested in it
When a middle schooler cracked an accessibility problem that the technology industry had left unsolved for decades, major investors took notice.
Build a Career in Wine: Linfield University Opens Applications for Graduate Certificate in Wine Business Leadership
Four-month online program gives wine professionals and career changers the business knowledge to take their next step in the wine industry September 21,
M&A INDUSTRY ICON AWARD HONOREE: LAWRENCE M. BRAUN - Sheppard
M&A INDUSTRY ICON AWARD HONOREE: LAWRENCE M. BRAUN Of Counsel Sheppard Lawrence M. Braun is a partner in Sheppard’s Los Angeles office and the former
Republicans target Las Vegas congressional seat touting Trump's 'no tax on tips'
Nevada has the highest concentration of tipped workers thanks to its hospitality and tourism industries.
3 Stocks to Consider From the Booming Business Information Industry
AI, proprietary data and cloud platforms are reshaping business information services. FDS, VRSK and TRU are positioned to benefit.
What Makes a Trailblazer: TSTC graduate always dreamed of business ownership
What do dyslexia, jewelry and an angry mother all have in common? Give up? They all put Mathew on the path to business ownership. Mathew Joseph is a graduate from Texas State Technical College’s Industrial Electrical Technician (now Advanced Manufacturing – Industrial Maintenance) program. He is also the owner and president of C3 Industrial Technologies…
Oregon's competitiveness ranks fall as business group urges policy reforms
Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) --- Oregon Business and Industry released its 2027-28 Oregon Competitiveness Agenda today, urging state lawmakers to reform tax and regulatory policies to address ongoing economic stagnation. The statewide business group highlighted several indicators showing Oregon trailing national growth and employment averages over consecutive years. Data cited in the report shows Oregon's economy
Trump shattered Canada’s old US relationship. Carney is building a new one in Europe
TORONTO (AP) — For nearly four decades, Canada built its economy around closer integration with the United States. President Donald Trump has turned that dependence into leverage, imposing tariffs, threatening Canada’s sovereignty and openly seeking to pull Canadian industrial production south. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has moved on. Rather than return to trade talks […]
Kazakh scientists develop W Balance functional spread
Scientists of the Kazakh Scientific and Research Institute of Processing and Food Industry of the National Agrarian Scientific and Educational Centre created a new technology and recipe for the functional butter-vegetable spread “W Balance,” Qazinform News Agency reports.
2026 Concessions & Entertainment Guide
Agile Ticketing Solutions agiletix.com Agile Ticketing Solutions (AgileTix) is a North America–based provider of ticketing and venue management software, serving the live entertainment industry since 1999. Headquartered in Hermitage, Tennessee, AgileTix supports cinemas, performing arts centers, museums, historic theaters, festivals, and cultural institutions with a unified platform that connects box office, concessions, merchandise, memberships, and […]
Republicans target Las Vegas congressional district with help from Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ policy
Nevada has the highest concentration of tipped workers in the country because its economy is driven by the hospitality and tourism industries, making Trump’s “no tax on tips” poli...
YT Industries Announces Official US Relaunch Following Restructuring
Riders in the US can now shop the full YT MTB lineup.
HP Stock Drops After PC Maker Forecasts Industry Sales Decline
HPQ stock fell Monday after HP forecast industrywide personal computer sales will decline by mid-single digits next year.
Trump says Russia has ‘lost control’ of its diesel industry, calls for end to Ukraine war
The US president called for an end to the “ridiculous and never ending War with Ukraine.”
These Gen Z-approved investment funds are having a moment—what investors should know
Themed ETFs for industries like AI and energy are coming back into favor and are especially popular with Gen Z investors. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Pittcon 2027: What America’s Biggest Lab Science Show Means For You
For over 75 years, Pittcon has been at the cutting edge of industry-defining changes, and next year it returns home for the first time in six decades.
Local Business Owners Start New Chapter with Opening of New PostalAnnex Location in Bastrop, Texas
Annex Brands, Inc., one of the leading franchisors in the packing, shipping and office services industries, is excited to announce the opening of its newest PostalAnnex location in Bastrop, Texas to new owners Chetan Modi and Karan Desai. This new PostalAnnex is set to offer a wide range of essential shipping and office services to the local community, making it easier to provide more service to more people in more places.
‘Stuff The British Stole’ Producer WildBear Entertainment Reshuffles Top Team To “Get Ahead” Of Industry Transformation
EXCLUSIVE: Australian factual producer WildBear Entertainment has unveiled a new look for its management team amid “the biggest transformation we’ve seen in decades” for the entertainment industry. A ...
'Stuff The British Stole' Firm WildBear Entertainment Rejigs Top Team
WildBear Entertainment has unveiled a new-look management team amid "the biggest transformation we've seen in decades" for the entertainment industry.
What the rise of microdramas tells us about the entertainment industry
In the U.S., 66 million people watched one regularly last year.