Tootfinder

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. IG Farben initially wasn’t keen on working with the Nazis, but it just made business sense to adapt to the new political environment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/gold_frankincense_and_silicon

Apple says macOS 26 Tahoe will be the last release of macOS that supports Intel Macs, with future macOS versions only available to Apple Silicon Macs (Benjamin Mayo/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2025/06/09/apple-will-end-support-for-intel-macs/

Apple will end support for Intel Macs next year, macOS 27 will require Apple Silicon - 9to5Mac
During the Platforms State of the Union at WWDC, Apple just announced that macOS 26 Tahoe will be the last...

Still more reasons to hate Silicon Valley. And billionaires.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/21/silicon-valley-income-wealth-gap

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. IG Farben initially wasn’t keen on working with the Nazis, but it just made business sense to adapt to the new political environment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/gold_frankincense_and_silicon

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. IG Farben initially wasn’t keen on working with the Nazis, but it just made business sense to adapt to the new political environment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/gold_frankincense_and_silicon

Amorphous Silicon-Carbide Photonics for Ultrasound Imaging
R. Tufan Erdogan, Bruno Lopez-Rodriguez, Wouter J. Westerveld, Sophinese Iskander-Rizk, Gerard J. Verbiest, Iman Esmaeil Zadeh, Peter G. Steeneken
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04353

Amorphous Silicon-Carbide Photonics for Ultrasound Imaging
Photonic ultrasound sensors offer unparalleled potential for improving spatial and temporal resolution in ultrasound imaging applications due to their size-independent noise figure, high sensitivity, and broad bandwidth characteristics. The exploration of optical materials in ultrasound sensing has attracted significant interest due to their potential to further enhance device performance, fabrication compatibility, and long-term stability. This work introduces amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC)…

Musk tried and failed to enact systemic change across the entire government.
Many tech executives and investors who support Trump have narrower goals that focus on creating a regulatory climate favorable to themselves.
While Trump and Musk traded barbs on their respective social networks,
a cryptocurrency company whose business had been hamstrung by the Biden administration went public on the New York Stock Exchange,
its share price popping 200 percent.
An art…

Musk and Trump are over. Silicon Valley is just getting started.
The Tech-Trump alliance has always had tensions. But its lucrative nature has outweighed the ideological differences.

Früher stand das Silicon Valley für Innovation und Freiheit, heute zerstören Tech-Giganten die Demokratie. Die ehemalige EU-Abgeordnete Marietje Schaake kämpft gegen den zunehmenden Einfluss der Tech-Konzerne auf Politik. Sie warnt Medien davor, sich von Big Tech abhängig zu machen – und hofft auf einen Journalismus, der nicht länger auf die Narrative der Tech-Giganten hereinfällt.

Marietje Schaake: „Medien machen sich von mächtigen…
Marietje Schaake warnt im journalist-Interview Medien davor, sich von großen Tech Unternehmen abhängig zu machen.

Silicon Valley's not crying for Musk (Scott Rosenberg/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/09/musk-trump-fallout-big-tech
http://www.memeorandum.com/250609/p15#a250609p15

WaPo names Sam Han as its first Chief AI Officer and unveils WP Incubator, modeled after Silicon Valley incubators to develop new products and business lines (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2025/06/

Office of the CTO Announces Sam Han as Chief AI Officer and Creation of WP Incubator

Silicon Graphics Likes It Hot - Washington Technology
#throwbackthursday

love to see this, surprised it hadn't been on my radar.
Protesters Against AI Militarization Rally at Scale AI in San Francisco
https://www.kqed.org/news/12051183/protesters-against-ai-militarization-rally-at-sca…

Silicon Valley has shifted from Web 2.0 to a new "hard tech", AI-dominated era with fewer perks and a more serious mood, as startups use San Francisco as a base (Mike Isaac/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/ai-silicon-valle…

A.I. Has Ushered in Silicon Valley’s ‘Hard Tech’ Era
Goodbye to the age of consumer websites and mobile apps. Artificial intelligence has ushered in an era of what insiders in the nation’s innovation capital call “hard tech.”

Photonic Origami of Silica on a Silicon Chip with Microresonators and Concave Mirrors
Manya Malhotra, Ronen Ben-Daniel, Fan Cheng, Tal Carmon
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04484

Photonic Origami of Silica on a Silicon Chip with Microresonators and Concave Mirrors
3D printing of high-quality silica photonic structures is particularly challenging, as surface roughness at the nanoscale can severely degrade optical performance through scattering losses. Here, we develop a technique to fold ultrasmooth silica on silicon chips into such desired 3D structures. A laser-induced, surface-tension-driven method achieves folding with 20 nm alignment accuracy, enabling origami-like polylines and helices with integrated 0.5 nm-smooth photonic devices. The technique al…

Tentative demonstration of all-silicon photodetector: from near-infrared to mid-infrared
Jiaxin Ming, Yubing Du, Tongtong Xue, Yunyun Dai, Yabin Chen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03505

Tentative demonstration of all-silicon photodetector: from near-infrared to mid-infrared
Metastable silicon phases have attracted extensive attention these years, due to their fundamentally distinct photoelectric properties compared to the conventional diamond cubic (I) counterpart. Certain metastable phases, prepared via thermal heating method, can exhibit direct bandgap characteristics, significantly enhancing their light absorbance and quantum efficiency. Herein, we tentatively demonstrate an all-silicon photodetector working from near- to mid-infrared bands through precisely se…

Bipartite entanglement in a nuclear spin register mediated by a quasi-free electron spin
Marco Klotz, Andreas Tangemann, David Opferkuch, Alexander Kubanek
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05255

Bipartite entanglement in a nuclear spin register mediated by a quasi-free electron spin
Quantum networks will rely on photons entangled to robust, local quantum registers for computation and error correction. We demonstrate control of and entanglement in a fully connected three-qubit $^{13}\mathrm{C}$ nuclear spin register in diamond. The register is coupled to a quasi-free electron spin-1/2 of a silicon-vacancy center (SiV). High strain decouples the SiVs electron spin from spin-orbit interaction reducing the susceptibility to phonons at liquid helium temperature. As a result, th…

A Soft Robotic Module with Pneumatic Actuation and Enhanced Controllability Using a Shape Memory Alloy Wire
Mohammadnavid Golchin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05741

A Soft Robotic Module with Pneumatic Actuation and Enhanced Controllability Using a Shape Memory Alloy Wire
In this paper, a compressed air-actuated soft robotic module was developed by incorporating a shape memory alloy (SMA) wire into its structure to achieve the desired bending angle with greater precision. First, a fiber-reinforced bending module with a strain-limiting layer made of polypropylene was fabricated. The SMA wire was then placed in a silicon matrix, which was used as a new strain-limiting layer. A simple closed-loop control algorithm was used to regulate the bending angle of the soft …

Ich habe diese Doku eben zum dritten Mal gesehen. Jedes Mal habe ich etwas Neues gelernt. Lasst euch nicht von dem T-Wort im Titel abschrecken.
Hauptsächlich geht es um die Sponsoren und Einflüsterer des Trampels. Das ZDF hat das journalistische Schwergewicht Claus Kleber losgeschickt, und er hat Interviews mit Leuten bekommen, die sonst nicht oft mit Journalist:innen reden. Manche von ihnen entlarven sich selbst als extreme Menschenfeinde.
Laut Wikipedia ist »Paypal-Mafia« eine…

How funny would it be if this turned in to a second Silicon Valley industry-wide wage fixing scandal https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-07/apple-loses-its-top-ai-models-executive-to-meta-s-hiring-spree

“The modern-day system of colonialism and sharecropping being constructed by the new East India Company that is Silicon Valley isn’t uncouth or stupid enough to put people in physical shackles. It doesn’t want to own your body, it is content with owning your simulation. And yet, as we have already seen, the more data they have about you – the higher the fidelity of your simulation – the closer they are to owning you.
…
If this doesn’t sound like democracy, it is because it is not…

Fünf Jahre Apple Silicon: Der Unterschätzte
Vor fünf Jahren wurde die Umstellung des Macs von Intel-Prozessoren auf Apple Silicon angekündigt. Apple sprach zurecht von einem “historischen Tag”.
https://www.

The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.
The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technol

The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion
The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.

The Silicon Reasonable Person: Can AI Predict How Ordinary People Judge Reasonableness?
Yonathan A. Arbel
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02766 https://arxiv.or…

The Silicon Reasonable Person: Can AI Predict How Ordinary People Judge Reasonableness?
In everyday life, people make countless reasonableness judgments that determine appropriate behavior in various contexts. Predicting these judgments challenges the legal system, as judges' intuitions may not align with broader societal views. This Article investigates whether large language models (LLMs) can learn to identify patterns driving human reasonableness judgments. Using randomized controlled trials comparing humans and models across multiple legal contexts with over 10,000 simulated…

Type Ibn supernovae from ultra-stripped supernova progenitors
Takashi J. Moriya, Bernhard Mueller, Sergei I. Blinnikov, Marina Ushakova, Elena I. Sorokina, Thomas M. Tauris, Alexander Heger
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05506

Type Ibn supernovae from ultra-stripped supernova progenitors
Ultra-stripped supernovae are core-collapse supernovae from progenitors that lose a significant fraction of mass because of the binary interactions with their compact companion stars. Ultra-stripped supernovae have been connected to fast-evolving faint Type Ib or Ic supernovae. Here, we show that in some cases ultra-stripped supernovae can result in Type Ibn supernovae. Progenitors of ultra-stripped supernovae may trigger violent silicon burning shortly before the core collapse, leading to mass…

Mechanical Characterisation of Silicon for the ETpathfinder Test Masses
Guido Alex Iandolo, Alex Amato, Gianpietro Cagnoli, Alessandro Delmonte, Jan-Simon Hennig, Margot Hennig, Sebastian Steinlechner, Janis W\"ohler, Stefan Hild, Jessica Steinlechner
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03468

Mechanical Characterisation of Silicon for the ETpathfinder Test Masses
The next generation of gravitational-wave detectors, such as the Einstein Telescope, is designed to reduce noise in a wide band of frequencies compared to the current generation, through the use of new technologies. ETpathfinder, designed as an R&D facility for these technologies, is a prototype for which the mirrors were chosen to be made of crystalline silicon, produced by the Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung. This material choice was made to pave the way for a low thermal noise level …

The ILD Detector: A Versatile Detector for an Electron-Positron Collider at Energies up to 1 TeV
H. Abramowicz, D. Ahmadi, J. Alcaraz, O. Alonso, L. Andricek, J. Anguiano, O. Arquero, F. Arteche, D. Attie, O. Bach, M. Basso, J. Baudot, A. Bean, T. Behnke, A. Bellerive, Y. Benhammou, M. Berggren, G. Bertolone, M. Besancon, A. Besson, O. Bezshyyko, G. Blazey, B. Bliewert, J. Bonis, R. Bosley, V. Boudry, C. Bourgeois, I. Bozovic Jelisavcic, D. Breton, J. -C. Brient, B. Brudnowski, V. Bues…

The ILD Detector: A Versatile Detector for an Electron-Positron Collider at Energies up to 1 TeV
The International Large Detector, ILD, is a detector concept for an experiment at a future high energy lepton collider. The detector has been optimised for precision physics in a range of energies from 90~GeV to about 1~TeV. ILD features a high precision, large volume combined silicon and gaseous tracking system, together with a high granularity calorimeter, all inside a central solenoidal magnetic field. The paradigm of particle flow has been the guiding principle of the design of ILD. ILD is …

Precision high-speed quantum logic with holes on a natural silicon foundry platform
Isaac Vorreiter, Jonathan Y. Huang, Scott D. Liles, Joe Hillier, Ruoyu Li, Bart Raes, Stefan Kubicek, Julien Jussot, Sofie Beyne, Clement Godfrin, Sugandha Sharma, Danny Wan, Nard Dumoulin Stuyck, Will Gilbert, Chih Hwan Yang, Andrew S. Dzurak, Kristiaan De Greve, Alexander R. Hamilton

Precision high-speed quantum logic with holes on a natural silicon foundry platform
Silicon spin qubits in gate-defined quantum dots leverage established semiconductor infrastructure and offer a scalable path toward transformative quantum technologies. Holes spins in silicon offer compact all-electrical control, whilst retaining all the salient features of a quantum dot qubit architecture. However, silicon hole spin qubits are not as advanced as electrons, due to increased susceptibility to disorder and more complex spin physics. Here we demonstrate single-qubit gate fidelitie…

Super high capacity of silicon carbon anode over 6500 mAh g-1 for lithium battery
Shisheng Lin, Minhui Yang, Zhuang Zhao, Mingjia Zhi, Xiaokai Bai
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02704

Super high capacity of silicon carbon anode over 6500 mAh g-1 for lithium battery
As silicon is approaching its theoretical limit for the anode materials in lithium battery, searching for a higher limit is indispensable. Herein, we demonstrate the possible of achieving ultrahigh capacity over 6500 mAh g-1 in silicon-carbon composites. Considering the numerous defects inside the silicon nanostructures, it is deduced the formation of quasi-Bose Einstein condensation should be possible, which can lead to the low viscosity flow of lithium-ions through the anode. At a charge-disc…

Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics: Trends and Future Directions
Donald Intal, Abasifreke U. Ebong
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05589 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.0…

Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics: Trends and Future Directions
Thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technologies address crucial challenges in solar energy applications, including scalability, cost-effectiveness, and environmental sustainability. This paper reviews critically, thin-film technologies such as amorphous silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). It also discusses emerging technologies, including perovskites, copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS), quantum dots (QDs), organic photovoltaics (OPV), and dye-sensitized sol…

peak user experience implies the existence of (silicon) valley user experience

Crystal-Powered Transistor Could Replace Silicon and Supercharge AI
https://scitechdaily.com/crystal-powered-transistor-could-replace-silicon-and-supercharge-ai/

Great Guides From benja0x40 on Reddit
[Guide] Accessing Linux Duplicity Backups on Ext4 USB Drive from Apple Silicon Macs (2025)
Tips & Guides
I recently needed to access and selectively restore files from large Duplicity backups stored on an Ext4 USB drive, and created by DéjŠ Dup on an Ubuntu Linux server...

The CTO of Palantir, the company being tasked with making a master database of intelligence files on all US citizens, is joining the army-ish.
So are other tech execs. This feels…really bad.
https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valley-exe

Silicon Valley Execs Join the Army as Officers (But Won't Have to Attend Boot Camp)
The tech industry is fully on board, but the rank and file won't have to do time as grunts.

FlashVault: Versatile In-NAND Self-Encryption with Zero Area Overhead
Seock-Hwan Noh, Hoyeon Lee, Junkyum Kim, Junsu Im, Jay H. Park, Sungjin Lee, Sam H. Noh, Yeseong Kim, Jaeha Kung
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03866

FlashVault: Versatile In-NAND Self-Encryption with Zero Area Overhead
We present FlashVault, an in-NAND self-encryption architecture that embeds a reconfigurable cryptographic engine into the unused silicon area of a state-of-the-art 4D V-NAND structure. FlashVault supports not only block ciphers for data encryption but also public-key and post-quantum algorithms for digital signatures, all within the NAND flash chip. This design enables each NAND chip to operate as a self-contained enclave without incurring area overhead, while eliminating the need for off-chip …

Bericht: Apple wollte ins Cloud-Geschäft einsteigen
Um sein Servicegeschäft auszubauen, wollte Apple angeblich Developern Serverplatz vermieten – von Apple-Silicon-Rechnern aus. Doch aus dem Projekt wurde nichts.

Characterization of the Cherenkov Photon Background for Low-Noise Silicon Detectors in Space
Manuel E. Gaido, Javier Tiffenberg, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Guillermo Fernandez-Moroni, Bernard J. Rauscher, Fernando Chierchie, Dario Rodrigues, Lucas Giardino, Juan Estrada, Agustin J. Lapi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00226

Characterization of the Cherenkov Photon Background for Low-Noise Silicon Detectors in Space
Future space observatories that seek to perform imaging and spectroscopy of faint astronomical sources will require ultra-low-noise detectors that are sensitive over a broad wavelength range. Silicon charge-coupled devices (CCDs), such as EMCCDs, skipper CCDs, multi-amplifier sensing (MAS) CCDs, and single-electron sensitive read out (SiSeRO) CCDs have demonstrated the ability to detect and measure single photons from X-ray energies to near the silicon band gap (~1.1 $μ$m), making them candida…

Seems a part of what @… warns of...
SLASHDOT: Silicon Valley Execs Join the Army As Officers
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/

Silicon Valley Execs Join the Army As Officers - Slashdot
The U.S. Army Reserve has directly commissioned four top Silicon Valley executives as lieutenant colonels under a new initiative, Detachment 201, aimed at accelerating tech integration into military operations. While these part-time roles are intended to bring private-sector innovation to defense mo...

Revisiting the Mechanisms of Thermal Transport in Vacancy-Defective Silicon
Xueyan Zhu, Jin Yang, J. Shiomi, Cheng Shao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02436 ht…

Revisiting the Mechanisms of Thermal Transport in Vacancy-Defective Silicon
Understanding heat conduction in defective silicon is crucial for electronics and thermoelectrics. Conventional understanding relies on phonon gas picture, treating defects as scattering centers that reduce phonon lifetimes without altering frequencies and group velocities. We go beyond phonon gas picture by employing Wigner transport equation to investigate heat conduction in vacancy-defected silicon. Our findings reveal that while thermal conduction in pristine silicon stems mainly from parti…

Hangzhou, home to DeepSeek and Alibaba, has become a hub for Chinese AI startups, with the suburb Liangzhu emerging as a hotspot for coders in their 20s and 30s (Meaghan Tobin/New York Times)
https://www.n…

The Coder ‘Village’ at the Heart of China’s A.I. Frenzy
As China vies with Silicon Valley for primacy, Hangzhou, home to DeepSeek and Alibaba, is where its aspiring tech titans mingle and share ideas.

Today in "let's file this one under what could possibly go wrong?":
"The world's first commercial hybrid of silicon circuitry and human brain cells will soon be available for rent."
https://www.sciencealert.com/you-can-now-rent-a-flesh-computer-grown-in-a-british-lab

Yep, seems like different parts of the Fosstodon mod team just keep doubling down on "we are apolitical" – as if that was a real thing and not just reinforcing the existing power and abuse…
And in true fashion for FOSS priorities, the admin can't seem to get a statement out as it's more important to first pick a blogging platform.
This could fit into a FOSS-centric reboot of that Silicon Valley comedy show if it wasn't so sad 😅
#fosstodon

In May 2025, a high-profile lunch in Riyadh brought together Donald Trump,
the Crown Prince,
and a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and executives.
The guest list assembled by Elon Musk (Tesla, xAI, SpaceX) and arriving by their own jets:
Sam Altman (OpenAI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Alex Karp (Palantir), Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber), Ruth Porat (Alphabet/Google), Alexandr Wang (Scale AI), Travis Kalanick (Cloud Kitchens, former Uber CEO), Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone…

Mad Kings and Saudi Princes
Award winning author and futurist Albert Bates writes about ecovillages, permaculture, negative emission technology, drawdown, and climate solutions.

To my fellow Asians:
All you free market, libertarian freakshows - you know who you are - that voted #Trump cuz #MAGA's racism would NEVVVVER come for you... consider this your wake up call.
▶️ Steve Bannon Suggests There Are Too Many

Steve Bannon Suggests There Are Too Many Asian CEOs In Silicon Valley
But Donald Trump says he wants them to stay because "we have to keep our talented people."

Towards Building Private LLMs: Exploring Multi-Node Expert Parallelism on Apple Silicon for Mixture-of-Experts Large Language Model
Mu-Chi Chen, Po-Hsuan Huang, Xiangrui Ke, Chia-Heng Tu, Chun Jason Xue, Shih-Hao Hung
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23635

Towards Building Private LLMs: Exploring Multi-Node Expert Parallelism on Apple Silicon for Mixture-of-Experts Large Language Model
Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized Artificial Intelligence (AI) with significant advancements such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Meta's Llama, and Databricks' DBRX. This paper addresses the cost and scalability challenges encountered when constructing private LLM systems for personal or small group services, as aimed by Apple Intelligence. A Mac Studio cluster with Apple's M2 Ultra chips is established as a cost-efficient solution to host and accelerate the pretrained DBRX model with the M…

Low-Energy Calibration of SuperCDMS HVeV Cryogenic Silicon Calorimeters Using Compton Steps
SuperCDMS Collaboration, M. F. Albakry, I. Alkhatib, D. Alonso-Gon\'zalez, D. W. P. Amaral, J. Anczarski, T. Aralis, T. Aramaki, I. Ataee Langroudy, C. Bathurst, R. Bhattacharyya, A. J. Biffl, P. L. Brink, M. Buchanan, R. Bunker, B. Cabrera, R. Calkins, R. A. Cameron, C. Cartaro, D. G. Cerde\~no, Y. -Y. Chang, M. Chaudhuri, J. -H. Chen, R. Chen, N. Chott, J. Cooley, H. Coombes, P. Cushman, R…

Low-Energy Calibration of SuperCDMS HVeV Cryogenic Silicon Calorimeters Using Compton Steps
Cryogenic calorimeters for low-mass dark matter searches have achieved sub-eV energy resolutions, driving advances in both low-energy calibration techniques and our understanding of detector physics. The energy deposition spectrum of gamma rays scattering off target materials exhibits step-like features, known as Compton steps, near the binding energies of atomic electrons. We demonstrate a successful use of Compton steps for sub-keV calibration of cryogenic silicon calorimeters, utilizing four…

Long-term performance of intracortical microelectrode arrays in 14 BrainGate clinical trial participants #BCI

Long-term performance of intracortical microelectrode arrays in 14 BrainGate clinical trial participants
Brain–computer interfaces have enabled people with paralysis to control computer cursors, operate prosthetic limbs, and communicate through handwriting, speech, and typing. Most high-performance demonstrations have used silicon microelectrode "Utah" arrays to record brain activity at single neuron resolution. However, reports so far have typically been limited to one or two individuals, with no systematic assessment of the longevity, decoding accuracy, and day–to–day stability properties …

High-efficiency compact optical transmitter with a total bit energy of 0.78 pJ/bit including silicon slow-light modulator and open-collector current-mode driver
Keisuke Kawahara, Tai Tsuchizawa, Noritsugu Yamamoto, Yuriko Maegami, Koji Yamada, Shinsuke Hara, Toshihiko Baba
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.04820

High-efficiency compact optical transmitter with a total bit energy of 0.78 pJ/bit including silicon slow-light modulator and open-collector current-mode driver
Increasing datacenter demands require power-efficient optical interconnects. However, a conventional standard transmitter using a silicon rib-waveguide Mach-Zehnder modulator and voltage-mode driver has low efficiency and consumes watt-class high power and occupies a several-square-millimeter footprint, which limits large-scale integration for parallel transmission. This paper presents a transmitter consisting of a compact photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) modulator and a current-mode open-colle…

If #AI is allegedly so good for worker productivity and improving efficiency across organizations, why are the AI companies making their own employees work 72 hour workweeks?
If the tech actually helped them get more done faster, wouldn’t they have SHORTER workweeks? Why aren’t they using their own tools to help their employees?
Context: #Anthropic earlier this year, and they told me that this is a job with far longer work hours than any other place they’ve worked at.
They are also pulling 60 hour weeks there, they have zero tolerance for remote work, because the culture is “you don’t want to be left behind”. This person basically disappeared from social life once they took this job. I had never seen them so tired before.

PCs: AMD, Intel und Hersteller haben offenbar kein Interesse an PCIe 6.0
SSDs mit PCI Express 5.0 bleiben in den nächsten Jahren das Maß der Dinge. Der Silicon-Motion-Chef gibt Einblick hinter die Kulissen.

This was really interesting. It's about Topaz AI, which was a denoising/upscaling solution I looked at about nine months ago, and rejected because I wasn't really prepared to make the investment at that stage ($300/yr) https://mstdn.social/@Onmyom/114779996030982643…

Sources: Trump's team seeks a potential consent decree as part of an FTC deal forcing Meta to pay restitution to conservative users harmed by content moderation (Lydia Moynihan/New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2025/06/06/business/bi…

Big Tech's bet on Trump hasn't yielded special favors
Silicon Valley giants spent millions on Inauguration Day seats, but they’ve gotten little in return — save for a front-row view of their own reckoning.

"In Empire of #AI, journalist Karen Hao writes about the rise of #OpenAI and the impacts of AI around the world. Below is an extract from the book on the effects on Chile's mineral reserves and water resources."

Economic inequality has reached a staggering milestone in Silicon Valley:
just nine households hold 15% of the region’s wealth, according to new research from San Jose State University.
🔥A mere 0.1% of residents hold 71% of the tech hub’s wealth.
The findings come from the 2025 “Silicon Valley Pain Index”,
a report published by SJSU’s Human Rights Institute each year since 2020. The report aims to quantify “structured inequalities” in Silicon Valley, and measures “pai…

Robust Ferroelectricity in Silicon Dioxide upon Intercalation of Ammonia
Yaxin Gao, Menghao Wu, Jun-Ming Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00804 https://

Robust Ferroelectricity in Silicon Dioxide upon Intercalation of Ammonia
The nanoelectronic applications of current ferroelectrics have been greatly impeded by their incompatibility with silicon. In this paper we propose a way to induce ferroelectricity in silicon dioxide (SiO2), which is still the most widely used dielectric material in silicon-based chips. We show first-principles evidence that the intercalation of NH3 molecules into crystalline SiO2 is exothermic, where NH3 molecules form quasi-bonds with SiO2, giving rise to large and robust polarizations. In ge…

A network of parametrically driven silicon nitride mechanical membranes
Luis Mestre, Suyash Singh, Gabriel Margiani, Letizia Catalini, Alexander Eichler, Vincent Dumont
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00850

A network of parametrically driven silicon nitride mechanical membranes
Networks of nonlinear resonators offer a promising platform for analog computing and the emulation of complex systems. However, realizing such networks remains challenging, as it requires resonators with high quality factors, individual frequency tunability, and strong inter-resonator coupling. In this work, we present a system that meets all these criteria. Our system is based on metallized silicon nitride membranes that are coupled via their common substrate and controlled capacitively via el…

Exploring Gain-Doped-Waveguide-Synapse for Neuromorphic Applications: A Pulsed Pump-Signal Approach
Robert Otupiri, Ripalta Stabile
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05931

Exploring Gain-Doped-Waveguide-Synapse for Neuromorphic Applications: A Pulsed Pump-Signal Approach
Neuromorphic computing promises to transform AI systems by enabling them to perceive, respond to, and adapt swiftly and accurately to dynamic data and user interactions. However, traditional silicon-based and hybrid electronic technologies for artificial neurons constrain neuromorphic processors in terms of flexibility, scalability, and energy efficiency. In this study, we pioneer the use of Doped-Gain-Layer-on-Waveguide-Synapses for bio-inspired neurons, utilizing a pulsed pump-signal mechanis…

Wall St and Silicon Valley ride high as tariffs hit Main Street (George Steer/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/aefad7d1-e809-4a16-8acd-6e2ef9f28ebe
http://www.memeorandum.com/250803/p30#a250803p30

Mmmh-Macs: Als Apple Silicon den Macintosh rettete | Mac & i-Podcast
Nervende Lüfter, unzuverlässige Tastaturen und Adapter-Bonanza: MacBooks steckten in der Krise – bis Apple Silicon kam und alles änderte.

Silicon Valley was never woke. It just played woke on TV. https://tldr.nettime.org/@remixtures/114721179380101771

Silicon Valley is pushing senators to follow the House in reviving a favorable tax benefit that disappeared because of a US tax law Section 174 change in 2017 (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/20/silicon-valley-big-tech-tax-benefit

Silicon Valley is pushing revival of game-changing tax benefit for startups
This could change the math for a slew of startups, and even Big Tech.

Meta-Diastereomers Hierarchical Multiscale Chiral Interactions Between Biomolecules and Nanoscale Enantiomers
Dominic J. P. Koyroytsaltis-McQuire, Rahul Kumar, Shailendra K. Chaubey, Tamas Javorfi, Giuliano Siligardi, Affar Karimullah Adrian J. Lapthorn, Nikolaj Gadegaard, Malcolm Kadodwala
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05219

Meta-Diastereomers Hierarchical Multiscale Chiral Interactions Between Biomolecules and Nanoscale Enantiomers
We introduce meta-diastereomers, hybrid systems where molecular chirality ($\leq 10$\,nm) and nanoscale chirality ($>100$\,nm) combine to create a new hierarchical chiral state with emergent optical properties. By coupling chiral biomolecules electrostatically with enantiomeric silicon nanostructures, we demonstrate how distinct chiral systems can interact to produce optical responses -- linear and circular dichroism -- that reflect the combined chirality of both components. This unique interpl…

It's just one crazy day after another in cybersecurity lately, so check out today's Metacurity for the most critical infosec developments you should know, including
--SharePoint attacks hit 400 organizations, campaign now includes ransomware.
--French cops bust xss.is admin and shutter the platform,
--Trump's AI action plan boosts Silicon Valley powerhouses,
--AZ state hackers likely behind other breach efforts,
--Hacker installed wiper software in Am…

SharePoint attacks hit 400 organizations, campaign now includes ransomware
French cops bust xss.is admin and shutter the platform, Trump's AI action plan boosts Silicon Valley powerhouses, AZ state hackers likely behind other breach efforts, Hacker installed wiper software in Amazon's AI Q assistant, Old Ivanti flaws plague Japan, much more

Silicon single-photon detector achieving over 84% photon detection efficiency with flexible operation modes
Dong An, Chao Yu, Ming-Yang Zheng, Anran Guo, Junsong Wang, Ruizhi Li, Huaping Ma, Xiu-Ping Xie, Xiao-Hui Bao, Qiang Zhang, Jun Zhang, Jian-Wei Pan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18172

Silicon single-photon detector achieving over 84% photon detection efficiency with flexible operation modes
Silicon single-photon detectors (Si SPDs) play a crucial role in detecting single photons in the visible spectrum. For various applications, photon detection efficiency (PDE) is the most critical characteristic for effectively collecting photons. Here, we present a Si SPD with a remarkable PDE of up to 84.4% at 785 nm, supporting multiple operation modes. We design and fabricate a thick-junction Si single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) that enhances the avalanche probability through a backside-i…

Steam nativ für Apple Silicon: Besser zocken auf dem Mac
Bislang verließen sich die Macher von Valve bei ihrem Steam-Client für macOS noch auf Apples Übersetzungsschicht Rosetta 2. Das ist jetzt bald Geschichte.

Silicon Valley AI Startups Are Embracing China's Controversial '996' Work Schedule (Kate Knibbs/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-china-996-work-schedule/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250723/p24#a250723p24

Art house streaming service and distributor Mubi raised $100M led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation; Mubi has about 20M registered users worldwide (Christopher Grimes/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/1e0645d5-054e-4b00-a545-b95a1e2b261a

Sequoia bets on indie films with $100mn Mubi fundraising
Capital infusion led by Silicon Valley firm comes after box office success of ‘The Substance’

Next-Gen-SSDs schaffen 28 GByte/s und viel mehr IOPS
Silicon Motion enthüllt die Eckdaten seines ersten PCIe-6.0-Controllers für Server-SSDs. Mit 4-nm-Technik soll der SM8466 effizient bleiben.
https://www.

First principles computations of the Stark shift of a defect-bound exciton: the case of the T center in silicon
Louis Alaerts, Yihuang Xiong, Sin\'ead M. Griffin, Geoffroy Hautier
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24747

First principles computations of the Stark shift of a defect-bound exciton: the case of the T center in silicon
The T center in silicon has recently drawn a lot of attention for its potential in quantum information science. The sensitivity of the zero-phonon line (ZPL) to electrical field was recently investigated by a combination of different experimental methods but there is still no first principles study on the Stark shift of the T center. Dealing with the defect-bound exciton nature of the excited state is particularly challenging using density functional theory because of the large spatial delocali…

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says the "tides have turned" in Silicon Valley, making it more acceptable for the tech industry to support the US military's efforts (Riley Griffin/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Low-dispersion low free-spectral-range Mach-Zehnder interferometer with long straight path lengths on silicon
Cael Warner
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01114 …

Low-dispersion low free-spectral-range Mach-Zehnder interferometer with long straight path lengths on silicon
Multiple Mach-Zehnder interferometers are constructed using fiber-Bragg grating couplers, y-branches, silicon waveguides, and/or broadband splitters in silicon on insulator strip waveguides to test the effect of variation in waveguide length between consecutive bends on the transmission gain spectrum, free-spectral range, group refractive index, and dispersion. Dispersion is mitigated by increasing the path length between consecutive bends of minimum radius. With long linear waveguide sections,…

At its core, #CCSignals is an attempt by Creative Commons, a Silicon Valley-based organisation, to legitimise the AI grifts of its donors – Google, Microsoft, and Meta (Zuckerberg).
Creative Commons was always a thinly-veiled attempt at enabling Big Tech data farmers to get more data (that’s why the whole “open data” realm is so well funded/popular – open as in “open for business” not fre…

A Silicon Microstrip Detector for Power-Limited and Large Sensitive Area Applications
Dexing Miao, Zijun Xu, Zhiyu Xiang, Pingcheng Liu, Giovanni Ambrosi, Mattia Barbanera, Mengke Cai, Xudong Cai, Hsin-Yi Chou, Matteo Duranti, Valerio Formato, Maria Ionica, Yaozu Jiang, Liangchenglong Jin, Vladimir Koutsenko, Qinze Li, Cong Liu, Xingjian Lv, Alberto Oliva, Wenxi Peng, Rui Qiao, Gianluigi Silvestre, Zibing Wu, Xuhao Yuan, Hongyu Zhang, Xiyuan Zhang, Jianchun Wang

A Silicon Microstrip Detector for Power-Limited and Large Sensitive Area Applications
A silicon microstrip detector (SSD) has been developed to have state of the art spatial resolution and a large sensitive area under stringent power constraints. The design incorporates three floating strips with their bias resistors inserted between two aluminum readout strips. Beam test measurements with the single sensor confirmed that this configuration achieves a total detection efficiency of $99.8 \, \%$ and spatial resolution $7.6 \, \mathrm{μm}$ for MIPs. A double-$η$ algorithm was dev…

Google, OpenAI, Meta, and VCs are increasingly embracing the US military industrial complex, a major Silicon Valley cultural shift supported by President Trump (Sheera Frenkel/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/google-meta-openai-…

How Tech Firms Like Google and Meta Are Embracing the Military
In a major shift, Google, OpenAI, Meta and venture capitalists — many of whom had once forsworn involvement in war — have embraced the military industrial complex.

Court filing: Deel alleges Rippling's "competitive intelligence manager" Brett Alexander Johnson posed as a customer to access Deel's product and business info (George Hammond/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/abd988f6-e524-48d9-8433-27c…

New spying claims emerge in Silicon Valley corporate espionage scandal
HR start-ups Rippling and Deel trade allegations their leaders directed efforts to steal company secrets from one another

X-ray Irradiation Studies on the Monopix DMAPS in 150$\,$nm and 180$\,$nm
Christian Bespin, Marlon Barbero, Pierre Barrillon, Patrick Breugnon, Ivan Caicedo, Yavuz Degerli, Jochen Dingfelder, Tomasz Hemperek, Toko Hirono, Hans Kr\"uger, Fabian H\"ugging, Konstantinos Moustakas, Patrick Pangaud, Heinz Pernegger, Petra Riedler, Piotr Rymaszewski, Lars Schall, Philippe Schwemling, Walter Snoeys, Tianyang Wang, Norbert Wermes, Sinou Zhang

X-ray Irradiation Studies on the Monopix DMAPS in 150$\,$nm and 180$\,$nm
Monolithic active pixel sensors with depleted substrates present a promising option for pixel detectors in high-radiation environments. High-resistivity silicon substrates and high bias voltage capabilities in commercial CMOS technologies facilitate depletion of the charge sensitive volume. TJ-Monopix2 and LF-Monopix2 are the most recent large-scale chips in their respective development line, aiming for the ATLAS Inner Tracker outer layer requirements. Those include a tolerance to ionizing radi…

Electrical control of quantum dots in GaAs-on-insulator waveguides for coherent single-photon generation
Hanna Salamon, Ying Wang, Arnulf Snedker-Nielsen, Atefeh Shadmani, R\"udiger Schott, Mircea Balauroiu, Nicolas Volet, Arne Ludwig, Leonardo Midolo
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04584

Electrical control of quantum dots in GaAs-on-insulator waveguides for coherent single-photon generation
The integration of coherent quantum emitters with silicon photonic platforms essential for scalable quantum technologies. We demonstrate electrically controlled self-assembled quantum dots embedded in GaAs waveguides bonded onto a SiO2/Si substrate and coupled to low-loss SiN waveguides. Our approach uses a die-to-die adhesive bonding process to realize a GaAs-on-insulator platform incorporating a p-i-n junction for charge noise suppression and Stark tuning of excitonic transitions. Resonance f…

Thermal excitation of flexoelectricity in silicon
Lingtong Lv, Qianqian Ma, Kailu Wang, Xin Wen, Shengping Shen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20379 https://…

Thermal excitation of flexoelectricity in silicon
Flexoelectricity, an electromechanical coupling between strain gradient and polarization, offers a promising dimension to enrich silicon-based devices. Although the flexoelectricity of silicon is known, some fundamental aspects remain ambiguous, such as the discrepancy between experimental results and theoretical predictions, the influence of doping concentration, and the role of the bandgap. Here, we measured the flexoelectricity of intrinsic and heavily doped Si over the temperature range of …

Sources: Xiaomi is among the Chinese tech companies most impacted by new US chip design export rules, affecting its new 3nm mobile chip made by TSMC in Taiwan (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/2b0a0000-1bf6-475a-ac96-c17212afecc2

Xiaomi among Chinese tech groups set to be hardest hit by US chip software ban
Companies may struggle to manufacture silicon in Taiwan with export controls preventing updates to design tools

High-Sensitivity Photonic Crystal Biosensors using Topological Light Trapping
Zhengzheng Zhai, Sajeev John
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04321 https://arxiv.o…

High-Sensitivity Photonic Crystal Biosensors using Topological Light Trapping
Photonic crystals (PCs) with localized optical cavity modes arising from topological domain-wall line defects are simulated for optical biosensing by numerical solution of Maxwell's equations. These consist of a square lattice of square silicon blocks with a significant photonic band gap (PBG). Optical transmission through the PBG at specific frequencies occurs by defect-mediated optical tunneling. Biofluid flows perpendicular to light propagation, through a channel containing the PC, defined b…

Innovative DC-coupled Resistive Silicon Detector for 4D tracking
R. Arcidiacono, G. Bardelli, M. Bartolini, M. Boscardin, N. Cartiglia, A. Cassese, M. Centis Vignali, T. Croci, M. Ferrero, A. Fondacci, O. Hammad Ali, M. Lizzo, L. Menzio, A. Morozzi, F. Moscatelli, D. Passeri, G. Paternoster, G. Sguazzoni, F. Siviero, V. Sola, L. Viliani
https://

Innovative DC-coupled Resistive Silicon Detector for 4D tracking
In the past 10 years, two design innovations, the introduction of low internal gain (LGAD) and of resistive read-out (RSD), have radically changed the performance of silicon detectors. The LGAD mechanism, increasing the signal-to-noise ratio by about a factor of 20, leads to improved time resolution (typically 30 ps for a 50-$μ$m thick sensor), while resistive read-out, sharing the collected charge among read-out electrodes, leads to excellent spatial resolution even using large pixels (about …

Apple seems to be working on adding CUDA support to open-source ML framework MLX, which may mean that code developed using MLX would work with CUDA (Malcolm Owen/AppleInsider)
https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/0

Apple Silicon machine learning code may become more easily portable to Nvidia hardware
A project is trying to cut the cost of making machine learning applications for Nvidia hardware, by developing on an Apple Silicon Mac and exporting it to CUDA.

Hybrid Scandium Aluminum Nitride/Silicon Nitride Integrated Photonic Circuits
Jiangnan Liu, Shuai Liu, Abdur-Raheem Al-Hallak, Huabin Yu, Zhengwei Ye, Yuheng Zhang, Zheshen Zhang, Zetian Mi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00314

Hybrid Scandium Aluminum Nitride/Silicon Nitride Integrated Photonic Circuits
Scandium-doped aluminum nitride has recently emerged as a promising material for quantum photonic integrated circuits (PICs) due to its unique combination of strong second-order nonlinearity, ferroelectricity, piezoelectricity, and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility. However, the relatively high optical loss reported to date-typically above 2.4 dB/cm-remains a key challenge that limits its widespread application in low-loss PICs. Here, we present a monolithically integ…

Development and validation of an electron temperature-dependent interaction potential for silicon and copper for the use in atomistic simulations of laser ablation
Simon K\"ummel, Johannes Roth
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23699

Development and validation of an electron temperature-dependent interaction potential for silicon and copper for the use in atomistic simulations of laser ablation
Laser pulses with a duration of the order of femtoseconds lead to a strong excitation, heating and potentially to ablation of the irradiated material. During the time of strong excitation, the interaction of the atoms and thus the material dynamics can be strongly altered. To take this effect into account, an ip was developed for copper that takes the excitation of the electrons into account up to an electron temperature of 1.2 eV. Furthermore, several ways to identify non-thermal effects in De…

Leaked memo: Intel will shut down its automotive business and lay off "most" employees working in the unit, the latest step in Intel's downsizing (Mike Rogoway/Oregonian)
https://www.oregonlive.com/silico…

Intel will shut down its automotive business, lay off most of the department’s employees
It's the latest step in the chipmaker's dramatic downsizing.

Design and Analysis of Plasmonic-Nanorod-Enhanced Lead-Free Inorganic Perovskite/Silicon Heterojunction Tandem Solar Cell Exceeding the Shockley-Queisser Limit
Md. Sad Abdullah Sami, Arpan Sur, Ehsanur Rahman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22803

Design and Analysis of Plasmonic-Nanorod-Enhanced Lead-Free Inorganic Perovskite/Silicon Heterojunction Tandem Solar Cell Exceeding the Shockley-Queisser Limit
The pursuit of sustainable and highly efficient energy conversion necessitates a transition from toxic and unstable materials to environmentally friendly alternatives. This work presents a simulation-based numerical investigation of a fully inorganic, lead-free tandem solar cell that employs cesium tin-germanium tri-iodide (CsSnGeI3) as the top cell absorber and crystalline silicon (c-Si) as the bottom cell absorber, configured in a silicon heterojunction (SHJ) arrangement. Utilizing CsSnGeI3 a…

An interview with Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs on tech's next chapter, meeting in 1997, Steve Jobs, Apple, Powell Jobs' io investment in 2019, AI, and more (Matthew Garrahan/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/7f0a45b0-a3cc-4e1c-be71-1b7b42958d4…

‘Humanity deserves better’: Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs on tech’s next chapter
After Apple, the Silicon Valley visionaries are looking to artificial intelligence to shape the future again

Combinatorial Development of Amorphous/nanocrystalline Biphase Soft Magnetic Alloys with Silicon-steel like Saturated Magnetic Induction
Xuesong Li, Jing Zhou, Xiao Liu, Xibei Hou, Tengyu Guo, Bo Wu, Baoan Sun, Weihua Wang, Haiyang Bai
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23333

Combinatorial Development of Amorphous/nanocrystalline Biphase Soft Magnetic Alloys with Silicon-steel like Saturated Magnetic Induction
Maximization saturation magnetic induction (Bs) of soft magnetic alloys is essential for the high power-density electromagnetic devices. However, identifying the alloy compositions with high Bs often replies on the lab-intensive melt casting method and a high-throughput characterization on magnetic properties remains challenging. Here, we develop a new combinatorial method for fast screening alloys with optimal soft magnetic properties based on the high-throughput MOKE screening method. Based o…

Simulation of silicon ridge waveguide enhanced two-photon absorption from femtosecond pulses
Cael Warner, Ruoheng Zhang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.18098 ht…

Simulation of silicon ridge waveguide enhanced two-photon absorption from femtosecond pulses
Field enhancement of two-photon absorption from a 50-fs pulse on a silicon ridge waveguide is simulated for a varying energy downward propagating 800+/-9.42 nm wavelength plane-wave orthonormal to a waveguide in 2D FDTD using ANSYS Lumerical FDTD. Energy absorbed by the waveguide is enhanced due to mode confinement within the standard 500 nm width, 130 nm height silicon ridge waveguide on 90 nm thick silicon and 3 μm silicon dioxide insulator.

Big Tech acquihiring AI startups, like Meta's Scale AI deal, gives VCs only modest returns compared to traditional exits and may entrench Big Tech's dominance (Parmy Olson/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles

Meta, Google AI Talent Grab May Spur a Silicon Valley Rethink
Meta and Google’s AI talent grab may lead to more sustainable tech companies.

Memo: Intel's manufacturing VP said Intel plans to cut 15%-20% of staff, starting in July, "to meet our affordability challenges and current financial position" (Mike Rogoway/Oregonian)
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/…

Intel will lay off 15% to 20% of its factory workers, memo says
Next month’s layoffs will take place at Intel factories around the world but could have an especially big effect in Oregon.

Subwavelength Phase Engineering Deep Inside Silicon
Mehmet B\"ut\"un, Alperen Saltik, Onur Tokel
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20824 https://arxiv.o…

Subwavelength Phase Engineering Deep Inside Silicon
Recent advances in three-dimensional laser writing have enabled direct nanostructuring deep within silicon, unlocking a volumetric design space previously inaccessible to surface-bound nanophotonic devices. Here, we introduce subwavelength phase engineering inside crystalline silicon, offering a novel strategy for integrated photonics. We design and numerically demonstrate a volumetric metaoptic monolithically embedded within the bulk, achieving full 2$π$ phase control at telecommunication wav…

Sources: Palmer Luckey is preparing to launch Erebor, a US bank backed by Joe Lonsdale and other tech investors to serve startups, including crypto businesses (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/8c903f2e-42a6-496b-b098-ca733f340ffc

Peter Thiel joins tech billionaires backing new lender Erebor to rival Silicon Valley Bank
Start-up named after the dragon’s mountain in ‘Lord of the Rings’

Design of Silicon Photonic microring resonators with complex waveguide cross-sections and minimal non-linearity
Stefania Cucco, Marco Novarese, Sebastian Romero Garcia, Jock Bovington, Mariangela Gioannini
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22077

Design of Silicon Photonic microring resonators with complex waveguide cross-sections and minimal non-linearity
We present a model and a rigorous method to calculate the transmission coefficient of silicon micro-rings with complex waveguide cross-section including non-linear effects and self-heating, with very short simulation times. The method is applied to the design of MRRs in the SISCAP platform with high Q and reduced non-linearity, namely due to two photon absorption and free carrier absorption. We demonstrate that the free carrier diffusion in rib waveguides and Shockely-Read-Hall recombination pl…

Art house streaming service and distributor Mubi raised $100M led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation; Mubi has about 20M registered users worldwide (Christopher Grimes/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/1e0645d5-054e-4b00-a545-b95a1e2b261a

Sequoia bets on indie films with $100mn Mubi fundraising
Capital infusion led by Silicon Valley firm comes after box office success of ‘The Substance’

London-based Dojo, a payments tech provider to over 140K businesses, raised $190M from Vitruvian Partners in its first equity raise since launching in 2021 (Vishal Singh/Silicon Canals)
https://siliconcanals.com/dojo-secures-investment-of-e168-6m/

UK’s payments tech provider Dojo secures investment of €168.6M
Dojo is a payments technology provider that aims to expand its presence in the payments sector with a focus on supporting in-person commerce.

Simultaneous photonic and phononic bandgaps in a hexagonal lattice geometry with gradually transforming circular-to-triangular air gap holes
Suhas Bharadwaj, Adarsh Ganesan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03045

Simultaneous photonic and phononic bandgaps in a hexagonal lattice geometry with gradually transforming circular-to-triangular air gap holes
The integration of photonic and phononic bandgaps within a single scalable architecture promises transformative advances in optomechanical and acousto-optic devices. Here, we design and simulate a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice in silicon with air-gap holes that transition smoothly from circular to triangular via tuneable geometrical parameters R and l. This transformation enables suppression of both electromagnetic and elastic wave modes through Bragg scattering and symmetry modulation. We …

Meta's Anduril deal shows how much has changed in the past couple of years in Silicon Valley, where developing war tech was once considered a hard red line (Dave Lee/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles

Recording: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan told staff that Intel is no longer "in the top 10 semiconductor companies" and it is "too late" to catch up to Nvidia (Mike Rogoway/Oregonian)
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/…

Intel’s CEO: ‘We are not in the top 10’ of leading chip companies
"I think is too late for us" to catch up with Nvidia's position in AI, said Lip-Bu Tan. But he said Intel has other opportunities in the field.

How an open-source approach helped DeepSeek and other Chinese AI companies; Hugging Face: Alibaba's Qwen is now the world's largest open-source AI ecosystem (South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

How open-source AI is helping China win hearts and market share
China’s free-for-all AI models, developed by firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba, present a viable alternative to US closed-source systems.