At its fall hardware event Wednesday, Amazon revealed an all-new Alexa voice assistant powered by its new Alexa large language model. The Verge reports: According to Dave Limp, Amazon's current SVP of devices and services, this new Alexa can understand conversational phrases and respond appropriately, interpret context more effectively, and complete multiple requests from one command. In an interview with The Verge ahead of the event, Limp explained that the new Alexa LLM "is a true generalizable large language model that's very optimized for the Alexa use case; it's not what you find with a Bard or ChatGPT or any of these things."

However, this all-new Alexa isn't being unleashed everywhere, on everyone, all at once. The company is rolling it out slowly through a preview program "in the coming months" -- and only in the US. Clearly, there have been lessons learned from the missteps of Microsoft and Google, and Amazon is proceeding with caution. "When you connect an LLM to the real world, you want to minimize hallucinations -- and while we think we have the right systems in place ... there is no substitute for putting it out in the real world," says Limp. If you want to be notified when you can join the preview, tell your Echo device, "Alexa, let's chat," and your interest will be registered.

Unsurprisingly, this superpowered Alexa may not always be free. Limp said that while Alexa, as it is today, will remain free, "the idea of a superhuman assistant that can supercharge your smart home, and more, work complex tasks on your behalf, could provide enough utility that we will end up charging something for it down the road."

An anonymous reader writes: Toyota, the world's largest automaker, has a problem. Although the company is famous for pioneering lean methods of manufacturing and being an early pioneer of hybrid electric powertrains, the switch to battery electric vehicles caught it somewhat unprepared. As rivals locked up contracts for critical minerals and formed joint ventures with battery makers (or built their own), Toyota has appeared to fall behind. Now, it has released a new roadmap showing how it will regain competitiveness and sell 3.5 million EVs by 2030. After some early experiments with electric-converted RAV4s (including a partnership with Tesla), Toyota has finally released a modern BEV, the bZ4x. The car had a difficult launch -- a recall for wheels falling off will lead to that -- but a week's test of a bZ4x exceeded our low expectations. A look at the car's specs makes clear Toyota's problem, though: There are different battery packs for the single-motor and dual-motor versions, made by Panasonic and CATL, respectively. [...] "We will need various options for batteries, just like we have different variations of engines. It is important to offer battery solutions compatible with a variety of models and customer needs," said Takero Kato, president of BEV Factory. To that end, Toyota is working on four different solutions. Three of these will use liquid electrolytes and are meant for different applications.

A performance-focused liquid electrolyte lithium-ion battery is slated to be the first to appear in 2026. Toyota says it's targeting a 20-minute fast-charging time and wants these cells to be 20 percent cheaper than the cells used in the bZ4x. The company plans to use this in a BEV that can travel almost 500 miles (800 km) on a single charge. For lower-cost vehicles, Toyota is looking at lithium iron phosphate cells, a chemistry that's already extremely popular in China and is being used by Tesla. Toyota plans to construct these as bipolar batteries, where the active materials for the anode and cathode are on either side of a common electrode carrier rather than having separate electrodes for each. (Toyota already uses this approach for the nickel metal hydride batteries it uses in many of its hybrid models.) LFP cells are targeting a 40 percent cost reduction compared to the bZ4x battery and 20 percent more range. LFP cells don't charge as fast, but Toyota wants a 10-80 percent DC fast-charging time of 30 minutes. If it pans out, the company expects these cells in 2026 or 2027.

There's also a high-performance lithium-ion chemistry in development, though it may not be ready until 2028. Toyota wants to combine its bipolar electrode structure with a high percentage of nickel in the cathode to create a pack with extremely long range -- up to 621 miles (1,000 km). But it's also targeting a 10 percent cost reduction compared to the performance-focused pack mentioned earlier. The fourth battery technology is one that Toyota has talked about a lot in the past -- solid state. Both electrodes and electrolytes in a solid state battery are solid, which means the battery can be smaller and lighter than a cell with liquid electrodes. The technology is tantalizing, but it's troubled by the formation of dendrites -- spikes of lithium crystals that can grow and puncture the cathode. Toyota says it has made a breakthrough in durability for lithium-ion solid state cells -- it's being coy as to exactly what -- that has allowed it to switch to putting these batteries into mass production, with commercial use scheduled for 2027 or 2028. Interestingly, Toyota was originally planning to use solid state cells in its hybrids only, but it appears to have revised that idea and will put them in BEVs, with a target range of more than 600 miles and a fast-charging time of just 10 minutes.

Intel has taken the wraps off its forthcoming next-gen Meteor Lake processors following its successful 12th (Alder Lake) and 13th Gen (Raptor Lake) processors with its new E- and P-core design. WindowsCentral: Its first chip built on the Intel 4 process node with Foveros 3D packaging, Intel calls Meteor Lake its "biggest architectural shift in 40 years" and that it will "lay the foundation for innovations for the PC," as noted by Tim Wilson, VP, Design and Engineering Group and GM, SoC Design at Intel. Meteor Lake is Intel's next-gen CPU and the first built on the Intel 4 process, which is part of Intel's long-term goal of "5 nodes in 4 years." Previous generation naming would suggest it would be called Intel 14th Gen, but Intel is moving away from its older naming schema. Some reports have suggested Meteor Lake may reflect a reboot in generation numbers. Current rumors suggest Intel 14th Gen is simply a refresh of Raptor Lake, although Meteor Lake may play a part in that for laptops.

Meteor Lake processors are expected to ship in late 2023 or early 2024 in new laptops with thinner and lighter designs, better cooling, and much better battery life. The significant change for Meteor Lake is what Intel calls disaggregation, which means the breaking down of core components into separate 'tiles' on the SoC. Meteor Lake features four Tiles, including:
Compute Tile: New E-core and P-core microarchitecture, built on Intel 4 process technology
SoC Tile: Low power island E-cores, NPU, Wi-Fi 6E/7, native HDMI 2.1 and 8K HDR AV1 support
Graphics Tile: Integrated Intel Arc architecture
IO Tile: Thunderbolt 4 (and presumably Thunderbolt 5) and PCIe Gen5

Agility Robotics is wrapping up construction of a factory in Salem, Oregon, where it plans to mass produce its first line of humanoid robots, called Digit. Each robot has two legs and two arms and is engineered to maneuver freely and work alongside humans in warehouses and factories. CNBC reports: The 70,000-square-foot facility, which the company is calling the "RoboFab," is the first of its kind, according to Damion Shelton, co-founder and CEO of Agility Robotics. COO Aindrea Campbell, who was formerly Apple's senior director of iPad operations and an engineering manager at Ford, told CNBC that the facility will have a 10,000 unit annual max capacity when it's fully built out and will employ more than 500 people. For now, though, Agility Robotics is focused on the installation and testing of its first production lines.

Funded by DCVC and Playground Global among venture investors, Agility Robotics beat would-be competitors to the punch, including Tesla with its Optimus initiative, by completing development of production prototype humanoid robots and standing up a factory where it can mass produce them. Shelton told CNBC that his team developed Digit with a human form factor so that the robots can lift, sort and maneuver while staying balanced, and so they could operate in environments where steps or other structures could otherwise limit the use of robotics. The robots are powered with rechargeable lithium ion batteries.

One thing Digit lacks is a five-fingered hand -- instead, the robot's hands look more like a claw or mitten. [...] Digit can traverse stairs, crouch into tight spaces, unload containers and move materials onto or off of a pallet or a conveyor, then help to sort and divide material onto other pallets, according to Agility. The company plans to put the robots to use transporting materials around its own factory, Campbell said. Agility's preferred partners will be first to receive the robots next year, and the company is only selling -- not renting or leasing -- the systems in the near term.

YouTuber Pitstoptech built a "fully upgradeable gaming handheld" around one of Framework's upgradable motherboards. Tom's Hardware reports: The handheld model you see in the video is equipped with the following components:

- Framework's Intel Core i7-1260P processor equipped mainboard
- 7-inch FHD touchscreen display
- 16 GB RAM
- 512 GB SSD
- Dual front-facing speakers
- Detachable controllers
- 55 Wh Battery
- High-speed Wi-Fi & Bluetooth

These components appear to offer some passable small-screen gaming. And in the video, you can see the device plugs into a larger monitor / TV where using the controllers in a detached configuration (Bluetooth) may be more comfortable. [...] Pitstoptech intends to prepare and sell handheld DIY kits "soon," based on the prototype design you see in the pictures / video.

Amazon is hiring Microsoft's product chief to run the division responsible for Alexa and the Echo smart speakers, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing people familiar with the situation. From the report: Panos Panay, who led Microsoft's Windows team and was central to the company's hardware push with its Surface computers, said he was leaving Microsoft earlier Monday. Dave Limp, the longtime Amazon hardware chief, said last month that he would retire from the company before the end of the year.

Panos Panay, the chief product officer at Microsoft leading Windows development and the company's Surface line, is leaving Microsoft. From a report: In an announcement on Monday, Microsoft told employees: "After nearly 20 years at the company, Panos Panay has decided to leave Microsoft." Panay first joined Microsoft in 2004 as a group program manager. After overseeing the company's Surface line, Panay became the company's chief product officer in 2018, where he led the development of Windows 11.

Intel has showed off its initial work on developing a glass core substrate and associated packaging process for its chips. AnandTech: As a result of their progress with research and development on the class cores, Intel is now planning on introducing glass core substrates to its products in the second half of this decade, allowing them to package chips in more complex, and ultimately higher-performing configurations. There's a lot to unpack from Intel's relatively short announcement, but at a high level, glass core substrates have been under research for over a decade as a replacement for organic substrates, which are widely used in current-generation processors.

Essentially the medium that typical silicon dies sit on, substrates play an important part in chip packaging. First and foremost, they provide the structural stability for a chip (silicon dies are quite fragile and flimsy), and they are also the means through which signals from silicon dies are carried, either to other on-package dies (i.e. chiplets), or to the large number of relatively sizable pins/pads on the back side of a chip. And, as chip sizes have increased over the years -- and the number of pins/signals required by high-end chips has, as well -- so has the need for newer and better materials to use as a substrate, which is what's been driving Intel's latest accomplishment.

On August 30th a scientific paper discussed lithium in an extinct volcano in the western United States. But would it also increase supplies of a crucial battery-making ingredient?

"The mining industry is seldom that simple," argues Bloomberg's Energy Digest newsletter: The discovery of new deposits — be it the giant Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea or diamonds in Canada's Northwest Territories — rarely turns an industry on its head, and certainly not quickly. For lithium, that's likely to be especially true. Unlike cobalt and nickel, lithium isn't geologically scarce when it comes to economically viable deposits. And while there are short-term bottlenecks as the mining world reacts to a sudden spike in demand, few see long-term shortages. In fact, the supply outlook is so compelling that all but one of the biggest miners — Rio Tinto Group, which accidentally stumbled across a big deposit — decided it's not an industry they want to be in.

Instead, much of the focus is on processing and refining the element into a grade suitable for batteries. "The news is a reminder that lithium isn't rare, but producing battery-grade quantities at scale is the true challenge," said Chris Berry, president of House Mountain Partners, an industry consultant.

The VR blog Nifty Sparks made an interesting discovery: In a strategic move that could reshape the gaming industry, Epic Games, the creator of the widely-used Unreal Engine, is reportedly considering native integration with Apple's forthcoming Vision Pro.

The mixed-reality headset, slated for a 2024 release, could greatly benefit from this integration, but the timing of this development is particularly noteworthy, as it comes amidst ongoing legal disputes between Apple and Epic Games and a recent controversy surrounding changes to Unity's pricing structure.

Victor Lerp, Unreal Engine XR Product Specialist at Epic Games, has indicated that the company is actively exploring native support for Apple Vision Pro.
In Unreal Engine's developer forums, Lerp turned up in a thread titled "Support for Apple Vision Pro in Unreal ??" Someone had posted "Please tell me there is support coming?" and in June Lerp had first responded "We don't have any information to share at the moment, but stay tuned for the future."

But four days ago, Lerp returned to the thread with an update. "Internally we're exploring native Unreal Engine support for Apple Vision Pro, but it's too early for us to share details on the extent of support or timeline. We have access to the public SDK's like everyone else, and there's nothing fundamentally stopping us, or you, from developing support, or shipping Apple Vision Pro applications with Unreal Engine."

The VR blog notes that this follows Unreal Engine 5.2's native support for Apple Silicon Macs. And "meanwhile, Unity's recent pricing changes have led some developers to consider alternatives like UE and Godot."

Thanks to Slashdot reader NiftySparks for sharing the article.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Thursday America's Energy Department released an interactive map showing America's clean energy investments, "for tracking the industrial revitalization happening across the country, fostered by a clean energy transition..."

The map aims to show how both the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act "are leading to announcements of historic levels of private sector investments in the United States," which the head of America's Energy Department credited for "a manufacturing renaissance across the U.S." A senior White House energy advisor specifically described it as "a clean energy boom" and called the map "a great resource for understanding the widespread and important impact this boom is having on communities all across our nation."

The announcement notes 500 "planned investments in at least 450 new or expanded clean energy manufacturing facilities, totaling over $160 billion in announced private and public sector investments" in solar, battery, and offshore wind manufacturing projects — as well as in electric vehicle assembly, components, and chargers. Ford received over $12 billion for battery pack/cell projects and EV assembly, along with billions more for Ford's joint venture with BlueOval SK to build a battery plant. And six of the projects are Tesla — totalling over $2 billion for projects in battery materials, cells, packs, and EV assembly.

At 103 miles/kWh (or 0.6 kWh/100 km), the new "muc22" car built by students from the Technical University of Munich "is 25 times more efficient than any EV on sale..." writes Ars Technica. "For those who think in terms of miles per gallon, it's the equivalent of traveling 3,815 miles on a single gallon of gas.

The car has a top speed of just 26 mph (42 km/h) — and without a driver it weighs just 374 lbs (170 kg): In a six-day test at Munich airport, it set a new distance record on a single charge (for a non-solar EV): 1,599 miles (2,574 km), with less battery capacity than many plug-in hybrids — just 15.5 kWh...

The airflow-optimized shape has faired-in rear wheels and a drag coefficient of just 0.159; more importantly, though, it has a pretty tiny frontal area (it's only 39.4 inches/1,000 mm tall and 47.2 inches/1,200 mm wide)... [F]or this record run, muc22 made do with just 400 W — that's 268 times less powerful than the least-powerful EV on sale today, the Mazda MX-30... The record run took place in an empty hangar at Munich Airport, obviating any interference from the weather. The previous record stood at 999 miles (1,609 km), but the team of seven drivers reached that distance after just four days, and since the battery wasn't empty yet, the car kept going.
Thanks to Slashdot reader FrankOVD for sharing the article.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian: ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal.

The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York's attorney general as part of an investigation into the company announced in 2015. They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil... In 2008, Exxon pledged to stop funding climate-denier groups. But that very same year, company leadership said it would support the company in directing a scientist to help the nation's top oil and gas lobbying group write a paper about the "uncertainty" of measuring greenhouse gas emissions...

The documents could bolster legal efforts to hold oil companies accountable for their alleged attempts to sow doubt about climate science. More than two dozen U.S. cities and states are suing big oil, claiming the industry knew for decades about the dangers of burning coal, oil and gas but hid that information.
More context from NPR: Earlier investigations found Exxon worked for decades to sow confusion about climate change, even though its own scientists had begun warning executives as early as 1977 that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels were warming the planet, posing dire risks to human beings. By the late 1980s, concern was growing domestically and overseas that fossil fuel use was heating the planet, increasing the risks of extreme weather. In response, the Journal reported, Exxon executive Frank Sprow sent a memo to colleagues warning that if there were a global consensus on addressing climate change, "substantial negative impacts on Exxon could occur." According to the Journal, Sprow wrote: "Any additional R&D efforts within Corporate Research on Greenhouse should have two primary purposes: 1. Protect the value of our resources (oil, gas, coal). 2. Preserve Exxon's business options."

Sprow told the Journal that the approach in his memo was adopted as policy, in "what would become a central pillar of Exxon's strategy," the paper said. A few years after the memo, Exxon became the architect of a highly effective strategy of climate change denial that succeeded for decades in politicizing climate policy and delaying meaningful action to cut heat-trapping pollution...

Last year, Exxon said it plans to spend about $17 billion on "lower emission initiatives" through 2027. That represents, at most, 17% of the total capital investments the company plans to make during that period. Exxon recently said it is buying a company called Denbury that specializes in capturing carbon dioxide emissions and injecting them into oil wells to boost production. It's also planning to build a hydrogen plant and a facility to capture and store carbon emissions in Texas.

According to Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham, the iPhone 15 devices "have completely standard USB-C ports that work just fine with all existing USB 3 and USB-PD (Power Delivery) compliant cables, chargers, and accessories, just like Apple's other devices." It contradicts rumors that Apple's implementation of USB-C would limit data and charging speeds for any accessories not certified through its Made for iPhone (MFI) program. From the report: We'll still need to test the phones to know for sure how they'll behave with different things plugged into them, but all of Apple's official authentication-chip-less USB-C chargers and cables quietly had their compatibility tables updated this week to include all iPhone 15 models. That also includes chargers from third parties like Mophie and Belkin that pre-date the iPhone 15's introduction.

That's not to say that there won't be some kind of licensing program available for iPhone-compatible USB-C accessories. But fears that these cables would be required, and that the iPhone wouldn't work just fine with otherwise standards-compliant USB-C cables and chargers, were unfounded.

Google and iFixit are expanding their partnership by offering several original parts for the Pixel tablet that Google had released in June. Google first partnered with iFixit in early 2022 to sell official replacement parts for its Pixel phones. Engadget reports: One of the most expensive components now available for sale is the tablet's rear case, which costs $200 and comes with three microphones, antennas, a power button with fingerprint unlock and volume controls. If your tablet's battery gets busted, you can now purchase an authentic replacement for $67, while a rear facing camera to replace one that's having issues will set you back $25. One replacement speaker will also cost you $25, as will a replacement for the device's USB-C port. But if it's the tablet's screen that needs replacing, you'll have to pay $200 or more. You can either get the part only -- consisting of a front glass digitizer screen, a 10.95-inch 2560 x 1600 pixel LCD and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera -- for that price or get a pack with tools you'll need to open up the tablet for $6 more.

iFixit, of course, doesn't just sell the parts: Its Pixel tablet portal also contains guides on how you can repair the model for each component it's selling. You can follow them if you want to be sure you're doing the right thing, even if you're pretty good at tinkering with electronics.

When it comes to reducing American dependence on Taiwan, the TSMC Arizona chip plant will be little more than a useless paperweight, says an analyst at one chip research firm. "The TSMC Arizona fab is effectively a paperweight in any geopolitical tension or war [with China over Taiwan] due to the fact that it still requires sending the chips back to Taiwan for packaging," said Dylan Patel, chief analyst at SemiAnalysis. 9to5Mac reports: A new report in The Information says while Apple chips may be made in the U.S., they will still need to be sent back to Taiwan before they get anywhere near an Apple device: "The Arizona factory -- which has been a focal point of the Biden plan and will cost $40 billion to build -- will do little to make the U.S. self-reliant in chips. That's because many advanced chips made in Arizona for Apple or other customers such as Nvidia, AMD and Tesla will still require assembly in Taiwan in a process known as packaging, according to interviews with multiple TSMC engineers and former Apple employees."

Given that TSMC has been struggling even to build a chip fab for older tech, there seems no prospect that it would ever attempt to set up chip packaging facilities in the U.S. "Building this type of facility is a huge expenditure of [capital], time, and effort, and it does not seem likely that TSMC will want to do this anytime soon in the desert in Arizona, particularly given all the problems the firm has encountered with construction, costs and personnel so far," said Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China at consultancy DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group.

Microsoft has made it clear: it will ax third-party printer drivers in Windows. From a report: The death rattle will be lengthy, as the timeline for the end of servicing stretches into 2027 -- although Microsoft noted that the dates will be subject to change. There is, after all, always that important customer with a strange old printer lacking Mopria support.

Mopria is part of the Windows' teams justification for removing support. Founded in 2013 by Canon, HP, Samsung and Xerox, the Mopria Alliance's mission is to provide universal standards for printing and scanning. Epson, Lexmark, Adobe and Microsoft have also joined the gang since then. Since Windows 10 21H2, Microsoft has baked Mopria support into the flagship operating system, with support for devices connected via the network or USB, thanks to the Microsoft IPP Class driver. Microsoft said: "This removes the need for print device manufacturers to provide their own installers, drivers, utilities, and so on."

Earlier this year, Singapore-based embedded security researcher yeokm1 built a ChatGPT client for MS-DOS.

Now they're back with a new project: HDMI is a relatively modern video connector we take for granted on modern PCs and monitors. Now vintage PCs can join in the fun too with a native connection to modern HDMI monitors without any additional adapter.

Two years ago, I learned of an open-source project called Graphics Gremlin by Eric Schlaepfer who runs the website Tubetime.us. It is an 8-bit ISA graphics card that supports display standards like Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) and Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA). CGA and MDA are display standards used by older IBM(-compatible) PCs in the 1980s. The frequencies and connectors used by CGA and MDA are no longer supported by modern monitors hence it is difficult for older PCs of the 1980s era to have modern displays connected to them without external adapters. Graphics Gremline addresses this problem by using techniques like scan doubling (for CGA) and increasing the vertical refresh rate (for MDA) then outputing to a relatively newer but still old VGA port.

I fabricated and assembled the design then installed it into my IBM5155... I decided to modify the Graphics Gremlin design so it can connect natively to an external HDMI monitor and service the internal Composite-based CRT at the same time.
The post concludes triumphantly with a photo of their IBM 5155 running the CGA Compatibility Tester displaying the color palette.

Popular Science reports that America's Department of Energy "is providing a nearly $400 million loan to a startup aimed at scaling the manufacturing and deployment of a zinc-based alternative to rechargeable lithium batteries."

If realized, Eos Energy's utility- and industrial-scale zinc-bromine battery energy storage system could provide cheaper, vastly more sustainable options for the country's burgeoning renewable power infrastructure... Unlike lithium-ion and lithium iron phosphate batteries, alternatives such as the Eos Z3 design rely on zinc-based cathodes alongside a water-based electrolyte, notes MIT Technology Review. This important distinction both increases their stability, as well as makes it incredibly difficult for them to support combustion. Zinc-bromine batteries meanwhile also boast lifespans as long as 20 years, while existing lithium options only manage between 10 and 15 years. What's more, zinc is considered the world's fourth most produced metal...

The U.S. Department of Energy also notes that "over time," Eos expects to source almost all of its materials within the U.S., thus better insulating its product against the market volatility and supply chain issues. While the Department of Energy previously issued similar loans to battery recycling and geothermal energy projects, last week's announcement marks the first funding offered to a manufacturer of lithium-battery alternatives.
MIT's article notes that Eos's semi-autonomous facility in Pennsylvania already produces around 540 megawatt-hours annually — and it isn't operating at full capacity. This new loan could boost factory toward full-power. The $398-million loan funds "up to four state-of-the-art production lines," according to the announcement from the U.S. Energy Department.

It notes that the technology is "specifically designed for long-duration grid-scale stationary battery storage that can assist in meeting the energy grids' growing demand with increasing amounts of renewable energy penetration." If finalized, the project is expected to manufacture 8 GWh of storage capacity annually by 2026. That is enough to provide electricity to over 300,000 average U.S. homes instantaneously or meet the annual electricity needs of approximately 130,000 homes if fully charged and discharged daily. The project is expected to create up to 50 union contractor construction jobs and as many as 650 new operations jobs when at full operational capacity...

Critically, Eos batteries are non-flammable and do not require active cooling to operate. The batteries can achieve 100% depth of discharge...

Huawei's launch last week of the Mate 60 Pro smartphone "shocked industry experts," reports CNN, who didn't understand how Huawei "would have the ability to manufacture such an advanced smartphone following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China's access to foreign chip technology."

And in a related note, CNN adds that South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix "is investigating how two of its memory chips mysteriously ended up inside the Mate 60 Pro, a controversial smartphone launched by Huawei last week." Shares in Hynix fell more than 4% on Friday after it emerged that two of its products, a 12 gigabyte (GB) LPDDR5 chip and 512 GB NAND flash memory chip, were found inside the Huawei handset by TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, which took the phone apart for analysis. "The significance of the development is that there are restrictions on what SK Hynix can ship to China," G Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, told CNN. "Where do these chips come from? The big question is whether any laws were violated."

A Hynix spokesperson told CNN Friday that it was aware of its chips being used in the Huawei phone and had started investigating the issue.

The company "no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the U.S. restrictions against the company," it said in a statement... Industry insiders said it was possible that Huawei had purchased the memory chips from the secondary market and not directly from the manufacturer. It's also possible Huawei may have had a stockpile of components accumulated before the U.S. export curbs kicked in fully.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear for sharing the news.