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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday April 19 2018, @01:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the roll-your-own dept.

A Facebook job posting indicates the company is looking to design its own system-on-a-chip or Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC):

Facebook Inc. is building a team to design its own semiconductors, adding to a trend among technology companies to supply themselves and lower their dependence on chipmakers such as Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., according to job listings and people familiar with the matter.

The social media company is seeking to hire a manager to build an "end-to-end SoC/ASIC, firmware and driver development organization," according to a job listing on its corporate website, indicating the effort is still in its early stages.

The Menlo Park, California-based company would join other technology giants tackling the massive effort to develop chips. In 2010, Apple Inc. started shipping its own chips and now uses them across many of its major product lines. Alphabet Inc.'s Google has developed its own artificial intelligence chip as well.

Also at TechCrunch and The Verge.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @08:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @08:17AM (#669561)

    This may be the only way they know for sure they don't have malware embedded in the silicon itself like INTEL's "management engine".

    If I had secrets - secrets that I was accountable for - and I am not talking "business-grade" secrets that if leaked, oh well, kind of thing.... I could not sleep at night if they were in any modern system. Way too many backdoors. I would be like a bank president, trying to sleep, but knowing the safe where I have everyone's money, is nothing more than some drywall and 2x4's. And knowing my depositors are going to be at me, personally, if someone broke in and took their life savings.

    I mean, there is *security*, and "business-grade" security. One *has* to work... the other is convenient and mostly theater ... and marketed to the executive class who are above accountability - and are more impressed by presentation than substance.