Google was among the first hyperscalers build custom silicon for its services, starting first with tensor processing units (TPUs) for its AI initiatives, and then video transcoding units (VCUs) for the YouTube service. But unlike its industry peers, the company has been slower to adopt custom CPU designs, prefering to stick to off-the-shelf chips from the major CPUs. This is finally changing at Google, with the announcement that the company has developed its own in-house datacenter CPU, the Axion. Google's Axion processor is based on the Arm Neoverse V2 (Arm v9) platform, which is Arm's current-generation design for high-performance server CPUs, and is already employed in other chips such as NVIDIA's Grace and Amazon's Graviton4. Within Google, Axion is aimed at a wide variety of...
Qualcomm Swaps Out Arm for RISC-V for Next-Gen Google Wear OS Devices
As part of a broad collaborative agreement with Google, Qualcomm this week said that that it will be adopting the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) for a future Snapdragon...
9 by Anton Shilov on 10/18/2023
Google's Tensor inside of Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro: A Look into Performance & Efficiency
Today, we’re taking an in-depth look at Google's Tensor SoC, the chip powering their new Pixel 6 family of phones. The Tensor is Google's first custom-designed SoC, and incorporates...
108 by Andrei Frumusanu on 11/2/2021
Google Announces Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro: The New Real Flagship Pixels
Today, after many weeks, even months of leaks and teasers, Google has finally announced the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro – their new flagship line-up of phones...
89 by Andrei Frumusanu on 10/19/2021
Hot Chips 2021 Live Blog: Graphics (Intel, AMD, Google, Xilinx)
Welcome to Hot Chips! This is the annual conference all about the latest, greatest, and upcoming big silicon that gets us all excited. Stay tuned during Monday and Tuesday...
12 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/24/2021
Google Teases Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro with new "Tensor" SoC
Today Google has teased its new upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones; in what is likely an attempt to get leaks and the upcoming narrative of the...
47 by Andrei Frumusanu on 8/2/2021
The Google Pixel 5: A Mini-Review - Small Package, Small Value?
The Pixel 5 is a change of tactic for Google, with the company opting to go the route of a lower-cost “premium” or high mid-range component configuration, rather than...
105 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/22/2021
AnandTech Year In Review 2020: Flagship Mobile
We’re a few days away from completing the 2020 calendar year, and it’s been a quite a hectic year for everybody. In times of troubles, the smartphone industry had...
57 by Andrei Frumusanu on 12/28/2020
Google Announces Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5: Focusing on the Mid-Range?
Today through the company’s rather short virtual launch event, among other novelties, Google has officially announced the new Pixel 4a (5G) and the new Pixel 5. Both phones had...
116 by Andrei Frumusanu on 9/30/2020
Hot Chips 2020 Live Blog: Google TPUv2 and TPUv3 (2:30pm PT)
Hot Chips has gone virtual this year! Lots of talks on lots of products, including Tiger Lake, Xe, POWER10, Xbox Series X, TPUv3, and a special Raja Koduri Keynote...
1 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/18/2020
Hot Chips 2020 Live Blog: Keynote Day 2, Dan Belov of Deepmind (1:30pm PT)
Hot Chips has gone virtual this year! Lots of talks on lots of products, including Tiger Lake, Xe, POWER10, Xbox Series X, TPUv3, and a special Raja Koduri Keynote...
1 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/18/2020
Google Teases Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5 Later This Year
Alongside the launch of the Pixel 4a today, Google has made a mention that it’ll be launching the Pixel 4a (5G) later this year at a price point of...
18 by Andrei Frumusanu on 8/3/2020
Google Announces Pixel 4a - A $349 Value
Today Google is announcing its 2020 successor to its budget/mid-range line of phones in the form of the new Pixel 4a. Awaited since several months now, but seemingly delayed...
154 by Andrei Frumusanu on 8/3/2020
Google’s new Confidential Virtual Machines on 2nd Gen AMD EPYC
With AMD’s market share slowly increasing, it becomes very interesting to see where EPYC is being deployed. The latest announcement today comes from AMD and Google, with news that...
21 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 7/14/2020
Mobile Flagship Phone Camera Overview 2020 H1: Still Picture Battle
When today you’re picking a flagship smartphone, you generally get more or less the same fundamental formula no matter the vendor you chose. It’s a glass slab with a...
130 by Andrei Frumusanu on 6/18/2020
AnandTech Year In Review 2019: Flagship Mobile
2019 is coming to an end, and it’s time again to look back at what the industry has brought us. This year, we saw a lot of hardware improvements...
54 by Andrei Frumusanu on 12/26/2019
Amazon, Apple, Google, Zigbee Alliance to Develop Connectivity Standard for Smart Home
Smart home devices have been around for many years, but have never become very widespread to a large degree. One of the reasons for this is likely the incompatibility...
43 by Anton Shilov on 12/18/2019
ASUS & Google Team Up for ‘Tinker Board’ AI-Focused Credit-Card Sized Computers
ASUS and Google have joined forces to develop a new project that the companies are calling ‘Tinker Board’ single board computers (SBCs). With a footprint not much larger than...
38 by Anton Shilov on 11/12/2019
The Google Pixel 4 XL Review: Stuck In The Past In 2019
Amongst the last big smartphone releases of 2019 is Google’s Pixel 4 series. Google’s own flagship devices come late in the generational product cycle whose timing is mostly dictated...
159 by Andrei Frumusanu on 11/8/2019
Google To Acquire Fitbit for $2.1 Billion
Google on Friday announced that that it had reached an agreement to buy Fitbit, a leading maker of advanced fitness trackers. Google stressed that data obtained and processed by...
21 by Anton Shilov on 11/1/2019
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