Technologies

Apple to Use New Chips Made in Arizona

«This is an incredibly significant moment,» said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apple will be using microchips produced by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. factory based in Phoenix, CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday at the event for the facility’s upcoming expansion.

«Today is only the beginning,» Cook said. «Today we’re combining TSMC’s expertise with the unrivaled ingenuity of American workers. We are investing in a stronger, brighter future, we are planting our seed in the Arizona desert. And at Apple, we are proud to help nurture its growth.»

President Joe Biden and chief executives from AMD and Nvidia were also in attendance at the event.

«Apple had to buy all the advanced chips from overseas. Now they’re going to bring more of their supply chain home,» Biden said. «It could be a game-changer.»

TSMC is already building a chip fabrication plant, or fab, in the Arizona city — a $12 billion investment to make processors with the newer 5-nanometer manufacturing process it uses to make iPhone processors and other chips today. At a ceremony to mark the arrival of the first chipmaking equipment at the fab, it announced it’ll also make improved 4nm chips there and build a second fab to make significantly more advanced 3nm chips. The total investment: $40 billion.

The new chips won’t be powering next year’s iPhones, though, because building fabs takes a long time. TSMC broke ground on its 5nm fab in April 2021, and it won’t start producing chips until 2024. The newly announced 3nm fab won’t make chips until 2026.

Customers of TSMC currently rely on fabs in Taiwan, but modern fabs in the US could help ensure a US supply of processors too. More US chip manufacturing also can encourage a broader manufacturing ecosystem, including some business partners that supply chipmakers with equipment and materials and others that test, package and assemble chips after they’re made.

It’s unlikely the US will match the breadth of Asia’s electronics manufacturing anytime soon, but if politicians and businesses get their way, the semiconductor industry might avoid the fate of industries like steelmaking and textiles that largely vanished from the US.

Processors are critical to just about every modern product and industry, not just phones and laptops. They are used to control cars, refrigerators, military hardware, toys and power plants. A global chip shortage triggered by the COVID pandemic kept products like Ford F-150 pickups and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles out of customers’ hands and revealed just how vulnerable global supply chains are.

The TSMC expansion comes weeks after Micron’s $20 billion «megafab» investment in New York announced in October, which ultimately could reach $100 billion, and Intel’s announcement of $20 billion in two new fabs outside Columbus, Ohio, which also could reach $100 billion investment this decade.

More disruptions are possible. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed that political borders aren’t necessarily fixed. That has particular importance to Taiwan, the island nation that China claims as its own and that’s home to most of TSMC’s manufacturing.

All these forces combined to nudge Congress into passing the CHIPS and Science Act. It promises nearly $53 billion in subsidies for fabs, research into the semiconductor technology that underpins processors and spending to train future workers. And it’s a much more assertive industrial policy than the US had in the past, when most chipmaking moved overseas to its current stronghold in Asia.

«We saw during the pandemic that something that we took for granted, global supply chains, were actually a key vulnerability for economic and our national security,» Ronnie Chatterji, acting deputy director for industrial policy at the White House’s National Economic Council, said in a press briefing.

Biden lobbied for the CHIPS funding and has touted it often as a success in rebuilding US manufacturing abilities. The idea is to try to encourage private companies to make their own investments knowing they’ll find an economically favorable climate.

«This is a marked departure from the economic philosophy that has governed for much of the last 40 years in this country,» said Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council. With the old strategy, «you said that government should get out of the way, cut taxes for large companies, cut regulations, and assume that the American economy and American families would benefit.»

The new policy can mean a subsidy of about $3 billion to boost fab construction that otherwise costs about $10 billion. That makes the US more competitive with Asian countries like Taiwan, South Korea and China, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has said. Intel has a major presence in Chandler, immediately next to Phoenix, and is building $20 billion in new fabs there.

TSMC’s Arizona fabs will employ about 10,000 people overall, 4,500 of them working directly for TSMC. In addition, building the fabs employs more than 10,000 construction workers, the company said.

In addition to the over 10,000 construction workers who helped with construction of the site, TSMC Arizona’s two fabs are expected to create an additional 10,000 high-paying high-tech jobs, including 4,500 direct TSMC jobs. When complete, TSMC Arizona’s two fabs will manufacture over 600,000 wafers per year, with the estimated end-product value of more than $40 billion.

One big fan of TSMC’s expansion is Nvidia, which relies on TSMC to manufacture its graphics chips and AI accelerators. «Bringing TSMC’s investment to the United States is a masterstroke and a game-changing development for the industry,» CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.

Deese and Chatterjee stopped short of promising that the new investments would benefit from the CHIPS funding. Details of how to apply won’t even arrive until the first quarter of 2023. But they pointed to comments from chip manufacturing executives who touted the legislation as a reason for their US investments.

«The passage of the CHIPS and Science Act was absolutely critical in providing the long-term certainty for companies like TSMC to expand their footprint and really expand their investment commitment to the United States,» Deese said.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 5, #1477

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for July 5, No. 1,477.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle is a pretty tough one. I grew up on a farm, so I know the word, but I didn’t put it together right away, even though the letters are common ones. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

There is are two vowels in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter B.

Wordle hint No. 4: Down on the farm

Today’s Wordle answer describes a piece of farm equipment.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer refers to a machine for making paper, hay, or cotton into bales.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is BALER.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, July 4, No. 1476 was CURVE.

Recent Wordle answers

June 30, No. 1472: BLINK

July 1, No. 1473: MOLDY

July 2, No. 1474: INCUR

July 3, No. 1475: POPPY

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for July 5, #489

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for July 5, No. 489.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

The theme of today’s NYT Strands puzzle isn’t terribly tough, but at least one of the words is unusual and really, really long to unscramble. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Every second counts.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Does anybody really know what time it is?

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DIAL, SOLE, MOLE, MOLES, SHAKE, CHEEP, ROLE, HOME, LOCK, MEAT, TAME, TAMES, ROLES, ROON, TRON

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

CLOCK, WATCH, SUNDIAL, HOURGLASS, CHRONOMETER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is TIMEKEEPERS. To find it, look for the T that’s four letters down on the far left, and wind across.

Technologies

Microsoft Is Eliminating Passwords in August: Here’s What You Need to Do to Prepare

Microsoft Authenticator has already stopped autofilling passwords, but the biggest change comes next month.

In June, Microsoft Authenticator stopped letting users create new passwords. In July, it turned off the autofill password function. And in August, the login app will stop supporting passwords entirely, moving to more secure passkeys, such as a PIN, fingerprint or facial recognition.

Attila Tomaschek, CNET’s software senior writer and digital security expert, says that passkeys are a safer alternative to the risky password habits practiced by 49% of US adults, according to a recent survey by CNET.

«Passwords can be cracked, whereas passkeys need both the public and the locally stored private key to authenticate users, which can help mitigate risks like falling victim to phishing and brute-force or credential-stuffing attacks,» Tomaschek said.

Using the same password for several accounts or adding personal hints can be a convenient way to remember your login. But that puts you at a big risk for scammers, identity theft and fraud. Here’s more on Microsoft’s plan for eliminating passwords and how to make the switch to passkeys before August.

When will Microsoft Authenticator stop supporting passwords?

Microsoft Authenticator houses your passwords and lets you sign into all your Microsoft accounts using a PIN, facial recognition like Windows Hello, or other biometric data like a fingerprint. Authenticator can be used in other ways, such as verifying you’re logging in if you forgot your password, or using two-factor authentication as an extra layer of security for your accounts. In June, the company stopped letting users add passwords to Authenticator, but here’s a timeline of other changes you can expect from Microsoft.

July 2025: You won’t be able to use the autofill password function.
August 2025: You’ll no longer be able to use saved passwords.

If you still want to use passwords instead of passkeys, you can store them in Microsoft Edge. However, CNET experts recommend adopting passkeys during this transition. «Passkeys use public key cryptography to authenticate users, rather than relying on users themselves creating their own (often weak or reused) passwords to access their online accounts,» Tomaschek said.

Why are passkeys a better alternative to passwords?

So what exactly is a passkey? It’s a credential created by the Fast Identity Online Alliance that uses biometric data or a PIN to verify your identity and access your account. Think about using your fingerprint or Face ID to log into your account. That’s generally safer than using a password that is easy to guess or susceptible to a phishing attack.

Passkeys aren’t stored on servers like passwords. Instead, they’re stored only on your personal device. More conveniently, this takes the guesswork out of remembering your passwords and the need for a password manager.

How to set up a passkey in Microsoft Authenticator

Microsoft said in a May 1 blog post that it will automatically detect the best passkey to set up and make that your default sign-in option. «If you have a password and ‘one-time code’ set up on your account, we’ll prompt you to sign in with your one-time code instead of your password. After you’re signed in, you’ll be prompted to enroll a passkey. Then the next time you sign in, you’ll be prompted to sign in with your passkey,» according to the blog post.

To set up a new passkey, open your Authenticator app on your phone. Tap on your account and select «Set up a passkey.» You’ll be prompted to log in with your existing credentials. After you’re logged in, you can set up the passkey.