The hottest Hardware Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

2026+

Gonzo ML • 315 implied HN points • 07 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Quadruped robots (dog- or cat-like) will get much better and more practical for real-world use, while humanoid home robots stay too expensive.
  2. We’ll see production-grade agents with predictable 99.9% reliability and richer integrations, driven by better infrastructure and cognitive architectures.
  3. Advances in world models, latent-space reasoning, and multimodal architectures will create new interactive environments and begin to accelerate scientific discovery in certain domains.

Apple's Trajectory: Achieving Twin Hyperextraordinary Triumphs, Four Slow-Motion Failures

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 169 implied HN points • 23 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Apple’s recent success rests on two extraordinary strengths: in-house Apple Silicon chips and a highly efficient, China-centered manufacturing supply chain.
  2. Years of small software regressions and weaker visual design have eroded the “it just works” user trust, turning quality drift into a major strategic weakness.
  3. Apple also has big blind spots — an unclear AI strategy (highlighted by Siri’s failure), political vulnerability from China dependence, and fraught developer relations over App Store fees — and simple executive reshuffles may not fix these structural problems.

The EU can be shut down with a few keystrokes

Bite code! • 2568 implied HN points • 18 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Europe relies heavily on American technology for software and hardware, making it vulnerable to disruptions. If the US decided to cut off services, it could have serious consequences for businesses and daily life.
  2. Many companies in Europe don’t realize how interconnected they are with US services. If one major service shuts down, it could create a ripple effect that impacts the entire economy.
  3. There's a need for Europe to gain more control over its own technology and data. This means investing in local alternatives and educating the population about the importance of digital sovereignty.

Vibe-Coding a PCB - surprisingly good

atomic14 • 2598 implied HN points • 12 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Vibe-coding a PCB is about using AI to design hardware from natural language prompts. It's a fun way to simplify the building process.
  2. Using a tool like Atopile and an AI assistant can yield surprisingly good results, even if there are small mistakes. Just a little guidance can help fix issues.
  3. This method is close to changing how we create hardware, making it easier for people without engineering skills to get involved in tech projects.

The Sequence Radar #807: Last Week in AI: From Mega-Rounds to Mathematical Breakthrough

TheSequence • 91 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Huge funding and strong enterprise revenue are accelerating AI research and infrastructure, letting big labs scale up ambitious agentic systems.
  2. Model and hardware advances are driving both extreme speed and open competition — from ultra-fast self-debugging models on specialized chips to powerful open-weight models trained on domestic hardware.
  3. Agentic AI is maturing into professional tools: systems that generate, verify, and revise math proofs are hitting high benchmarks and solving open problems, showing AI can enhance scientific research.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

Roche SBX Chip Die Size Estimate Update (It's small!)

ASeq Newsletter • 21 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. A newly found die photo lines up with the AGBT sensor module because the screw holes and exposed vias match, confirming they’re the same module.
  2. By rescaling the die image to the PCB (for which sizes are known), you can derive a size estimate for the die.
  3. The resulting estimate indicates the Roche SBX die is quite small, implying a more compact sensor/chip than many might expect.

RISC-V and Post Quantum Cryptography

Fprox’s Substack • 186 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Quantum computers threaten today’s public-key cryptography, so governments and industry are already moving to post-quantum algorithms and rolling out standards and deployments now.
  2. Post-quantum schemes (e.g., Kyber, Dilithium, SPHINCS+, Falcon) rely on heavy math like NTT and Keccak, and they trade off key/signature sizes, signing speed, and verification cost differently.
  3. RISC-V can run PQC today using its vector extensions, but lacks dedicated PQC ISA support; targeted accelerations for NTT and Keccak (and vector crypto extensions) would greatly improve performance and are being explored by the community.

2025: The Year in Review

Gonzo ML • 252 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. 2025 was the year of agents — they’re being built into every product and API, but many still fail often and lag traditional reliability standards, so expect more focus on making them robust.
  2. Code agents and agentic tools for science made big practical gains, with autonomous multi-step work across repositories and early successes in automated research and math.
  3. The hardware and model landscape shifted: TPUs and strong Chinese open models reduced dependence on a single vendor, AGI hype cooled with timelines pushed out, and world-model research kept advancing.

"Please wait while we access the functions on this card"

Disaffected Newsletter • 1938 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Many everyday machines now have annoying delays when performing simple tasks that used to be instant, like using ATMs or accessing files. It's frustrating because these are basic functions.
  2. Modern devices often prioritize a fancy user experience over speed and efficiency, making us wait longer for actions that used to happen quickly. This creates a feeling of disconnect between users and their machines.
  3. The trend seems to be moving towards making everything software-controlled, even when it seems unnecessary. This can make basic interactions tedious and less intuitive for users.

The Spearpoint Right Now of Human Technological Engineering

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 184 implied HN points • 10 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. A small high‑collaboration region in the Netherlands (Brainport Eindhoven) is the global spearpoint of cutting‑edge technological engineering, where industry, universities, and government jointly push manufacturing and design limits.
  2. Advanced chipmaking is a vertical, unforgiving value chain—light sources, mirrors, EUV lithography machines, pure silicon wafers, foundries, chip designs, and software are all technically essential and extremely expensive.
  3. Even though the stack is deeply interdependent, economic rewards are highly concentrated (notably around NVIDIA and CUDA), and swapping major players like TSMC or NVIDIA is possible only at large cost or performance penalties.

Vote for the December 2025 + Post Topic

Computer Ads from the Past • 256 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Readers are invited to vote on the December 2025 + post topic from several options.
  2. The choices are magazine images and ads spanning decades (1977, 1986, 1992, 1995), showing a wide range of retro computing products.
  3. The post will be published before the end of the year, supporters are thanked, and readers can claim the free post or subscribe to access paid content.

Synopsys and NVIDIA Double Down on Acceleration

More Than Moore • 373 implied HN points • 01 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. NVIDIA is investing $2 billion and forming a multi-year partnership with Synopsys to GPU-accelerate and add AI and digital-twin support across Synopsys’ EDA, simulation, and multiphysics tools. The goal is to let customers run much larger and faster simulations and tighten engineering iteration loops.
  2. Moving these tools to accelerated hardware will require deep solver and algorithm reformulation and is a multi-year, hybrid effort. Many safety-critical or high-fidelity flows will remain FP64 or mixed-precision for validation and accuracy.
  3. The companies hope faster, cheaper simulation will expand the total market for virtual prototyping across industries, but delivery details, pricing models, and practical hardware neutrality remain unclear and may favor NVIDIA’s stack in practice.

AI is just the latest Monoculture

Deus In Machina • 72 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Technological lock-in has been the default for decades, so AI tools are more inheriting existing monocultures than creating them. They might speed up adoption of dominant tools, but the fundamental switching costs already existed.
  2. Products and tools tend to win by being familiar, not necessarily by being better, because people avoid relearning interfaces. That’s why many improvements preserve old APIs and conventions instead of introducing new paradigms.
  3. Concrete chokepoints — like the C ABI, curly-brace syntax, dominant CPU/GPU ecosystems, and the browser stack — show how early choices constrain future innovation. Those entrenched standards make it hard for new languages, hardware, or platforms to gain traction even before factoring in AI.

Crowdfunding Success - Was it worth it?

atomic14 • 1385 implied HN points • 22 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. The ESP32 Rainbow project was successfully funded through crowdfunding. Many people found the product appealing enough to support it.
  2. The project features a colorful Sinclair Spectrum recreation with modern technology like a display and speaker.
  3. The creator is reflecting on whether the success of crowdfunding was worth it in the long run.

Choosing an op-amp for your project

lcamtuf’s thing • 4081 implied HN points • 03 Jan 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. When selecting op-amps for projects, avoid using older models like LM741 and LM324, as modern options perform much better and are easier to use.
  2. Look for op-amps with rail-to-rail input and output capabilities, which allow for better voltage range handling and simplify your circuit design.
  3. Focus on key parameters like bandwidth, output current, and noise specifications, but remember that many modern op-amps have decent performance that meets the needs of most hobby projects.

ESP32 Rainbow QA - A tale of three boards

atomic14 • 173 implied HN points • 02 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Minor assembly or soldering faults—like lifted pads, poorly seated ICs, or cold joints—can cause big failures such as no sound, no USB, or nonworking keys.
  2. Simple bench debugging (microscope inspection, continuity checks) plus basic rework (reflowing solder, nudging parts, retouching pins) can fix many issues, though some damaged boards are only fit for spare parts.
  3. Outsourcing PCB fabrication and partial assembly is fine, but final in‑house assembly and thorough QA are essential to catch subtle manufacturing problems before shipping.

AI-driven layoffs, up close and personal

Alex's Personal Blog • 262 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Roomba's maker has filed for bankruptcy and looks set to be sold, showing how failed deals and market-power fights can wipe out small hardware companies.
  2. CEOs are planning bigger AI budgets while workers, especially in writing and small agencies, are already losing jobs as cheaper, 'good enough' automation replaces paid labor.
  3. A nearby mass shooting made gun violence feel immediate and personal, highlighting how these events disrupt communities and how social media often spreads harmful rumors.

That was 2025!

atomic14 • 173 implied HN points • 31 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. One person can design, crowdfund, and ship a real hardware product worldwide, but production costs, certification, tariffs, and shipping logistics make margins very tight.
  2. Building an audience before launch, using AI tooling, and embracing open source helped make the product possible and created a supportive community.
  3. Hands-on experiments with high-voltage gear, tiny RISC‑V chips, and better debugging drove learning, and sharing both successes and failures proved more valuable than chasing big profits.

Big O vs Hardware: Better Complexity ≠ Better Performance

Confessions of a Code Addict • 1106 implied HN points • 03 Aug 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Not all algorithms with lower time complexity perform better in the real world. Hardware efficiency also plays a big role in how fast they run.
  2. An algorithm may have a good time complexity but if it relies on expensive operations, it won't win in performance. It's important to consider how the algorithm works with the CPU.
  3. Some algorithms can perform better on hardware depending on their design. A well-optimized algorithm can take advantage of hardware strengths, leading to faster results compared to those with similar complexity.

The next big thing in 2026 will be...

next big thing • 141 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Autonomous, end-to-end AI agents will move from being copilots to pilots, owning whole workflows and delivering outcomes rather than just answering prompts.
  2. Persistent memory, proactive behavior, and on-device inference will make AI feel like a personal companion and unlock a wave of new consumer products, generative media, and personalized experiences.
  3. AI will start showing up in the bottom line, driving real deployments, new pricing models, hardware launches, and a surge of IPOs and M&A, while human-heavy AI services get exposed if they can’t prove machine-driven margins.

33 predictions for 2026 in AI: consumer, enterprise, AI capex, and more

Enterprise AI Trends • 168 implied HN points • 27 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. AI progress will accelerate in 2026, causing fast, widespread change that can create big winners and losers.
  2. AI agents will become mainstream across consumer and enterprise use cases, with coding agents able to autonomously complete multi-hour tasks and driving strong enterprise adoption and FOMO.
  3. Intense competition, cost optimization, and open-source model advances will shape which platforms and startups win, making AI capex and strategic investment decisions essential.

Real Roche Chips!

ASeq Newsletter • 21 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Clear images of Roche SBX chips from AGBT have surfaced and are being shared on Discord.
  2. The photos use colored 'party' lighting and lack a neutral background or scale, which makes careful inspection harder.
  3. A 2.54 mm pitch SIL header visible in the picture is being used as a scale to de-skew the image and estimate PCB dimensions, while fuller measurements and analysis are in a paid subscriber post.

Weekend projects: Sketchy Sketch

lcamtuf’s thing • 3060 implied HN points • 06 Jan 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. A new version of the Etch-A-Sketch toy, called Sketchy Sketch, was created to be more user-friendly and modern. It uses digital controls for drawing and animating, unlike the old mechanical version.
  2. The Sketchy Sketch is built using a microcontroller and a display, allowing kids to create pixel art easily. It has a simple menu system and saves multiple images.
  3. The project shows that it's fun and rewarding to build something from scratch. The creator shares the parts and code online, encouraging others to try similar projects.

CXL Is Dead In The AI Era

SemiAnalysis • 7475 implied HN points • 16 Mar 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. CXL technology was once thought to revolutionize data center hardware, but many projects have been shelved in favor of other advancements.
  2. CXL is not likely to be the go-to interconnect for AI applications due to limitations in availability and deeper issues in the era of accelerated computing.
  3. The main challenges with CXL include PCIe SerDes limitations, competition from proprietary protocols for AI clusters, and the need for improvements in chip design for bandwidth efficiency.

“DeepSeek Moment” Anniversary in a Nashville Snowpocalypse

Interconnected • 61 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Making open source the default for frontier AI speeds innovation and lets more people contribute and build on progress.
  2. Letting software specifications drive hardware roadmaps, especially in China, aligns chip design with real AI needs and priorities.
  3. Pursuing AGI without a short-term business model can be a strategic advantage because it prioritizes long-term capability over immediate profit.

Under the microscope: Sound Qube (Saturn)

Rings of Saturn • 43 implied HN points • 09 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. You can unlock a level select on the Saturn version by holding Start on the Options screen and entering: A, C, Up, Right, A, Down, Up, Left; this lets you start any of the eight levels.
  2. A wireframe mode makes the sub-cubes transparent when you pause, hold Start, and enter: A, C, Up, Right, A, B, Left, C.
  3. You can force a Stage Clear (or Level Clear on the final stage) by pausing, holding Start, and entering: A, C, Up, Right, A, Right, A, B, which can carry you to the end of the game.

A Year In Chips

The Chip Letter • 8736 implied HN points • 30 Dec 23
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. The Chip Letter had 75 posts, over 500,000 views, and gained over 7,000 new subscribers in 2023.
  2. Highlighted posts included the story of Erlang at WhatsApp, the disappearance of minicomputers, and a celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Integrated Circuit.
  3. 2024 will bring posts on the history of microcontrollers, Moore's Law, the Motorola 6800, '8-bit', GPUs, TPUs, and more, with a 20% discount available for new annual subscriptions.

How Exactly NVIDIA Is Pulling This Off

Big Technology • 7505 implied HN points • 23 Feb 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. NVIDIA's software edge is a significant factor in its success, making it hard for competitors to match.
  2. Customers buy and reorder NVIDIA's products due to the difficulty of switching off its proprietary software.
  3. NVIDIA's dominance in the AI industry is sustained through its software advantage, influencing customer decisions and orders.

My 5 Favorite Not Boring Essays of 2025

Not Boring by Packy McCormick • 146 implied HN points • 23 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Electric technology is rapidly getting cheaper and better, so electric products will increasingly outperform combustion and enable new things; where and how components are made will shape who wins.
  2. Technology expands our capacity but doesn’t create meaning for us, so we must choose how to spend our extra hours by paying attention, seeking novel experiences, and building relationships.
  3. There’s huge opportunity in real differentiation and craft amid widespread copycat slop, and as AI commoditizes routine tasks humans win by moving up the stack into creative, relational, and higher‑level work done with joy and purpose.

Demystifying GPU Compute Software

The Chip Letter • 6989 implied HN points • 10 Mar 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. GPU software ecosystems are crucial and as important as the GPU hardware itself.
  2. Programming GPUs requires specific tools like CUDA, ROCm, OpenCL, SYCL, and oneAPI, as they are different from CPUs and need special support from hardware vendors.
  3. The effectiveness of GPU programming tools is highly dependent on support from hardware vendors due to the complexity and rapid changes in GPU architectures.

LLM Inference Hardware: Emerging from Nvidia's Shadow

Gradient Flow • 1138 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Demand for efficient and cost-effective inference solutions for large language models is escalating, leading to a shift away from reliance solely on Nvidia GPUs.
  2. AMD GPUs offer a compelling alternative to Nvidia for LLM inference in 2024, particularly in terms of performance and efficiency, catering to the growing demand for diverse hardware options.
  3. CPU-based solutions, like those from Neural Magic and Intel, are emerging as viable options for LLM inference, demonstrating advancements in performance, optimization, and affordability, especially for teams with limited GPU access.

Nvidia B100, B200, GB200 - COGS, Pricing, Margins, Ramp - Oberon, Umbriel, Miranda

SemiAnalysis • 6364 implied HN points • 18 Mar 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Nvidia's new Blackwell GPUs introduce B100, B200, and GB200 models, offering improved performance and architecture.
  2. The B100 has exceptional gross margins exceeding 85%, showcasing Nvidia's strong pricing power in the market.
  3. The configuration of the Blackwell GPUs includes 8 stacks of 8-hi HBM3E with up to 192GB capacity, utilizing CoWoS-L technology for increased performance.

Four Things Friday

State of the Future • 19 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. AI agents are rapidly automating work that happens on screens, and small but steady reliability improvements can quickly make them good enough to replace many tasks.
  2. New chip startups are raising big rounds to solve the memory bottleneck by doing computation-in-memory or using photonics, because faster, cheaper inference hardware is critical for agent-scale workloads.
  3. Europe is moving toward onshore AI compute and governance with large GPU deployments and consortium models, and privacy-enhancing technologies plus auditing will be essential to keep agent access to sensitive data secure and compliant.

Introducing Chiplets

The Chip Letter • 6770 implied HN points • 11 Feb 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. The newsletter is introducing 'Chiplets,' shorter and more varied posts for the readers.
  2. Readers have the option to opt-in to receive 'Chiplets' in their inbox to avoid filling it with too many emails.
  3. The 'Chiplets' will cover a mix of historical and current topics in a more informal and fun way, offering a new format for readers.

Nvidia’s Plans To Crush Competition – B100, “X100”, H200, 224G SerDes, OCS, CPO, PCIe 7.0, HBM3E

SemiAnalysis • 8586 implied HN points • 10 Oct 23
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. Google, AMD, Intel, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft are all gearing up to challenge Nvidia's AI dominance.
  2. Nvidia is maintaining its hardware lead but facing increasing competition.
  3. Nvidia's supply chain mastery and potentially anti-competitive business tactics are key factors in their strategy.

My PCB Has a Digital Twin

atomic14 • 692 implied HN points • 12 Aug 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. The LSM6DS3 sensor combines both accelerometer and gyroscope functions to measure motion and orientation. It's great for detecting movement but can have accuracy issues based on its environment.
  2. Using fusion mode can help to reduce drift over time by combining data from both sensors, allowing for more stable readings. This means your measurements can be more reliable during movement.
  3. The project is open source, meaning you can easily access and modify the code for your own use. You can load 3D models of your PCBs and see them in real time, which adds a fun interactive element to the testing process.

How to OpenClaw your Raspberry Pi

Gradient Ascendant • 16 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. OpenClaw runs an always-on AI agent with installable "skills" that you can talk to over Slack or Telegram, and putting it on a Raspberry Pi makes the agent cheap, portable, and able to write and deploy software for you.
  2. Getting a Raspberry Pi 5 running headlessly is fiddly: you must create a user with an encrypted password on the SD card, enable SSH, and plug the Pi into Ethernet to set the Wi‑Fi country before wireless will work.
  3. These agents can act autonomously and use real credentials to install, commit, and deploy code, so you need separate accounts, limited permissions, and careful attention to security and prompt‑injection risks.

ESP32-S3 ZX Spectrum - Update 22-06-2024

Single Board ESP32 ZX Spectrum • 159 implied HN points • 22 Jun 24
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. The creator is grateful for the support shown for the ESP32-S3 ZX Spectrum project, with 432 people signing up for updates.
  2. Progress has been made in applying to platforms like Crowd Supply, developing prototypes with new features, and creating new artwork for the project.
  3. Key questions are addressed about the project, including display options, pricing, support for games, and potential selling platforms.

Efficient Computer's Electron E1 CPU

More Than Moore • 653 implied HN points • 24 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Hardware
  1. The Electron E1 CPU by Efficient Computer uses a unique design that aims to be much more energy-efficient than traditional chips. It does this by changing how data moves and is processed, reducing energy waste.
  2. This CPU has a special architecture called 'Fabric' that lets data flow directly between computing nodes. This design is supposed to save a lot of energy that typical CPUs lose moving data around.
  3. Efficient Computer believes their chip could be 10 to 100 times more efficient than the best ARM CPUs. However, until more independent tests are done, it's hard to say how well it’ll really perform in the real world.