Starfall is an uncrewed SpaceX reentry capsule shaped like a disk,
about 10 feet across and 2.5 feet tall, that launches on Falcon 9,
with Starship
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TLDR
TLDR HARDWARE 2026-11-04
📱
HEADLINES AND LAUNCHES
SPACEX'S STARFALL IS A FLAT DISK CAPSULE BUILT TO RETURN UP TO 1,000
KG FROM ORBIT (3 MINUTE READ) [4]
Starfall is an uncrewed SpaceX reentry capsule shaped like a disk,
about 10 feet across and 2.5 feet tall, that launches on Falcon 9,
with Starship planned. It returns up to 1,000 kg from orbit by
parachute and ocean splashdown, targeting about 700 nautical miles off
the US West Coast. SpaceX's stated goals are fast point-to-point cargo
delivery and return of in-space manufactured goods. The first demo
launched on June 23, and it puts SpaceX in competition with
return-capsule startups like Varda.
APPLE WARNS MEMORY COSTS KEEP RISING, AS SUPPLIER PURCHASE
COMMITMENTS JUMP $33B IN ONE QUARTER (3 MINUTE READ) [5]
On its earnings call, Apple CEO John Ternus called memory pricing “unprecedented” and said costs will rise again in the December
quarter and beyond. Apple's manufacturing purchase obligations rose
$33 billion in the September quarter, to $89.7 billion, to lock in
supply. It guided December gross margin to 45% to 46%, and expects
Macs and iPads to stay supply-constrained through the holidays. Apple
raised prices on some Macs, iPads, and iPhones earlier this year.
🔨
ENGINEERING AND APPLICATIONS
QUALCOMM SAYS HBC SILICON PASSES LAB VALIDATION: 18X LPDDR5X
BANDWIDTH, 5X HBM4 BANDWIDTH PER WATT (3 MINUTE READ) [6]
Qualcomm's first High Bandwidth Compute silicon passed lab
validation. HBC bonds stacked LPDDR memory to an AI accelerator base
die, so compute sits under the memory and data travels less. Qualcomm
claims 18x the effective bandwidth of LPDDR5X and over 5x the
bandwidth per watt of HBM4, from early tests. HBC debuts in the
Dragonfly AI250 inference accelerator, sampling in the first half of
2027.
FOXCONN PLANS TO CONTRACT-BUILD OTHER COMPANIES' QUANTUM COMPUTERS,
TREATING THEM AS ACCELERATORS NEXT TO CPUS AND GPUS (3 MINUTE READ)
[7]
Foxconn wants to turn other companies' quantum designs into
production systems, without owning the qubit technology itself.
Chairman Young Liu told CNBC he sees the machines as accelerators
attached to CPUs and GPUs for hard NP-type problems, not
general-purpose computers, and puts commercial viability at least two
years out. One cost driver he flagged is cabling: a single cable built
for the low-temperature requirements can cost over $1,000.
🧠
RESEARCH AND PROTOTYPES
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INTEL'S 14A PDK 0.9 GOES TO OUTSIDE CUSTOMERS, WITH PDK 1.0 DUE IN Q1
2027 (3 MINUTE READ) [9]
Intel released 14A PDK 0.9 to outside customers, with PDK 1.0 planned
for Q1 2027. A PDK is the set of design rules and transistor models
chip designers build against, so 0.9 is where external designs can
start taking shape. Intel's schedule still has risk production for its
own products in the second half of 2027 and volume production in 2028,
and it claims 14A is ahead of 18A on defect density and transistor
performance at the same stage.
ORBITAL MATTER PRINTS A HALF-METER RIGID BEAM IN ORBIT BY UV-CURING
EXTRUDED RESIN (3 MINUTE READ) [10]
Orbital Matter's Replicator-2 satellite 3D printed a half-meter rigid
beam in orbit by extruding coils of resin cured with UV light, a first
for a free-flying spacecraft. One of two printers meant to deploy a
solar array failed, but the boom the other made did deploy the array.
Boom length is limited only by onboard resin, and the company thinks
100 m is feasible. A 2028 mission targets a 5 kW array, then 100+ kW
per wing by 2030.
🎁
MISCELLANEOUS
NORTHWOOD SPACE RAISES $375M AT A $2B VALUATION TO SCALE SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS GEAR (1 MINUTE READ) [11]
Northwood Space raised a $375 million Series C at a $2 billion
valuation, co-led by a16z and DFJ Growth, alongside a financing
agreement with HSBC. Founded in 2022 and led by CEO Bridgit Mendler,
it builds antennas and software that help satellites communicate with
Earth. It raised a $100 million Series B in January and won a nearly
$50 million Space Force contract to upgrade the satellite control
network.
AGILITY LISTS AT ROUGHLY 1,550X 2025 SALES WITH A -151% GROSS MARGIN,
WHILE UNITREE'S HUMANOID MARGIN PREMIUM SHRINKS (8 MINUTE READ) [12]
Agility goes public via SPAC at roughly $2.8 billion on $1.8 million
of 2025 revenue. Its gross margin was -151%, since a Digit costs about
$125,000 to build against a $75,000 target. Unitree is worth about $40
billion on $239 million of revenue and 5,500 humanoids sold, but its
gross margin slipped to 54%, and humanoids' margin edge over its other
products shrank to 6 points. Agility spends about 4.5x Unitree's R&D
on 1/134th of its revenue.
⚡
QUICK LINKS
SAMSUNG TO MAKE HBM BASE DIES FOR AMD AND NVIDIA ON 2NM AT A SECOND
TEXAS FAB, PER MAEIL (2 MINUTE READ) [13]
Samsung will reportedly use its second Taylor, Texas, foundry to
build base dies, the logic layer at the bottom of an HBM stack, for
AMD and Nvidia on a 2nm process.
PIXEL CO-DESIGNS A LOW-COST WHEELED HUMANOID WITH ITS DATA
COLLECTION, CONTROLLER, AND POLICY STACK (3 MINUTE READ) [14]
Pixel is a low-cost wheeled humanoid with human-aligned kinematics
and compliant grippers.
ENTEGRIS MOVES INTO SIC AND DIAMOND THERMAL MATERIALS FOR AI
PACKAGING VIA AN ACQUISITION AND AN ELEMENT SIX DEAL (2 MINUTE READ)
[15]
Entegris bought Advanced Abrasives, a maker of diamond
super-abrasives used to polish hard substrates like SiC, and plans a
new SiC CMP line in Taiwan.
BARCLAYS ESTIMATES MUSK WOULD HOLD ABOUT 56% OF THE VOTE IN A
COMBINED SPACEX-TESLA (2 MINUTE READ) [16]
Barclays estimates Elon Musk would own about 37% of a potential
combined company but hold about 56% of the vote, since his SpaceX
shares carry 10x votes.
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