Type of site | Blog |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. |
| Created by | Charlie Demerjian |
| Revenue | Unknown |
| URL | SemiAccurate.com |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
| Launched | 2009 |
| Current status | Active |
SemiAccurate (S|A in short) is a U.S.-based technology-news and -opinion web site, founded in 2009 by Charlie Demerjian after his departure from The Inquirer . The site lists as its contributors: Charlie Demerjian (the site's founder), Thomas Ryan and Leo Yim.[ citation needed ]
As of 2017 [update] the site operates under a partial paywall model, making the majority of its content publicly available at no cost to readers - but subscribers to the "Student-" and "Professional-"level tiers receive access to special analysis articles and reports on industry trends similar to white papers.
In February 2010, SemiAccurate ran a story on the yet to be released, "Fermi", microprocessor from Nvidia, which called the chip, "Hot, Slow, Late and Unmanufacturable." [1]
In August 2010, a tip off from a reader helped SemiAccurate to cover Sony admitting to defective graphics chips in some of its laptops. [2] News organization IDG credited SemiAccurate for first reporting the story. [3]
In May 2011, SemiAccurate published a story on Apple dropping Intel from its laptop line within a few years. [4] This story was covered by a large number of U.S.-based as well as international news organizations. ZDNet and Barron's both weighed in on the validity of the story. [5] [6]
In June 2011, SemiAccurate published a story detailing the scandal that led AMD, Nvidia, and VIA to leave Intel as the lone semiconductor design company in the BAPCo consortium. [7] In response, Nigel Dessau, Chief Marketing Officer of AMD, published a blog titled "Voting for Openness" shortly after this story went up, and explained AMD's side of the story. [8]
In August 2011, SemiAccurate published two stories, one covering the specifications of Nvidia's unreleased mobile graphics line up, [9] and another covering the specifications of AMD's (one of Nvidia's direct competitors) unreleased mobile graphics line up. [10] Softpedia, [11] VR-Zone, [12] TweakTown, [13] and the Tom's Hardware Forum all credited SemiAccurate for leaking these specifications. [14]
On December 4, 2012, SemiAccurate moved from an ad revenue supported business model to a paywall business model. [15] This paywall model had three tiers, Curious (free), Member ($200 per year), and Professional ($1000 per year).
On May 5, 2013, SemiAccurate amended this model to reduce the number of subscription tiers from three, down to two. [16] Under the revised pay wall model the Curious and Member levels were replaced by the Student level membership ($100 per year), while the Professional level membership remained at the same.