Trade Press or Business Press: Where Chip and Hardware News Should Land

Most chip and hardware news should land in both, as two separate stories. When founders ask me about trade press vs business press, my answer is that they're two independent lanes. Trade outlets such as EE Times and Semiconductor Engineering are where engineers evaluate the product. Business and broadcast outlets are where the executives and investors who approve the purchase read. Each lane has its own editors, its own readers and its own idea of what counts as news, so I'd plan each one on its own.

Hardware has two sets of readers who rarely read the same publication. An engineer decides whether your part goes into a design or your system goes into a rack. An executive or an investor decides whether the money gets spent. A story that only reaches one of them usually stalls with the other. Below is who reads what, which outlets cover chips, sensors and industrial hardware, and how we've run both lanes for clients like Tenstorrent, Brickeye, Density and Arable.

Key takeaways

• Trade press earns technical credibility with the engineers who evaluate a product, business press reaches the executives and investors who sign, and most hardware companies need a separate plan for each.
• Trade coverage helps a little with business editors, as proof the technology has been looked at, but it doesn't turn into business coverage. The size and stakes of the news drive that, as they did for Tenstorrent's $1.5B Series E.
• Brickeye's $10M Series B ran as an Engineering News-Record exclusive within seven days of Brickeye engaging Salient and pitching beginning.

Who reads trade press, and who reads business press?

Trade press is read by the people who evaluate the product, and business press is read by the people who approve the purchase and fund the company.

On the trade side that means chip designers, system architects, data center engineers and procurement teams. They read to decide whether something is worth testing, and they check claims. In my experience a reporter at a technical outlet will often know your category's architecture tradeoffs better than most of the people you'd pitch at a business desk, and they'll ask about the test method before they ask about the market.

On the business side it means executives, boards, investors and analysts. They want to know who wins, who loses, and how much money is moving. They'll rarely read a spec sheet, but they will read a story about why a market is shifting.

There's a third group that hardware companies tend to forget: the vertical trade press read by the operators who actually deploy the hardware. For Brickeye, that meant the contractors and developers who read Engineering News-Record. For Density, it meant real estate, facilities management, HR and sustainability press, because that's where decisions about physical space get made.

A sensor or a chip gets bought only after an engineer recommends it and an executive signs off, so in most cases you need to be credible to both.

Which outlets cover chips, sensors and industrial hardware?

The outlets that cover hardware fall into four groups: trade press for chips and compute, business and broadcast, Asian trade press, and the vertical trade press for sensors and industrial hardware. For the individual reporters on each beat, see our guide to reporters who cover semiconductors and hardware.

AI chips and compute

EE Times, Semiconductor Engineering, IEEE Spectrum, Tom's Hardware, The Register, ServeTheHome, HPCwire, SemiAnalysis and DigiTimes. These are the outlets that set the technical record for a chip or a system.

Business and broadcast

Bloomberg, Reuters, Axios, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal in print and online. Bloomberg Television, BNN Bloomberg and NYSE TV on the broadcast side, where Tenstorrent's CEO Jim Keller appeared during its launches. Broadcast works differently: the contacts are producers, not reporters, and they're choosing a guest who can carry a segment. We wrote more about that in who actually covers AI companies.

Asia

If your buyers include Japan, Korea, China or Taiwan, the trade outlets there matter as much as the US ones. For Tenstorrent's Tokyo launch, the outlets that move Asian semiconductor coverage were PC Watch, Mynavi TECH+, IT Home and DigiTimes. How to time a launch across those markets is covered in press embargoes for hardware launches.

Sensors and industrial hardware

This is where the vertical trade press does most of the work: Engineering News-Record for construction, for example, or the real estate and facilities press for workplace sensors. Which layer of the stack you sit in also changes who will write about you, which we covered in which IoT layers get covered and in our piece on industrial IoT in 2026.

What do trade editors need that business editors don't?

A trade editor needs something an engineer can check, and a business editor needs a reason the market should care.

For the trade editor, that means the specs, the test method behind any benchmark, an availability date, pricing if it's public, and a technical spokesperson who can take a follow-up question without handing it to someone else. If you can't share the method, I'd hold the number back. A self-reported score with no method usually reads as marketing to this audience.

For the business editor, it means who wins, who loses, what it costs, and a person to tell the story. As we describe in our guide to choosing a semiconductor PR agency, we moved Tenstorrent's pitch from "our chip is faster" to the business stakes of an open alternative in AI hardware, which an editor at Forbes or Bloomberg can run without a benchmark in the first paragraph.

Does trade coverage lead to business coverage?

No. Trade press and business press are separate lanes, and a lot of trade coverage doesn't turn into business coverage on its own, because each editor and each audience cares about different things.

Trade coverage does help a little. When a business editor sees that EE Times or IEEE Spectrum has already written about you, they know the technology has been looked at by someone qualified to judge it. But business editors read the trade press only occasionally. They're writing about business, and unless a story gives them a reason to dig through technical jargon, they'll probably skip it.

What gets a hardware company into the business press is the size and the stakes of the news. Tenstorrent's $1.5B Series E earned 180 stories, and the news ran in 54 countries and 38 languages, with zero negative coverage. That reach came largely from the size of the raise. A round that big is business news on its face.

How do you run the trade and business lanes at once?

Run them as two plans for the same news, each with its own reporter list, its own materials and often its own spokesperson.

Tenstorrent is the clearest example we have. The first of its three launches was the QuietBox 2 workstation at GDC in March, which we ran under a tight embargo with EE Times, Forbes, Wccftech, PCWorld, IEEE Spectrum, GamesBeat, InfoQ and SemiAnalysis. Review requests were already coming in by the time the next launch arrived.

The second was TT Deploy in San Francisco on May 1, timed to Tenstorrent's Galaxy Blackhole platform reaching general availability. Forbes ran a feature, The Register, EE Times, Tom's Hardware, GamesBeat and Korea's Dong-A Ilbo covered it, and Jim Keller was on BNN Bloomberg and NYSE TV the same week. The trade reporters needed the platform details. The business and broadcast side needed the story of an open alternative in AI hardware and a CEO who could carry a segment. The third launch took TT Deploy to Tokyo, where the Asian trade press was its own lane again. The full coverage count is in the Tenstorrent case study.

How do you plan the trade story and the business story?

Plan them as two stories about the same news, each written for its own editor and reader.

The trade pitch leads with what an engineer can check, and it comes with a spec sheet and a note on how the benchmarks were run. The business pitch puts the reason to care in the first two sentences, with one paragraph on what changes in the market and who loses if you're right. Each goes to its own list. I wouldn't hold the business pitch back waiting for trade coverage to land, and I wouldn't expect a trade story to bring the business press with it.

Most hardware companies need two spokespeople for the same reason: one who can go deep on the architecture, and one who can talk about the business on camera. Industrial buyers read differently again, which we wrote about in marketing to industrial buyers.

When does a trade exclusive beat a wire release?

Choose a trade exclusive when one outlet reaches nearly all of your buyers, because a deep story there will usually do more than a thin story in five places.

Brickeye came to us with a $10M Series B to announce and very little time to do it. A funding brief would have been the default. Instead we pitched one outlet, Engineering News-Record, because ENR reaches the contractors and developers who decide whether a sensor goes on a jobsite.

Every pitch led with the same scene: 2am, a 40-story tower, a water line ruptures with nobody on site, and 45 seconds later Brickeye's system shuts it off on its own, with 1,650 gallons contained. ENR framed it as a trend piece about a problem the whole industry has, with Brickeye as the answer, rather than as a funding announcement. We put customers in front of the reporter, not just the company. One customer spoke with the reporter for 75 minutes, and another opens and closes the final piece. Brickeye's ENR exclusive ran within seven days of Brickeye engaging Salient and pitching beginning.

The funding news still traveled, and I'd count it in two separate groups. First, editorial placements: the round landed in Axios Pro Rata, TechCrunch StrictlyVC, The Logic and BetaKit. Second, syndication: the release ran nationally in the Globe and Mail, Yahoo Finance and USA Today, and on 737 sites via wire. Wire copies put the announcement on the record and help with search, but nobody chose to write them, so they belong in their own column of the report.

We go into the tradeoffs between an exclusive and an embargo in press embargoes for hardware launches.

Can business press help you reach a new kind of buyer?

Yes: the right business story can put hardware in front of buyers who would never read its trade press.

Density built privacy-first sensors that show how people use physical space. Its $51M Series C was covered by Forbes, TechCrunch, Fortune, Business Insider, VentureBeat and The Information. But funding announcements fade, so we went after every place decisions about physical space were being made: WIRED on privacy, Axios on workplace trends, The Wall Street Journal on the return-to-office debate, CNBC on the business case, plus the real estate, facilities management, HR and sustainability press.

Arable started out selling to growers. We moved its public story from "farm hardware" to "global water security," and data centers and Fortune 500 companies with Net Zero water goals read the coverage. That coverage contributed to Google's decision to partner with Arable. Over the decade we worked together, Arable was featured in TIME, Quartz and IEEE Spectrum.

How do you measure trade and business coverage?

Measure trade and business coverage separately, because they do different jobs.

For trade coverage, I'd look at review and evaluation requests, inbound from engineers, and whether later technical coverage cites the earlier piece. After the QuietBox 2 embargo, the signal that it worked was review requests arriving before the bigger launch.

For business coverage, I'd look at investor and board attention, inbound from prospective partners, and recruiting.

For both, count the negative pieces along with the positive ones, and keep wire copies in their own column. Our guide to choosing a semiconductor PR agency covers how we report on that, and what it costs to run both tracks is in semiconductor PR cost.

If you're working out who should run this for you, our page on semiconductor and hardware PR lays out how we approach it.

Common questions

Should a chip startup target trade press or business press? A chip startup should usually target both trade press and business press, as two separate plans: trade press for credibility with the engineers who evaluate the product, and business and broadcast press for the executives and investors who approve the purchase. Trade coverage rarely turns into business coverage on its own.

Which publications cover semiconductor startups? Publications that cover semiconductor startups include EE Times, Semiconductor Engineering, IEEE Spectrum, Tom's Hardware, The Register and DigiTimes on the trade side, and Bloomberg, Reuters and Axios on the business side, plus broadcast outlets such as Bloomberg Television.

How do you get a chip startup covered in EE Times? To get a chip startup covered in EE Times, bring something an engineer can check: the specs, the test method behind any benchmark, an availability date and a technical spokesperson who can take a follow-up question.

When should hardware news go to a trade exclusive? Hardware news should go to a trade exclusive when one trade outlet reaches nearly all of your buyers, as Engineering News-Record did for Brickeye's $10M Series B by reaching the contractors and developers who decide whether a sensor goes on a jobsite.

Does trade coverage lead to business coverage? Trade coverage does not usually lead to business coverage, because trade and business editors care about different things and business editors read the trade press only occasionally. Trade coverage helps a little, as a sign the technology has been looked at by people qualified to judge it, but the size and stakes of the news are what drive business coverage.

Sources

• Salient PR, Three Launches. Two Continents. Wall Street Watching: Launching the Chip Company Built to Take On NVIDIA, Tenstorrent case study
• Salient PR, The Jobsite That Shut Off Its Own Water at 2am, Brickeye case study
• Salient PR, The Pandemic Made Every Company Care About Space. Density Was Ready., Density case study
• Salient PR, From AgTech Startup to Net-Zero Partner: How PR Opened the Door to Google, Arable case study
• Salient PR, From Zero Customers to Global Leader, Arable case study
• Salient PR, The Ultimate Guide to Tech Journalists

Salient PR has worked with semiconductor and hardware companies including Tenstorrent, Density, Brickeye and Arable, and has run programs from pre-launch through growth stage since 2015.