Geopolitical hijinks: export controls, rare earths, and blacklists; SEMICON West announcement blitz; Intel readies 18A; AMD-OpenAI 6 GW deal; new 300mm GaN program; fab spending and EDA reports; acquisitions.
SEMICON West was held in Phoenix this week, with presentations covering heterogeneous integration, AI, quantum, supply chain resilience, and more. Amid the buzz of the conference, some key manufacturing and test announcements were made this week:
The strategic importance of the Phoenix area hub was highlighted. Amkor Technologybroke ground this week on its advanced packaging and test campus in Peoria, Arizona, and announced it had increased its investment to $7 billion across two phases for a total of 750,000 square feet of cleanroom space.
Intel released the architectural details of its next-gen client processor, Intel Core Ultra series 3, which is the company’s first product built on Intel 18A, and announced that its Fab 52 in Chandler, Arizona “is fully operational and set to reach high-volume production using Intel 18A later this year.”
Teradyne introduced a dual-sector automated test system for both high-volume and high-mix/low-volume testing of power semiconductors.
Lam Research debuted new software that combines optimization techniques, virtual silicon digital twins, AI/ML, and inline fab data to reduce process variability and improve yield.
Advantest is incorporating machine learning technology from NVIDIA into its Real-Time Data Infrastructure platform for test data management and analysis. NVIDIA also adopted the platform for high-volume production.
Applied Materials unveiled several new products, including an integrated die-to-wafer hybrid bonding system, a selective epitaxy platform, and an e-beam metrology system with sub-nanometer resolution.
Fig. 1: Global participation at SEMICON West 2025. Source: Semiconductor Engineering
Trade Wars and Geopolitics:
China tightened export controls on rare earths and magnets, including technology for processing rare earths. This escalation strengthens China’s leverage in upcoming trade talks, says CSIS.
In a move to reduce reliance on China’s rare earths, the U.S. government took a 10% stake in Canadian minerals company Trilogy Metals, and approved an Alaska project to access copper, cobalt, gallium, and germanium.
The U.S. government sanctioned a number of companies in China, Turkey, and the UAE for providing support to Iran’s military. Two subsidiaries (in Hong Kong and China) of U.S.-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics were added to the entity list. Arrow spokesperson John Hourigan disputed the charge and is in discussions with the government to resolve it.
China added its own list of newly sanctioned companies to its “unreliability entity list,” targeting companies cooperating with Taiwan and companies casting doubt on China’s chip development.
AMD and OpenAI announced a 6 gigawatt agreement to power OpenAI’s next-gen of AI infrastructure across multiple generations of AMD Instinct GPUs, starting with the MI450 series in H2 2026. As part of the deal, AMD issued OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock, structured to vest as specific milestones are achieved. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said he was surprised AMD offered OpenAI 10% of the company, and also commented on the US-China AI race in an interview with CNBC.
Imec expanded its industrial affiliation program on gallium nitride (GaN) power electronics to develop 300mm GaN epi growth and low- and high-voltage GaN HEMT process flows.
Global 300mm fab equipment spending is expected to grow 7% to $107B in 2025, according to SEMI, reaching $138B in 2028, driven by fab regionalization and surging AI chip demand.
The ESD Alliance reported that the electronic system design industry revenue rose 8.6% to about $5B in Q2 2025. All product and application categories increased, with the exception of IC physical design and verification, which decreased by almost 10%.
Latest industry financials: TSMC and UMC (Sept. sales).
CSIS published a 55-page report on EDA and IP controls, outlining the closing gap in U.S. semiconductor design leadership versus China, given the country’s talent development initiatives and aggressive design-out initiatives.
A U.S. government committee released a report on how China gets its key equipment for making semiconductors from U.S., Dutch, and Japanese companies. Chinese chipmakers had purchased $38 billion of sophisticated gear last year, causing U.S. lawmakers to call for broader bans.
Applied Materials and Arizona State University opened a $270 million Materials-to-Fab research, development, and prototyping facility in nearby Tempe this week.
A coalition of businesses blasted the Trump administration’s $100K H1-B visa application fee. Meanwhile, India is taking advantage of the visa change by actively recruiting Indian citizens back home.
Asia:
ASE provided an update on its packaging facility in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a facility providing chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging and final testing services. It is expected to begin operation in the first quarter of 2028, with a US $578M investment.
Softbank subsidiary Graphcore is opening a new facility in Bengaluru, creating 500 semiconductor jobs over the next decade.
India’s NaMo Semiconductor Lab will be established at IIT Bhubaneswar to provide training in chip design, fabrication, and packaging.
China’s top DRAM maker CXMT is nearing a mainland IPO, hoping to break the memory dominance of SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron, per SCMP.
Europe:
The European Commission laid out a $1.1B Apply AI Strategy plan in a push to ramp the use of AI in key industries and scientific research.
Qualcomm is fighting a $647M London lawsuit brought on behalf of smartphone owners, which alleges the chipmaker abused its dominant position to force Apple and Samsung to pay inflated royalties, leading to higher consumer costs.
Germany will redirect $3.5B in chip subsidies to instead repair aging streets and bridges.
ASML’s planned expansion in Eindhoven (BIC Noord) is facing infrastructure and zoning challenges, and the company is not certain the project will go through.
Qualcomm will acquireArduino, giving developers access to the latter’s edge computing and AI ecosystem.
Semiconductor materials company Smartkem is exploring a potential merger with Jericho Energy Ventures. If completed, the entity will integrate low-cost domestic energy with advanced semiconductor packaging and materials.
Googleacquired MIT-founded startup Atlantic Quantum, developer of integrated quantum computing hardware, a modular chip stack combining qubits and superconducting control electronics within the cold stage.
Synopsys received approval to continue with its divestitures of two businesses, Optical Solutions Group and PowerArtist, to Keysight.
Johnson Controls announced a multi-million dollar investment in Accelsius’s two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology for data centers.
CSIS explored how the wireless industry, particularly 6G and edge devices, are shaping the global AI race.
Counterpoint detailed wireless generation transformations, from 3G and the rise of smartphones to the current era, AI network shaping, and the rapid rise of its token workloads, in “5G-A Evolution and why it matters.”
Tekscend Photomask’s IPO this week was Japan’s second-largest this year.
Computer vision company RealSensespun out from Intel, infused with a $50M funding round and a physical AI collaboration with NVIDIA.
Quilter raised $25 million to automate PCB design using physics-driven AI and reinforcement learning.
Product News
The Open Compute Project’s Open Chiplet Economyinvited stakeholders to help shape a vendor-neutral open framework to accelerate the front-end of system-in-package (SiP) design and development. Also, the OCP released a specification that establishes a common, open framework for reporting data center equipment carbon impact data.
JEDEC has almost completed UFS 5.0, designed for high-performance, low-power mobile applications and computing systems.
Infineon launched its 48 volt smart eFuse family and a reference board for hot-swap controllers for 400 V and 800 V power architectures in AI data centers, enabling developers to design a reliable, scalable solution to protect and monitor energy flow.
Keysight released UALink 1.0, a transmitter test solution and dedicated compliance test tool for UALink devices, meant to enable high-speed validation within advanced computing and AI interconnect systems.
PDF Solutions’ next generation of its Exensio AI/ML, Exensio Studio AI, will combine Exensio analytics and Tiber AI Studio (formerly cnvrg.io), which the company is licensing from Intel.
SecureFoundry introduced its Hyper-Beam Array (HBA) lithography system that uses 65,000 independently controlled parallel electron beams to pattern wafers directly.
Location verification is gaining traction as a way of strengthening supply chain oversight with minimal effort, fueled by tightening export controls and growing concerns about AI chip smuggling and counterfeiting.
The number and value of cyberattacks on semiconductors is rising, but new approaches to designing and packaging chips could put a significant dent in those figures.
Germany-based Utimaco announced its u.trust CSe-Series general-purpose HSM, designed for multi-tenant and tamper-active hardware physical security, along with crypto agility and (future) post-quantum readiness.
SiPearl launched its Athena1, Europe’s first dual-use sovereign processor specifically tailored for government, defense, and aerospace workloads, with security and cryptographic features built in.
Quintauris and Lauterbach partnered to enable toolchain support and interoperability across diverse RISC-V implementations by integrating Lauterbach’s debug toolset into the upcoming Quintauris RISC-V reference platform for safety critical industries such as automotive.
Quintauris also partnered with Everspin Technologies, an MRAM and STT-MRAM developer and manufacturer, to bring advanced memory solutions into the Quintauris ecosystem, particularly for automotive and edge applications.
Automotive Research:
Researchers at Penn State found that streetlight charging stations, compared to traditional EV charging stations, were more cost and time-effective, had fewer negative environmental impacts, and were more convenient and accessible.
MIT researchers developed a model that explains lithium intercalation rates in lithium-ion batteries.
New releases and adoptions:
Sumitomo Riko is implementing the SimAI simulation tools from Ansys to speed up and improve efficiency during the design and manufacturing of automotive components.
DCD-SEMI automotive IP Cores are now available as Safety Element out of Context for ISO 26262 functional safety up to ASIL-D, the highest automotive safety integrity level. This means the automotive IP Cores can be delivered with safety mechanisms tailored to customer requirements.
Sony will release the IMX775 CMOS RGB-IR image sensor, designed for in-cabin monitoring cameras, with the industry’s smallest pixel size of 2.1 µm, delivering both RGB and IR imaging on a single chip and a resolution of about 5 megapixels.
OMNIVISION announced its latest-generation automotive image sensor, the OX08D20 8-megapixel CMOS for exterior cameras used in ADAS and autonomous driving.
Research
Penn State is undertaking a project to further 3D heterogeneous integration on glass substrates for wireless phased arrays and power converters, with up to $7.5 million in funding from DARPA and the university.
Purdue University and Argonne National Lab engineers are working on high-resolution imaging to better spot defects and accelerate the existing inspection process during chip manufacturing.
Oregon State and Micron introduced DECOR, a deep clustering with orientation robustness framework that groups complex defect patterns from wafer maps into consistent clusters.
NTT Research and others developed a world-first programmable nonlinear photonic waveguide, implementing various nonlinear-optical functions that would otherwise require multiple devices.
UT Dallas and others demonstrated that introducing additional nano-patterning can open a Dirac band gap, giving rise to what is termed artificial hexagonal boron nitride. These findings underscore the potential and challenges of AhBN for low-energy, power-efficient microelectronic applications.
The University of Texas at Austin’s 6G@UT research initiative selected Keysight’s 6G solutions to advance research in digital twins for wireless and autonomous systems.
Diamond Foundry is developing ways to manage heat in chips by embedding small pieces of synthetic diamond in semiconductors.
Quantum:
Harvard University physicists built a quantum computing machine that was able to run for more than two hours, and maybe indefinitely. Most only operate for a few seconds or minutes.
Berkeley Lab and George Washington University researchers confirmed that atoms in semiconductors will arrange themselves in distinctive localized patterns that change the material’s electronic behavior.
MIT developed a method to control and localize atomic-scale defects in silicon that act as single-photon sources for quantum communication and quantum computing.
Forschungszentrum Jülich researchers and others discovered spin-related material properties of germanium-tin semiconductors, which have potential quantum, spintronics, and thermoelectric applications.
People
ASMLappointed Marco Pieters as CTO. He was previously EVP of applications.
Irith Pomeranz, an engineering professor at Purdue University, won the IEEE Test Technology Technical Council Lifetime Contribution Medal for her groundbreaking contributions to test technology and seminal research in test, diagnosis and design-for-test of very large-scale integration digital circuits and systems.
Si2 named the senior leadership of a new LLM benchmarking coalition. Nate Pinckney, a senior research scientist at NVIDIA, will be chair. Igor Markov, a distinguished architect at Synopsys and an IEEE Fellow, will be vice chair.
The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke (UC Berkeley), Michel H. Devoret (Yale, UCSB), and John M. Martinis (UCSB, Qolab) for their work on quantum mechanics.
Education and Training
The University of Rochester and Boise State University received a $2.1 million NSF grant, with support from Micron, to strengthen K-12 STEM teacher leadership and workforce development in the microelectronics and semiconductor industries in New York and Idaho.
A Penn State research team was selected to receive an award worth up to $5 million for DARPA’s Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing program.
InP and SiPho join CMOS as critical technologies. Lasers, CPO and OCS will be everywhere (indium phosphide, silicon photonics, co-packaged optics, optical circuit switch).
Reducing variation in manufacturing, monitoring behavior over time, and targeting specific workloads can have a big impact on power, performance, and area/cost.
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