Chip Industry Week in Review

SIA’s latest monthly global semiconductor sales report reflects a ~30% YOY increase, hitting a record $75.3B in November 2025. Asia Pacific had a notable 66% increase.

Cadence launched its Chiplet Spec-to-Packaged Parts ecosystem to accelerate time to market for chiplet development for physical AI, data centers, and HPC applications. Initial IP partners joining Cadence include Arm, Arteris, and others.

Marvell plans to acquire XConn Technologies, a provider of advanced PCIe and CXL switching silicon, to expand its switching portfolio and UALink team. The $540M cash-and-stock deal is expected to close in early 2026.

Geopolitics

NVIDIA revised its terms for its Chinese customers buying H200 AI chips — 100% upfront payments and no refunds, due to concerns that Beijing may nix the shipments.

The Trump administration is ordering Delaware-based HieFo, a photonics firm, to divest all of its Emcore semiconductor assets, claiming HieFo is controlled by a Chinese citizen, which puts national security at risk. The concern is that indium phosphide chips and related technology could be diverted away from the U.S.

Memory Supply Shortage: With the top memory chip makers switching to more profitable HBM, basic memory chips are in shorter supply and prices are skyrocketing. Of note:

The price of DDR4 has risen 1,360% since April 2025.

Counterpoint predicts memory prices will surge another 40% to 50% in Q126, on top of similar growth in Q425. TrendForce predicts conventional DRAM will rise 55% to 60% in Q126, HBM up 50% to 55% and NAND flash by 33% to 38%. MLC NAND flash capacity is expected to decrease by ~42% YOY in 2026.

Samsung confirmed it will raise prices due to the memory chip supply shortages, reports Bloomberg. Their Q4 guidance, published this week, reflects a tripling of profit, and the company claimed top spot in Q4 as the top DRAM provider.

Fig.1: Memory price fluctuations: DRAM and NAND memory prices by quarter.  Source: Counterpoint

CES highlights:

NVIDIA introduced its six-chip Rubin platform for AI systems, a storage processor platform for long-context-processing agentic AI systems, and open AI models for autonomous vehicle development and other industries.

Siemens Digital Industries Software will integrate Nvidia CUDA-X libraries, PhysicsNeMo, and GPU acceleration across its EDA platforms. Siemens also introduced an industrial metaverse solution that combines 2D and 3D digital twin data with physical real-time information to create photorealistic visual scenes.

Intel introduced its Core Ultra Series 3 processor line (AKA Panther Lake), an AI PC platform built on its new 18A process technology.

SK Hynix showcased its latest 16-layer HBM4, SOCAMM2, LPDDR6, and NAND flash products.

AMD announced its latest generation of mobile and desktop processors, a portfolio of embedded x86 processors for edge AI, and its Helios rack-scale platform for AI workloads.

Qualcomm debuted its latest CPU+NPU laptop chipset, a high-performance robotics processor, and an expanded IoT and edge product portfolio.

Arm created a new Physical AI business unit led by Drew Henry.

Find more CES releases in the new technologies and automotive sections below.

Financial releases: TSMC, UMC-December revenue, Samsung and  Aehr Test.

Quick links to more news:

Global
Automotive and Aerospace
New Technologies
Markets, Money, Reports
In-Depth
Research
Security
Quantum
Events and Further Reading

Global

Companies and governments invested heavily in onshoring fabs and facilities over the past 12 months as tariffs threatened to upset the global supply chain. Here are over 170 notable chip industry fab or facility investments in 2025.

Americas

• Micron will break ground this month on its previously announced $100B memory fab in New York.
• TSMC will pay $197M for 900 acres of land in Phoenix for its planned fab expansion.

Asia:

• Vietnam is establishing a new design and prototyping center.
• China accused Japan of dumping dichlorosilane at low prices. The gas is used in semiconductor production.

Europe:

• The University of Southern Denmark is getting a new supercomputer, developed with Danfoss and HPE, that will aim to demonstrate the potential of energy-efficient data centers.

Automotive and Aerospace

Xpeng unveiled the newest version of its G7, a hybrid vehicle that the company says can travel up to 1,704km (1,058 miles) without charging, the longest range among SUVs.

General Motors announced it would take a writedown of $6B to roll back some EV investments.

More automotive announcements during CES week:

• Mobileye inked a deal with an unnamed U.S. carmaker for 9M chips for hands-free driver assistance systems, in addition to its 2025 deal with Volkswagen.
• AMD, Siemens EDA, and Microsoft teamed up on shift-left development for SDVs, combining the Microsoft Azure cloud platform with AMD’s automotive stack and Siemens’ digital twin simulation environment.
• Infineon and HMM Klemove are collaborating on zonal control units, Ethernet-based ADAS, camera solutions, and radar.
• SiMa.ai, with Synopsys, announced a joint solution to accelerate architecture and early virtual software development for automotive SoCs.
• Synopsys also introduced a Virtualizer developer kit to speed automotive SoC bring-up, which it said could accelerate vehicle time-to-market by up to 12 months, and announced that its Ansys AVxcelerate Sensors software now includes Samsung’s ISOCEL Auto 1H1 image sensors for simulating real-life conditions.
• NVIDIA is collaborating with robotaxi operators to power their vehicles as soon as 2027.
• Ambarella debuted an edge AI vision SoC.
• NXP announced its new SDV processor series, centralizing software and data into a single hub within the vehicle, eliminating additional hardware and wiring.
• Valens Semiconductor and Sakae Riken Kogyo introduced an MIPI A-PHY-enabled e-mirror.
• Keysight launched a software solution to provide adaptable AI assurance for safety-critical environments like automotive.

Reports:

• Tariffs, EV costs and challenges, and fundamental architectural and technology improvements add up to transformative multi-year, multi-market changes for the automotive industry.
• A McKinsey report on the future of the autonomous vehicle industry suggests that adoption timelines for autonomous vehicles have slipped by one to two years on average, with Level 4 use cases expected to emerge by 2032 for passenger vehicles beyond just highways. It notes that prices will be a drag on sales.
• Another McKinsey report on the automotive software industry predicts that in the next 10 years, vehicles with ADAS or fully autonomous systems could account for 70% of sales.

New Technologies

More at CES:

• Ambiq Micro unveiled an NPU SoC leveraging sub- and near-threshold voltage operation for edge AI acceleration.
• Nordic Semiconductor announced an ultra-low-power, large-memory wireless SoC with NPU for edge AI.
• Tenstorrent uncorked a portable, modular AI accelerator that can connect to devices with Thunderbolt ports, such as laptops.
• Broadcom launched a new accelerated processing unit (APU) for edge AI and dual-band Wi-Fi 8 devices.
• MediaTek announced a family of Wi-Fi 8 chipsets for gateways and client devices.
• MIPS launched a RISC-V NPU that supports transformer and agentic language AI models in embedded platforms.
• NXP announced an agentic AI framework for edge devices.
• Micron and Kioxia each announced new client SSDs.

Infineon released its Wi-Fi 7 IoT 20 MHz tri-radio device optimized for IoT for enhanced robustness in crowded environments.

Keysight announced a new NR-NTN connection in band n252, achieved with Samsung‘s next-generation modem chipset.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Automotive, Security and Enabling Technologies newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• • Is End-To-End Security Possible?
  • Automotive Outlook: 2026
  • Security Threats Converge On IoT, Industrial ICs, Physical AI

Two Special Reports:

• Cryogenic Etch: A Key Enabler Of 3D NAND and Annual Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report

Markets, Money, Reports

Deals:

• LG Innotec and UTI, a precision glass processor, will jointly develop stronger glass substrates.
• Siemens and Soluna inked a deal to deploy and validate a behind-the-meter power-and-controls approach for data centers to manage rapid, GPU-driven swings in power demand.
• United Semiconductors and Aegis Aerospace are teaming up to launch an in-space IC materials manufacturing facility in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Funding:

• Photonic Inc. raised $130M for its quantum systems that combine silicon‑based qubits and photonic connectivity.
• GS Microelectronics raised $35M to expand into AI-driven chip design and advanced packaging services.
• Qualinx raised €20M (~$23.3M) to bring its energy‑efficient positioning, tracking and location GNSS chips to market.
• Lyte raised $107M for its perception systems for physical AI that combine custom silicon, integrated sensors, and software.

Think tanks, Opinions

• China’s EUV Manhattan Project and Export Control Mythbusting (CSIS)
• 2026 Market Outlook –Focus on the HBM-Led Memory Supercycle (SK hynix)
• Employment Impacts of the CHIPS Act (NBER)
• Why water is important for data centers (Brookings)
• Which Service Robots Will Dominate the Market in the Next 10 Years (IDTechEx)

Research

Academic papers recently published:

• Channel-last GAA NS oxide semiconductor transistors (Stanford, TSMC et al.)
• Thermal impedance in pulsed energy storage systems with PCMs (Texas A&M, Northrop)
• Material Property Simulation for Advanced Packaging (Samsung, Schrödinger)
• Superconductivity in ruthenium oxides (Kyoto Univ.) News release.
• Photonic IC optical parametric oscillators (NIST, Caltech)
• Influence of metal–semiconductor interface treatments and absorber structure on the performance and reliability of uni-traveling-carrier photodiodes (ETRI).

Security

Worth reading:

• Looming financial penalties for data breaches are forcing chipmakers to confront end-to-end security, an increasingly complex and daunting problem because no single company controls all the pieces anymore.
• Devices in a broad range of edge AI applications are increasingly at risk of hacking or tampering, with the stakes varying greatly depending on how much the device can impact and interact with human life.

Security research:

• Out-of-Band Power Side-Channel Detection for Semiconductor Supply Chain Integrity at Scale (Cornell)
• A Survey on Acoustic Side-Channel Attacks: An AI Perspective (Penn State)

Deals:

• CrowdStrike will acquire SGNL for $740M  in an effort to enhance its ability to help customers combat AI-powered threats.
• ThreatModeler acquired IriusRisk, another enterprise threat modeling company, for over $100M.

ChipAgents achieved SOC2 compliance for the security of customer data.

CISA issued new alerts/advisories.

Trending Video

Scenario Coverage In Formal Verification: As complexity of designs increases, so does the need for coverage in context.

Quantum

D-Wave Quantum plans to acquire Quantum Circuits, a maker of error-corrected superconducting gate-model quantum computing systems, for $550M in cash and stock. The deal is expected to close in late January 2026.

Monarch Quantum launched to build integrated photonics systems for quantum computing, sensing, and communications.

Funding:

• The University of Iowa was awarded nearly $1.5M from the U.S. Department of Defense for advanced materials research, including heterogeneous material integration and quantum device fabrication.
• The U.S. Department of Energy renewed funding for the Quantum Science Center in the amount of $125M.

Quantum research:

• Self-induced superradiant masing (TU Wien, OIST)
• Leveraging Qubit Loss Detection in Fault-Tolerant Quantum Algorithms (MIT, Harvard, QuEra)

Events and Further Reading

Upcoming webinars are here.

• Advances in ATPG: From Power and Timing Awareness to Intelligent Pattern Search with AI, Jan. 14
• Physics-Based Foundations for Power Supply Design, Jan. 14
• Accelerate IC Layout Parasitic Analysis with ParagonX, Jan. 15

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Semiconductor Engineering’s latest newsletters:

Automotive, Security and Enabling Technologies
Systems and Design
Low Power-High Performance
Test, Measurement and Analytics
Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials