Chip Industry Week in Review

The IEEE ISSCC conference was held this week in San Francisco. Among the highlights:

• IBM detailed an AI accelerator based on its new inferencing dataflow architecture.
• CEA-Leti presented a chip-scale, ultra-fast, battery-operated EPR spectrometer.
• QuTech introduced a cryo-CMOS SoC with NV centers in diamond.
• UTokyo showed its low-jitter PLL architecture for beyond 5G/6G.
• Imec debuted a 7‑bit, 175GS/s ADC converter with a 250 x 250µm² footprint and low conversion energy of 2.2 pJ per sample.
• CEA-List/Leti researchers demonstrated an electro-optical router with dynamic, frame-level optical routing integrated with CMOS control logic.

Big fundings and deals

• ChipAgents raised an incremental $50M to scale its agentic AI platform for chip design that can plan, reason, execute, and continuously improve across complex silicon programs.
• Efficient Computer raised $60M for its highly energy-efficient general-purpose processors.
• Mesh Optical Technologies raised $50M for its 1.6Tb/s optical transceiver.
• GF inked a multi-billion dollar deal with Renesas for multi-regional chip manufacturing for automotive and industrial chips.

New Technologies

• Keysight unveiled a new tool for designing and optimizing 3D interconnects for chiplets and 3D-IC advanced packages.
• Rambus added two new Ultra Ethernet security solutions for UET transport protocol with TSS.
• The Open Compute Project released the Foundational Chiplet System Architecture Specification (FCSA), a vendor-neutral specification derived from Arm’s Chiplet System Architecture that establishes a common baseline for partitioning monolithic systems into interoperable chiplets.

Financial updates: Analog Devices, Cadence, Nordson, Nova and Onto Innovation.

Quick links to more news

Global
Funding, Deals, Reports
New Technology
In-Depth
Data Centers
Research
Automotive and Batteries
Universities and Workforce
Security
Trending Video
Events and Further Reading

Global

Americas

• The NSF will invest up to $100M for a network of open-access research facilities for quantum and nanoscale technologies, including training.
• Lam Research opened a Boise, Idaho office, to support collaborative R&D with Micron.
• High-NA EUV lithography will be available in the NY Creates‘ Albany complex by the end of this year.
• An Austin federal court sentenced a Bulgarian-national to 38 months for illegally exporting rad-hard and other high-temp ICs to Russia.

Europe

• CSIS delved into the French model for cooperative semiconductor research, highlighting CEA-Leti‘s success in its lab-to-fab approach, as well as other new collaborations in the country.
• Nexperia ‌will receive a $60M loan from a Dutch state-owned finance institution to help modernize production lines and boost output, per Reuters.

Asia

• Qualcomm Ventures plans to invest $150M in Indian AI startups.
• Tata Electronics will manufacture Qualcomm’s automotive modules in India.
• ITRI broke ground on an advanced semiconductor R&D center in Hsinchu.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials newsletter this week, featuring:

Special Report: When Cleaning Chips Isn’t Clean Enough
Laser Arrays May Simplify Co-Packaged Optics
Why Indium Oxide Chips Are Getting So Much Attention

Plus:

Special Report: The Race Begins For Much Bigger Abstractions In Data Centers
Can A Computer Science Student Be Taught To Design Hardware?
Podcast: One-on-One With proteanTecs CEO Shai Cohen

Fundings, Deals, Reports

More fundings

• Eagle Wireless raised $30M to ramp production of 5G cellular modules.
• The Biological Computing Co. raised $25M to integrate living neurons into AI computing systems.
• C2i raised $15M to tape out its data center power management.
• Iceberg Quantum raised $6M for a fault-tolerant QC architecture.
• Chiral raised $12M to build a robotic system for contamination-free placement of nanomaterials onto silicon wafers.

Opinions, Think Tanks

• Issue Brief: The Stop Stealing Our Chips Act (IAPS)
• Understanding India’s technology ambitions (IISS)
• Europe Doubles Down on Semiconductor Strengths (CEPA)
• Is China Leading the Robotics Revolution? (CSIS)
• “Watt’s Law” and The Power Supply Ceiling on American Innovation (CSIS)
• Rethinking the EU Chips Act: Europe Should Strengthen Its Strategic Assets
• Race for AI is making Hindenburg-style disaster a real risk (Guardian)

Security

Intel and Google stress-tested Intel’s Trust Domain Extensions (TDX), finding vulnerabilities and bugs that are now remediated. One vulnerability allowed a virtual machine manager to compromise a trusted domain, other vulnerabilities to leak confidential data.

Niobium and Semifive plan to develop a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) accelerator.

Presentations are now available from Hardwear.io’s Netherlands conference, with topics including fault injection, cache state leaks, fuzzing, and transient execution vulnerabilities.

IISS warns about the inadequacy of conventional cybersecurity defense tools in fighting against AI-specific threats, like the Anthropic attack, and questions whether defensive methods can be developed fast enough.

Dell issued a couple of high-level security bulletins this week for Nvidia DOCA-host vulnerabilities and Dell Unispere for PowerMax.

Security deals

• Palo Alto Networks plans to acquire Koi for its agentic endpoint security platform.
• SealSQ’s trusted platform module-based post-quantum security technology will be integrated in select Lattice FPGAs.

Government security actions

• NIST rolled out an AI Agent Standards Initiative aimed at addressing security challenges for autonomous AI agents.
• The EU rolled out a new toolbox to strengthen ICT supply chain security, including how to identify, evaluate and counter cybersecurity risks.
• The US government published an amended proposal that prohibits the use of high-risk semiconductor products in federal supply chains. Comments are open until April 20.

New technical papers

• SCA of Multivariate Digital Signature Implementations (IIT, NTU, KU Leuven)
• Adams Bridge Accelerator: Bridging the Post-Quantum Transition (Microsoft)
• TPMs for HW-Rooted Security & Robust Device Encryption (HCL, U. of Mich.)
• Discovery of User-exploitable Architectural Security Vulnerabilities in Closed-Source RISC-V CPUs (CISPA)

New Technology

Keysight introduced a GDDR7 transmitter compliance solution, new interconnect validation solutions, and real-time oscilloscopes for high-speed digital compliance testing. Additionally, its Spirent division uncorked an integrated agentic AI solution for network testing and assurance.

EV Group debuted an automated resist processing system designed around a compact 200mm platform.

Qnity Electronics released a line of EUV photoresists with a broad process window.

Lintec developed a pattern coating before lamination process for back grinding wafers that reduces thickness variation caused by step height differences on the circuit surface.

Tower Semiconductor and Scintil Photonics introduced heterogeneously integrated Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) laser sources for co-packaged optics.

Empower Semiconductor uncorked new embedded silicon capacitors for AI and HPC processors.

Research

Stanford discovered a new technique to measure energy dissipation in tiny devices.

EPFL researchers developed an analytical model for “harnessing heat ‘backflow’ to manage thermal energy in electronic devices.”

On the flipside, Georgia Tech researchers are discovering the challenges and potential of extreme cold on semiconductors, including silicon-germanium’s ability to run faster the colder it gets. Another research group found that memory technology can be more reliable and holds more data at lower temperatures.

Microsoft detailed progress on an effort to encode data in borosilicate glass using femtosecond lasers, a method that could potentially preserve information for 10,000 years.

Northeastern University developed Open6G+AI, an ecosystem/architecture for AI-RAN.

Berkeley Lab provided an update on its digital twin research, which spans multiple sectors.

Academic papers:

• How LEDs are shaping the future of wireless power transfer (Science Tokyo)
• On-device cryogenic quenching enables robust amorphous tellurium for threshold switching (KAIST)
• THz band testbed successfully transmits under 1,000 km/h high-mobility emulation (Kyoto Univ.)
• Rad-tolerant atomic-layer-scale RF system for spaceborne communication (Fudan Univ.)
• Giant energy storage and dielectric performance in all-polymer nanocomposites (Penn State)
• Impact of Contact Gating on Scaling of Monolayer 2D Transistors Using a Symmetric Dual-Gate Structure (Duke)

Automotive

Find Semiconductor Engineering’s automotive and battery news here.

Trending Video

Changes In Chip Architectures At The Edge: Nigel Drego, co-founder and CTO of Quadric, discusses how to build an efficient and flexible multi-die system for edge AI.

Data Centers

Meta plans to buy millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, along with CPUs and Ethernet switches, to support its AI data center build-out.

Tata Consultancy Services plans to develop a rack-scale AI infrastructure design based on AMD’s Helios platform.

Heron Power raised $140M to manufacture solid-state transformers for data center, solar, and energy storage projects.

DG Matrix raised $60M for its solid-state transformers that can integrate electricity from a variety of sources for data centers and EV charging.

Universities and Workforce

RPTU Univ. of Kaiserslautern-Landau researchers developed an LLM-based learning platform for chip design education, addressing both front-end and backend design.

SEMI Foundation and the National Network for Microelectronics Education launched the ChipPath program for career exploration and job seeking.

Michigan State received $3M in federal funding to use AI to grow diamonds in labs for semiconductor manufacturing, in collaboration with Fraunhofer.

The Siemens Foundation and partners kicked off a ‘Careers Electric‘ workforce initiative to expand access to electrical training, aiming to train 25,000 workers in its first decade.

The University of Arkansas was awarded $3.5M from NIST to upgrade its power packaging center.

The University of Arizona held a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new $35M 6,500 square-foot nanofabrication cleanroom.

UT San Antonio plans to build a national hub for neuromorphic computing, open to the public.

Events and Further Reading

Upcoming webinars are here, including:

• Practical Approaches to Quantum Safe Cryptography, Feb. 26
• Reducing Cost & Risk with Inspector Pre-Silicon Side Channel Analysis, Feb. 26
• Intelligent Networks: Power, Reliability, and Maintenance in Telecom, Mar. 3
• Cadence TECHTALK: Meet Your Virtual Engineer AI Wingman, Mar. 3

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Semiconductor Engineering’s complete collection of newsletters for all five channels can be found here.