Chip Industry Week In Review

Arm joined forces with Korea’s Samsung Foundry, ADTechnology, and Rebellions to create a CPU chiplet platform for AI training and inference. The new chiplet will be based on Samsung’s 2nm gate-all-around technology.

Intel and AMD, arch competitors for decades, formed an x86 ecosystem advisory group to collaborate on architectural interoperability and simplify software development.

Samsung Electronics uncorked 24Gb GDDR7 DRAM with a speed of more than 40Gbps, targeted at data centers and AI workstations.

Natcast announced three anticipated awardees and $30 million in funding for AI-driven RFIC design innovation: Keysight Technologies, Princeton University, and UT Austin.

The U.S. Department of Commerce signed preliminary funding agreements under the CHIPS Act with:

• Wolfspeed, for up to $750 million to support the construction of the world’s largest SiC wafer manufacturing facility in North Carolina, and the expansion of an existing facility in New York to boost domestic manufacturing of chips for AI and EVs.
• Infinera, for up to $93 million to support construction of a new fab in San Jose, California, and an advanced test and packaging facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Specializing in indium phosphide-based photonic ICs, Infinera’s expansion would boost domestic semiconductor production for AI, telecommunications infrastructure, and national security applications.

The U.S. Department of Energy opened applications for up to $900 million in funding to support domestic deployment of Generation III+ small modular reactor nuclear technologies. Those reactors will be needed to meet the power-hungry demands of AI data centers.

Infineon unveiled some unique technologies at its OktoberTech event, including a green credit card that makes it simpler to separate out the electronics for recycling. And if that isn’t eco enough, the company also showed off a wooden version of the card. Infineon also introduced a silicon/silicon carbide edge power module for the mobility market, and a multi-touch controller for ultra-large screens.

The Open Compute Project Foundation expanded its AI initiative with rack design contributions from NVIDIA and Meta.

Quick links to more news:

Global
In-Depth
Market Reports
Security
Product News
Automotive
Quantum
Research
Education and Training
Events and Further Reading

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Test, Measurement & Analytics newsletter featuring these top stories:

• Special Report: Signals In The Noise: Tackling High-Frequency IC Test
• Metrology Advances Step Up To Sub-2nm Device Node Needs
• New Challenges In IC Reliability
• Big Changes In Optical Inspection

And its Low Power-High Performance newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Special Report: Mass Customization For AI Inference
• How Big A Deal Is Aging?
• Unbundling Analog From Digital Where It Makes Sense

And:  Q3 2024 Startup Funding Report: New startups emerge from stealth; 75 companies raise $2 billion.

Markets and Money

NIST awarded $15 million for a center of excellence in support of international standardization of critical and emerging technologies.

Intel filed notice under the Warn Act that it plans to lay off 1,300 workers at its Hillsboro, Oregon, as part of the workforce reduction plan the company announced in August.

Earnings reports this week include ASML and TSMC.

Recent fundings:

• Lightmatter raised $400 million in Series D funding for its photonic interconnect technology that enables direct 3D integration of numerous ASIC chiplets onto a multi-reticle optical interposer.
• Xscape Photonics raised $44 million in Series A funding for its fully programmable, multi-color photonics platform for AI data center fabrics.
• Lidwave raised $10 million in seed funding for its 4D lidar sensor chip that adds velocity tracking.
• India-based GaN startup Agnit Semiconductors raised $3.5 million.

This week’s mixed analyst reports:

• Weaker-than-expected seasonal demand will cause a 3% to 8% drop in NAND flash contract prices in Q4, per TrendForce. Meanwhile, OLED monitor shipments are expected to increase by 181%.
• Demand for low Earth orbit satellite-based connectivity has increased significantly this year, reports Counterpoint. IoT products that need mobile and low-latency communications are ideal candidates for the technology.

Global

The South Korea government plans to provide 8.8 trillion won (US$ 6.4 billion) in semiconductor financial support in 2025. Also, that government will set up a big data system and issue stronger penalties to prevent overseas leaks of business secrets related to advanced technologies, reports Reuters.

Lam Research opened its new Yongin Campus in South Korea’s K-semiconductor mega cluster this month.

In Japan, Rapidus and Denso will collaborate on designing advanced chips for AI and autonomous vehicles, according to Nikkei.

SEMI released a report recommending expansion of  low-carbon energy availability in Taiwan.

With a focus on the Middle East, the U.S. is considering capping sales of advanced AI chips on a country-specific basis, according to Bloomberg.

The Information reported that TSMC is under investigation for potential violation of U.S. export controls for providing advanced chips to Huawei. TSMC disputed the report.

Product News

JEDEC is developing new raw card DIMM designs with DDR5 clock drivers, intended for use in client computing applications such as laptops and desktops.

Rambus unveiled complete memory interface chipsets for Gen5 DDR5 RDIMMs and MRDIMMs that incorporate advanced clocking, control, and power management features for higher capacity and bandwidth modules operating at 8000 MT/s and above.

Arteris added tiling capabilities and extended mesh topology support for its network-on-chip (NoC) IP, allowing SoCs with AI to scale by more than 10 times without changing the basic design. The NoC tiles can be turned off dynamically, which the company says can reduce power by 20%.

Fig. 1: Arteris’ tiled architecture.

Synaptics uncorked an connectivity solution that aims to simplify communication across a wide range of IoT devices.

Micron unveiled a new category of clock driver memory with the launch of its Crucial DDR5 clocked unbuffered dual inline memory modules (CUDIMM) and clocked small outline dual memory modules (CSODIMM).

eMemory integrated Siemens’ Tessent MemoryBIST software to create a repair toolkit for high-density SRAM.

Automotive

Infineon released AEC-Q100 compliant automotive fingerprint sensors that are optimized for its MCUs.

Keysight expanded its family of bi-directional, regenerative DC power supplies to support EVs and renewable energy. The company also released a software platform to accelerate the battery testing and design processes.

SEDEMAC adopted Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to accelerate development of MCUs for automotive that use SEDEMAC’s sensor-less control technology.

In automotive research:

• Fraunhofer FHR and others proposed a “Signal processing architecture for a trustworthy 77GHz MIMO Radar.”
• Fulda University published a technical paper, “Remote attestation for autonomous vehicle fleets.”  
• MIT and other  researchers won a Distinguished Paper Award for their evaluation of visual explanations in autonomous vehicles’ decision-making.
• The number of lidars in passenger cars has risen 3X compared to 2022, according to Yole.

Research

MIT stepped toward fully 3D-printed active electronics by fabricating semiconductor-free logic gates. The devices are made from thin, 3D-printed traces of copper-doped polymer and contain intersecting conductive regions that enable the researchers to regulate the resistance by controlling the voltage fed into the switch.

University of Wisconsin-Madison and other researchers introduced  “MFIT: Multi-Fidelity Thermal Modeling for 2.5D and 3D Multi-Chiplet Architectures.”

imec reported on advancements in efficiency and scalability of thin-film tandem solar cells, including new uniform coating techniques for perovskite-on-CIGS tandems.

Researchers from SLAC and other U.S. national laboratories partnered to build a new data streaming pipeline to bridge the gap between experimental facilities and supercomputers.

Security

The EU adopted its Cyber Resilience Act, ensuring that products with digital components, such as those designed for the Internet of Things, are secured throughout the supply chain and their lifecycle. The EU Council also published a report on how the EU tackles cyber threats. The U.S. introduced a similar Cyber Trust Mark program in July 2023.

CEA-Leti today launched an open-source project to produce physical true random number generators using ring-oscillator-based architectures. The toolkit includes reference designs, emulation tools, and analytical tools for development and characterization of hardware TRNG implementations.

Recent security research:

• Fault-marking: defect-pattern leveraging inherent fingerprinting of advanced IC package with thermoreflectance imaging (U. of Florida, U.of Cincinnati)
• FriendlyFoe: Adversarial ML as a practical architectural defense against side channel attacks (UIUC, Yale U.)
• Analysis of S-box hardware resources to improve AES intrinsic security against power attacks (Indian Institute of Technology)
• AttackDefense Framework (ADF): Enhancing IoT devices and lifecycles threat modeling (EURECOM, KU Leuven, NXP, et al.)
• Graph Machine Learning for HW Security and security of graph ML: attacks and defenses (USC PhD)
• Georgia Tech researchers developed an algorithm to boost critical infrastructure security by identifying devices vulnerable to remote cyberattacks.

CISA and the FBI released a catalog of product security bad practices for public comment, with recommendations to build software that is secure by design. And CISA issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Quantum

The EU HPC Joint Undertaking chose IQM Quantum Computers to supply the Euro-Q-Exa quantum computer, to be located in Germany at a price of €25 million, and co-funded by others.

Nu Quantum debuted a prototype interface that could be used to connect quantum computers of different qubit modalities in a modular, distributed network.

South Korea‘s Qunova Computing said its HiVQE algorithm achieved world-first chemical accuracy on multiple quantum devices.

Researchers at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University developed the world’s smallest quantum computer, using a single photon, reports Taipei Times.

ORNL and University of Oklahoma researchers used the properties of quantum states of light to implement parallel quantum-enhanced sensing for future devices.

Fig. 2: Scientists from ORNL and the University of Oklahoma have utilized the unique properties of quantum states of light to implement parallel quantum-enhanced sensing. Source: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Argonne National Laboratory and Northern Illinois University researchers discovered they could use light to detect the spin state in perovskites (specifically, methylammonium lead iodide, or MAPbI3) with potential uses such as quantum sensing and solar.

Fig. 3: Illustration showing exciton formation in a new semiconducting material used for quantum sensing. Image by: Ellen Weiss/Argonne National Laboratory

Education and Training

UC San Diego, with backing from DARPA, reports on successes of the OpenROAD project, an open-source EDA tool, claiming a no-human-in-the-loop semiconductor chip layout generation.

Cadence announced that Equinix Foundation, NetApp, NVIDIA, and Workday are founding members of its Giving Foundation’s Fem.AI Alliance, which aims to increase women’s representation and leadership in the tech industry.

interface reported that the AI industry is suffering from a gender gap across all seniority levels.

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here, including topics such as chiplet integration, automotive test and more.

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