Chip Industry Week In Review

The new Trump administration was quick to put a different stamp on the tech world:

• President Trump rescinded a long list of Biden’s executive orders, including those aimed at AI safety and the mandate for 50% EVs by 2030. Roughly 1.3 million EVs were sold in the U.S. in 2024, up 7.3% from 2023.
• The new administration announced $500 billion ($100 billion initially) in private sector investment in a joint venture, Stargate, with initial equity funders MGX, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, aimed at AI infrastructure including data centers and the needed electricity generation. Elon Musk criticized the move.

In Europe:

• The EU formally launched its five Chips JU pilot lines, with a previously announced €3.7 billion investment from the EU and member states.
• The EU will raise concerns with the new administration over Biden’s curbs of AI chips being sold to member states such as Poland, reports Bloomberg.

And the EU is not the only one raising concerns. The Brookings Institute‘s John Villasenor published a commentary on the Biden administration’s AI diffusion export control rule, stating it “creates artificial limits on the export of advanced computing chips, subjecting about 150 ‘middle-tier’ countries to a complex set of limits,” while lowering global demand for U.S. chips.

Cadence plans to acquire Secure-IC, an embedded security IP platform provider, to complement the company’s interface, memory, AI/ML, and DSP solutions.

Chiplets were a hot topic this week, coinciding with the Chiplet Summit in Santa Clara, California:

• Keysight launched the latest version of its Chiplet PHY Designer, adding simulation capabilities for UCIe 2.0 and support for the open-source BoW standard.
• Arm announced the first public specification for its Chiplet System Architecture (CSA) is now available.
• Blue Cheetah taped out the next generation of its BlueLynx die-to-die PHY, which supports both 2D and advanced 2.5D packages. The tape-out was achieved using Samsung Foundry’s 4nm SF4X manufacturing process.
• Alphawave Semi demonstrated its custom HBM4 for XPU memory, as well its multi-protocol I/O chiplet. In his keynote address, CTO Tony Chan Carusone’s discussed scaling connectivity for chiplet-based AI systems.

Special Report: Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report: 2024. Companies poured billions into fabs and facilities around the world as regions continue to build self-sufficiency and form hubs with friendly nations.

Quick links to more news:

In-Depth
Markets and Money
Security
People
Product and Standards
Research
Events and Further Reading

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Manufacturing, Packaging & Materials newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Electrifying Everything: Power Moves Toward ICs
• Upcoming Challenges And Changes In Semiconductor Materials
• Improving GaN Device Architectures

More reporting this week:

• Automotive OEMs Face Multiple Technology Adoption Challenges
• Livelocks And Deadlocks In NoCs

Markets and Money

Funding:

• Baya Systems raised more than $36 million in Series B funding for its intelligent compute system IP tech. Part of that funding was provided by Synopsys and will be dedicated to furthering Baya’s design and analysis tools for multi-die systems.
• The European Commission will invest €3 million to develop a quantum chip with germanium-silicon (GeSi).
• D-Wave completed its $150 million at-the-market equity offering.

Earnings releases this week: UMC, Texas Instruments, SK hynix.

Think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics published a briefing on the effectiveness of the CHIPS Act.

New market reports:

• NAND flash manufacturers are expected to continue cutting production in 2025 to ease pressure from weak demand and oversupply, says TrendForce. The firm also predicts the LiDAR market will top $5 billion due to advanced autonomous driving and logistics demand.
• Yole expects the power converter market to reach $190 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 7%.
• IDC reported that spending on compute and storage products for cloud deployments rose 115% YoY in Q3 2024 to $57.3 billion.

Keysight signed a virtual power purchase agreement with Southern Power for renewable energy development.

People

Industry visionary Lip-Bu Tan joined AI company Auradine’s board of directors.

The MIPI Alliance appointed Hezi Saar from Synopsys as chair of the MIPI Alliance Board of Directors.

Security

New research:

• Arizona State University and NVIDIA researchers published a technical paper, “SPICED+: Syntactical Bug Pattern Identification and Correction of Trojans in A/MS Circuits Using LLM-Enhanced Detection.”
• “Library-Attack: Reverse Engineering Approach for Evaluating HW IP Protection” was published by researchers at University of Florida and Indiana University.
• DARPA explored how to construct self-healing computers through its Reclaiming Bus-based Systems During Compromise (Red-C) program.

Intel Foundry gained two new defense industrial base (DIB) customers, Trusted Semiconductor Solutions and Reliable MicroSystems, which will use Intel 18A process technology and advanced packaging for prototypes and high-volume manufacturing of commercial and DIB products for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Infineon received the first Common Criteria EAL6 certification for the implementation of a post-quantum cryptography algorithm in a security controller, enhancing security for eSIM, 5G SIM, and smart card applications.

CSIS argued for continued U.S. support of the International Counter Ransomware Initiative, and explored opportunities for defense-tech startups in the U.S.-Japan Alliance.

The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act went into effect on Jan. 17 for all financial entities across the EU, aimed at improved IT cybersecurity.

CISA issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Product and Standards

Teradyne Robotics and Analog Devices partnered to accelerate the adoption of AI and advanced robotics in support of ADI’s collaborative automation initiative, which is aimed at enhancing safety and efficiency while optimizing fabrication and backend operations.

Infineon launched PSoC Control, a new family of high-performance Arm Cortex-M33 MCUs operating at up to 180 MHz and supported by a digital signal processor, a floating-point unit, and a hardware accelerator. The new devices enable real-time control of systems for home appliances, industrial drives, robots, light EVs, solar, and HVAC.

Cadence announced verification IP for eUSB2v2-compliant designs. Those designs support up to 4.8Gbps bandwidth in both directions.

MediaTek chose Cadence’s Virtuoso Studio and Spectre X Simulator as its software of choice in developing its 2nm advanced node technology. The programs will be run on an NVIDIA accelerated computing platform, with a goal of a 30% bump in productivity.

Research

University of Buffalo researchers mixed silicon with 2D materials to boost efficiency and power of semiconductor devices.

Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers used cutting-edge X-ray techniques to uncover the properties of superconducting infinite-layer nickelates.

University of Michigan researchers developed a new chip-connection system that transfers data along reconfigurable pathways of light rather than electrical wires, boosting AI model size and training speed.

In medical technology:

• Harvard University Move Lab researchers made a wearable robotic device for stroke survivors.
• Pennsylvania State University engineering researchers developed a portable, wireless device to detect SARS-CoV-2 and vitamin C by integrating commercial transistors with printed graphene.

In  quantum:

• A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researcher is exploring the use of indium gallium phosphide (InGaP) to fabricate more efficient non-linear photonic quantum devices.
• Northwestern University physicists proposed a strategy to maintain communications in an unpredictable quantum network.
• TU Wien researchers showed there is an “umbilical cord” between different quantum states in many materials.
• Quantinuum is building a new quantum R&D center in New Mexico.

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here.

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