Chip Industry Week in Review

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The U.S. government is rescinding a Biden-era AI export rule that would have imposed complex restrictions on how U.S. chip and AI technology is sold abroad, a move welcomed by companies like Nvidia, reports Bloomberg. While new, simpler guidelines are expected in the coming months, the decision introduces short-term uncertainty for firms currently navigating export deals.

SEMI-Europe is calling on the EU to allocate €20 billion in its next long-term budget to support semiconductor development, raising the total investment to €260 billion while reducing reliance on non-European suppliers.

Financial releases this week: AMD, Arm, Bruker, GlobalFoundries, Kulicke & Soffa, Onsemi, Onto Innovation.

At its CadenceLive event, the company announced:

• The Millennium M2000 Supercomputer with NVIDIA Blackwell systems for AI-accelerated engineering, delivering up to 80X higher performance and 20X lower power than the previous platform, ideal for AI-driven silicon, 3D, system design, and drug design.
• The Tensilica NeuroEdge 130 AI Co-Processor (AICP), a new class of processor to complement neural processing units (NPUs) and enable end-to-end execution of agentic and physical AI networks on advanced auto, consumer, industrial, and mobile SoCs.
• The Cerebrus AI Studio, a multi-block, multi-user agentic AI SoC design
• AI design company CELUS integrated Cadence’s OrCAD X PCB design platform for faster prototyping, improved iteration cycles, and accelerated time to market when developing hardware.

Fig. 1: The Cadence Tensilica NeuroEdge 130 AI Co-Processor (AICP). Source: Cadence

Global semiconductor sales reached $167.7 billion in Q1 2025, marking an 18.8% increase over Q1 2024, driven significantly by a nearly 45% sales surge in the Americas, reports the Semiconductor Industry Association. The organization also endorsed the newly introduced BASIC Act, which would increase the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit from 25% to 35% and extend it for four years to further boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

Special Report: Intel Foundry, TSMC, and Samsung Foundry are scrambling to deliver all the foundational components of full 3D-ICs, which collectively will deliver orders of magnitude improvements in performance with minimal power some sometime within the next few years.

Quick links to more news:

Global
In-Depth
Markets and Money
Security
Product News
Automotive
Research
Quantum
Events and Further Reading

Global

Europe/UK/ME:

• imec and TNO opened the Holst Centre Photonics Lab in Eindhoven, Netherlands, aiming to accelerate integrated photonics research and industrial applications across automotive, healthcare, and data communications.
• Aston University will lead a new UK Multidisciplinary Center for Neuromorphic Computing with £5.6 million over four years from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
• CSA Catapult reported on compound semiconductors as critical to achieving the UK’s AI Action Plan.
• MemryX, a provider of edge AI accelerators, joined the National Semiconductor Hub of Saudi Arabia.

USA:

• Ansys invited educators to submit proposals to create new undergraduate engineering curricula or evolve existing courses. Selected projects will receive a grant and technical guidance. The submission deadline is September 26, 2025.
• Chinese chipmaker YST Semiconductor is investing $100 million in a new facility at the Vancouver Innovation Center in Washington State, aiming to strengthen ties with U.S. customers amid uncertainty surrounding the CHIPS Act and international tariffs, reports The Oregonian.
• CSIS reported that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is key to national security.
• At International Telecom Week, executives said nuclear is a decade away from powering data centers, and gas and coal will be used in the meantime, per Broadband Breakfast.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Test, Measurement and Analytics newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Identifying Sources Of Silent Data Corruption
• E-Beam Inspection Proves Essential For Advanced Nodes
• Who Is Most Likely To Link Financial And Manufacturing Data?

More reporting this week:

• Three-Way Race To 3D-ICs
• Radiation, Temperature, Power Challenges For Chips In Space

Markets and Money

Photolithography materials revenue will grow 7% to $5.06 billion in 2025, driven by a strong increase in EUV photoresists, expected to surge 30% year-over-year, reports TECHCET. Supply chain localization, geopolitical tensions, and innovations such as dry resist deposition and non-PFAS materials will significantly shape future market growth, projected at a 6% CAGR through 2029.

Android premium smartphone SoC revenues rose 34% YoY in 2024 pushed by more powerful AI-capable platforms, per Counterpoint.

Eyeo, an offshoot of imec, raised €15 million in seed funding with plans to increase the light sensitivity of image sensors.

Security

Todd Austion’s HW security keynote at NEHWS discusses trusted hardware architecture, including its challenges and opportunities in the field.

Recent security research:

• Input-Triggered Hardware Trojan Attack on Spiking Neural Networks (Sorbonne Univ.)
• CheckMate: LLM-Powered Approximate Intermittent Computing (Lahore Univ. of Management Sciences)
• A Survey of Side-Channel Attacks on Branch Prediction Units (Korea Univ., Seongbuk-gu)
• Attestable builds: compiling verifiable binaries on untrusted systems using trusted execution environments (Univ. of Cambridge, et al.)

L3Harris received a total of $214 million in orders to support the German armed forces, including interoperable communication systems.

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Energy (DOE) provided mitigation strategies to reduce cyber threats to OT, or operational technology. CISA also issued a number of new alerts/advisories.

Product News

Imagination launched its E-Series GPU, featuring neural cores that scale up to 200 TOPS (INT8/FP8), delivering significant acceleration for AI and compute workloads, and burst processors that deliver a 35% improvement in average power efficiency for edge applications.

Nordson and Nordmeccanica introduced the CWM, an advanced closed-loop control system for flexible packaging manufacturing that monitors and manages coating weights during the converting process.

Advantest launched SiConic Test Engineering (TE), a new addition to its SiConic platform that enables early bring-up and validation of structural and functional tests over high-speed I/O interfaces directly on the bench.

Keysight introduced support for USB4 Gen 2, 3, and 4, improving design productivity with simulation-driven virtual compliance test solutions.

Kyocera licensed Quadric’s Chimera general-purpose neural processor IP core for use in next-gen office automation SoC designs.

Siemens integrated Cybord’s AI technology with its Opcenter software for manufacturing execution systems, enhancing quality control for manufacturers’ surface mount technology processes.

Infineon introduced SiC JFETs (junction field-effect transistors) to deliver minimized conduction losses, solid turn-off capability, and high robustness. The company also announced that its OptiMOS 6 80V power MOSFETs set a new benchmark in DC-DC power conversion efficiency when integrated into the IBC stage of a leading AI server platform.

Brewer Science released its 2025 Impact Report, highlighting major strides in sustainability and corporate responsibility, including a 5% reduction in Scope 3 emissions in 2024 and progress toward its 80% GHG reduction goal by 2030.

TSMC‘s 3nm leading-edge node has achieved full utilization, driven by strong demand from AI and high-performance computing applications, reports Counterpoint. The upcoming 2nm node is also projected to reach full utilization swiftly, supported by broad adoption across major tech companies.

SiTime announced Symphonic, a mobile clock generator with an integrated MEMS resonator, aimed at 5G, GNSS, mobile, and IoT devices.

Asahi Kasei Microdevices developed the AP4413 series of ultra-low current PMICs, ideal for battery charging systems used in energy harvesting applications.

NEO Semiconductor developed new 1T1C and 3T0C 3D X-DRAM cell architectures that combine DRAM-like speed with NAND-style manufacturability, achieving up to 512Gb density, 10ns access times, and extended data retention.

Semidynamics introduced Cervell, a highly scalable and fully programmable NPU architected on RISC-V.

Automotive

SGS-TÜV certified Infineon’s SEMPER NOR Flash memory to ASIL-D, the highest certification level for functional safety.

The MIPI Alliance updated its high-performance, low-power, and low electromagnetic interference C-PHY interface specification for connecting cameras and displays with an 18-Wirestate mode encoding option, increasing the maximum performance of a C-PHY lane by approximately 30 to 35 percent, with applications for ADAS, phones, and machine vision.

Florida Gulf Coast University presented: Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling for safe autonomous driving technology.

Research

ETH Zurich researchers explored adoption challenges in enabling memory-centric computing.

NVIDIA researchers reported on differentiable congestion optimization in 3D-ICs.

EPFL researchers and partners reported magnetic behavior in hematite, which is much more environmentally friendly than materials currently used in spintronics.

Texas A&M University-Kingsville researchers and partners reported on the presence of negative differential resistance in a gate-all-around field effect transistor (GAAFET).

Solution-processed tin (Sn²⁺)-halide perovskites can be used to create p-channel thin-film transistors with performance levels comparable with commercial low-temperature polysilicon technology, according to research from POSTECH.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers developed compact rad-hard chips for space that achieve equivalent or better radiation tolerance than conventional designs.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley scientists achieved record-high energy and power densities in microcapacitors made with engineered thin films of hafnium oxide and zirconium oxide.

A team at UC San Diego used NSF allocations on the Expanse supercomputer system at San Diego Supercomputer Center to better understand how to control magnetism at the atomic level using electric fields.

NTU Singapore and PureFize Technologies developed a small chip that harnesses the power of UV light for disinfection.

Quantum

IonQ:

• Completed its acquisition of ID Quantique to enable secure quantum networking and communications.
• Intends to acquire Lightsynq to accelerate its quantum computing and quantum networking roadmaps.
• Entered into an agreement to acquire Capella Space to create a space-based quantum-secure communications network.

IBM, Tata, and the government of Andhra Pradesh will deploy India’s biggest quantum computer in the Quantum Valley Tech Park.

Brookhaven National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists found a hidden interface in superconducting qubit material. The layer lies between a layer of tantalum metal and a sapphire substrate and hinders the qubit performance.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers presented a new method to deposit quantum-dot films on corrugated surfaces.

Events and Further Reading

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Upcoming webinars are here.

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