Chip Industry Week in Review

Newly proposed U.S. legislation called the Chip Security Act would use location verification tracking as a tool to help combat chip smuggling. This follows a report by the Economist that showed Taiwan exports of advanced chips to Malaysia in the first quarter has nearly reached 2024 totals, heightening concerns that China has a “convenient back door.”

In addition to formally announcing plans to reverse and modify the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule, which would have limited global access to AI chips, the Trump administration also announced plans to strengthen export controls for AI chips, including:

• Guidance stating the use of Huawei Ascend chips anywhere in the world will violate export rules;
• Guidance to U.S. companies on how to protect supply chains against diversion tactics, and
• A warning to the public about the potential consequences of allowing U.S. AI chips to be used for training and inference of Chinese AI models.

The Middle East was front and center this week with Trump’s deal-making trip. Among the highlights:

• HUMAIN, Saudia Arabia’s public investment fund for AI, struck deals with NVIDIA, AMD and Qualcomm, mostly for AI infrastructure buildout;
• The U.S. and Saudi Arabia inked a deal to secure supply chains for critical minerals mining and processing, notably lithium, nickel, and vanadium;
• The UAE and the U.S. are partnering on a Abu Dhabi AI data center campus with a planned 5-gigawatt capacity covering 10 square miles. The center will be operated with several yet to be named U.S. companies.

U.S. legislation was introduced to expand the advanced manufacturing investment credit to include materials integral to semiconductor manufacturing.

NY CREATES and Fraunhofer IPMS signed a joint development agreement to drive R&D into next-gen ferroelectric memory devices at the 300mm wafer scale, useful for neuromorphic computing as they are energy-efficient, CMOS-compatible, and scalable down to very small technology nodes.

Recent financial releases: Arteris, Applied Materials, Coreweave, Foxconn/Hon Hai, GCT Semi, Indie Semi, Magnachip, PDF Solutions, Rohm Semiconductor, Tower Semi, TSMC (April revenue).

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Global
In-Depth
Markets and Money
Security
Education and Training
Product News
Automotive
Research
People
Events and Further Reading

Global

Asia:

• China’s DeepSeek released a new report, “Insights into DeepSeek-V3: Scaling Challenges and Reflections on Hardware for AI Architectures“
• SiCarrier, Chinese chip equipment maker and purported Huawei supplier, is looking for $2.8 billion in funding, reports Reuters.
• TSMC approved US$15.2 billion for capital spending for additional advanced technology capacity, including advanced packaging and fab construction.
• Foxconn and HCL received approval from the Indian government to build a ~US $435 million display driver chip plant in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Americas

• CSIS director Gracelin Baskaran provided policy recommendations to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee for shoring up our supply chain of germanium and gallium, materials critical for semiconductor production.
• The SIA provided recommendations on the U.S. Section 232 investigation on the import of semiconductors and related equipment.
• China’s memory company Shenzhen Longsys Electronics plans to build a new semiconductor facility in Brazil.
• Quantum Computing Inc. held the grand opening of its quantum photonic chip foundry in Tempe, Arizona.

Europe:

• CEPA’s senior fellow Christopher Cytera argues that instead of Europe attacking U.S.’s chip tariffs with counter tariffs, it should partner with China and retaliate with taxes on a broad range of U.S. digital products if needed.
• Switzerland’s CSEM-spinoff CCRAFT is promoting its new thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) chip factory for high-performance photonics.
• Infineon received Germany’s final funding approval for its new plant in Dresden. The company is expanding the site in order to meet customer demand for renewable energies, efficient data centers and electromobility.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Low Power- High Performance newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Die-to-die Interconnect Standards In Flux
• Development Flows For Chiplets
• AI Accelerators Moving Out From Data Centers

More reporting this week:

• Security Risks Mount For Aerospace, Defense Applications
• Speeding Up Die-To-Die Interconnectivity 

Markets and Money

Japan’s EdgeCortix inked a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense to eventually deploy its AI edge accelerator technology for aerospace applications.

Reports:

• Revenue at the top 10 OSAT companies grew 3% collectively in 2024 to over US $41 billion, with ASE and Amkor maintaining the top revenue spots. However, Chinese companies JCET and TSHT grew by double digits.
• Global SiC substrate revenues declined 9% in 2024 to US$1 billion, driven by weakening demand in automotive and industrial sectors, but long-term growth is promising, reports TrendForce.

Fundings and Buyback:

• U.S.-based Finwave Semiconductor secured $ 8.2 million in funding for its GaN-on-Si technology.
• UK-based Space Forge raised £22.6 million for development of its reusable satellite platforms to produce advanced materials in space.
• AMD announced a new $6 billion share repurchase
• Cognichip emerged from stealth with $33 million in funding for its physics-informed AI platform for semiconductor design.
• TensorWave secured $100 million funding for rapid deployment of a massive AMD Instinct MI325X GPU training cluster.
• Classiq raised $110M in its quest to be the Microsoft of quantum computing.

Deals:

• U.S.-based ClassOne Technology and IBM Research inked a deal to jointly develop non-NMP solvent processing, or wet processing, for advanced packaging.
• GPU-driven cloud infrastructure company Coreweave signed an up to $4 billion deal with OpenAI.

Security

Intel will release updates to mitigate potential security vulnerabilities in some Intel Graphics Driver software that may allow escalation of privilege, denial of service, or information disclosure.

Florida-based Microelectronics Security Training (MEST) Center is making its past webinars available to everyone.

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity developed the European Vulnerability Database. The EUVD service is now operational and provides aggregated, reliable, and actionable information such as mitigation measures and exploitation status on cybersecurity vulnerabilities affecting ICT products and services.

Recent security research:

• EXAM: Exploiting Exclusive System-Level Cache in Apple M-Series SoCs for Enhanced Cache Occupancy Attacks (Northeastern Univ.)
• Counterfeit Integrated Circuit Detection Using a Resonant Cavity System (Ohio State Univ.)
• Secure Data Handling in CI/CD Pipelines Using Homomorphic Encryption Techniques (Vaasa Univ. of Applied Sciences)

The Council of the European Union decided to prolong sanctions against cyber-attacks threatening the EU and its members for another year.

UK’s new Cyber Resilience Test Facilities program developed a national network of assured facilities enabling independent audits and assessments of tech vendors by public and private sector organizations, including the UK government.

CISA announced a shift in how cybersecurity alerts and advisories are shared, in addition to a number of alerts/advisories.

Education and Training

Arm and SoftBank Group will contribute $15.5 million to Carnegie Mellon University to support its partnership with Japan’s Keio University, which aims to boost global advancement of AI. The funding will give CMU scientists cutting-edge commercial tools and models and support fundamental research.

ArmEducation will also offer a six-week certificate-granting introduction to AI course.

Product News

Rambus introduced new client chipsets for next-gen AI PC memory modules including the LPDDR5 CAMM2 PMIC and DDR5 Gen 2 Client PMIC, alongside a client clock driver and (serial presence detect) SPD hub.

Fig. 1: LPCAMM2 Memory Module. Source: Rambus

Korea’s Hanmi Semiconductor launched its thermal compression bonder, TC Bonder 4, specifically designed for HBM4 stacking.

ITEN and A*Star Institute of Microelectronics integrated ITEN’s solid-state batteries into A*STAR’s SiP.

Infineon introduced PSOC 4100T Plus, an Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller with Multi-Sense that offers both analog and digital capabilities, inductive sensing, and liquid level sensing. The company also unveiled the CoolGaN bidirectional switch 650 V G5, a GaN switch capable of actively blocking voltage and current in both directions, featuring a common-drain design and a double-gate structure, serving as an efficient replacement for traditional back-to-back configurations commonly used in converters.

Imec developed an ASIC to enhance control over the activation of the vagus nerve, based on intermittent interferential current stimulation.

 Siemens EDA:

• Released the Questa One smart verification software portfolio with integrated AI-powered automation, predictive analytics, and workflow connectivity, targeted at advanced 3D-ICs, chiplet designs, and software-defined architectures;
• Integrated Perforce’s IP lifecycle management and data management solutions to help software and semiconductor teams collaborate on development and verification, with full traceability, and
• Announced an expansion of its industrial AI offerings with advanced AI agents designed to work across its Industrial Copilot ecosystem. This new technology represents a fundamental shift from AI assistants that respond to queries toward autonomous agents that proactively execute entire processes without human intervention.

Fig. 2: IC concept. Source: Siemens EDA

Keysight’s Quantum Control System will be embedded within Fujitsu and RIKEN’s recently developed 256-qubit quantum computer in Japan.

Fig. 3: Dr. Shintaro Sato – Head of Quantum Laboratory at Fujitsu Research and Bobby Bhowmik – Head of Quantum R&D at Keysight in front of the 256-qubit quantum computer and Keysight’s quantum control system in the Fujitsu/RIKEN facility in Wako, Japan

AMD launched its EPYC 4005 Series CPUs, with up to 16 Zen5 cores and 32 threads, targeted for enterprise-class servers, blades, and towers.

BrainChip is integrating Andes’ RISC-V cores with its NPUs, aimed at edge AI.

Automotive

Infineon and Visteon Corporation signed an MOU to advance the development of next-generation electric vehicle powertrains. The companies will integrate power conversion devices based on Infineon semiconductors, with particular emphasis on wideband gap device technologies.

Tatra Trucks adopted the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of industry software including Teamcenter software for PLM and the Mendix low code platform to help increase production volume.

NXP Semiconductors unveiled its S32R47 imaging radar processors in 16nm finFET technology.

General Motors and LG Energy Solution partnered to commercialize LMR prismatic battery cells for future GM electric trucks and full-size SUVs.

Research

Cargill Bioindustrial and Arizona State University are teaming up on research focused on Cargill’s Priamine dimer diamine, a material with a very low dielectric constant.

A research team led by the University of Cambridge and the Eindhoven University of Technology created an organic semiconductor that forces electrons to move in a spiral pattern. This could improve the efficiency of OLED displays in television and smartphone screens, or power next-generation computing technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing.

Neuromorphic computing:

• National Taiwan University researchers found a way to bridge multi-state memory with quantization for efficient neural networks.
• Researchers from multiple Hong Kong universities introduced spintronic memristors with potential for in-memory logic and neuromorphic computing.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers used a technique called scanning oscillator piezoresponse force microscopy to capture movement of domain walls as they react to electric or magnetic signals, revealing how ferroelectric polarization is modified within the material. The findings are useful for data centers, memory storage, and sensors.

People

Tsinghua Unigroup‘s former chairman, Zhao Weiguo, was found guilty of corruption and embezzlement this week and sentenced to a de facto life sentence. Under Zhao’s leadership the company recklessly spent billions on chip-related acquisitions and more, creating a financial crisis for the company.

SRC’s Todd Younkin stepped down from his role on the Industrial Advisory Committee.

Entegris announced David Reeder will succeed retiring Bertrand Loy as CEO effective August 2025.

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here.

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