Chip Industry Week in Review

China’s Xiaomi debuted an in-house-designed 10-core mobile SoC built on a 3nm process. The company did not identify the foundry. It also announced plans to invest 50 billion yuan (~$7B) over the next decade to develop high-end smartphone chips, as part of a 200 billion yuan (~$28B) core technology investment over the next five years.

Kearney and SEMI released a report assessing the state of the semiconductor industry supply chain. They found that rising regional dependencies, long lead times, and shifting trade alliances are creating challenges for chip sourcing.

Imec updated its roadmap at ITF World in Belgium this week, including an expansion of its 3D stacking and chiplet integration capabilities, advancements in scalable quantum computing platforms, and new European innovation hubs. The research house also demonstrated an ingestible sensor for gut monitoring, and announced a partnership with MIT to research nanoelectronics-based solutions for minimally and non-invasive diagnostic devices for personalized medicine, as well as a joint effort with Merck to develop an advanced microphysiological systems platform to further pre-clinical models in AI-driven drug development.

Also at ITF World:

• AWS presented its new “Ocelot” logical qubit memory aimed at addressing quantum computing’s critical error-correction challenges and enhancing scalable quantum architectures.
• Google DeepMind demonstrated significant progress toward artificial general intelligence, showcasing advanced AI agent capabilities, creative content generation, and autonomous task execution.
• Micron outlined rapid 12-month product cycles for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), introducing advanced hybrid bonding and custom DRAM to lower power and enhance AI capabilities.
• NVIDIA demonstrated accelerated computational lithography, reducing processing resources by up to 50x with GPU-driven inverse lithography technology (ILT).

Technical University of Munich researchers developed a highly efficient AI chip that works without the cloud. The new design uses a  neuromorphic architecture to achieve “hyper-dimensional” computing.

OpenAI will buy year-old startup io in a $6.5 billion deal. Jony Ive, a former iPhone designer and one of io’s founders, will spearhead the development of AI hardware devices.

Siemens Digital Industries Software announced plans to acquire California-based Excellicon, a provider of software for the development, verification, and management of timing constraints. The deal is expected to close in a few weeks.

The NSTC Workforce Center of Excellence launched a new interactive dashboard, incorporating data from 149 industry-aligned programs offered by higher education institutions, to better understand the flow of talent from postsecondary institutions to roles in the semiconductor industry.

Quick links to more news:

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

Global

Europe:

• KLA opened a $138 million R&D and manufacturing center in Wales, U.K.
• Thales, Radiall, and Foxconn are considering a joint venture to establish an OSAT facility in France with a production capacity of more than 100 million SiPs per year by 2031.
• Ireland launched its new Silicon Island initiative, including a roadmap to grow its chip industry.
• The EU’s Chips Joint Undertaking approved a pilot line for the manufacturing and packaging of ion-trap quantum chips.

Asia:

• Taiwan’s MediaTek plans to tape out its first 2nm chip in September.
• Foxconn plans to build an ‘AI factory’ supercomputer in Taiwan with 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs.
• Singapore’s A*STAR launched an industry-grade 200mm SiC open R&D line to enable joint innovation between researchers and companies and also announced the EDA Garage initiative to provide Singaporean start-ups and SMEs with cost-effective access to advanced EDA tools.
• STMicroelectronics is expanding its “Lab-in-Fab” project in Singapore with A*STAR and ULVAC to advance the commercialization of piezoelectric MEMS sensors and actuators. A*STAR is also partnering with GlobalFoundries on advanced packaging technology and workforce skills development.

Americas:

• GlobalWafers opened its new $3.5 billion 300mm silicon wafer facility in Sherman, Texas. The company is considering investing another $4 billion to expand production capacity, depending on the profitability of the initial phases.

In-Depth

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

• Cooling Chips Still A Top Challenge
• Mask Complexity, Cost, And Change
• Advanced Packaging Depends On Materials And Co-Design

More reporting this week:

• More Data, More Redundant Interconnects
• Future-proofing AI Models
• Problems In Testing AI Chips

Markets and Money

Financial releases this week: Analog Devices and Keysight.

Deals:

• Sanmina plans to acquire the data center infrastructure manufacturing business of ZT Systems from AMD for a total of $3 billion in cash, stock, and contingent consideration.
• Deca’s high-density fan-out interposer technology will be implemented in IBM‘s advanced packaging facility in Quebec.
• ZuriQ inked a deal with Infineon to develop novel trapped-ion chips for quantum computing.

Funding:

• Avicena raised $65 million for its microLED-based interconnects for data centers and disaggregated memory fabrics.
• FononTech raised €8.5 million for its printing technology and equipment for complex 3D interconnects.
• Wi-Charge raised $20 million in Series C for its over-the-air wireless power.

SEMI published its first quarter Semiconductor Manufacturing Monitor Report, reflecting:

• Electronics sales declined 16% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), and flat year-over-year (YoY);
• IC sales were down 2% QoQ but up 23% YoY;
• CapEx was down 7% QoQ but up 27% YoY;
• Wafer fab equipment rose 19% YoY;
• Test equipment billings grew 56% YoY, and
• Wafers per quarter were up 2% QoQ and 7% YoY.

Education and Training

SEMI and Purdue University launched an online course series focused on AI and data analysis techniques for the semiconductor industry.

Product News

Expedera uncorked its latest neural processing unit (NPU) IP for running LLMs, CNNs, and RNNs on resource-constrained edge devices. The device is scalable to 128 TFLOPS in a single core, and to petaFLOPS with multiple cores, using packet-based processing to reduce external memory moves.

Siemens released cloud-connected professional-grade PCB design tools for small and mid-sized businesses and independent engineers, featuring schematic capture, layout, AI-assisted schematic and BOM generation, variant management, and advanced routing automation.

Nvidia and partners made a number of announcements during COMPUTEX week, including:

• NVLink Fusion for semi-custom AI chips was unveiled, with NVLink interconnect to link CPUs and AI accelerators from its partner ecosystem directly to Nvidia GPUs. Fujitsu and Qualcomm will each utilize the technology in upcoming custom CPUs for the data center market. Cadence, Synopsys and others will provide design services and solutions for the platform.
• Infineon is teaming up with NVIDIA to develop power systems for data centers based on a new architecture with central power generation of 800 V direct current, allowing power conversion directly at the GPU within the server board.
• NVIDIA’s CUDA-X and Blackwell GPU platform were adopted by TSMC, Cadence, KLA, Siemens, and Synopsys.

Microsoft launched an AI agent platform that incorporates HPC simulation tools for R&D across a range of industries, including silicon design, energy, and chemistry and materials discovery. Synopsys tools will be integrated into the platform.

Innatera debuted a neuromorphic microcontroller that combines a compute architecture based on spiking neural networks with traditional signal processing to provide low-power data processing at the sensor level.

Arm announced a new product naming scheme with an identity for each key end market and performance tiers.

SK Hynix developed a UFS 4.1 product with 321-layer 1Tb triple level cell 4D NAND flash for mobile applications.

Intel debuted new GPUs for workstations and AI inference along with AI accelerators for enterprise and cloud inference.

AMD announced new graphics cards and workstation CPUs.

Circuits Integrated Hellas uncorked a chipset for satellite communications that combines transmit, receive, and antenna functionality using a 3D antenna-in-package architecture.

Research

Imec outlined a new technology platform for thermally stable DRAM peripheral transistors.

CEA-Leti researchers:

• reported heterogeneous co-integration of GaN microLED technology and organic photodetectors, a major step toward multifunctional displays, combining both display and sensing capabilities.
• developed a method for integrating molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) onto 200mm silicon wafers using molecular direct bonding. The process avoids the high temperatures normally required to synthesize MoS₂ and is compatible with existing cleanroom environments.

Researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo developed a 256-element Ka-band phased-array receiver that can control two circular polarization beams independently, making satellite communications more energy efficient.

Find more chip industry research here.

People

Rahul Patel is the new President, CEO and a Director of Synaptics.

Gideon Ben Zvi will retire as CEO of Valens Semiconductor by the end of 2025.

Richard Otte, CEO of Promex, received the 2025 IEEE Electronics Manufacturing Technology Award for his advancements in electronics packaging.

Security

The U.S. National Security Agency published AI Data Security: Best Practices for Securing Data Used to Train & Operate AI Systems.

Axiado announced its next-gen Trusted Control/Compute Unit, an integrated hardware security solution combining Axiado’s TCU with memory and flash storage.

The Florida Center for Cybersecurity at the University of South Florida and the Idaho National Laboratory announced a collaboration on critical infrastructure cyber mitigation and workforce development.

Johns Hopkins University launched a course to prepare students for the FDA’s ramped up security requirements for wearable devices.

Recent security research:

• Automatic Identification and Classification of IoT Devices in Computer Networks – An Overview of Opportunities and Challenges (Frankfurt Univ. of Applied Sciences)
• Toward Robust and Secure Deep Learning: From Training through Deployment to Inference (Northeastern Univ.)
• Accelerated weka: GPU machine learning with weka Workbench (Univ. of Waikato)
• Digital Voice Assistants: A Path Forward for Enhanced Privacy and Security (Marymount Univ.)

CISA issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Automotive

“Key Safety Design Overview in AI-driven Autonomous Vehicles” was published by researchers at Mercedes-Benz and University of Washington, proposing mitigation strategies and safety failure analysis.

Infineon will supply Rivian’s R2 platform with power modules for traction inverters with supply expected to start in 2026.

IonQ and Einride partnered to develop quantum solutions for fleet routing, logistics optimization, and supply chain solutions.

FocalPoint and STMicroelectronics partnered to provide automotive OEMs a combined solution that enhances navigation performance by improving GNSS reliability and accuracy.

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here, including these topics: AI training with HBM4, AFM for semiconductor failure analysis, and a preview of the EUV Accelerator.

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