Chip Industry Week in Review

The U.S. Commerce Department is tightening controls on EDA software sold to China by imposing additional license requirements. EDA companies are assessing the impact. Details on how broad the restrictions will be are still pending.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will require Synopsys and Ansys to divest key software assets — including optical, photonic, and RTL power analysis tools — to Keysight Technologies to resolve antitrust concerns over their proposed $35 billion merger.

The Semiconductor Industry Association published a 2025 Factbook, providing analysis and key metrics on the U.S. chip industry, as well as comparisons to other countries.

Fig.1: Global market share of semiconductor shipments in 2024. Source: SIA’s 2025 Factbook

McKinsey’s recent report, “The effects of tariffs on the semiconductor industry,” offers mitigation strategies to semiconductor leaders, highlighting a general quandary — whether to absorb the tariff cost increases or pass them on to customers, in the midst of shifting policies. [Tariffs are currently under review by U.S. courts.]

Meanwhile, China and Europe pledged to deepen cooperation in the semiconductor sector. At a recent meeting with China’s Ministry of Commerce, officials and representatives from more than 40 semiconductor companies highlighted the importance of open trade, mutual understanding, and joint efforts to support global economic recovery amid rising geopolitical uncertainties.

ASE introduced a fan-out chip-on-substrate (FoCoS) bridge with through-silicon vias, which the company says reduces power loss by 3X. The packaging technology is aimed at next-gen AI and HPC applications.

Belgium-based imec highlighted its 300mm RF silicon interposer platform, which enables seamless integration of RF-to-sub-THz CMOS and III/V chiplets on a single carrier, achieving a record-low insertion loss of just 0.73 dB/mm at frequencies up to 325 GHz. The R&D hub also provided details on its curvilinear manufacturing solution for advanced logic chips.

Earnings this week: Marvell Technology, Nordson, NVIDIA, Synopsys, Soitec, Semtech.

Quick links to more news:

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

Global

Europe:

• TSMC  announced a new Munich Design Centre to support EU customers in designing high-density, high-performance and energy-efficient chips for auto, industrial, AI, and IoT, per the WSJ.
• EnSilica opened an engineering facility in Cambridge, UK, expanding its existing mmWave/RFIC design capabilities.

Mideast/Asia:

• The Center for European Policy Analysis weighs in on “Mideast AI Bonanza Risks Undercutting US Chip Controls.“
• NVIDIA is expected to launch a special edition of its RTX PRO 6000 GPU tailored for China’s AI market, in response to recent U.S. export restrictions, reports TrendForce. This version will feature GDDR7 memory instead of the originally intended HBM3e in an effort to comply with the new regulations.
• The Jamestown Foundation research firm asserts China is on a path to dominate production of legacy chips, prioritizing “market dominance over profitability.”
• Think tank CSET issued a brief on Wuhan’s AI Development, escalating concerns about China’s approach to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and its “early infusion” into industry and society.

USA:

• Mosaic Microsystems and NHanced Semiconductors joined Siemens’ OSAT Alliance initiative to build a secure domestic semiconductor industry in the U.S.
• Idaho National Laboratory received federal government priority rating to expedite the construction of microreactor test beds, following Trump’s executive order last week to hasten nuclear energy.
• The DOE announced a deal with Dell Technologies to develop a new NERSC-10 supercomputer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory powered by NVIDIA‘s next-gen Vera Rubin technology.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Systems and Design newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Optimizing Data Movement
• A Balanced Approach To Verification
• Executive Outlook: Chiplets, 3D-ICs, and AI

More reporting this week:

• Optical Interconnectivity At 224 Gbps

Also, Semiconductor Engineering’s latest eBook on advanced-packaging fundamentals, is now available. It’s intended as a reference for engineers who want to come up to speed on advanced-packaging basics quickly. And this one is free, requiring only an email address to subscribe (or re-subscribe) to our email list.

Markets and Money

Deals:

• AMD acquired Silicon Valley startup Enosemi to advance co-packaged optics and photonic integrated circuits in AI data centers.
• Drut Technologies is collaborating with Ranovus on co-packaged optics for AI, ML and HPC computing clusters.
• Infineon and Ather Energy signed an MoU to drive innovation in the EV industry in India.
• EdgeMode acquired Synthesis Analytics Production, gaining a 95MW power contract, strategic data center site, and cooling technology aimed at the AI and HPC data center market.

Fundings:

• Natcast finalized its $30 million funding of AI-driven RFIC projects, led by Keysight, Princeton University and Univ. of Texas Austin.
• SCI Semiconductor, a UK start-up, raised £2.5m to develop its security-enhanced microcontroller based on the memory securing framework CHERI.
• The Northeast Microelectronics Coalition launched its third round of funding, offering $4 million to support IC manufacturing.

Reports/ forecasts:

• NAND flash suppliers saw a 15% QoQ decline in average selling price and a 7% drop in shipment volume.
• Enterprise SSD demand in North America is expected to grow in Q3 2025, shifting toward undersupply of inventory and a possible price increase of up to 10% QoQ.
• Total HBM shipments are expected to comprise 30 billion gigabits in 2026 and HBM4’s market share to overtake HBM3e as the mainstream solution by H2 2026.
• The global market for quartz fabricated parts used in semiconductor manufacturing is forecast to grow nearly 10% in 2025, reaching $2.33 billion.

Product News

Infineon launched its new family of radiation-hardened transistors, including one of the first DLA JANS-certified GaN devices.

Huawei announced a Supernode computing architecture based on its Ascend AI processors, aimed at alleviating bottlenecks in data centers and to get around U.S. export restrictions of NVIDIA chips, reports the South China Morning Post.

Marvell unveiled a novel multi-die packaging platform designed to enhance custom AI accelerators by enabling 2.8 times larger multi-chip designs compared to traditional single-die implementations.

xMEMS Labs expanded its µCooling fan-on-a-chip platform to solid-state drives, enabling in-drive active cooling for enterprise E3.S form factor SSDs used in AI data centers and NVMe M.2 SSDs used in laptop PCs.

AAEON introduced Intel Core 3 processing to its UP Squared board lines, one aimed at industrial applications and another built for low power inferencing and machine vision applications with 16GB of soldered LPDDR5.

Aeluma and Thorlabs announced a breakthrough in silicon photonics manufacturing with a large-diameter wafer platform that integrates aluminum gallium arsenide onto standard 200mm CMOS wafers, paving the way for scalable quantum photonic circuits.

Research

Researchers at Purdue developed a way to stack chips using microscopic TSVs as vertical connectors.

Rice University materials scientists and partners created a genuine 2D hybrid by chemically integrating graphene and silica glass into a single, stable compound called glaphene, with potential for next-gen electronics, photonics, and quantum devices.

imec reported on next-gen AI and next-gen challenges, saying some models need CPUs, some GPUs, while others currently lack the right processors.

Clemson University researchers created a new polymer, pTPADTP, that could make AI more energy-efficient and cost-effective by transforming how computers process and store information.

Researchers at Texas A&M are working to source rare earth elements from discarded electronics, in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and industry partners, using a new solid-phase extraction technology.

Quantum research:

• A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrated that quantum computers can efficiently simulate complex optical circuits.
• IBM Quantum and Lockheed Martin researchers showed how a quantum computer can model the electronic structure of “open-shell” molecules, which contain one or more unpaired electrons, with potential for aerospace, sensing, and materials design.
• Aeluma and Thorlabs unveiled a large-diameter wafer manufacturing platform for quantum computing and communication.

Find more chip industry research here.

Security

BTQ Technologies and ICTK signed an MoU to advance quantum-secure hardware solutions. BTQ will combine cryptographic expertise with ICTK’s secure chip technologies.

CSIS released guidance related to criteria for cyber situational awareness, which encompasses AI tools, data collection, intelligence infrastructure and more.

Recent security research:

• When Mitigations Backfire: Timing Channel Attacks and Defense for PRAC-Based RowHammer Mitigations (Univ. of British Columbia, et. al.)
• Understanding the Security Landscape of Embedded Non-Volatile Memories: A Comprehensive Survey (Auburn Univ.)
• IC Backside Tamper Detection using Impedance Sensing (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
• A systematic literature review of log-correlation tools for cyberattack detection and prediction in large networks (Univ. of Aberdeen, et. al.)
• Quantum Internet, Governance, Trust, and the Promise of Secure Communication: On building a Quantum Internet that will be used (TU Delft, et. al.)
• How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits (Google Quantum AI)

CISA issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Education and Training

MIT launched the Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM), a comprehensive effort to revitalize U.S. manufacturing by integrating cutting-edge technologies, boosting productivity, and creating high-quality jobs. Backed by founding industry members like Siemens and GE Vernova, INM will focus on AI-driven research, education, and partnerships to transform manufacturing across sectors including semiconductors, bio-manufacturing, and energy.

Ohio University Lancaster created a specialized Semiconductor Technician Certificate, which will begin training students this fall to help meet the demand of the state’s growing manufacturing industry.

Siemens’ micro-credential program was recognized by ABET, an assurance agency responsible for the accreditation of STEM academic programs. This marks the first industry credential to receive the recognition.

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here, including these topics: smart manufacturing enabled by simulation, transforming RF PCB design, modern EDA solutions for scalable heterogeneous systems.

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