Chip Industry Week in Review

[Editor’s Note: Early edition due to the U.S. July 4 holiday.]

The U.S. government lifted export restrictions that barred Synopsys, Siemens EDA, and Cadence from selling EDA tools to China. In a statement, Synopsys said it received a letter from the U.S. Commerce Department immediately rescinding those restrictions. Which tools or hardware accelerated technologies were involved was not immediately clear.

It was a big week for chip industry acquisition news:

• Onto Innovation will buy Semilab’s materials-analysis business for roughly $545 million (cash plus stock), adding four product lines for inline wafer contamination and interface characterization. The deal is expected to close in 2H 2025.
• Tenstorrent acquired Blue Cheetah Analog Design, a maker of customizable die-to-die interconnect IP that Tenstorrent is already licensing for its AI and RISC-V chiplet solutions.
• Synopsys’ proposed acquisition of Ansys received merger clearance in every jurisdiction other than China, where it says it is at an advanced stage in obtaining final regulatory approval.
• RISC-V processor developer Codasip initiated an expedited process to sell the company, or portions of it, following an early expression of interest, a process it intends to complete within the next three months.

Podcast: Inside Chips: The DAC Report. Everything starts with AI — stacked die and chiplets, digital twins, and looming job market changes.

AMD, TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and many equipment suppliers detailed improvements in hybrid bonding, glass core substrates, cooling by microchannels or direct cooling, and heat removal with backside power schemes, at the recent ECTC conference.

Xanadu and Mitsubishi Chemical will jointly develop novel quantum algorithms for simulating quantum processes in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.

Morningstar found that AI accelerators accounted for 20% of the semiconductor market in 2024, with further inroads expected. The firm also concluded that the cyclical downturn in analog/mixed-signal is almost over.

SEMI and TechSearch International rolled out the 2025 Worldwide Assembly & Test Facility Database, expanding coverage to 750 backend sites and adding new fields such as unique facility IDs, device-type columns, and startup years.

NIST focused on potential collusion risks spanning the IC ecosystem, in this week’s report “Analyzing Collusion Threats in the Semiconductor Supply Chain.”

Fig.1: Security challenges in the semiconductor supply chain. Source: NIST

Quick links to more news:

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

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published these top stories this week:

• Special Report: Novel Assembly Approaches For 3D Device Stacks
• Video: Rethinking Scan Chains In Semiconductor Test

Global

Americas:

• Natcast is looking for public input on a potential research program on co-packaged optical engine development aimed at scaling AI and HPC infrastructure. The deadline is July 29.
• The latest round of the U.S. Senate tax legislation includes a 35% tax credit, providing chip manufacturers break ground in the U.S. before 2026.
• The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) published a policy report and summary, outlining the four key CHIPS R&D programs and warning U.S. leadership could be displaced without critical federal funding.

Asia:

• Chinese GPU start-ups Moore Threads and MetaX filed STAR-Market prospectuses to raise a combined 12 billion yuan (~US $1.7 billion), reports Reuters. Both companies say U.S. export curbs on advanced NVIDIA chips are pushing Chinese customers toward home-grown processors, creating a window for growth.
• Huawei open-sourced two AI models under its Pangu series, in addition to some of its model reasoning technology.
• China’s investment in R&D grew almost twice as fast as the U.S. in spending from 2019 to 2023. In order to avoid losing the techno-economic war with China, a new report from the think tank ITIF urges the U.S. Congress to fully fund the National Science Foundation’s Technology, Innovation, and Partnership program with at least $1 billion for this fiscal year.

Europe:

• SEMI issued a position paper on the upcoming overhaul of the EU’s REACH chemicals rules, urging regulators to adopt sector-specific derogations, risk-based restrictions, and realistic transition timelines.
• Siemens appointed Vasi Philomin as executive vice president and head of Data & Artificial Intelligence.

Markets and Money

More Deals:

• Accenture purchased Dresden-based SYSTEMA, bringing its 240-strong MES and factory-automation team into the Industry X unit to deepen services for semiconductor manufacturers and other high-tech clients.
• SkyWater closed its purchase of Infineon’s 200mm “Fab 25” in Austin, adding about 400k wafer starts per year and 65nm/high-voltage capability to its all-U.S. foundry network.
• Navitas formed a strategic partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip to launch 200mm GaN-on-silicon manufacturing at Fab 8B. Navitas aims to qualify initial 100 V devices in Q4 and ramp volume production in 1H 2026.

Funding:

• Lidrotec raised $13.5 million for its liquid-mediated laser dicing equipment for chip singulation.
• PhotonPath raised €5.1 million (~$5.9M) for its integrated photonics chipsets and plug-and-play modules.

Wolfspeed filed a pre-packaged Chapter 11 plan backed by the vast majority of its lenders, including 97% of senior secured noteholders and Renesas’ U.S. arm.

Reports:

• Emphasizing “there is no AI without energy and resilient power infrastructure,” CSIS’ Shashwat Kumar urged the ‘Quad’ countries (U.S., Japan, India, Australia) in advance of a key meeting to “prioritize resilient power equipment supply chains to ensure China is not able to use trade embargoes on these products to erode our competitive abilities.”
• Other recent reports:
  • Wet Chemicals (TECHCET)
  • Scope 3 Category 11 GHG Assessment (guidance for emissions reporting for the IC value chain, SEMI)
  • U.S. Federal Investments in Quantum Technology Research and Infrastructure (CSIS)

Security

The Japanese government will create guidelines to mitigate the risk and damage of cyberattacks on semiconductor plants. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will consider compliance with the new guidelines a requirement for receiving chip plant subsidies. 

Samsung’s Knox Vault is a HW-based solution for sensitive information, storing personal information in a secure HW-isolated environment blocking both physical tampering and remote attacks.

Recent security research:

• FastPath: A Hybrid Approach for Efficient Hardware Security Verification (RPTU, UCSD)
• DREAM: Enabling Low-Overhead Rowhammer Mitigation via Directed Refresh Management (Georgia Tech)
• Sudoku: Decomposing DRAM Address Mapping into Component Functions (Seoul National University, et al.)
• Cybersecurity AI: The Dangerous Gap Between Automation and Autonomy (Alias Robotics)

TxOne’s Jim Montgomery discusses how NIST’s CSF 2.0 Community Profile offers ways for semiconductor manufacturers to identify and mitigate cybersecurity threats.

HackTheSilicon — a hardware security contest where computer scientists and industry experts explore security vulnerabilities in SoC designs — will hold its next event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from September 13-15.

CISA issued a number of new alerts/advisories.

Research

Researchers at Penn State developed high-performance p-type 2D field-effect transistors using bi-layer WSe₂ and nitric oxide doping, advancing the integration of 2D materials into CMOS technology.

Researchers at Georgia Tech will send 18 photovoltaic cells to the International Space Station for a study on how space conditions affect the devices’ operation over time.

EPFL scientists built the first self-illuminating biosensor using quantum physics to detect the presence of biomolecules without the need for an external light source.

Find more chip industry research here.

Education and Training

Sandia National Laboratories will host its second iteration of the Student Intern Group for Microelectronics Advancement this summer. The SIGMA institute provides a class of 12 undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on learning opportunities and mentorship.

Fig.2: Sandia National Labs intern remotely operates a device to test the effect of temperature on brain-inspired computing devices. (Photo by Craig Fritz) 

Chinese university students flock toward engineering programs to ensure their futures as the country’s high-tech industry grows. More than 600 Chinese universities offer AI undergraduate programs.

The University of Pittsburgh, along with other universities and organizations, joined an initiative to develop evidence-based foundations for understanding the impact of AI on workers and labor markets.

Product News

Infineon announced its scalable GaN manufacturing on 300-millimeter wafers is on track. Customer samples are expected to begin in Q4.

Siemens announced updates for its NX and NX X software, including immersive engineering for mixed reality design and collaboration, and a new AI copilot for design.

UMC clinched two Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards, one for its sustainability reporting and another naming Co-President SC Chien as a “Responsible Business Leader.” The awards highlight the foundry’s circular-economy initiatives, including a planned recycling center that is expected to cut waste by more than 30% a year.

Si2 launched a coalition to improve LLM benchmarking and expedite the development of high-quality LLMs for generating Verilog.

CAST released an IP core that provides lossless data compression using either the LZ4 or the Snappy algorithms.

SignatureIP debuted CXL 3.2 controller IP, along with a Flex Bus port that dynamically supports both PCIe and CXL protocols.

Vehicles and Batteries

Huawei revealed a patent for an EV battery system it claims can achieve nearly 1,900 miles of range and fully charge in 5 minutes.

Briggs Automotive Co. will use Siemens‘ Xcelerator portfolio to develop the next generation of Mono, its single-seater, street-legal race car. Siemens also acquired ebm-papst’s Industrial Drive Technology division, including its integrated mechatronic and driving systems.

Lyten, which makes lithium-sulfur batteries, acquired Northvolt’s Dwa ESS operations in Gdansk, Poland, the largest BESS manufacturing facility in Europe.

Renesas’ RA8P1 MCU established a new performance level for MCUs by combining 1GHz Arm Cortex-M85 and 250MHz Cortex-M33 CPU cores with the Arm Ethos NPU.

Events and Further Reading

Upcoming webinars are here, including:

• Protecting the Supply Chain with Secure Provisioning​
• Analysis Tools and Techniques For Smart Manufacturing Citizen Data Scientists
• Data Center RAS in the Age of AI Computing
• Semiconductor Ecosystem Overview Virtual Training U.S. & EU (SEMI University)

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

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