Chip Industry Week in Review

Apple plans to increase its U.S. investment by an additional $100 billion over four years, which includes the launch of an advanced manufacturing supply chain program, spurring a number of related chip industry announcements, including:

• Apple will invest in Amkor’s new packaging and test facility in Arizona as its first and largest customer, and Amkor will package and test Apple silicon produced at the nearby TSMC Arizona fab.
• GlobalFoundries and Apple will collaborate to manufacture wireless technologies and advanced power management, and accelerate investments in GF’s Malta, New York facility.
• Coherent announced a multi-year supply agreement with Apple to produce VCSELs to enable Face ID on iPhones and iPads.
• Texas Instruments and Apple are expanding their partnership, using TI’s newest 300mm wafer fabs in Texas and Utah to manufacture chips for Apple products.
• Applied Materials will provide Apple’s partner TI with equipment, and Applied also plans to build a $200 million equipment facility in Arizona.
• GlobalWafers America will make advanced 300mm wafers to produce chips for iPhone and iPad devices.
• Other partners include Corning, Samsung and Broadcom.

Si2 announced the formation of an LLM benchmarking coalition aimed at speeding the development of LLMs for chip design. The coalition will build on the Silicon Integration Initiative’s Comprehensive Verilog Design Problems benchmark, which evaluates LLMs for RTL and verification problems.

The U.S. is threatening 100% tariffs on chips, but some major companies, including Samsung, SK hynix, and TSMC, as well as those in the EU and Japan, may be spared if companies build factories in the U.S. Details are scarce, once again, which is causing confusion in the industry. SIA‘s response is here.

In a jarringly unprecedented announcement, President Trump demanded the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, claiming he is “highly conflicted” due to reported ties to numerous Chinese companies. Tan is a naturalized US citizen born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore, who is credited with successfully turning around Cadence while he was CEO from 2009 to 2021. That, plus his deep global relationships and technology leadership, were key reasons why he was selected as Intel’s CEO. Tan’s response to Trump: “We are engaging with the Administration to address the matters that have been raised and ensure they have the facts. I fully share the President’s commitment to advancing U.S. national and economic security, I appreciate his leadership to advance these priorities, and I’m proud to lead a company that is so central to these goals. “

Global semiconductor sales hit $179.7 billion during the second quarter of 2025, an increase of 7.8% compared to Q1, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. June sales were $59.9 billion, up 19.6% compared to the same month last year. For the first two quarters of 2025, the global semiconductor billings hit $346 billion, according to the WSTS organization, marking a nearly 19% increase year-over-year. Looking forward, WSTS revised the 2025 forecast upward to $728 billion, a 15% increase versus 2024, and an outlook of $800 billion in 2026.

Fig. 1: Global semiconductor market (in $US billion) by year, including 2025-2028 forecast.  YoY growth in percent. Source: By permission of World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS)

A rash of events involving stolen data and chips at prominent companies is rankling the industry:

• Two Chinese nationals were arrested on a federal criminal complaint, which alleges they knowingly exported tens of millions of dollars’ worth of sensitive microchips used in AI applications to China, including those belonging to NVIDIA, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
• A Shanghai court sentenced 14 former Huawei employees for stealing chip-related secrets from the company. The employees worked for Zunpai.
• Taiwan prosecutors arrested six people who were current or former employees of TSMC, on suspicion of stealing trade secrets and obtaining core technology from the company. The company fired several employees recently for trying to obtain critical information on 2nm chip development.

Teradyne unveiled a memory tester designed to test HBM stacks that contain both logic base dies and DRAM dies. It also supports testing of pre-singulated HBM devices at the Known-Good-Stack-Die (KGSD) or Chip-on-Wafer level, with traditional probers and probe cards, as well as post-singulated HBM with new bare-die probers/handlers.

Nordson Test & Inspection announced plans to introduce a 3D auto-centering system next month to capture dimensional offset data and speed up centering of wafer transfer positions.

This week’s financial releases:  AMD, Arteris, Bruker, GlobalFoundries, Infineon, Lattice, Microchip, Navitas, Onto Innovation, onsemi, PDF Solutions, Silvaco, Skywater Technology, Skyworks Solutions, SMIC, Supermicro, Synaptics,  Tower, and TSMC (July revenue).

Quick links to more news:

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

Global

Americas:

• Thousands of U.S. export license approvals are backlogged, including NVIDIA AI chips, reports Reuters. It’s the lengthiest backlog in decades.
• The SIA provided its feedback to the U.S. Section 232 investigation of imports of polysilicon and derivatives, urging care in crafting trade polices.
• Arizona State University is collaborating with the University of Michigan to establish the Center for Digital Twins in Manufacturing.

Asia:

• Coherent opened a $127 million facility in Vietnam to produce silicon carbide and photonics components.
• Alcoa and Japan Gallium Associates are jointly exploring gallium mineral production in Western Australia.
• Chinese automakers are pushing for in-house/in-country chips amid U.S. export restrictions.
• The Taiwan government is investigating 16 Chinese companies for illegally poaching engineers, reports Nikkei Asia.

Europe

• The German district court ruled in favor of Infineon in the patent infringement case against Innoscience concerning GaN technology.
• Policy institute CEPA says Europe is playing to win the “AI Small Data Race” by its focus on compilation of accessible and useful small data, despite spending only 4% of what the U.S. spends on AI.
• Despite its controversy, the EU AI Act clarified obligations and “supplied future decision-makers with a playbook for democratically making decisions about AI,” argues British think tank Chatham House.

In-Depth 

Semiconductor Engineering published its Automotive, Security and Enabling Technologies newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• AI Drives More Realistic Gaming
• Agentic AI: Lots Of Little Black Boxes
• SDVs And AI Forcing Big Changes In Automotive
• Security Tradeoffs: A Difficult Balance

More reporting this week:

• Video: Issues In Ramping Advanced Packaging
• Can Cheaper Lasers Handle Short Distances?
• Opinion: Is There Still a Future for Hard Disk Drives?

Markets and Money

Deals

• AMD licensed Arteris’ FlexGen network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP for its next-gen AI chiplet design, providing high-performance data transport in AMD chiplets to power AI across applications, including data centers, edge, and end devices.
• Sandisk and SK hynix signed an MoU to establish the specification for high-bandwidth flash, targeted at next-gen AI inferences.
• Point2 Technology and Foxconn Interconnect Technology signed an MoU to commercialize next-gen active RF cable and near pluggable e-tube solutions, providing higher-performance interconnects for hyperscale data centers.
• Cyient Semiconductors inked a deal to become an authorized reseller of GF‘s semiconductor manufacturing services and technologies.

Funding:

• Oxmiq Labs emerged from stealth with $20 million in funding for its GPU IP that integrates scalar, vector, and tensor compute engines and associated software stack. GPU guru Raja Koduri is the founder and CEO.
• Celera announced $20 million Series A equity investment from Maverick Silicon, aimed at AI-driven automation for the analog chip market.
• SixSense raised $8.5 million for its AI inspection platform for fabs and OSATs that provides automated visual inspection, defect classification, lot disposition, and root cause analysis.

Mergers and Acquisitions:

• Osiris International and Notion Systems merged to combine Osiris’ photolitho process systems with Notion’s industrial inkjet printing tech for semiconductor, MEMS, and more.
• indie Semiconductor will acquire emotion3D GmbH, a Vienna, Austria-based specialist developer of advanced perception algorithms.
• Silvaco completed its acquisition of Mixel.

Reports:

• • A CSIS report makes the case for an associational model of benchmarking as a useful tool in AI governance, especially as it relates to the development of national security measures and general standards going forward with the Trump administration’s AI action plan.
  • More reports: OLED evaporation material (Counterpoint).

New Specs and Standards

• UCIe Consortium introduced the 3.0 specification with 64 GT/s performance and enhanced manageability, in addition to releasing the 2.0 specification, which adds support for a standardized system architecture for manageability.
• The Open Compute Project Foundation released a new Universal D2D Transaction and Link-Layer specification that now also covers UCIe. “The universal link layer uniquely defines profiles that allow customization of the mapping from upper-level transaction layer services to the underlying PHY via link layer services, allowing choice of PHY without affecting other layers,” per the release.
• MIPI Alliance released the MIPI I3C Basic v1.2, a scalable utility and control bus interface for connecting peripherals to a microcontroller or an application processor, streamlining integration and improving cost efficiencies.
• PCI-SIG’s PCI Express (PCIe) 8.0 specification, planned for release to members by 2028, will double the data of the PCIe 7.0 specification to 256.0 GT/s.

Product News

Broadcom is shipping the Jericho4 Ethernet fabric router, enabling distributed AI computing across data centers. It is designed to interconnect more than 1 million XPUs across multiple data centers, boosting scaling limits, bandwidth, and security, with lossless performance.

Edgewater Wireless Systems initiated prototyping of its next-gen Wi-Fi baseband chip, featuring Arm Cortex CPUs and Ethos NPUs in its AI-driven Spectrum Slicing platform, which brings machine learning to the Wi-Fi edge for intelligent connectivity.

OpenAI released two open-weight language models, gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, under the Apache 2.0 license, and Cerebras announced inference support for gpt-oss-120B.

BrainChip introduced a cloud-based access point for multiple generations and configurations of the company’s Akida neuromorphic technology.

Manufacturing/Test

• Siemens launched its PartQuest Design Enablement portfolio, a data-driven digital environment for electronic component manufacturers that connects product discovery, interactive content, BOM intelligence, collaboration, and digital support.
• ASE will deploy Ainos’ AI Nose scent digitization technology to improve process stability, support predictive maintenance, and increase operational safety in three of its manufacturing sites.
• Introspect Technology released DDR, LPDDR, and GDDR memory integrated-tip interposers for oscilloscope probing and protocol analyzer probing.
• AGY announced a new low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) glass fiber engineered for advanced packaging substrates and chip packaging in next-generation AI hardware.
• Indium Corporation debuted a new water-soluble flip-chip dipping flux with high tackiness for compatibility with molded and capillary underfill.

Deployments/ Adoptions/ Certifications

• Baya Systems’ high-performance semiconductor system technologies achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification, issued by TÜV Rheinland North America.
• Himax deployed Cadence’s Cerebrus Intelligent Chip Explorer, which uses AI and automation to optimize chip design flows and speed up product development.
• Fortinet selected Keysight’s BreakingPoint QuickTest network application and security test tool to validate secure sockets layer (SSL) deep packet inspection performance capabilities and security of its FortiGate 700G series next-gen firewall.
• Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian private space launch service company, has adopted Polarion software from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio.
• Mach42 introduced an AI Solution for analog circuit analysis using Cadence‘s Spectre Simulation Platform.
• Addverb Technologies, an Indian robotics and warehouse automation solutions company, will also utilize the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to increase automation efficiency.

AI Storage

• Microchip launched its Adaptec SmartRAID 4300 series of NVMe RAID storage accelerators, aimed at modern AI data center environments. The disaggregated architecture leverages host CPU and PCIe infrastructure to overcome traditional storage bottlenecks.
• MIT spin-off Cloudian developed a scalable AI storage system that helps data flow seamlessly between storage and AI models, consolidating AI functions and data onto a single parallel-processing platform that stores, retrieves, and processes scalable datasets, with direct, high-speed transfers between storage and GPUs and CPUs.
• Phison and Supermicro are collaborating to deliver storage density for AI and hyperscale workloads.
• MangoBoost demonstrated line-rate throughput over a 400G Ethernet fabric using its DPU-based AI training storage solution in MLPerf Storage v2.0, providing near-local SSD performance for distributed AI workloads.

Research

A new 3D-IC technical paper titled “In Situ Atomic-Scale Investigation of Electromigration Behavior in Cu–Cu Joints at High Current Density” was published by researchers at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

Aledia, Pollen, and the University of Clermont Auvergne used AI to optimize epitaxy processes for microLED production.

UC San Diego researchers developed a method to characterize lithium metal battery performance with the help of an imaging tool, scanning electron microscopy.

Researchers at UC Berkeley harnessed vanadium dioxide, a compound known for its ability to shift between insulating and metallic states, to help electronic sensors more efficiently interface with wet, salty systems.

Find much more semiconductor research in SE’s technical paper library, with this week’s new additions here.

Automotive and Batteries

GlobalFoundries advanced its China-for-China strategy by entering into a definitive agreement with a local foundry to support GF’s customers with a reliable supply in mainland China. Included is GF’s automotive-grade process technology, which will be available for domestic Chinese demand.

Softbank is acquiring Foxconn’s EV plan in Ohio, with plans to jumpstart Softbank’s Stargate data center project, reports Bloomberg.

Korea’s SK plans to accelerate development of technologies in its battery unit, in partnership with US and European carmakers.

Wolfspeed announced the appointment of Bret Zahn as vice president and general manager of its automotive business.

Tesla and Elon Musk were sued by shareholders for withholding information about the safety of Tesla’s robo-taxis. Tesla was also found partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology. The company has to pay more than $240M in damages.

Chinese company Baidu will supply self-driving cars assembled by Jiangling Motors to Lyft, with operation expected to start next year in Germany and Britain.

Research:

• Research Challenges and Progress in the End-to-End V2X Cooperative Autonomous Driving Competition (Tsinghua, HK Univ., Stanford, TU Munich et al.)
• A Closed-Loop Benchmark for Vision-language Models in Autonomous Driving
• mmWave Radar-Based Non-Line-of-Sight Pedestrian Localization at T-Junctions Utilizing Road Layout Extraction via Camera (Seoul National Univ., Samsung et al.)

Security

U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced bipartisan legislation to help prepare the federal government for emerging quantum cybersecurity threats.

Recent security updates:

• NVIDIA released a software update for the Triton Inference Server to address the issue disclosed in this bulletin.
• Dell’s SupportAssist OS Recovery has multiple vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors.
• CISA released a Malware Analysis Report with analysis and associated detection signatures on files related to Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities.

Research:

• Two-tier Framework with AutoML for Detection and Classification of Multiple Types of Anomalies in Intrusion Attacks (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung Univ.)
• Tussle in Home IoT: Conflicting Requirements and Pathways to Resolution (The City College of New York, Tufts University)
• GPU in the Blind Spot: Overlooked Security Risks in Transportation (Clemson Univ.)

Silicon Labs’ Series 3 Secure Vault security subsystem on the SiXG301 SoC has achieved the first PSA Level 4 certification.

CISA issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Quantum

QuamCore raised $26 million to build a superconducting quantum computer that scales to 1 million qubits in a single cryostat.

The Japanese government plans to invest about 50 billion yen (~$335 million) to accelerate the industrialization of its domestic quantum technology sector, with support for more than 10 companies developing quantum hardware, software, and operating systems, including Fujitsu and KDDI, reports Quantum Insider.

D-Wave Quantum released an open-source toolkit that integrates quantum systems into AI model training and other developer tools.

Post-quantum security company SEALSQ completed its acquisition of ASIC/SoC development services firm IC’ALPS.

Research:

• Terra Quantum, Université de Sherbrooke, Caltech et al. published Tensor networks for quantum computing.
• IBM researchers say they devised the fastest, most accurate decoding algorithm, called Relay-BP, for quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) code error correction in existence. The company also wrote a blog about algorithm development.
• A Yonsei University-led team of researchers from South Korea and the U.S. reported the first experimental measurement of the quantum distance.
• USC researchers found a new anyon, called a “neglecton,” which allows for universal computation using braiding alone. It is expected to be more resistant to noise and interference than conventional qubits.

Events and Further Reading

Upcoming webinars are here, including:

• Digital Twins for Operations and Sustainment (August 12)
• Optimizing Thermal Designs (August 12)
• GPU-Accelerated Atomistic Simulations for Semiconductor Manufacturing (August 12)

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

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Test, Measurement and Analytics
Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials