Chip Industry Week in Review


Samsung reportedly is hiking memory chip prices by 30% to 60% due to high demand from AI data centers and constrained supplies. Those shortages are causing ripples elsewhere. SMIC, China's largest foundry, said its customers are holding back orders for other types of semiconductor due to concerns about memory supplies. Meanwhile, interest in photonics and power semiconductors is picking up, ... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


San Francisco-based Substrate raised more than $100 million to build a vertically integrated foundry that uses particle accelerators to produce "the world's brightest beams, enabling a new method of advanced X-ray lithography." The company claims its technology is comparable to ASML's high NA EUV, and notes it can extend well beyond 2nm. ASML has not publicly commented. The Nexperia chip sho... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


The Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit kicked off this week in San Jose, dominated by open standards, massive scaling of AI infrastructure, chiplet architectures, and energy-efficiency. Among the highlights: An initiative to standardize data center infrastructure and advance Ethernet for AI. New contributions to OCP's Open Chiplet Economy ecosystem, including Arm's new Foundation Chiplet... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Samsung and SK hynix joined OpenAI's Stargate initiative to ensure there will be enough memory chips to meet the needs of AI data centers. The goal is to produce up to 900,000 DRAM wafer starts per month. OpenAI also inked agreements to explore the development of next-gen data centers in Korea. Axcelis Technologies (ion implantation systems) will merge with Veeco Instruments (compound semic... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer warned Southeast Asian semiconductor manufacturers that they must shift production to the U.S. or face new punitive tariffs, reports the South China Morning Post. President Trump previously floated a 100% tariff on imported chips. Malaysia and other regional economies are offering large concessions and promises of U.S. goods purchases in hopes of securin... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Cadence plans to buy Hexagon AB's design and engineering business to accelerate expansion in physical AI and system design and analysis. Cadence will pay ~US$3.1 billion in cash and issue stock, with the deal expected to close in early 2026. PWC issued a 104-page in-depth analysis of semiconductor technology and markets, highlighting a broad swath of changes: $1T in annual revenue by 2030, ... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Microsoft, OpenAI, and NVIDIA warned about power swings and physical damage to power grids increasing from AI training workloads and jointly proposed a multi-pronged approach to stabilize power in AI training data centers. Meanwhile, Anthropic issued a warning about the weaponization of agentic AI in a new 25-page Threat Intelligence report. Key concerns involve the evolution in AI-assisted ... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


The EU’s tariffs on semiconductors will not exceed 15%, according to Trump’s latest trade deal. In addition, the EU committed to purchasing at least $40 billion worth of U.S. AI chips as well as other investments. [FAQ is here.] Lifelines for Intel: Intel inked a deal to sell the U.S. government a 10% non-voting equity stake in its business, worth $8.9 billion. The stake will be fun... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Lines are blurring between government and industry: On the heels of last week's resignation demand, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan met with President Trump on Monday, with the President later saying, "The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story."  Now, Bloomberg reports the Trump administration is in talks with Intel for the U.S. government to take a stake in th... » read more

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 pr... » read more

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