Startup Funding: June 2022


Big money went to manufacturing in June, with a massive round for a Chinese analog foundry’s expansion to 55 – 40nm nodes. A fab management software startup also drew sizeable investment, as did a supplier of semiconductor-grade silicon components. Investors didn’t forget chip design, with three EDA companies receiving new funding, one of which drew over $100 million. Plus, numerous te... » read more

Time To Watch China’s Equipment Efforts


For years, China has been developing its own semiconductor equipment and materials industry. The goal has been to reduce its dependence on foreign equipment and material vendors. Some China-based equipment vendors have made their presence felt. But overall, China’s equipment companies have barely made a dent in the market. Hardly anyone has been paying attention to China’s equipment ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers TSMC has reduced its outlook for 2018 revenue and capital spending, according to Bloomberg. The company blamed the outlook on sluggish “mobile and digital currency mining demand,” according to the report. Samsung has developed the industry’s first 10nm-class 8-gigabit LPDDR5 DRAM. The 8Gb LPDDR5 boasts a data rate of up to 6,400 megabits-per-second (Mb/s), which is 1.5 tim... » read more

China’s Fab Tool Biz Heats Up


For years, China has been a steady growth market for suppliers of semiconductor equipment. Internally, though, the country is comprised of trailing-edge fabs and IC-assembly houses, which means equipment vendors sell relatively mature tools and compete on price. That’s about to change, however. Today, the IC equipment business is heating up in China as the nation begins to upgrade and pour... » read more