Startup Funding: Q3 2024


Numerous new companies burst on the scene in the third quarter of 2024, including startups with plans for customizable RISC-V-based IP for applications from microcontrollers to data centers, high-speed data center interconnects, compute-in-memory LLM inference chips, and surveillance camera SoCs. Although it did not report funding, AheadComputing also launched last quarter to develop RISC-V cor... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Three Fraunhofer Institutes (IIS/EAS, IZM, and ENAS) launched the Chiplet Center of Excellence, a research initiative to support the commercial introduction of chiplet technology. The center initially will focus on automotive electronics, developing workflows and methods for electronics design, demonstrator construction, and the evaluation of reliability. The UCIe Consortium published the Un... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Jesse Allen, Gregory Haley, and Liz Allan. The Japanese government approved $3.9 billion in funding for chipmaker Rapidus to expand its foundry business, of which 10% will be invested in advanced packaging. This is in addition to the previously announced $2.18 billion in funding. In a meeting next week, the U.S. and Japan are expected to cooperate on increasing semiconductor development a... » read more

Week In Review: Automotive, Security and Pervasive Computing


The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety estimates that between 2021 and 2050, ADAS technologies currently available to U.S. will prevent "approximately 37 million crashes, 14 million injuries, and nearly 250,000 deaths, which would represent 16% of crashes and injuries, and 22% of deaths that would otherwise occur on U.S. roads without these technologies," according to a new report. Governmen... » read more

Startup Funding: April 2021


April showers brought mega fundraising rounds to the semiconductor industry. In China, a mobile chipset maker looking to go public won significant funding along with partnerships with major smartphone companies. In the US, AI hardware startups are drawing interest with unique processor architectures and business models. Plus, a major test and design services company drew new investment. This mo... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Security Synopsys’ Cybersecurity Research Center disclosed that its research resulted in three Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE) advisories on wireless router chipsets that have partial authentication bypass vulnerabilities. The vulnerability lets an attacker send an unencrypted data frame through a WPA2-protected WLAN, which will may respond with an encrypted data frame that the atta... » read more

Startup Funding: August 2020


Semiconductor startups were hot this month, with big funding going to designers and chip analytics. In automotive, one Chinese electric vehicle company raised another large round right before its IPO, and a LiDar maker's reverse merger gave it a cash infusion and set it on its own IPO road. Plus, a growing quantum computer developer saw a funding boost. This month, we feature 17 startups that c... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Pervasive computing — data center, edge, IoT Maxim Integrated’s new USB-C Power Delivery products — the MAX77958 USB-C PD controller and the MAX77962 28W buck-boost charger — are aimed at devices, such as IoT or mobile phones, that need more power or for fast charging. To shave time off development and cost when changing from single-cell to two-series cell architectures, these are USB-... » read more

Auto Chip Reliability Opens Door To Other Industries


Digital chips in the semiconductor industry evolve from each other. Ideas flow into each other over the years, with occasional big leaps in evolution. The term ‘evolution’ fits because one chip evolves to perfectly optimized for one industry niche. But what happens when one industry’s chip becomes a useful for other industries because it is more cost-effective than what is being used i... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Pervasive computing — data center, edge, IoT, 5G Qualcomm settled its 5G licensing disagreement with Huawei, which will pay $1.8 billion in back royalties and will pay for licensing going forward. Huawei is also now the world’s largest supplier of smartphones, surpassing Samsung Electronics Co. Qualcomm also announced a super-fast charging platform this week for Android devices that is sup... » read more

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