Chip Industry Week In Review

By The SE Staff - 08 Nov, 2024 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor global sales increased 23% in Q3 2024 $166B, up almost 11% versus the same period in 2023, according to SIA. Notable regional year-to-year sales in September: Americas up 46%, China up 23%, Europe down 8%. Fig.1: Worldwide Semiconductor Revenues, year-to-year % change. Source: Semiconductor Industry Association, as compiled by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization... » read more

Startup Funding: June 2023

By Jesse Allen - 10 Jul, 2023 - Comments: 0

June saw several large funding rounds, with seven of at least $100 million. Over half a billion dollars alone went to a Chinese company manufacturing silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors. The wide band gap material has seen steady interest from investors, particularly for its potential use in electric vehicles. Another of the month's mega-rounds went to a company designing RISC-V SoCs ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power

By Jesse Allen - 16 Dec, 2022 - Comments: 0

Power always has been a function of cost. The more power required, the more it costs to run a device, both in dollars and carbon footprint. This makes the breakthrough in fusion ignition at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory all the more noteworthy, and one that could have significant implications for the future of computing, from data centers to rechargeable batteries in automobiles, robot... » read more

Startup Funding: June 2022

By Jesse Allen - 06 Jul, 2022 - Comments: 0

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

Technical Paper Round-up: May 17

By Linda Christensen - 17 May, 2022 - Comments: 0

New technical papers added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library this week. [table id=27 /] Semiconductor Engineering is in the process of building this library of research papers. Please send suggestions (via comments section below) for what else you’d like us to incorporate. If you have research papers you are trying to promote, we will review them to see if they are a go... » read more

Thinning of GaN-on-GaN HEMTs With A Laser Slicing Technique

By Technical Paper Link - 09 May, 2022 - Comments: 0

New technical paper "Laser slice thinning of GaN-on-GaN high electron mobility transistors" from researchers at Nagoya University, Hamamatsu Photonics, and National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba. Abstract "As a newly developed technique to slice GaN substrates, which are currently very expensive, with less loss, we previously reported a laser slicing technique in this journal. In... » read more

Startup Funding: January 2021

By Jesse Allen - 03 Feb, 2021 - Comments: 0

Over $800M in funding went to companies developing autonomous driving technology, from self-driving-focused AI chips to full vehicles and aftermarket solutions. A couple electric vehicle manufacturers stood out this month, with investors putting large backing behind US-based Rivian and China-based Leapmotor. And with EVs come lots of batteries: funding went to a few startups trying out new batt... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing

By Mark LaPedus - 29 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers Who will buy Toshiba’s memory business? In the latest of what is becoming a confusing saga, Toshiba has signed a deal to sell its memory unit to a group led by Bain Capital. The Bain-led consortium will hold a 49.9% stake in the memory unit, while Toshiba will hold 40.2% and Japan’s Hoya will own 9.9%. Other members in the group include Apple, Dell, Kingston, and Seagate. In add... » read more

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Intel Vs. Samsung Vs. TSMC

Foundry competition heats up in three dimensions and with novel technologies as planar scaling benefits diminish.

by Ed Sperling

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

Legacy Process Nodes Going Strong

The critical, and growing, significance of mature node chips and processes.

by Bryon Moyer

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters