Chip Industry Week In Review
Onsemi to buy Synaptics; IBM's 7Å chip w/40% more SRAM area; 1nm MoS2 nanotubes; AI pressure points; memory updates; $250M CHIPS Act award; trade secret theft; new advanced packaging site; MEMS capacity; humanoids; earnings.
Executive Outlook: Agentic AI’s Impact On Chip Design
Can engineers trust AI to get everything right in semiconductor design and verification?
Chip Industry Week In Review
Apple-Intel is on, says Trump; Amkor's big win; Intel 18A-P; Amazon to sell its AI chips; Rambus' automotive RoT; Brewer's buy; VLSI Symposium tech; CHIPS Act funding; MIT sensor; RISC-V CPU fuzzing.
Agentic AI Is Changing Data Center Architectures
Standalone GPUs are being replaced by heterogeneous SoCs and chiplets that combine CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs to eliminate memory bottlenecks, reduce latency, and boost efficiency.
I/O Design Challenges Grow In AI Data Centers And HPC Clusters
Physical I/Os can be a chokepoint for high-performance chips and high-speed interconnect protocols, requiring design tradeoffs and extra reliability measures.
Advanced Packaging Limits Come Into Focus
Mechanical and process control limits are now shaping what can be manufactured at scale.
Startup Funding: Q1 2026
Massive rounds for AI, EDA, and manufacturing; 80 startups raise $8.4B.
All AI Data Center Interconnects Will Be Optical Within 5 Years
InP and SiPho join CMOS as critical technologies. Lasers, CPO and OCS will be everywhere (indium phosphide, silicon photonics, co-packaged optics, optical circuit switch).
The Sub-2nm Paradox
Reducing variation in manufacturing, monitoring behavior over time, and targeting specific workloads can have a big impact on power, performance, and area/cost.
When Semiconductor Materials Misbehave
The gap between lab performance and fab reality is growing wider as packages grow more complex.
TSMC Tech Symposium 2026, By The Numbers
Foundry rolls out aggressive new roadmap, focusing on area, power, and latency.
CPO Is Extending The Limits Of What’s Possible In AI Data Centers
Co-packaged optics technology will have a big impact on system power and the cost of data movement.
Silicon Photonics Lights The Way To More Efficient Data Centers
Optical is the future, but getting there is harder than it looks.
