Chip Industry Week in Review


Intel hired ex-Qualcomm GPU guru Eric Demers for the company's high-performance GPU push, setting the stage for a three-way battle with Nvidia and AMD. The key targets for Intel and AMD will be better power efficiency and a programming model that rivals CUDA, but don't expect Nvidia to stand still. Acquisitions Texas Instruments plans to acquire Silicon Labs for ~$7.5B cash to enhance i... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Big deals and fundings Teradyne and MultiLane are forming a joint venture, MultiLane Test Products (MLTP), to accelerate the development of test solutions for high speed data connections.  Teradyne will be the majority owner. Ricursive Intelligence raised $300M Series A for AI-driven IC design. IonQ plans to acquire SkyWater for ~$1.8B, creating a "vertically integrated full-stack q... » read more

Chip Industry Technical Paper Roundup: Jan. 27


New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: [table id=517 /] Find more semiconductor research papers here. » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Geopolitics Taiwan and the U.S. signed a trade agreement this week, with TSMC and other Taiwanese companies collectively pledging to directly invest at least $250B in investments in advanced semiconductor, energy and AI production and capacity in the U.S.  The agreement also included Taiwan providing another $250B in credit guarantees for additional IC supply chain expansions in the U.S., cap... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Space Forge autonomously generated plasma aboard its ForgeStar-1 satellite, utilizing extreme low Earth orbit (LEO) conditions needed for gas-phase crystal growth of wide- and ultra-wide bandgap materials, GaN, SiC, aluminum nitride, and diamonds. Copper prices surged to a historic record of $12,600 per metric ton, an increase of more than 40% YOY, which will impact the cost of data center b... » read more

Benefits And Limits Of Using ML For Materials Discovery


Machine learning tools can accelerate all stages of materials discovery, from initial screening to process development. Whether the goal is to identify new applications for known materials or to design new molecules for a particular task, these tools help materials scientists find correlations in large data libraries. Still, machine learning tools are not magic. “Software tools are only as... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Major Deals: Taiwan-based UMC is exploring possible collaboration with Polar Semiconductor for high-volume production of 8-inch wafers at Polar’s expanded Minnesota fab, a move that could provide domestic manufacturing capacity for automotive, data center, consumer, aerospace, and defense customers. Marvell will acquire Celestial AI for $3.25B, adding photonic fabric technology for o... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


China's Hefei Lumiverse Technology reportedly has developed a desktop-sized High Harmonic Generation light source that generates wavelengths as small as 1nm. One customer already has used it to produce 14nm chips, which was the original target node for EUV, according to one report. As a point of comparison, TSMC and Samsung didn't start using EUV until the 7nm node, relying instead on immersion... » read more

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


SK hynix is ramping HBM manufacturing capacity to meet explosive demand for AI data centers. The company will launch 16-stack HBM4 next year, and up to 12-stack HBM4E. HBM5 and HBM5E will be introduced between 2029 and 2031, reports Business Korea. China will not have access to NVIDIA’s most advanced chips, President Trump told 60 Minutes. The Dutch economy minister said Nexperia's chip... » read more

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