tag: Nearfield Instruments

Startup Funding: Q2 2026
By Jesse Allen - 13 Jul, 2026 - Comments: 0

Investors kept pouring money into AI hardware startups in the second quarter of 2026. While companies focused on chips for AI data centers have largely dominated the funding over the past year, startups creating edge silicon re-emerged this quarter as investors see the appeal of physical AI and real-time on-device applications. However, large-scale AI infrastructure chips and other attendant as... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review
By The SE Staff - 26 Jun, 2026 - Comments: 0

IBM unveiled a 7Å transistor architecture that uses staggered nanosheet transistors stacked on a precisely beveled angle, almost like tiles on a roof. That allows more transistors to be crammed into a given area, boosting performance by 50% or power efficiency by up to 70%. Perhaps even more important, IBM claims a 40% improvement in SRAM scaling, which is orders of magnitude faster and lower ... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review
By The SE Staff - 21 Nov, 2025 - Comments: 0

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

Startup Funding: Q3 2024
By Jesse Allen - 16 Oct, 2024 - Comments: 0

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

Metrology And Inspection For The Chiplet Era
By Gregory Haley - 06 Aug, 2024 - Comments: 0

New developments and innovations in metrology and inspection will enable chipmakers to identify and address defects faster and with greater accuracy than ever before, all of which will be required at future process nodes and in densely packed assemblies of chiplets. These advances will affect both front-end and back-end processes, providing increased precision and efficiency, combined with a... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review
By The SE Staff - 19 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE) was awarded $840 million to establish a Department of Defense microelectronics manufacturing center. This center will focus on developing advanced semiconductor microsystems to enhance U.S. defense systems. The project is part of DARPA's NGMM Program. The U.S. Dept. of Commerce announced preliminary terms with Global... » read more

Startup Funding: September 2023
By Jesse Allen - 09 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 0

Chip-to-chip and data center I/O drew investor interest in September, including support for several startups developing Compute Express Link (CXL) solutions. Elsewhere in the data center, several large rounds went to companies developing AI accelerators. And at the edge, startups are building unique ways to handle AI at very little power by initially processing data directly at the sensor. O... » read more

Navigating the Metrology Maze For GAA FETs
By Gregory Haley - 08 Aug, 2023 - Comments: 1

The chip industry is pushing the boundaries of innovation with the evolution of finFETs to gate-all-around (GAA) nanosheet transistors at the 3nm node and beyond, but it also is adding significant new metrology challenges. GAA represents a significant advancement in transistor architecture, where the gate material fully encompasses the nanosheet channel. This approach allows for the vertical... » read more

DAC/Semicon West Addresses Top Issues, Trends For Chips
By The SE Staff - 12 Jul, 2023 - Comments: 0

The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2023 and Semicon West returned in full force this week, drawing in more attendees and sponsor companies than since before the pandemic. At times, booth traffic was four to five deep, blocking aisles, and standing room only was common at presentations. Hot topics included generative AI and the underlying semiconductor technology, data security, reliabili... » read more

Startup Funding: May 2023
By Jesse Allen - 07 Jun, 2023 - Comments: 0

Photonic interconnects were an area of activity in May, with two companies raising funds for what could be much faster chip-to-chip and chiplet-to-chiplet links. Microstructured optics and metasurfaces also drew investment, with four companies creating products for a range of applications from flexible LEDs to multi-wavelength spectral imaging. The large language models that power many gener... » read more

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