Chip Industry Week In Review


Deals Marvell acquired Polariton Technologies, a Swiss developer of plasmonics-based silicon photonics devices. Onto Innovation is partnering with Rigaku, combining Onto’s analysis software with Rigaku’s CD-SAXS platform for advanced semiconductor process control. Onto also agreed to acquire a 27% stake in Rigaku for about $710M. Tesla plans to use Intel’s 14A process for its T... » read more

Annual Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report


Semiconductor companies announced a significant number of facilities in 2025 as global onshoring efforts continued across manufacturing, materials, packaging, design, and R&D. Investments came from both industry and government sources. Organizations worked together to solve current technology challenges, including soaring demand for AI chips and advanced memory, as well as complex applic... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Government funding/defunding NIST is terminating funding for the SMART USA Institute, a CHIPS Act research center focused on digital twins, prompting congressional concern that the decision disrupts active awards and weakens U.S. semiconductor R&D commitments. Korea Zinc was awarded $210M in CHIPS Act funding towards a new $6.6B Tennessee advanced smelter and minerals processing facility,... » 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


Microsoft, OpenAI, and NVIDIA warned about power swings and physical damage to power grids increasing from AI training workloads and jointly proposed a multi-pronged approach to stabilize power in AI training data centers. Meanwhile, Anthropic issued a warning about the weaponization of agentic AI in a new 25-page Threat Intelligence report. Key concerns involve the evolution in AI-assisted ... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


The U.S. government announced new import tariff actions and deals this week, including: The EU: 15% tariff on most goods including semiconductors. According to the EU's president, the action excludes semiconductor equipment. Copper: 50% tariff on all imports of semi-finished copper products and intensive copper derivative products, effective Aug. 1, but raw input material is excluded. ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Market research For some time, China has faced an enormous trade gap in semiconductors. In response, China has been developing its semiconductor industry with plans to make more of its chips. But China is expected to fall far short of its “Made in China 2025” goals for IC production, according to IC Insights. “IC Insights forecasts China-produced ICs will represent only 19.4% of its I... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Suppliers in the automotive semiconductor market experienced exceptional growth in 2014, according to IHS. Based on final analysis of the 2014 results, Renesas maintained its leadership position as the number one supplier in 2014, according to the rankings. “For 2015, IHS expects to see a shift among the leading suppliers in this category, given the recent merger of Freescale and NXP, two lar... » read more

IoT’s Potential In Japan


Going to Semicon Japan was a real treat this year. The event was held at a new location, the weather was sunny, and the exhibits/presentations were engaging. During my walks around the exhibit floor I was drawn to the metrology and material characterization tools. Those booths seemed to have the most interesting information to share. Talking with companies like Rigaku provided insight into the ... » read more