Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Government funding President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law on Tuesday, saying “America is back and leading the way.” That same day Micron touted a $40 billion investment through to 2030, which it expects will create 40,000 American jobs. “This legislation will enable Micron to grow domestic production of memory from less than 2% to up to 10% of the global market in t... » read more

Week In Review, Manufacturing, Test


Post-CHIPS Act Micron is discussing a potential new fab that could employ thousands of workers, following the passage of the Chips and Science Act. Idaho is hoping it will be built near its headquarters facilities in Boise, but Micron hasn’t committed publicly. Rob Beard, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Micron, told the Idaho Statesman the company is consi... » read more

Hybrid Bonding Moves Into The Fast Lane


The industry’s unquenchable thirst for I/O density and faster connections between chips, particularly logic and cache memory, is transforming system designs to include 3D architectures, and hybrid bonding has become an essential component in that equation. Hybrid bonding involves die-to-wafer or wafer-to-wafer connection of copper pads that carry power and signals and the surrounding diele... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Node scaling wars are revving up, although much of the action is happening where most people can't see it — inside of research labs. This is difficult stuff, which makes delivery dates difficult to pinpoint, and no one wants to give away their competitive position or commit to a timeline they can't keep. Billions of dollars of leading-edge research — funded by pure-play foundry TSMC, IDM... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive, mobility U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) release its first crash reports from ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems, i.e., SAE Level 2) and ADS (automated driving systems, i.e., SAE Levels 3-5).  The systems had to be in use at least 30 seconds before the crash in order for it to be reportable. The car may have had the system turned off at the time ... » read more

Week in Review: Manufacturing, Test


Breaking the Logjam The U.S. government’s delay in funding strategic chip capacity is threatening supply chains that are critical to national security. In fact, classified meetings are being held this week on the subject. Meanwhile, recognizing that time is of the essence, a group of billionaires has backed the “America’s Frontier Fund,” a non-profit group that aims to spur U.S. chipma... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


EnSilica listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market under the ticker ENSI. EnSilica designs mixed signal ASICs for system developers in the automotive, industrial, healthcare, and communications markets. It also has a portfolio of core IP covering cryptography, radar and communications systems. AIM is the LSE’s market for small and medium sized growth companies. "In connection with Admi... » read more

Wafer Shortage Improvement In Sight For 300mm, But Not 200mm


The supply chain for bare wafers is off-kilter. Demand is appreciably higher than the wafer suppliers can keep up with, creating shortages that could last for years. For 300mm starting wafers, the top five big players — SEH and Sumco of Japan, Siltronic of Germany, GlobalWafers of Taiwan, and SK Siltron of Korea — finally took action over the last year, spending billions on new wafer fac... » read more

Startup Funding: April 2022


Silicon photonics holds the potential to vastly increase bandwidth in chips and systems while reducing power use — and investors are taking note. In April, one of the largest funding rounds went to a startup developing chip-to-chip optical I/O. But that wasn't all. Photonics funding showed up in AI with a photonic Tensor core, in room-temperature quantum computing, and, of course, in lidar an... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Photonic Chips Go Big In Europe PhotonDelta, a collaborative end-to-end supply chain for the application of photonics chips, secured €1.1 billion in conditional funding for a six-year initiative. Investments from the Netherlands government and other organizations “will be used to build 200 startups, scale up production, create new applications for photonic chips, and develop infrastructure... » read more

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