Chip Industry Week In Review


The new Trump administration was quick to put a different stamp on the tech world: President Trump rescinded a long list of Biden’s executive orders, including those aimed at AI safety and the mandate for 50% EVs by 2030. Roughly 1.3 million EVs were sold in the U.S. in 2024, up 7.3% from 2023. The new administration announced $500 billion ($100 billion initially) in private sector in... » read more

Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report: 2024


The chip industry made significant capital investments this year to build new fabs and facilities or expand existing premises. A number of sites were dedicated to SiC, GaN, DRAM, HBM, along with packaging and assembly by OSATs, and essential gases, chemicals, and other components. More than a dozen R&D centers were also established for 8-inch wafers, EUV, and advanced packaging. Investments... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Updated for 12/20 government fundings and 12/23 for China trade investigation announcements. President Biden announced a trade investigation into "China's unfair trade practices in the semiconductor sector."  The announcement stated "PRC semiconductors often enter the U.S. market as a component of finished goods. This Section 301 investigation will examine a broad range of the PRC’s non-m... » read more

NAND Flash Targets 1,000 Layers


The chip industry is pushing to quadruple the stack height of 3D NAND flash from 200 layers to 800 layers or more over the next few years, using the additional capacity will help to feed the unending need for more memory of all types. Those additional layers will add new reliability issues a number of incremental reliability challenges, but the NAND flash industry has been steadily increasin... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


SK hynix started mass production of 1-terabit  321-high NAND, with availability scheduled for the first half of next year. Rapidus will receive an additional ¥200 billion yen ($1.28B) from the Japanese government beginning in fiscal year 2025, reports Nikkei. This is on top of ¥920 billion yen ($5.98B) Rapidus has already received from the government in support of its goal to reach commer... » read more

HBM Options Increase As AI Demand Soars


High-bandwidth memory (HBM) sales are spiking as the amount of data that needs to be processed quickly by state-of-the-art AI accelerators, graphic processing units, and high-performance computing applications continues to explode. HBM inventories are sold out, driven by massive efforts and investments in developing and improving large language models such as ChatGPT. HBM is the memory of ch... » read more

Asia Government Funding Surges


Billions of dollars have been pouring into Asian countries for the past few years in an effort to boost their production capacity, explore leading-edge technology, compete on the global stage, and shore up supply chains in the face of geopolitical turmoil. Each country has its own plan to maintain a foothold in the global market, from China’s Big Fund to Korea’s Yongin Cluster and Japan�... » read more

Chip Industry Technical Paper Roundup: Nov. 11


New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: [table id=381 /] More Reading Technical Paper Library » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Analog Devices acquired Flex Logix's technology assets, along with its technical team. Semiconductor global sales increased 23% in Q3 2024 $166B, up almost 11% versus the same period in 2023, according to SIA. Notable regional year-to-year sales in September: Americas up 46%, China up 23%, Europe down 8%. Fig.1: Worldwide Semiconductor Revenues, year-to-year % change. Source: Semiconduc... » read more

CXL-Based Heterogeneous Systems: How to Optimize and Future Directions (UCSD, Samsung, SK Hynix)


A new technical paper titled "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Programming and Optimizing CXL-Based Heterogeneous Systems" was published by researchers at UC San Diego, Samsung, SK hynix. Abstract "We present a thorough analysis of the use of CXL-based heterogeneous systems. We built a cluster of server systems that combines different vendor's CPUs and various types of CXL devices. We further ... » read more

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