Fab Investments Head Toward Record High


Corporations and governments around the globe are making record-breaking investments in chip manufacturing plants amid a major push to make the semiconductor supply chain more robust and less prone to shortages caused by everything from market variations to geopolitical interruptions. These investments — which range from updating existing fabrication facilities to building entirely new fab... » read more

How Quickly Can SiC Ramp?


Device makers across the globe are ramping silicon carbide (SiC) manufacturing, with growth set to really take off starting in 2024. It’s been almost five years since Tesla and STMicroelectronics threw down the gauntlet with SiC in the Model 3. Now, no one doubts the market pull for electric vehicles, but consumers are still clamoring for better range and faster charging. SiC devices are a... » read more

Week in Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab capacity STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries inked a deal to build a new jointly-operated 300mm fab adjacent to ST’s existing 300mm facility in Crolles, France. This facility is targeted to ramp at full capacity by 2026, with up to 620,000 300mm wafer per year production at full build-out (~42% ST and ~58% GF). The new facility will support several technologies, with a special focus... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


RISC-V RISC-V International announced four new specification and extension approvals. Efficient Trace for RISC-V defines an approach to processor tracing that uses a branch trace. RISC-V Supervisor Binary Interface architects a firmware layer between the hardware platform and the operating system kernel using an application binary interface in supervisor mode to enable common platform services... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Edge, embedded, IoT Renesas Electronics will acquire Reality Analytics, Inc. (Reality AI), a provider of embedded AI and TinyML solutions for advanced non-visual sensing in automotive, industrial, and commercial products. The inference-based AI solutions can be implemented across various endpoint AI applications. “Customers are increasingly demanding highly customized solutions involving emb... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive, mobility Lightyear, an automotive company based in the Netherlands, announced its solar car, the Lightyear 0, which goes into production this year. The car has a Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) range of 625 kilometers/388 miles and can charge itself while driving or parked, using double curved solar arrays on its roof. The daily charging adds 70 kilometers/... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP MIPS announced its first products based on the RISC-V ISA. The eVocore IP cores are designed to provide a flexible foundation for heterogeneous compute, supporting combinations of eVocore processors as well as other accelerators, with a Coherence Manager that maintains L2 cache and system-level coherency between all cores, main memory, and I/O devices. They target high-performan... » read more

Energy Harvesting Starting To Gain Traction


Tens of billions of IoT devices are powered by batteries today. Depending on the compute intensity and the battery chemistry, these devices can run steadily for short periods of time, or they can run occasionally for decades. But in some cases, they also can either harvest energy themselves, or tap into externally harvested energy, allowing them to work almost indefinitely. Energy harvesting... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive, mobility Qualcomm completed its acquisition of Arriver Business from SSW Partners. Arriver’s Driver Assistance, Computer Vision, and Drive Policy assets will become part of the Snapdragon Ride Platform. SSW Partners, a New York-based investment partnership, has acquired all shares in Veoneer, retaining its Tier-1 supplier and integrator businesses. Hyundai Motor Group gave Inf... » read more

Startup Funding: March 2022


Semiconductor manufacturing, test, and inspection equipment startups did well in March. Investors funded a wide variety of equipment companies, including test equipment, materials handling, and those that make parts and components. In the manufacturing space, several companies developing manufacturing execution systems received funding, as well as a startup trying to prevent counterfeit parts f... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →