SEMICON West changes venues and dates; Dutch, U.S. discuss export controls; DARPA offers thermal management research funding; Britain plans IC public funding; Intel reaffirms plans in Ohio.
Starting in 2025, SEMICON West will move to Phoenix for a five-year annual rotation. And in 2024, it will shift dates from July to October. This year’s conference will still take place July 11 to 13 at the Moscone Center. Phoenix will first host SEMICON West on October 7-9, 2025. Thereafter, it will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on the alternating years and over the long term.
Dutch and U.S. officials will meet in Washington on Friday to discuss potential new controls on exporting semiconductor manufacturing gear to China, with a deal possible by the end of the month, according to Reuters. ASML is calling for sensible chip export controls from the Dutch government. ASML CEO Peter Wennink said China accounted for about 15% of sales in 2022, and will account for a similar amount this year, despite U.S. chip export restrictions.
Hua Hong Semiconductor received state backing for a US$6.7 billion wafer fab. The new fab will be Hua Hong’s second 12-inch fab in Wuxi, and will produce chips using mature tech nodes such as 65nm, 55nm, and 40nm.
The British government plans to provide taxpayer funding to support the country’s semiconductor companies, Bloomberg reported. That support will include seed money for startups, help for existing firms to scale up, and new incentives for private venture capital.
India tested a locally developed mobile operating system called BharOS, based on the Android Open Source Project’s Linux kernel. The government endorsement of BharOS code came soon after Google lost its fight in India’s Supreme Court to block an antitrust order that will force the company to change how it markets its Android operating system.
Intel reaffirmed plans for an initial investment of more than $20 billion in the construction of two new leading-edge chip factories in Licking County, Ohio. To support the development of the new site, Intel pledged an additional $100 million toward partnerships with educational institutions to build a pipeline of talent and bolster research programs in the region.
Renesas announced the RAJ2930004AGM, a new gate driver IC that is designed to drive high-voltage power devices such as IGBTs (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) and SiC (Silicon Carbide) MOSFETs for electric vehicle (EV) inverters.
SkyWater announced a strategic partnership with VORAGO Technologies, effectively moving VORAGO’s fabrication efforts stateside to SkyWater’s DMEA-accredited Category 1A Trusted Foundry.
Samsung’s Device Solutions Division (DS) attained the ISO 22301 Certificate, which certifies an organization’s ability to resume its business after a crisis. “We will continue to enhance our business resilience and maintain a robust business continuity management system,” said Taeyang Yoon, executive vice president and CSO of DS Division at Samsung Electronics. “Through these efforts, our customers can rely on our leading semiconductor technology even in the most unexpected circumstances.”
Ensorcia Metals announced investments of more than $350 million in Europe and South America to develop lithium extraction and transformation.
Loongson’s new LS2K2000 chip notably includes a custom designed GPU, according to German and American reports.
Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2023, an increase of 2.4% from 2022, according to the latest forecast by Gartner. While inflation continues to erode consumer purchasing power and drive device spending down, overall enterprise IT spending is expected to remain strong.
Counterpoint Research released its latest list and analyses of the top 10 macro risks that are most likely to impact the tech industry in 2023. The potential of economic recession ranks highest, followed by ongoing U.S. and China tensions, and the energy crisis, which mainly stems from the Russia-Ukraine war.
DARPA announced Miniature Integrated Thermal Management Systems for 3D Heterogeneous Integration (MiniTherms3D), a 48-month, three-phase program, which seeks to significantly reduce thermal resistances within the 3D stack and external to the stack of 3DHI systems, while increasing volumetric heat removal.
NIST released its Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), a guidance document for voluntary use by organizations designing, developing, deploying or using AI systems to help manage the risks of AI technologies. In addition, NIST has recently joined the O-RAN alliance, which works to make radio access network (RAN) technologies more open, intelligent and interoperable.
SIA recently submitted detailed public comments regarding significant new semiconductor export control rules released on Oct. 7 by the Bureau of Industry and Security.
IBM, SIA, HP and other members of the Skills First Coalition are signatories on a letter to the Congressional Workforce Committee that urges reforms and actions in areas such as education and professional training.
For the first time in history, the production of semiconductor quantum dots has been achieved at room temperature using lab-designed proteins, Princeton chemists reported in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work opens the door to more economical and environmentally-friendly production of quantum dots.
A little bit of nostalgia: What did the modem tones signal?
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