GeopoliticsU.S. lawmakers are urging tighter export controls on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) to China, warning existing loopholes threaten national security. "China is working to build domestic SME by exploiting access to U.S. and allied subcomponents required to produce tools," states the letter, which also says better coordination with allies is essential.The U.S....» read more
Silicon Photonics is changing the data center, with the biggest changes still ahead.Figure 1: Google Jupiter Network for multi-thousand Ironwood TPU clusters. Source: GoogleRefresher for new readers: Data centers contain hundreds or thousands of racks. For example, the Nvidia GB200 NVL72 AI compute/switch rack is about 24 inches wide, about 88 inches high and 42 inches deep. I...» read more
GeopoliticsTaiwan and the U.S. signed a trade agreement this week, with TSMC and other Taiwanese companies collectively pledging to directly invest at least $250B in investments in advanced semiconductor, energy and AI production and capacity in the U.S. The agreement also included Taiwan providing another $250B in credit guarantees for additional IC supply chain expansions in the U.S., cap...» read more
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
Deals:NVIDIA inked a $20B non-exclusive licensing deal with Groq for its inference technology. The startup's founder, Jonathan Ross, and some other employees will join NVIDIA to assist in scaling and advancing the technology. The non-exclusive licensing deal, versus an outright purchase, is a tool other companies have used to avoid antitrust regulation.Samsung Ventures made a strategic inv...» read more
Government funding/defundingNIST 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
Deals of the week: Arteris announced plans to acquire cybersecurity provider Cycuity. “Expanding our technology portfolio to include Cycuity’s hardware security assurance products will enable our customers to achieve secure on-chip data movement,” said Charlie Janac, chairman and CEO of Arteris. Qualcomm acquired Ventana Micro Systems, a maker of RISC-V data center-class CPU IP. ...» read more
Breaking news: Nvidia and Synopsys announced a multi-faceted, multi-year deal that includes everything from digital twins to CUDA programming, engineering, and marketing collaboration, and Nvidia's $2B purchase of Synopsys stock.[Updated 12/1]Memory news: Micron is building a $9.6B HBM facility in the city of Higashi-Hiroshima Japan, reports Nikkei. China's ChangXin Memory Technol...» read more
China's Hefei Lumiverse Technology reportedly has developed a desktop-sized High Harmonic Generation light source that generates wavelengths as small as 1nm. One customer already has used it to produce 14nm chips, which was the original target node for EUV, according to one report. As a point of comparison, TSMC and Samsung didn't start using EUV until the 7nm node, relying instead on immersion...» read more
Samsung reportedly is hiking memory chip prices by 30% to 60% due to high demand from AI data centers and constrained supplies. Those shortages are causing ripples elsewhere. SMIC, China's largest foundry, said its customers are holding back orders for other types of semiconductor due to concerns about memory supplies.Meanwhile, interest in photonics and power semiconductors is picking up, ...» read more
Workflows and the addition of new capabilities are happening much faster than with previous technologies, and new grads may be vital in that transition.
Workflows and the addition of new capabilities are happening much faster than with previous technologies, and new grads may be vital in that transition.
Companies and governments invested heavily in onshoring fabs and facilities over the past 12 months as tariffs threatened to upset the global supply chain.
Memory chip shortages prompt price increases; Israeli chip foundry; 2 acquisitions; Baidu's AI chips; IBM's new quantum processor; GF's GaN push; 3D NAND scaling boosters; U.S. policy recommendations; +$500M in fundings; SiPho and SiGe capacity; EV joint venture.
Growing use cases include life science AI, reducing memory and I/O bottlenecks, data prepping, wireless networking, and as insurance for evolving protocols.
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