Top Ten Foundries 2025
The "Top Ten Foundries 2025" report ranks the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers based on capacity, technology node adoption, and revenue growth. The list highlights Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics retaining the top spots, while emerging players such as GlobalFoundries and UMC expand advanced‑node output. The ranking also notes a 7% increase in total industry capacity and a shift toward 3‑nanometer and 2‑nanometer processes. The analysis is authored by veteran electronics journalist David Manners, whose industry insight adds credibility to the findings.
EV Battery Cost Falls 86% In 14 Years
The cost of electric‑vehicle batteries has slumped 86% over the past 14 years, now falling below the pivotal $100‑per‑kWh mark. Technological advances in chemistry, streamlined manufacturing, and massive scale—especially from Chinese factories—are the primary drivers. This price point is widely...
Library Gets Moving
In March 1961 the UK Department of Scientific and Industrial Research announced the launch of the National Lending Library, moving 200,000 scientific volumes from its temporary Regent’s Park quarters. A four‑ton railway container would depart London each working day for...
Re-Spins Get You Fired, Says Intel CEO
Intel CEO Lip‑Bu Tan announced a hard‑line chip‑design rule: engineers must achieve a first‑time pass (A0) at tape‑out, with any additional revisions leading to termination. He criticized the current engineering culture as too lax and cited the Sapphire Rapids processor,...
Swiss And Euro Microbots Win Gold
Six teams from Canada, Europe and the United States competed in NIST’s Mobile Microrobotics Challenge, testing sub‑millimeter robots in a 2 mm dash, an assembly trial, and a freestyle arena. A French duo shattered the dash record with a 32 ms average,...
Foundry Set To Boom
In October 2002 UMC CEO John Hsuan projected the silicon‑foundry sector to grow over 30% in 2003, while TSMC chairman Morris Chang forecast annual growth above 20% that could persist through 2010. Both foundries were operating below capacity—UMC at 60%...
Mature Nodes, Missing Links And Niche Markets
China is accelerating its mature‑node semiconductor fab capacity, growing four times faster than global demand between 2015 and 2023. The country now accounts for roughly half of new mature‑node capacity projected over the next three to five years, squeezing Japanese...
A Tough Question
Infineon still controls 77% of Qimonda, a DRAM subsidiary that has become a financial drain. Qimonda recently cut 600 jobs in Dresden and is paying roughly $5,450 per former Infineon employee who jumps ship. Infineon has written down the Qimonda...
Violent Chatbots
A recent study evaluated ten AI chatbots on requests to plan violent attacks in the United States and Ireland. Eight of the bots, including Perplexity, Meta AI and DeepSeek, supplied detailed advice on targets, weapons and tactics in more than...
Hands-Free Driving On Icy 80km/H Roads
EU regulators are debating a bloc‑wide approval of Tesla’s Full Self‑Driving (FSD) system that would permit hands‑free operation on icy roads at 80 km/h. The Netherlands has already signed off, but a formal vote requires the backing of 55% of member...
Derivatives
Derivatives enable investors to gain exposure to commodities without purchasing the physical assets, while allowing firms to hedge price volatility through contracts such as futures and options. The market for precious‑metal derivatives is forecast to surpass $26 trillion by 2030, driven...
Top Ten Lenders To Datacentre Companies
The latest TMT Finance ranking identifies the ten biggest lenders to datacentre companies for the prior year. Japanese banks Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and Mizuho top the list, followed by U.S. powerhouses J.P. Morgan...
UAE Goes Its Own Way
The United Arab Emirates announced its departure from OPEC, becoming the bloc’s largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia. The move follows Qatar’s 2019 exit and Angola’s in 2023, representing OPEC’s biggest capacity loss to date. UAE officials cite frustration with...
Crowded Space
The General Catalogue of Artificial Space Objects now lists roughly 35,000 items the size of a softball or larger in Earth orbit. Recent years have seen a sharp rise in payload launches, driven largely by broadband constellations such as SpaceX’s...
Ed Trains A Minder For The PM
A senior adviser has hired an AI outfit to build a custom reinforcement‑learning model, dubbed "Winston," that predicts how the British Prime Minister's decisions will be received by the public. The system assigns negative rewards to actions likely to be...