Today's Semiconductors Pulse
AMD CEO says AI boom revives focus on CPUs
AMD CEO Lisa Su said the rapid expansion of AI workloads is refocusing attention on central processing units. AMD also announced it will invest more than $10 billion in Taiwan’s ecosystem to accelerate AI infrastructure deployment.
Ana Inês Inácio Designs the Future of Wireless
Ana Inês Inácio, a senior IEEE member and scientist at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), designs integrated RF front‑end circuits that power next‑generation wireless systems, including 6G, satellite links, and IoT sensor networks. Her work focuses on improving linearity and noise reduction while shrinking chip size, and she leverages AI tools to speed up design cycles. Inácio was recently honored with the IEEE‑Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Young Professional Award for her technical contributions and global leadership within IEEE. Her career blends cutting‑edge research with community‑building across Europe’s diverse engineering landscape.
ASML's $400M Machine Monopoly Drives Skyward Breakout
$ASML blue-sky breakout. These guys sell their semiconductor making machines for $400 million a piece...and they're the only people who can make them.
Apple, Intel Have Reached Preliminary Chip-Making Agreement
Apple and Intel have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture certain chips used in Apple devices, ending more than a year of negotiations spurred by pressure from the Trump administration. The specific product lines that will incorporate Intel‑made...
Apple‑Intel Partnership Hinges on 14A PDK Delivery
Not surprised at all. Apple needs Intel, Intel needs Apple and Apple is one of the few companies with the resources to successfully pull off a real, dual foundry strategy for a single device. An agreement doesn’t mean wafer revenue...
Canada Won’t Pursue National Semiconductor Strategy, AI Minister Says
Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon, confirmed that the government will not create a standalone national semiconductor strategy. Instead, semiconductor development will be folded into the broader AI strategy, which emphasizes building sovereign compute infrastructure and...
Intel Emerges as Vital Second‑source Foundry Amid Capacity Crunch
Intel is the only foundry, and a now officially viable foundry second source, who has the capacity to expand to meet this DEEP foundry capacity shortage we have in the semiconductor industry. I'd expect any deal with Apple to...
Sitan Semiconductor, Changelight Form Partnership, Deepening Micro-LED Industry Chain Collaboration
Xiamen‑based Sitan Semiconductor and Changelight have signed a strategic partnership to create a vertically integrated micro‑LED supply chain for automotive displays. The collaboration links Sitan’s CMOS driver and module‑packaging expertise with Changelight’s sapphire epitaxy and chip production, targeting die‑to‑die and...
Samsung Reveals Next-Gen Stretchable Display
Samsung Display unveiled a stretchable microLED instrument cluster at SID Display Week 2026, delivering a world‑leading 200 PPI resolution—about 67 percent higher than its 120 PPI predecessor. The panel uses a novel bridge structure that doubles pixel density while preserving electrical performance during...
India Approves Compound Semiconductor Plant
The Indian government has approved a $336 million investment by Crystal Matrix to build the country’s first commercial GaN‑based microLED and miniLED fab in Gujarat’s Dholera zone. The integrated facility will produce 6‑inch wafers and assemble display modules, targeting a yearly...
Cloudberry VC Launches Europe's First Semiconductor Venture Fund
Cloudberry VC, a Helsinki‑London venture firm, has launched Europe’s first dedicated semiconductor fund, closing an initial €30 million (~$32.5 million) round. About 85% of the capital came from international investors, and strategic limited partners such as GlobalFoundries and Radiant Opto‑Electronics are on...
Greenock Semiconductor Plant Boosts Efficiency Through Smarter Use of Data
Engineers at Diodes Incorporated’s Greenock wafer fab have teamed with the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland to overhaul how production data is captured and analysed. By swapping manual spreadsheet workflows for Python‑based pipelines and specialist semiconductor tools, the plant now generates...
NVIDIA and IREN Partner on 5GW AI Infrastructure Deployment Initiative
NVIDIA and IREN Limited announced a strategic partnership to roll out up to 5 GW of NVIDIA DSX‑aligned AI infrastructure across IREN’s global data‑center pipeline. The deal includes a five‑year option for IREN to purchase up to 30 million NVIDIA shares at...
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 Surfaces With Slight Multi-Core Performance Gain
AMD’s Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 has surfaced in the PassMark database, indicating a new addition to the company’s Ryzen PRO 9000 desktop family. The chip matches the 9745’s 8‑core/16‑thread design and 65 W TDP but delivers a modest 2.7% multi‑core performance gain, while single‑thread scores...
Dell, AMD Expand On-Prem AI Platform with Instinct MI350P GPU Support
Dell and AMD announced that Dell PowerEdge XE7745, R7725 and XE9785 servers will support AMD Instinct MI350P (and MI355X) GPUs, delivering up to 4,600 teraflops of peak performance and 144 GB of HBM3e memory per card. The solution offers a drop‑in,...
Fraunhofer IZM’s Novel SiC Inverter Hits 99% Efficiency in a 1-Liter Package for 800 V EV Drives
Fraunhofer IZM unveiled a 500‑kW silicon‑carbide inverter that occupies just one liter, delivering more than 99 % peak efficiency for 800‑V electric‑vehicle drives. The design embeds twelve SiC MOSFETs per phase directly on the PCB, uses a flat aluminum heat sink...
Rackspace Shares Jump 83% After AMD AI Deal and Q1 Profit
Rackspace Technology (RXT) rallied 83.26% to $4.16 on Thursday after unveiling a strategic artificial‑intelligence partnership with AMD and posting a first‑quarter profit. The move turned a modest close of $2.27 into a breakout opening at $3.98, igniting short‑term trading interest.
Memory Chips Become 2026's Hottest Thematic Trade
The hottest sector trade of 2026 isn't where you think. Memory chips — the actual bottleneck of the AI buildout — quietly became the most crowded thematic trade since the 2024 spot-Bitcoin ETFs. This week proved it. Micron just had...
Feisal Somji of Sio Silica to Deliver Keynote at CMI Summit 5 on Securing North America’s Silica Supply Chain for...
Feisal Somji, founder and CEO of Sio Silica, will headline CMI Summit 5 in Toronto with a keynote on using silica to secure North America’s supply chain during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He will argue that ultra‑high‑purity silica is a strategic material...
The Need for Speed: How Domestic Manufacturing Accelerates Delivery of Mission-Critical Technology
Intel’s Government Technologies VP argues that U.S. defense superiority now hinges on speed, not just capability. He highlights how legacy acquisition models and offshore supply chains slow microelectronics delivery, jeopardizing deterrence. Emerging practices—hardware‑accurate digital twins, emulation, and Intel’s domestic 18A...
Schematik
Schematik, backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners in a 2026 pre‑seed round, is launching one of the first generative AI platforms that translates plain‑English design requests into hardware code, wiring diagrams, component lists, and assembly instructions. Founder Sam Beek, who previously...
Memory Is No Longer a Commodity – The Industry Hasn't Fully Caught Up
The global semiconductor market is on track to hit $1.2 trillion this year, with memory projected to capture 30‑35% of that total. A shift from a fragmented DRAM landscape to an oligopoly dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and emerging player CXMT...
Microsoft’s High‑speed CPU Profile Sparks Durability Backlash
Microsoft is planning a new Low Latency Profile that would max out CPU Frequencies to accelerate app launches by up to 40% The yet to be released profile is already being heavily criticized due to CPU durability concerns No such concerns were...
Nanoscale Design Channels Hybrid Light–Vibration Waves to Carry Heat More Efficiently
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have demonstrated that surface phonon polaritons—hybrid light‑vibration waves—can channel heat across nanoscale silicon‑dioxide bridges with far less loss than conventional phonon diffusion. By adding a micrometer‑scale grating to a suspended micro‑thermometer, they boosted...
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...
XPENG Launches X‑Cache Accelerator, Promising 2.7× Faster AI Inference for Autonomous Driving
Chinese EV maker XPENG announced the X‑Cache “World Model Accelerator,” a plug‑and‑play hardware utility that accelerates autonomous‑driving AI inference by up to 2.7 times without retraining. The move aims to lower compute costs and improve real‑time performance in its X‑World...
CEO Interview with Dave Kelf, CEO of Breker Verification Systems
Breker Verification Systems reported a 35% revenue increase in 2025, mirroring its 2024 growth, and expects an even stronger 2026 as demand for functional verification accelerates. The company expanded its engineering footprint with a new support facility in Bangladesh and...
Defense Department Increases Microelectronics Workforce Program Contract to $100M
The U.S. Department of Defense has raised its investment in the Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement (SCALE) microelectronics workforce program to more than $100 million, extending funding through fiscal year 2027. The boost supports 35 partner universities, expanding hands‑on training for veterans...
193: Is Apple DOWNGRADING the iPhone 18 Due to Memory Shortage?
The episode delves into rumors that Apple may be downgrading the standard iPhone 18 due to a surge in memory (RAM) costs driven by AI-driven chip shortages. Hosts discuss how this could lead to component sharing with the iPhone 18 E,...
Cost-Effective High-Performance Flip Chip MicroLeadFrame®(fcMLF®) Package Introduction
Amkor Technology unveiled its flip‑chip MicroLeadFrame (fcMLF) package, merging flip‑chip interconnects with traditional leadframe construction. The solution targets automotive and commercial markets that demand smaller footprints, superior thermal and electrical performance, and proven reliability. By using copper‑pillar bumps and a...
U.S. Holds $49B Intel Stake, Locked Until Aug 27
INTC Aug 27 mark your calendars. The Intel deal included $8.9 billion for 10% of Intel at $20.47 a share. As of Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. government’s 433.3 million shares in Intel were valued around $49 billion, $40 billion more...
Single Switch Controls Sequential Operation of Multiple Power Supplies
A simple analog circuit uses a charging capacitor and comparators to sequence the power‑up and power‑down of multiple DC supplies with a single ON/OFF switch. The design first enables 5 V, then after a programmable delay adds 15 V, and reverses the...
NVDA Secures Cash, AMD Risks Free Chip Deals
The dichotomy between $NVDA and $AMD is fascinating $NVDA does a deal with $IREN where in order for IREN to pay full price for chips IREN has to also give away $750MN worth of warrants to NVDA Where $AMD has to...
SK Hynix Lock‑in Hopes Meet Commodity Reality
SK Hynix customers begging for long term lock ins. But of course this time couldn’t be any different. Just a commodity
Keysight Adds PCIe 7.0 Receiver Test Application
Keysight Technologies announced a new PCIe 7.0 receiver (RX) test application that extends its PCIe 7.0 portfolio to cover end‑to‑end transmitter and receiver validation. The solution pairs the M8050A BERT system with the M8042A pattern generator, M8043A error analyzer, and N5991PB7A automation...
CPU TAM Has Expanded Significantly Since the Recent Report
As I laid out months ago. And CPU TAM is now meaningfully larger via our models and others, TAM wise, then I when wrote this report two months ago. https://t.co/dKqm16myKH https://t.co/s0K2vC0J8C
Intel's Market Cap Soars 6x Under New CEO
how Lip-Bu Tan rolling up to Intel’s Friday Happy Hour after INTC market cap has spiked 6x to $623B since he became CEO in March 2025 https://t.co/2QA1OSzLVI
Who Needs Moore’s Law?
Moore’s Law, which predicted a doubling of transistor density every two years, has effectively stalled since 2016‑2018 as physical limits loom. Chip manufacturers are now turning to alternative architectures—ASICs, GPUs, 3D‑stacked chiplets, on‑chip memory, optical interconnects, and quantum bits—to keep...
Intel's Apple Chip Deal Was Inevitable After U.S. Investment
$INTC making chips for $AAPL was inevitable from the day the U.S. became an investor. And here we are. 👀
Semiconductor Roundup: M&A, Apple
Latest: M&A activity; GF’s CPO; Apple looks beyond TSMC; EU chip map; earnings; MIT’s new lidar chip; AI inferencing at sea; quantum HW $; PCIe 7; home data centers; AI security warnings; temperature impact on EVs... https://t.co/iKPAzMZzfB #semiEDA
'Regardless of the Type of Offer, Available Capacity Is Essentially Zero Right Now': SK Hynix Is Reportedly Being Swamped with...
SK Hynix, the world’s second‑largest memory maker, is inundated with unprecedented offers from big‑tech firms seeking to secure DDR5 and NAND chips amid a global memory shortage. Reuters reports that capacity is effectively zero, with no allocation possible for individual...
AI-Driven Memory Shortage Spikes Console Prices
Sony, Nintendo grapple with memory price surge as AI boom constrains supply More collateral damage from US controls on memory... https://t.co/zUdAvKWJsv
Compute‑in‑Memory Can Slash Data‑Center Energy Use by 90%
The Key to Evangelism: Passion Over Methodology 💥 See full video here: https://t.co/dxoKnfkKxI Compute-in-memory could cut data center energy 90%. #ComputeInMemory #EnergyEfficiency #DataCenter https://t.co/4flUFbcYQM
Sony PS5 Sales Plunge 46% as Memory Shortage Forces Price Hikes
Sony reported that PS5 shipments fell 46% year‑over‑year to 1.5 million units in the fourth quarter, attributing the drop to a global memory‑chip shortage and two price increases. The slump threatens console‑hardware revenue even as the company leans on higher‑margin software...
SiTime CEO Forecasts Near Triple-Digit Growth After Renesas Acquisition
On the back of some stellar financial numbers this week, I sat down with @SiTimeCorp CEO Rajesh Vashist for an annual update on the $11b timing market, their recent Renesas clocks acquisition, and why they have near triple-digit growth. $SITM https://t.co/egnZjy5Im5...
2D NAND Shortage Deepens as Samsung, Micron Exit Market
2D NAND shortage spirals after Samsung, Micron, and rivals exit market $SNDK only up a cool $53 https://t.co/MmmFu9b70X
AI Supply‑Chain Leaders Warn Chip Shortages and Energy Limits Will Stall Growth for Years
Five senior figures from ASML, Google Cloud, Applied Intuition, Perplexity and Logical Intelligence told the Milken Institute Global Conference that a supply‑limited chip market and looming energy bottlenecks will restrict AI scaling for the next two to five years. Their...
Memory Fundamentals: Why Modern Systems Depend on Hierarchy
Digital Design & Comp. Arch: L21: Memory Overview, Technology, Organization, Hierarchy We will describe the fundamentals of memory systems, starting with the critical importance of memory in modern systems and workloads. @SAFARI_ETH_CMU https://t.co/QKquA0GIC7 via @YouTube
RAMageddon Threatens Laptop, Smartphone and Storage Production as Chip Shortage Deepens
Apple, AMD, Intel and other tech giants warned that a severe RAM shortage—dubbed “RAMageddon”—could curb production of laptops, smartphones and external‑storage devices through 2026. Samsung has sold out its memory‑fab capacity to the end of the year, while AMD projects...
ADATA Expects Memory Shortage to Continue as AI Demand Grows
ADATA Technology warned that AI‑driven demand is tightening the global memory market, keeping DRAM and NAND supplies scarce through next year. Prices for DRAM have already risen in the first half of 2025, while NAND flash is expected to gain...
Micron Says AI Memory Shortage Could Last Until 2028
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra warned that the AI‑driven memory shortage could persist until 2028 as demand for DRAM and NAND outpaces production capacity. AI‑related memory now accounts for more than half of the industry’s addressable market this year, while traditional...