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.
Nota AI Signs AI Optimization Technology Supply and Strategic Partnership Agreement with Mobilint Accelerating Commercialization of On-Device AI on Domestic...
Nota AI, a specialist in AI model compression, has signed a strategic supply agreement with Korean NPU maker Mobilint to embed its NetsPresso® optimization platform into Mobilint’s MLA100 and MLA400 chips. The partnership aims to deliver low‑power, high‑performance edge AI solutions for video‑centric markets such as smart cities, industrial safety and intelligent transportation. By licensing NetsPresso®, Mobilint will offer a combined hardware‑software package that streamlines model deployment on‑device. The deal expands Nota AI’s reach from mobile and data‑center domains into edge deployments.
AMD's Next Epyc Server Chip Debuts This Year with 256 Cores and 70% Better Performance
AMD confirmed that its next‑generation Epyc Venice processors, built on the Zen 6 architecture, will ship later this year. The chips will use TSMC’s 2 nm process, delivering up to 256 cores, a 70% performance uplift and roughly double the CPU‑to‑GPU bandwidth...
Semiconductor Design and Verification Services | ASIC, SoC & IC Development Partners
Semiconductor design and verification services guide companies from architecture through tape‑out, covering ASIC, SoC, FPGA, analog, and mixed‑signal projects. The offering includes RTL coding, IP integration, functional and formal verification, DFT, physical design, and post‑silicon validation. AnySilicon connects firms with...
Qualcomm Poised to Become the Next AMD
Qualcomm $QCOM warrants a serious look given its growth potential and valuation. It could be the next AMD. The next chapter of the company has started, transitioning from a mobile chip vendor to a diversified chip provider, especially the potential...
Semiconductor Manufacturing Cost Breakdown | Wafer, Packaging, Test & ASIC Cost Factors
AnySilicon published a detailed guide that breaks down every cost component involved in semiconductor manufacturing, from design and NRE to wafer fabrication, packaging, test, and logistics. The guide highlights how process node, wafer diameter, die size, yield, mask set expense,...
Tiny xMEMS Chip Aims to Keep SSDs From Losing Their Cool
xMEMS introduced a 1 mm‑thick µCooling chip that actively moves air inside solid‑state drives, preventing thermal throttling that can shave 20‑30% off sustained throughput. The piezoMEMS device uses tiny piezoelectric paddles to generate up to 28 cc/s of airflow while consuming just...
SiPearl and Semidynamics Partner to Develop EU-Sovereign Rack-Scale AI Compute Platform
European fabless CPU designer SiPearl and Barcelona‑based AI infrastructure firm Semidynamics announced a strategic partnership to create a rack‑scale AI compute platform built entirely with European‑sourced components. The system will pair SiPearl’s Arm‑based Rhea1 CPU with Semidynamics’ RISC‑V GPU/AI inference...
RF Amplifiers Expand High-Power Range
Rohde & Schwarz has broadened its BBA300 broadband amplifier family with two new single‑band models delivering 500 W and 1 kW P1dB output power. The BBA300‑DE500 and BBA300‑DE1000 operate continuously from 1 GHz to 6 GHz without the need for band switching, improving efficiency...
Controllers Bring PQC to Boot and Root of Trust
Microchip introduced the TS1800 root‑of‑trust controller and the TS50x secure‑boot controller, expanding its TrustShield portfolio with hardware‑accelerated post‑quantum cryptography (PQC). The TS1800, built on a 192 MHz Cortex‑M4F, offers full platform root‑of‑trust features, OCP compliance, and up to double the processing...
SCALINX Joins GlobalFoundries GlobalSolutions Ecosystem to Expand High-Speed Data Converter SoC Solutions
SCALINX has joined GlobalFoundries' GlobalSolutions ecosystem, gaining visibility on the partner portal and offering its mixed‑signal ASIC design services on GF’s low‑power 40 nm and FDX processes. The company unveiled new high‑performance data‑converter IP—a 14‑bit, 4 GS/s ADC and a 14‑bit, 8 GS/s...
AMD Posts 57% Data‑center Revenue Jump as EPYC, Instinct AI Chips Surge
AMD reported a 57% year‑over‑year increase in data‑center revenue, reaching $5.8 billion, as demand for its EPYC processors and Instinct AI GPUs accelerated. Total quarterly revenue hit $10.3 billion, up 38%, and net income nearly doubled to $1.4 billion, positioning the data‑center segment...
Stacking 2D Materials on Bulk Semiconductors Yields Smarter, Faster Photodetectors
A new review outlines how stacking atomically thin 2D crystals onto bulk 3D semiconductors creates photodetectors with record‑high responsivity, detectivity and gigahertz‑level speed. Van der Waals bonding eliminates lattice‑mismatch defects, allowing seamless integration of materials like graphene, TMDCs and black phosphorus with...
Koh Young Webinar to Show How Data Transparency Strengthens SMT Production Resilience
Koh Young, a leader in True3D inspection technology, is hosting a webinar on May 20, 2026, titled “From Quality to Resilience: How Data‑Driven Transparency Ensures Delivery Capability.” The session will show how AI‑enabled inspection and process‑optimization tools can be deployed...
ORCA Computing Teams with SiC Systems to Fuse Quantum Power with Industrial AI
ORCA Computing and SiC Systems announced a strategic partnership to integrate ORCA’s photonic quantum processors with SiC’s physics‑informed multi‑agent AI platform for chemical and biomanufacturing. The collaboration aims at the $1 trillion engineering‑procurement‑construction market and promises to shave more than 20,000...
SpaceX Files for $55 Billion Texas Semiconductor Fab, Expanding to $119 Billion Chip Hub
SpaceX has filed paperwork for a $55 billion semiconductor fabrication plant in rural Texas, dubbed Terafab. The project will sit beside its existing Bastrop packaging operation, pushing the total Texas investment to roughly $119 billion and giving the launch‑vehicle maker full control...
Bringing Mathematical Rigour in the World of Hardware – a Journey Into Formal Verification
Robert Simpson, a mathematics graduate, joined Axiomise to apply formal verification (FV) to silicon design. He describes how rigorous logical reasoning uncovers bugs that conventional testing misses and how his academic habits translate to real‑world hardware correctness. At Axiomise, he...
Intel Core Ultra 5 225 Review: Arrow Lake’s Forgotten CPU Needs a Price Cut
Intel’s budget‑oriented Core Ultra 5 225 launches at roughly $180 but struggles to match the performance of AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X and even its own newer 250K Plus variant. While it delivers solid single‑thread efficiency and stays cool with a 65 W TDP, it lacks Hyper‑Threading...
Arm Sees $2bn Demand for New CPU, Before Shipping a Single Chip
Arm announced that its upcoming AGI data‑center CPU has already attracted roughly $2 billion in pre‑orders, despite not having shipped a single chip. The company’s CEO Rene Haas said the new processor will make data‑center services Arm’s largest business segment. The...
Nvidia Pours Billions Into a Glassmaker's Optical Factories
Nvidia announced a multiyear partnership with Corning, pledging up to $3.2 bn to replace copper interconnects with glass‑based co‑packaged optics in AI data‑center racks. The deal includes three new optical manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas, boosting domestic fiber capacity...
USC Memristor Crossbar Operates Above 700 °C, Setting New Record
University of Southern California scientists have demonstrated a memristor crossbar that runs at temperatures above 700 °C, breaking the previous high‑temperature record for electronic memory. The device stores data for more than 50 hours, switches in tens of nanoseconds, and endures...
COHR’s InP Ramp Threatens AXTI’s Margin Outlook
This terrible for $AXTI $COHR ramping InP capacity fast reads pretty bad for $AXTI. Here are some cliff notes: 1. COHR accelerated internal 6-inch ramp, now one qtr ahead of schedule, effectively "air-gaps" the merchant market. The biggest buyers are becoming their own...
Rambus Introduces PCIe 7.0 Switch IP with Time Division Multiplexing for Scalable AI and Data Center Infrastructure
Rambus announced a PCIe 7.0 Switch IP that incorporates time‑division multiplexing (TDM) to address the bandwidth and latency challenges of next‑generation AI and data‑center system‑on‑chips. The new switch enables flexible traffic scheduling across shared PCIe links, improving fabric utilization for large‑scale...
Nvidia Commits $300 Million to Corning for Three U.S. AI Fiber Plants
Nvidia is investing $300 million in Corning to construct three new optical‑fiber manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas. The plants will lift U.S. fiber output by more than 50% and create roughly 3,000 high‑paying jobs, securing a domestic supply chain...
Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and 4 Gen 5 Chips, Promising Lag‑free Mid‑range Android Phones
Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 mobile platforms, targeting mid‑range Android smartphones with up to 77% faster GPU performance, AI‑enhanced cameras and 90 FPS gaming. The chips promise 20‑43% faster app launches and 18‑25% less screen stutter, a move...
Photonic‑Crystal Laser Beams Data Across River in First Demo
The laser inside your 4K Blu-Ray player is dim and unfocused. A newer kind, built from photonic crystals, is so bright and directional it can beam data across a river with minimal hardware. A Glasgow company just showed it working...
Inference Margins Outpace Training, Driving ROIC Above 80%
As we have continually pointed out, inference margins are vastly higher than training margins. And as compute infra optimizes even more for inference workloads north of 80% will be the standard (often higher). This is the inflection for ROIC our...
The AI Revolution Has a New Capital – and It’s Not in California
A wave of AI‑driven investment has turned Seoul’s Kospi into the world’s hottest market, with retail investors pouring roughly $19 billion into leveraged chip stocks. Record earnings at Samsung, TSMC and SK Hynix—whose combined AI‑related revenues surged nearly 50‑fold—have pushed Samsung past...
Speculative GPU Hoarding Leads to Wasted Costs
just imagine what might happen if everybody was stockpiling GPUs at high prices for a demand that didn’t quite materialize….
Meta's NVL72 Achieves True 1:1 CPU‑GPU Ratio
Base GB200 NVL72 is 2 GPUs per CPU. Meta's custom Catalina NVL72, ➡️shown almost than a year ago at a public event, is 1:1. Some of y'all just missed the reason why, I guess.
IonQ Posts Record Q1 2026 Revenue of $64.7 Million, 755% YoY Growth
IonQ announced Q1 2026 revenue of $64.7 million, a 755% increase from a year earlier and 30% above the midpoint of its guidance range. The company raised its full‑year revenue target to $270 million, citing strong demand for its 256‑qubit system and...
Understanding Modern GPU Architecture: Fundamentals and Advances
Digital Design & Comp. Arch: L20: GPU Architectures (Spring 2026) We will describe the operational principles, design, and programming models of modern GPUs. We will cover both fundamentals and recent advances in GPUs. @SAFARI_ETH_CMU https://t.co/BVGdQn714C via @YouTube
Quantum Motion Raises $160M to Bring Quantum Into Data Centers
Quantum Motion, a UK silicon‑based quantum computer maker, closed a $160 million Series C round led by DCVC and Kembara, making it the best‑funded UK quantum firm. The company argues its CMOS qubits cut cost by 100‑fold and energy use by 1,000‑fold...
GaN-on-Silicon HEMTs for Tomorrow's Handsets?
A collaborative team from A*STAR, NTU and Soitec has demonstrated GaN‑on‑silicon HEMTs that combine high power‑added efficiency, high power density and low‑noise performance, positioning them as a potential replacement for GaAs HBTs in RF front‑end modules of future smartphones. The...
GaN: Boosting Optical Power Converter Efficiency
Nichia has demonstrated a gallium‑nitride (GaN) optical power converter that exceeds 60 percent power‑conversion efficiency, a leap from the previous 43 percent benchmark. The device uses a high‑power LED‑style epitaxial structure with 60 In₀.₁₂Ga₀.₈₈N/GaN quantum‑well pairs and a flip‑chip design on an...
Wolfspeed Q3 in Line with Guidance
Wolfspeed reported Q3 FY2026 revenue of about $150 million, matching the midpoint of its guidance range. GAAP gross margin was –27 percent and net loss $120 million, while adjusted EBITDA was –$62 million. The company refinanced roughly $476 million of first‑lien debt, cutting total debt...
Navitas Revenue Grows 18% in Q1
Navitas Semiconductor posted Q1 2026 revenue of $8.6 million, an 18% sequential increase, as high‑power GaN and SiC markets now account for the bulk of sales and grew roughly 35% year‑over‑year. GAAP gross margin remained negative at 9.3%, while non‑GAAP margin edged...
Veeco Announces InP Tool Orders Worth over $250m
Veeco Instruments disclosed more than $250 m in orders for its Spector ion‑beam deposition, Lumina MOCVD and WaferEtch wet‑processing systems. The orders target InP laser production used in silicon‑photonic transceivers and are slated for delivery beginning in 2026, with a steep...
AI Data Center Boom Squeezes Consumer Tech’s Chip Supply—Even Though They Use Different Chips
The rapid construction of AI‑focused data centers is gobbling up the industry’s most advanced chips, especially high‑bandwidth memory and GPUs. Although smartphones and PCs use low‑power system‑on‑a‑chip designs, they are now competing for the same semiconductor capacity. The shortage is...
Vishay Launches Compact Proximity Sensor with 600 Mm Detection
Vishay Intertechnology has launched the VCNL36758, a compact high‑sensitivity proximity sensor that can detect objects up to 600 mm away. The device integrates an IR emitter, photodiode, amplifiers and a 12‑bit ADC in a package 65 % smaller than previous models, and...
SEMI Summit Spotlights Europe’s Chiplet and Packaging Push
The SEMI 3D & Systems Summit will take place June 17‑19 in Dresden, putting Europe’s advanced packaging, chiplet ecosystems and heterogeneous integration front‑and‑center. Attendees—including chipmakers, equipment suppliers and research institutes—will debate AI hardware, hybrid bonding, co‑packaged optics and system‑level design....
AI Demand Keeps 3nm and CoWoS Capacity Tight Through 2027
AI-driven demand for high‑performance chips is tightening supply of advanced 3nm wafers and 2.5D/3D CoWoS packaging through 2027. TrendForce reports that TSMC remains the dominant supplier of 3nm capacity, making its fab slots a critical bottleneck for AI GPUs, data‑center...
Musk’s AI Compute Empire Takes Shape as xAI Plans $119B Chip Factory, Sells Spare Capacity to Anthropic, and Battles OpenAI...
Elon Musk’s AI ambitions are coalescing around a $119 billion semiconductor fab in Texas, dubbed “Terafab,” to supply chips for AI servers, rockets, autonomous vehicles and orbital data centres. Simultaneously, xAI is monetising idle compute by selling the entire capacity of...
How to Forecast China’s Lithography Leap
The RAND report compares the Delphi method with crowdsourced forecasting to predict whether China will secure deep‑ultraviolet and extreme‑ultraviolet lithography machines by 2026 and 2030. The Delphi workshop outperformed the crowd by 12% on the 2026 question, citing the short...
AMD Shares Surge on AI-Driven Chip Demand
ICYMI - .@AMD’s stock rises on surging demand for CPUs and GPUs for #AI workloads https://t.co/eTvgEPCV58 @SiliconANGLE @Mike_Wheatley “This is proof that innovation in chip design is still the key to accelerating revenue growth, because that’s where...” #Earnings https://t.co/e62KGJzFMq
Securing Chiplet-Based Platforms: Distributed Trust With Centralized Authority
Chiplet‑based systems break the monolithic security model, requiring a platform‑wide trust framework. The proposed architecture places a Main Security Chiplet (MSC) with a full hardware root of trust at the center, acting as a single policy authority. Subordinate chiplets receive...
Powering AI At Scale: Why 3D-ICs Demand A New Approach To Power Integrity
The semiconductor industry is shifting from transistor scaling to advanced packaging such as 2.5D, 3D‑ICs, and chiplets to meet AI and HPC performance demands. These stacked architectures introduce vertical power paths, dense interconnects, and shared return networks, turning power integrity...
Malaysia Prioritises Talent Development to Support Semiconductor Industry Growth
At SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026, Malaysia’s investment agency MIDA unveiled a talent‑centric strategy to shift the country’s semiconductor sector from assembly toward high‑value IC design, advanced packaging and smart manufacturing. The plan couples national programmes—such as the Special Taskforce‑Talent Facilitation,...
Building AI Without Guardrails
The semiconductor sector is rapidly embedding AI across design, verification, and manufacturing, outpacing any formal governance framework. Experts warn that fragmented, aspirational guidelines leave critical gaps in accountability, IP protection, and data security. Safety‑critical industries such as automotive and industrial...
Qualcomm Unveils a Pair of Chips: Snapdragon 6, 4 Series to Improve the Features You Actually Use
Qualcomm announced two new mid‑range processors, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5. The 6 Gen 5 delivers a 21% GPU uplift, AI‑enhanced night‑vision camera support and a 20% faster app launch, while the 4 Gen 5 offers a 77% GPU boost that enables 90 fps gaming. Both...
Qualcomm Says Its New Snapdragon Chips Will Have Less Lag on Mid-Range Android Phones
Qualcomm unveiled its new mid‑range chipsets, Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5, promising significant lag reduction for Android phones. The 6 Gen 5 features a 4+4 core design, Wi‑Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 and a 21 % more powerful GPU, while the 4 Gen 5 uses a 2+6 layout with a...