Today's Semiconductors Pulse
SMIC clears final hurdle for $5.97B takeover of SMNC
China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) secured regulatory approval to acquire the remaining 49 % of its Beijing‑based unit SMNC, valuing the stake at 40.6 billion yuan (≈$5.97 bn). The transaction will be funded by issuing 547.2 million A‑shares at ¥74.20 ($10.91) each, with a 12‑month lock‑up for sellers, making SMNC a wholly‑owned subsidiary.
Nvidia Takes $1 B Stake in Nokia to Power AI‑Driven 6G Networks
Nvidia has bought a $1 billion, 8% equity position in Nokia at $6.01 per share, tying the deal to joint development of AI‑native radio access network (RAN) hardware. The partnership targets the emerging $200 billion AI‑RAN market as carriers move toward 6G.
Google Launches TPU V8 Family: 8t Training Chip and 8i Inference Chip
Google announced its eighth‑generation Tensor Processing Units, the TPU 8t and TPU 8i, at Cloud Next. The 8t training chip delivers up to 12.6 FP4 PFLOPs and scales to 9,600 chips per superpod, while the 8i inference chip offers 10.1...
Google Pledges up to $40 Billion to AI Startup Anthropic, Reshaping Cloud and AI Markets
Google announced a commitment of up to $40 billion to AI startup Anthropic, including an initial $10 billion and $30 billion linked to performance targets. The deal positions Google as a key infrastructure provider in the generative‑AI race, intensifying competition with Amazon and...
ESP32-C5 Mini USB-C Board Supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi 6, up to 14x GPIO Pins for IoT Projects
Espressif's ESP32‑C5 Mini is a compact development board that adds dual‑band Wi‑Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 LE, and an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter. It uses the ESP32‑C5HF4 SoC with a single‑core RISC‑V CPU, 384 KB SRAM and 4 MB on‑chip flash, and...
BIG AI Cluster Little Power the 8x NVIDIA GB10 Cluster
In April 2026 the team assembled an eight‑node NVIDIA GB10 (Grace Blackwell) cluster, surpassing NVIDIA’s official support of two‑node DAC and later four‑node topologies. The build leverages a 400 GbE MikroTik CRS804 DDQ switch for RDMA‑enabled ConnectX‑7 networking, a Cisco Catalyst C1300‑12XT‑2X for 10 GbE...
Qualcomm Surges 7% on AI Partnership as US Indexes Dip on Iran Tensions
Qualcomm stock jumped 7% on Monday after announcing an AI partnership, defying a broader sell‑off in US equities triggered by stalled Iran talks and higher oil prices. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.30%, the S&P 500 held flat to lower, and...
U.S., Philippines and Japan Launch Luzon Economic Corridor and Pax Silica Hub
The United States, the Philippines and Japan unveiled the Luzon Economic Corridor and Pax Silica initiative, establishing a 4,000‑acre industrial hub in New Clark City. The project, backed by $15 million in private‑sector funding, aims to reroute semiconductor, AI and critical‑mineral...
Lightmatter Appoints Roy Kim as VP of Product to Scale Photonic Interconnects
Lightmatter announced Roy Kim as its new Vice President of Product. Kim, who spent over 15 years leading AI infrastructure at Google, AMD and NVIDIA, will steer the company’s Passage™ photonic interconnect and Guide™ VLSP light engine toward volume production...
Near-Zero-CTE Dielectric Targets 224 Gb/S AI Links
Advanced Chip and Circuit Materials, Inc. introduced two new PCB dielectric materials, Celeritas HM50 and HM001, targeting AI and high‑speed digital designs. HM50 features a negative coefficient of thermal expansion (‑8 ppm/°C) while HM001 is engineered to be near‑zero CTE, both...
APEC 2026: Infineon Addresses AI Data Center Power Density Challenges with TLVR Quad-Phase Module
At APEC 2026 Infineon unveiled the TDM24745T, a TLVR‑based quad‑phase power module designed for AI server point‑of‑load applications. The 9 × 10 × 5 mm³ device delivers up to 320 A peak current with a current density over 2 A/mm², integrating power stages, a TLVR inductor and...
Advantest Posts FY2025 Profit Surge, Projects 26% Revenue Rise for FY2026
Advantest Corp. announced FY2025 earnings that beat expectations, with net income soaring to ¥375.4 billion and revenue reaching ¥1.13 trillion. The company also guided FY2026 revenue to rise 25.8% to ¥1.42 trillion and net income to ¥465.5 billion, signaling robust demand for its semiconductor...
AI Is Confronting a Supply-Chain Crunch
AI adoption surged in early 2026 as developers engaged in “tokenmaxxing,” driving a four‑fold rise in weekly tokens processed on platforms like OpenRouter. This unprecedented workload increase exposed a chronic shortfall in GPU and accelerator supply, with manufacturers unable to...
Experts Call for Halt of AI Chip Exports to China After White House Distillation Warning
The White House warned that China is running industrial‑scale campaigns to distill U.S. frontier AI models, prompting advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation to call for an immediate halt to U.S. exports of advanced AI chips. The letter specifically targets...
Indium Corp Gains $3.2m DOE TRACE-Ga Grant to Establish Domestic High-Purity Gallium Recovery
Indium Corp of Clinton, New York has secured a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s TRACE‑Ga program to develop a domestic process for recovering high‑purity gallium from manufacturing by‑products. The initiative marks the first effort to re‑establish U.S....
Next-Gen Semiconductors that Share Life's Handedness Just Got More Practical
University at Buffalo researchers have created a hybrid chiral semiconductor by chemically linking a chiral perovskite with the organic dopant F4TCNQ. The resulting material absorbs visible light while preserving the ability to differentiate left‑ and right‑circularly polarized light. The study,...
Week 17, 2026
The semiconductor industry is entering an AI‑driven memory supercycle that has prompted analysts to raise the 2026 market outlook. Agentic AI systems have demonstrated end‑to‑end design of a RISC‑V CPU core, signaling a shift toward autonomous chip development. TSMC expanded...
NVIDIA B200 Rental Prices Surge 114% in Six Weeks
NVIDIA’s latest GPU rental prices on the Ornn Compute Price Index hit $4.95 per hour this week, up from $2.31 in early March : a 114% surge in six weeks. The price spread over prior-generation chips doubled from $0.28 to $1.80...
Scalable Network-on-Chip Enables a Modular Chiplet Platform
Menta has launched the MOSAICS platform, a modular chiplet architecture that uses a Known Good Die hub to orchestrate communication among heterogeneous components. The hub relies on Arteris' FlexNoC interconnect, which can handle more than 30 initiators and targets at...
Atomic Step–Terrace Ordering Enables Unprecedentedly Low Pop‐in Stress Scatter in GaN (0001)
Researchers used catalyst‑referred etching (CARE) to create GaN (0001) surfaces with atomically flat step‑terrace topography. Nanoindentation on these surfaces produced pop‑in events at the theoretical strength of 16.15 GPa with an unprecedented stress scatter of only 2.3%. By contrast, conventional as‑received...
Semis Surge 18 Days Straight: Cycle Insights Unveiled
Semiconductors have rallied a record 18(!) straight days. Our latest weekly note is focused on semi cycles. Read it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/easymarkets/p/semis-cycles-and-the-ouroboros?r=1vbilw&utm_medium=ios
US and EU Sign Critical Minerals Pact to Cut China Dependence
The United States and the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding on April 27, 2026 to jointly secure critical mineral supplies and reduce reliance on China. The deal covers the full supply chain—from exploration to recycling—and sets up coordinated...
China's AI Chip Imports Surge 5% in 2026, Outpacing Export Growth
Economists forecast China's imports of high‑end AI chips will jump 5% in 2026, eclipsing export growth for the first time since 2021. The surge reflects a four‑year swing from stagnation to rapid demand, keeping the trade deficit from ballooning beyond...
Japan and South Korea Hit Record Highs as Asian Stocks Rally Amid Oil Price Concerns
Japanese and South Korean markets surged to all‑time highs, with the Nikkei 225 up 1.6% and the KOSPI climbing 2.3%, as U.S. equity strength spilled over into Asia. The rally unfolded despite Brent crude hovering above $107 a barrel, a...
South Korea Unveils $40.8 Billion Nanotech Master Plan to Rank in Global Top‑3 by 2030
South Korea announced a 60 trillion‑won ($40.8 bn) five‑year nanotechnology master plan, the sixth such roadmap, to lift the nation into the world’s top three nanotech powers by 2030. The plan outlines 13 priority tasks, five breakthrough research fields and a target...
Nvidia’s ‘AI Insurance Policy’ Balances Immediate and Future AI Approaches
Nvidia is diversifying beyond its cloud‑centric AI revenue by promoting on‑device LLMs, real‑time world‑model AI, and GPU‑based quantum simulation. The company highlights ChatRTX for RTX‑30 GPUs, expands AI‑driven digital twins and robotics, and rolls out CUDA‑Q and cuQuantum for quantum...
Fourth Data Prefetching Championship: Part I
The fourth Data Prefetching Championship (DPC‑4), held with HPCA 2026, showcased a range of innovative prefetching algorithms evaluated against a baseline of Berti at L1D and Pythia at L2 under tight storage budgets. Keynote speakers from Huawei and Google emphasized...
Motion-Enhanced Sensor Captures Ultra-High-Resolution Images, Overcoming a Pixel Miniaturization Bottleneck
Researchers at Tsinghua University unveiled a motion‑enhanced image sensor that pairs a conventional digital image sensor with a MEMS actuator to shift the chip by nanometer‑scale increments during exposure. This spatial‑modulation technique decouples sampling resolution from pixel size, delivering a...
Nvidia’s $5 Trillion Valuation Sparks Overbought Warning for Traders
Nvidia’s shares rose 4.3% to $208.27 on Friday, lifting the chipmaker’s market value above $5 trillion for the first time. The surge has triggered technical momentum tools to flag the stock as overbought, raising concerns for short‑term traders.
AZIO AI Corporation Expands Supplier Ecosystem, Secures Authorized Partnership with Giga Computing to Enhance Scalable AI Infrastructure Strategy
AZIO AI Corporation announced it is now an authorized direct reseller for Giga Computing, the enterprise arm of GIGABYTE, adding NVIDIA HGX platform and liquid‑cooling expertise to its supplier ecosystem. The partnership grants AZIO direct access to high‑density GPU systems...
Intel Warns CPU Prices Could Be the Next to Rise Due to AI Demand
Intel warned that CPU prices are set to climb as AI workloads shift toward inference, increasing server‑side demand. Since March 2026, server CPUs have risen about 20% and consumer chips 5‑10%, with another 8‑10% hike expected in the second half...
Intel Beats Q1 Forecast, Analysts Double Price Target to $95 as Server CPU Demand Soars
Intel reported Q1 revenue of $13.58 billion, eclipsing the $12.32 billion consensus, and posted EPS of $0.29 versus $0.01 expected. HSBC upgraded the stock to buy and raised its price target to $95, while other analysts highlighted a 20% lift in server...
Truist Raises Texas Instruments Target to $278 After Q1 Beat
Truist Financial raised its price target for Texas Instruments (TXN) to $278, up from $225, following the analog‑chip leader's fiscal Q1 earnings beat and upbeat Q2 outlook. The upgrade underscores growing investor confidence in the semiconductor sector as AI and...
Himax to Showcase Industry-Leading High-Contrast Dual-Edge Front-Lit LCoS Microdisplay at SID Display Week 2026
Himax Technologies unveiled a next‑generation high‑contrast dual‑edge front‑lit LCoS microdisplay at SID Display Week 2026 in Los Angeles. The 0.09 c.c. device weighs just 0.2 g, delivers up to 350,000 nits brightness, 1 lumen at 200 mW, and features a 720×720 resolution. Proprietary material and...
Rigetti Computing Shares Slide 70% From Peak, Raising Investor Concerns
Rigetti Computing's shares have fallen roughly 70% from their 2023 high, reflecting a sharp retreat after a brief 275% rally last fall. The decline follows a 34% revenue drop to $7.1 million in 2025 and a widening loss of $216 million, sparking...
All in One Bluetooth Audio: A Complete Solution on a TSMC 12nm Single Die
The SemiWiki webinar "All‑in‑One Bluetooth Audio: A Complete Solution on a TSMC 12 nm Single Die" showcases a fully integrated Bluetooth audio system built on TSMC’s 12 nm process. By consolidating RF front‑end, baseband, DSP, memory and power management onto one die,...
WeRide Expands WRD 3.0 Across Multiple Chip Platforms
WeRide announced that its WRD 3.0 advanced driver assistance system is now compatible with multiple chip platforms, including NVIDIA DRIVE, Qualcomm Snapdragon and SiEngine’s StarLight AD1000. The expansion enables automakers to deploy L2++ ADAS across a range of computing power—from...
Photonics May Unlock AI’s Data‑Movement Bottleneck
Why Photonics Could Decide the Future of AI Infrastructure Generative AI is turning data movement into one of the biggest constraints in modern data centers. Training clusters now span tens or hundreds of thousands of GPUs. Model sizes have moved beyond 100T...
Samsung Wafer Output Drops 58%, Memory Down 18% Amid Labor Dispute
Samsung’s South Korean wafer foundry output plunged 58% and memory production slipped 18% on April 23 after workers at the Pyeongtaek complex missed overnight shifts in protest. The dispute centers on pay and bonus structures; Samsung has offered a 6.2% base‑salary...
Power Semiconductor Lead Times Hit 30 Weeks as AI Drives 800V Shift
Rapid AI server expansion is forcing data centers to adopt higher‑voltage power architectures, with 800 VDC solutions gaining traction. Lead times for power semiconductors have stretched to roughly 30 weeks as demand outpaces capacity at mature process nodes. Suppliers such as...
Montage Profit Reaches Record as AI Chip Shipments Surge
Montage Technology Co. posted a record first‑quarter profit, with net income soaring 61% to 847.4 million yuan (about $124 million). The result beat the consensus estimate of 706.3 million yuan and pushed the company’s gross margin to 69.8%. The earnings surge was driven...
KOSPI Surges +2.15%: Semiconductor Earnings Concentration Drives All-Time High
The KOSPI jumped 2.15% to an all‑time high as semiconductor earnings from Intel, Samsung and SK Hynix sparked a concentrated rally. Samsung (25.45% weight) and SK Hynix (17.19% weight) together drove 72.8% of the index’s gain, accounting for roughly $1.3 billion of foreign...
Denso Mulls $9 B Withdrawal of Rohm Takeover, Threatening Japan’s Chip Supply Chain
Denso Corp. is considering pulling its $9 billion acquisition proposal for semiconductor maker Rohm Co., after failing to secure the target’s support. The possible retreat could fragment Japan’s power‑chip consolidation and reverberate through automotive and data‑center supply chains.
Memory Stocks Set to Double as AI Fuels Growth
NEW: We dug into this white hot Memory Stock trade that has helped $DRAM become the fastest growing theme ETF of all time w/ BI's semiconductor analyst Jake Silverman. He explains what memory is, the AI connection, where in cycle...
Chip Stocks Pause After Historic Surge, Future Uncertain
Chip Stocks Take A Breather After Historic Run. What's Next For Semiconductor Group? https://t.co/cNHeCAUhdp $SOXX $QCOM $NVDA $INTC $SNDK
GPU Prices Have Stopped Climbing, But the Market Is Still Broken
GPU prices have largely plateaued after a surge driven by AI demand, but the market remains distorted. Entry‑level RTX 5050 and RTX 5060 are roughly 5% above MSRP, while mid‑range RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB sits about 23% over MSRP and high‑end RTX 5090 commands $3.5‑$4k,...
Ben's Intel Defense Redeemed: Key TPU Takeaways From Cloud Next
Was a good discussion. Should have named it Ben's redemption for defending Intel since day 1 of the pod in 2023 lol. Also, sharing all I learned from TPU discussions at Cloud Next.
Intel Beats Forecast, Shares Jump 24% on Revival
MyPOV: @Intel crushes Wall Street’s expectations, and its stock surges 24% as revival gains pace https://t.co/1oGxH9TZ6w @SiliconANGLE @Mike_Wheatley “Intel is moving in the right direction, and a key objective going forward will be to secure design wins with...” - @holgermu @constellationr
SK Hynix Wins IEEE Corporate Innovation Award for AI Computing with HBM
SK hynix was honored with the 2026 IEEE Corporate Innovation Award for its role in expanding AI computing through high‑bandwidth memory (HBM). The Seoul‑based chipmaker highlighted stable mass production across all HBM generations and pledged to deepen partnerships with global...
POET’s Marvell Deal Turns Sour After Contract Cancellations
POETRY IN MOTION $POET: -books Celestial AI as a customer in 2023 -jumps when Celestial is acquired by Marvell -In interview calling short sellers maggots, CFO says POET is a $MRVL supplier - $MRVL cancels contracts citing a confidentiality breach https://t.co/uaRhd229wi
“The CPU Is Reinserting Itself”, Will Reach Parity with GPUs for AI Workloads: Tan
Intel CEO Lip‑Bu Tan told analysts that CPUs are regaining prominence in AI, with the CPU‑to‑GPU inference ratio moving from 1:8 to 1:4 and heading toward parity. The chipmaker posted a $3.7 billion loss for Q1 2026 but beat revenue guidance,...