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.
Broadcom to Supply Custom AI Accelerators to Meta in Multi‑Year Deal
Broadcom announced a multi‑year agreement to provide Meta Platforms with custom AI accelerator chips built on its XPU platform, backed by an initial one‑gigawatt capacity. The partnership sent Broadcom shares up 4.19% and Meta shares up 1.37% as the two firms aim to lower total‑cost‑of‑ownership for massive AI workloads.
Speculation: Silicon’s Most Expensive Compulsion
Modern high‑performance CPUs devote 30‑50% of die area and up to 30% of dynamic power to out‑of‑order speculative execution hardware that rarely benefits AI, scientific and EDA workloads. Simplex Micro’s Time‑Based Scheduling (TBS) removes most speculation structures from the vector...
Exclusive: TD Synnex Nabs Over 1,000 Nvidia GPUs For Channel In Nebius Cloud Deal
TD Synnex has secured more than 1,000 Nvidia B300 GPUs through a one‑year reservation with Nebius, a neocloud provider, to offer AI‑ready instances to its channel partners. The deal, announced at the company’s High‑Growth Conference, targets July availability and aims to...
Aixtron’s Preliminary Q1 Order Intake up 30% Year-on-Year, Driven by Opto Comprising 65% Share
German deposition equipment maker Aixtron reported preliminary Q1 2026 revenue of about €59 m (~$71 m), a 48% decline from a year earlier, while gross margin fell to roughly 18%. Despite the revenue drop, order intake jumped 30% YoY to €171 m (~$205 m),...
TSMC Q1 Profit Jumps 58% to $18bn as AI Demand Fuels Surge
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. posted a 58.3% year‑on‑year increase in first‑quarter net profit to NT$572.5 bn ($18 bn), while revenue rose 35.1% to NT$1.13 trn ($36 bn). The surge reflects surging AI‑related chip orders and reinforces TSMC’s position as the backbone of the global...
Vishay Rolls Out Compact IHLP Inductor for High-Density Power Designs
Vishay Intertechnology has introduced the IHLP1212‑EZ‑1Z, a compact 1212‑package inductor designed for high‑density power designs. The 3 mm × 3 mm part delivers inductance from 0.22 µH to 3.3 µH, a low DCR of 8.6 mΩ, and supports up to 14.3 A across –55 °C to +125 °C. Its powdered‑iron...
China Can Overcome Chip Process Gap by Stacking More
Jensen Huang: The claim that China lacks AI chips is utterly baseless; they can scale up computing power infinitely if they choose to. China can fully compensate for the process gap in individual chips by stacking more chips. 'They have...
Broadcom Expands AI Chip Deal with Meta to Support Data Centers
Broadcom announced an expanded AI chip partnership with Meta Platforms that will run through 2029. The agreement covers both training and inference workloads, with an initial deployment of more than 1 GW of compute capacity. Broadcom’s XPU platform will integrate with...
Credo Paid $92 Million USD in Cash to Acquire Hyperlume, SEC Filing Reveals
San Jose‑based Credo completed the cash acquisition of Ottawa AI‑interconnect startup Hyperlume for approximately $92 million, resulting in a net purchase price of about $82.5 million after accounting for cash received. Hyperlume’s microLED technology promises tenfold performance gains, fivefold power savings and...
ROHM Launches Free Web Tool for Power Semiconductor Loss and Thermal Simulation
ROHM has launched a free, browser‑based PLECS simulator that lets engineers evaluate power semiconductor loss and thermal performance without installing software. The tool, licensed from Plexim, currently includes only ROHM parts and supports 20 circuit topologies, delivering results in seconds...
Cadence and NVIDIA Expand Partnership for Agentic AI Design
Cadence and NVIDIA announced an expanded partnership that couples Cadence's agentic AI‑driven EDA and system design tools with NVIDIA's CUDA‑X, AI‑physics, and Omniverse libraries. The collaboration promises up to 100× speedups for solvers and a new AgentStack super‑agent that orchestrates...
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) Turns to AI-Powered Robots to Power Industrial Revolution
NVIDIA showcased its latest AI‑robot initiatives at the GTC conference, unveiling Isaac GR00T, an open‑source model that lets robots interpret natural‑language commands, and Cosmos, a synthetic‑data engine for large‑scale robot training. These tools extend NVIDIA’s dominant GPU and software stack...
Cadence Collaborates with Google on AI-Driven Chip Design
Cadence has teamed up with Google to embed Google’s Gemini large‑language model into its ChipStack AI Super Agent, a cloud‑native platform for chip design and verification. The integration runs on Google Cloud’s elastic compute, delivering up to ten‑fold productivity gains...
Shoe Retailer Allbirds Pivots to AI with $50m to Buy up GPUs
Allbirds, the sustainable shoe retailer, announced a $50 million investment to acquire approximately 1,660 NVIDIA H200 GPUs. The hardware spend marks a strategic pivot toward building in‑house artificial‑intelligence capabilities. By securing high‑performance GPUs, Allbirds aims to accelerate product design, demand forecasting,...
Quinas Completes Innovate UK Project Advancing ULTRARAM for AI and Neuromorphic Computing
Quinas Technology has finished an Innovate UK‑funded project that demonstrates its ULTRARAM memory’s suitability for neuromorphic and compute‑in‑memory AI systems. The £1.1 million (~$1.4 million) grant enabled device optimisation, architectural design work, and validation of ultra‑low‑energy operation. ULTRARAM uniquely blends DRAM‑class speed, flash‑class...
Panel-Level Packaging’s Second Wave Meets Engineering Reality
Panel-level packaging is gaining traction as wafer‑level economics falter under the growing size of AI and high‑performance computing modules. By switching to rectangular glass or organic panels, manufacturers can increase units per run, spreading fixed costs more efficiently. However, the...
Chiplet Standards Aim For Plug-N-Play
The semiconductor industry is moving beyond basic chiplet interconnects like UCIe and BoW toward a full suite of standards that enable a true plug‑and‑play marketplace. Organizations such as the Open Compute Project, JEDEC, and IEEE are defining specifications for system...
Silicon Photonics Lights The Way To More Efficient Data Centers
Silicon photonics is emerging as a solution to the power‑intensive data‑movement problem in modern data centers, especially as AI workloads generate massive east‑west traffic. By replacing copper with optical links, photonic interconnects can dramatically increase bandwidth density while slashing energy...
EBeam Initiative At SPIE ALP 2026: Continuing Progress On Curvilinear, EUV, And Data Challenges
The eBeam Initiative’s 17th SPIE Advanced Lithography lunch gathered about 150 industry leaders to assess progress on curvilinear masks, EUV adoption, data handling, and multi‑beam mask writers. Speakers highlighted how GPU‑accelerated design and multi‑beam eBeam tools are finally making fully...
Automate And Speed Up TCAD Calibration With Expert Modules And ML Calibration Accelerator
Synopsys has upgraded its Sentaurus Calibration Workbench with expert calibration modules and a new ML Calibration Accelerator, each delivering more than a five‑fold speed increase. The expert modules pre‑build 80% of the workflow, giving TCAD engineers a 5× productivity boost,...
Apple Trims Mac Mini, Mac Studio Lineup as AI Demand Spikes
Apple quietly removed its highest‑memory Mac mini (32 GB and 64 GB) and Mac Studio (128 GB and 256 GB) configurations from the US online store, following a recent pull of the 512 GB Mac Studio model. The cuts come amid a broader industry RAM...
The State of AI Compute
In Q1 2024 the world’s leading tech firms collectively owned about 2.5 million H100‑equivalent AI compute units. By the end of 2025 that figure surged to 21.3 million, an 8.5‑fold increase in just eight quarters. The growth reflects a structural shift, not merely...
Artificial Intuition: Building an AI Mind for Electromagnetic Design and Engineering - ARENA Physica
In this CDFAM Computational Design Symposium talk, Mike from Arena Physica outlines the company’s mission to create electromagnetic (EM) superintelligence through three pillars: the Atlas agentic platform, the Heaviside foundation model for fast forward EM simulation, and the Marconi diffusion‑based...
Terafab Equipment and Chip Orders
Elon Musk announced equipment orders for Tesla's upcoming Terafab, designed to process 3,000 wafers a month—about 36,000 wafers or 3‑4 million chips annually. The capacity could expand to over 10 million chips per year by 2027, supporting Tesla vehicles, Cybercabs, Optimus robots,...
CORRECTING and REPLACING Panmnesia to Mass-Produce PCIe 6.4-CXL 3.2 Fusion Switch
Panmnesia, a South Korean fabless AI‑infrastructure chipmaker, announced mass production of its PCIe 6.4‑CXL 3.2 fusion‑switch chip in the second half of 2024. The chip uniquely implements the full CXL 3.2 specification with Port‑Based Routing, supporting PCIe Gen 6 64 GT/s and all CXL sub‑protocols. It...
Anthropic Is Reportedly Testing Its Own AI Chips: No Product yet, but a Clear Signal in the Infrastructure Race
Anthropic is reportedly evaluating the development of its own AI accelerators, though no product or dedicated team has been confirmed. The move follows a surge in Claude’s demand, with projected 2026 revenue surpassing $30 billion, up from $9 billion in 2025. Anthropic...
AMD Ryzen AI 400, Aka “Gorgon Point”: Lots of New Model Names, but Based on Current Information, It Appears to...
AMD officially launched the Ryzen AI 400 series, codenamed “Gorgon Point,” in early 2026. The lineup re‑uses Zen 5/Zen 5c cores and RDNA 3.5 graphics from the earlier Strix Point and Krackan Point APUs, with modest clock‑speed and SKU tweaks rather than a new architecture. Desktop variants now...
Radiation-Hardened Electronics and the Business of Space-Grade Components
Radiation‑hardened electronics remain essential for space missions because they must survive harsh radiation environments where replacement is impossible. The market is defined by rigorous certification, long lead times, and a limited pool of qualified suppliers, making components a strategic asset....
Is Tesla a Chip Stock Now? Investors Are Cheering a Semiconductor Milestone.
Tesla announced that its next‑generation AI5 chip has completed tape‑out, locking the design for fabrication. The chip is intended to power humanoid robots and Tesla’s supercomputing platforms, with volume production targeted for 2027. Shares surged after CEO Elon Musk posted...
Memory Reallocation to AI Workloads Constrains LPDDR4 Supply, Slowing High-End Cellular IoT Module Growth
Memory vendors are shifting wafer capacity toward high‑bandwidth memory and AI‑centric nodes, leaving LPDDR4 supply constrained. Counterpoint now projects global cellular IoT module shipments to grow only 4% YoY in 2026, half the prior 8% forecast, as high‑end 5G and...
Silicon Box Joins Imec Automotive Chiplet Program to Advance Automotive-Grade Chiplet Devices
Silicon Box has entered imec’s Automotive Chiplet Program (ACP), a joint effort to speed the adoption of chiplet architectures in next‑generation vehicles. The company will contribute end‑to‑end expertise in chiplet interconnection, advanced packaging, and testing, working with more than 22...
Distributed Intelligence Redefining Predictive Maintenance as Edge AI Reshapes Industrial Architectures
Edge AI is pushing predictive maintenance from centralized clouds to the factory floor, sparking a split between automation vendors who champion deterministic, layered intelligence and silicon players who embed inference directly in sensors and edge processors. Omron illustrates a pragmatic,...
TSMC Hits Record 2,080 TWD, Lifts Taiwan Market Past 36,800 Points
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) opened at 2,065 TWD and climbed to a new intraday high of 2,080 TWD, propelling the TAIEX to breach the 36,800‑point barrier. The rally was backed by strong gains in other chipmakers and a wave...
Nvidia Launches Ising Open‑source AI Suite to Speed Quantum Processor Calibration
Nvidia announced the open‑source Ising AI model suite, designed to accelerate quantum processor calibration and error correction. The company says the models run up to 2.5 times faster and deliver three times higher accuracy than existing tools, potentially shrinking calibration...
Semiconductors Shift Computation Closer to Memory
#Technology #Thread #Semiconductor #Manufacturing #Memory The Semiconductor PIM To PNM: 1/ - The Semiconductor Industry Is Rethinking Where Computation Happens. - Traditional Architectures Move Data Back And Forth Between Memory And Processors, Driving Latency, Power, And Cost.
Midwest Boutique Says DRAM Price Forecasts Stabilizing
Did Midwest Boutique send a cautionary commentary out on $MU ? "Our work suggests conventional DRAM price forecasts are stabilizing somewhat after continued meaningful upside"
KLA Reports 24% YoY Revenue Surge in Q4 2025 Earnings Call
KLA Corporation announced $3.18 billion in Q4 2025 revenue, a 24% year‑over‑year increase, and lifted its advanced‑packaging revenue forecast to over $925 million. The earnings call underscored robust free cash flow, a 12% dividend hike, and ongoing tariff uncertainty.
TSMC Defies Slow Critiques, Shows Strong Earnings
Some say TSMC is too slow. But earnings today show it’s stronger than ever, even as a bold new entrant joins the chip race. CC Wei 🐢 @elonmusk 🐇 https://t.co/mrlSHR8taT https://t.co/FtqYRRTCxQ
Compute Strategy: Build Your Own AI Infrastructure
Everyone's debating AI models. Almost no one asks what they run on. XPU co-development. Custom Ethernet for AI. Boston Dynamics in production. Compute is now strategy. Rent it: ceiling set by someone else. Build it: you write your own. https://t.co/U5DIK1nJt6
Applied Materials Launches Two Deposition Tools for Sub‑2 Nm GAA Transistor Production
Applied Materials announced two new deposition systems designed for sub‑2 nm gate‑all‑around (GAA) transistor fabrication. The tools address the atomic‑scale tolerances required for more than 500 process steps, aiming to boost performance and power efficiency for AI‑focused chips.
Every AI Chip, Not Just NVDA or AVGO, Will Sell
It’s not $NVDA or $AVGO. It is every AI chip that can be built will be sold. 💪🏻🚀 https://t.co/K0jvKcT7SF
EU Sets Course for Hybrid Quantum-Classical Supercomputing with Lumi‑Q Consortium
The European Union announced that its pending Quantum Computing Act will coordinate research and investment while launching the Lumi‑Q consortium, a 13‑partner effort across eight countries to test hybrid quantum‑classical architectures. The move signals a continent‑wide push to integrate quantum...
ASML Beats Earnings, Raises Guidance Amid Red Flags
$ASML just beat earnings and raised guidance But before you pile in - here's every red flag in one screenshot
CEO Discusses Monetization and New Agentic EDA Stack
Here at #CadenceLIVE, CEO @OfficialADevgan held an Analyst Q&A session - we had questions about monetization but also about the agentic stack coming to EDA. Full transcript now available at More Than Moore. https://t.co/8poqXP70GG https://t.co/nj1YcE6nGL
TMTB: Nvidia's CEO Jensen on Dwarkesh Podcast - Key Quotes (NVDA)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the Dwarkesh podcast that the company’s 70% gross margin and fixed‑price strategy give it a pricing advantage over competing ASICs. He argued Nvidia’s performance‑to‑cost (TCO) ratio is unmatched, citing its token‑per‑watt efficiency and annual generational...
Machine-to-Machine Communication Will Skyrocket Processing Demands
General-purpose processing demands will multiply once machines are talking to machines. https://t.co/J4yo86mxLl #CPUs @Arm #AgenticAI #chiplets #NPU #GPU #datamovement
TSMC Q1 Earnings Preview Amid Record AI Compute Surge
Good morning from Taipei. TSMC reports 1Q earnings & hosts an IR call later today. The AI compute sector is at its hottest level on record. I’ll have full coverage soon after the call. Straight to your inbox from https://t.co/yt0PGDxqqi
Rapidus: Will It Succeed Or Not?
Japanese foundry startup Rapidus secured a ¥631.5 billion ($3.97 billion) government subsidy, part of a broader $16 billion financing plan. The company has opened a chip‑characterization lab and a packaging/chiplet R&D line at its Chitose fab, aiming to ship 2nm gate‑all‑around (GAA) chips...
Semiconductor Industry Calls for More Robust, Strategic Industrial Policy
U.S. industry leaders told a House subcommittee that China is outspending the United States on AI‑driven semiconductor research and that American manufacturing capacity has shrunk more than 25% since 1990. They urged Congress to adopt a proactive industrial policy, streamline...
Wayve Lands Backing From AMD, Qualcomm and Arm to Boost Autonomous Driving Tech
Wayve announced it has secured new financing from semiconductor leaders AMD, Qualcomm and Arm, though the size of the round was not disclosed. The backing signals deepening ties between chip makers and autonomous‑vehicle innovators as the race to commercialize self‑driving...