Know What's Happening in Semiconductors
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Intel's Nova Lake desktop line rumored to jump to 44 cores
A leaked configuration shows Intel's upcoming Nova Lake‑S desktop processors moving from a 42‑core to a 44‑core SKU. The new design pairs two identical 8‑performance‑core plus 12‑efficient‑core compute tiles, freeing up a 6P+12E tile that could be sold as lower‑priced, locked variants while retaining on‑die big last‑level cache.
The article reviews the historical scaling limits of DDR DRAM and highlights that DDR5 now supports only one DIMM per channel, a trend that may continue with DDR6. Industry insiders speculate that DDR7 could eliminate DIMMs entirely, dramatically reducing bus capacitance and boosting data rates into the hundreds of gigabits per second. Rumors even suggest a DDR8 concept with a "negative" DIMM count, hinting at radical architectural shifts. These projections aim to address the memory bandwidth bottleneck increasingly felt in AI‑driven data centers.
Telink introduced the TL3228, the first chip in its TL322x wireless MCU family, featuring a 192 MHz dual‑core RISC‑V processor and support for Bluetooth 6.0, Matter, Thread, Zigbee, RF4CE, and a proprietary 2.4 GHz radio. The MCU offers up to 6 Mbps data rates,...
Advanced nodes (5nm and below) accounted for over 50% of smartphone SoC shipments in 2025 and are projected to reach nearly 60% in 2026, according to Counterpoint Research. Samsung debuted its 2nm Exynos 2600 in the Galaxy S26, while Apple,...
Arrow Electronics has unified its global components business under a redesigned, omnichannel arrow.com platform, retiring the legacy MyArrow portal. The new site merges product selection, purchasing, services, and account management into a single digital workflow. It also embeds direct access...
Arm Holdings has launched the Arm AGI CPU, its first production silicon product aimed at AI data‑center workloads. The chip packs up to 136 Neoverse V3 cores, a 300‑watt TDP and can deliver more than twice the rack performance of...
Per the $NVDA + $MRVL investment... I do wonder if this also opens the door to $NVDA selling CPU racks to custom XPUs made by $MRVL for hyperscale customers. Obvsiously, it does help them lock up more parts of the...
The year‑long rally in DRAM prices paused in March as pre‑negotiated contracts locked the average 8 Gb DDR4 price at $13, ending 11 months of double‑digit growth. First‑quarter DRAM prices still surged 100‑115% versus the prior quarter, reflecting strong demand. TrendForce...
Telechips is accelerating its network gateway chip business, launching proof‑of‑concept projects with select global customers as it seeks a profitability turnaround. The company is simultaneously expanding AI‑integrated automotive semiconductor offerings for ADAS and autonomous driving, while upgrading its in‑vehicle infotainment...
Nvidia is investing another $2 billion in Marvell, extending a series of multi‑billion‑dollar bets aimed at shaping the AI datacenter supply chain. The partnership will have Marvell produce custom XPUs and NVLink Fusion‑compatible networking, leveraging its recent acquisition of XConn’s high‑bandwidth PCIe...
ZEISS introduced the Crossbeam 750 FIB‑SEM, a focused ion beam‑scanning electron microscope optimized for high‑accuracy sample preparation. The system features Gemini 4 electron optics and a high‑dynamic‑range Mill + SEM that provides a live, high‑resolution SEM view during any milling condition, enabling real‑time endpoint...
South Korean memory maker SK hynix has ordered a hybrid bonding inline system co‑developed by Applied Materials and BE Semiconductor Industries, valued at roughly 20 billion won. The equipment combines CMP and plasma modules with Besi’s die‑bonder, enabling mass‑production of next‑generation...
Metallium Ltd's US arm, Flash Metals USA, has signed a long‑term off‑take agreement with Indium Corp to purchase recovered gallium, germanium, copper, tin, gold and indium from Metallium's recycling operations. The contract runs for an initial ten years with automatic...
South Korean AI chip startup Mobilint has completed silicon proof‑of‑concept validation for its second‑generation NPU, Regulus, developed for Shinsegae Group’s AI‑powered checkout kiosks. The chip, fabricated on TSMC’s 12‑nm process, is slated for mass production in the second quarter and...
Samsung Electronics is rolling out hybrid bonding inspection equipment, partnering with Onto Innovation’s picosecond laser ultrasound system that is already being validated on mass‑production lines. The joint development targets detection of microscopic voids and overlay errors in high‑bandwidth memory (HBM)...
South Korean AI chip designer Rebellions Inc. closed a 640 billion won pre‑IPO funding round, valuing the company at 3.4 trillion won. The round, led by the state‑backed Korea National Growth Fund with 250 billion won, also included contributions from KDB and Mirae...
University of Florida researchers released a technical paper introducing a causal‑inference framework for analog‑mixed‑signal (AMS) circuit design. The method builds a directed‑acyclic graph from SPICE simulation data and estimates average treatment effects (ATE) to rank design parameters. Tested on three...
Semiconductor Today’s March 2026 issue spotlights rapid advances in compound semiconductors, noting a projected market size of roughly $5.2 bn by 2031 growing at a 14% CAGR. The publication highlights the ALP‑4‑SiC project for quantum photonic circuits, new growth methods for...
STMicroelectronics has launched two phase‑shift control ICs, the STNRG599A and STNRG599B, targeting resonant‑converter power supplies and lighting drivers. The devices operate up to 750 kHz, provide zero‑voltage switching, and improve no‑load efficiency while offering built‑in safety features such as X‑capacitor discharge...
Will do a memory market update next week. But in the meantime. Nothing has changed since this report a month ago. Memory still on track to ~$200B https://t.co/QSHAd1OxK2
Fujitsu announced plans to develop a dedicated AI inference NPU using Rapidus' 1.4 nm process, with an estimated development cost of ¥58 billion (about $363 million). The project, funded roughly two‑thirds by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, will be designed...
RISC‑V Now! is a Silicon Valley conference designed to turn the open RISC‑V instruction set architecture into shipped products at scale. The event attracted roughly 600 semiconductor professionals from more than 250 companies, including industry giants such as Apple, Google,...
Kioxia announced it will cease production of all 2D (planar) NAND flash and its third‑generation BiCS 3D NAND, with final shipments scheduled for December 31 2028. The phase‑out covers legacy 32nm, 24nm and 15nm planar nodes as well as early 64‑layer BiCS3...
QuantumDiamonds GmbH announced Peter Lemmens as Managing Director Asia, coinciding with the launch of a new regional hub in Taiwan. The hire leverages Lemmens' 25‑year semiconductor leadership and deep Taiwan network to accelerate adoption of the company’s quantum‑diamond microscopy (QDM)...
Toradex introduced two ultra‑compact 30 × 30 mm System‑on‑Module families, OSM and Lino, built around NXP i.MX 91 and i.MX 93 processors for edge industrial and IoT use cases. OSM follows the OSM Size‑S standard with a 332‑ball LGA that is soldered directly to a...
Researchers at UC Davis have demonstrated that halide perovskite crystals undergo rapid, reversible lattice distortions when illuminated, a phenomenon termed photostriction. Using laser excitation and X‑ray probing, they showed the effect can be tuned by adjusting the crystal composition, light wavelength,...
Apple’s latest M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are closing the performance gap with dedicated gaming PCs. Benchmarks by YouTuber Andrew Tsai show the M5 Pro delivering roughly 60 fps in upscaled 1440p on titles like Cyberpunk 2077, while the 40‑core M5 Max sustains similar frame rates...
Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (AOI) secured a volume order exceeding $53 million from a major hyperscale customer for 800‑gigabit single‑mode data‑center transceivers. The order supports AI‑driven GPU clusters and will be shipped between Q2 and mid‑Q3 2026 after product qualification. AOI’s CEO highlighted...
Nanya Technology raised roughly $2.5 billion via share sales and private placements to expand its DRAM production capacity. Kioxia invested T$15.6 billion for a 2 % equity stake and a long‑term DRAM supply agreement, while SanDisk committed T$31 billion and signed a multi‑year supply...
Intel unveiled the Optimization Zone, a GitHub‑hosted repository that consolidates performance tuning guides and best‑practice recipes for Intel data‑center hardware. The hub currently includes optimization recipes for workloads such as Apache Kafka, Cassandra, Redis, and Spark, and provides BIOS tunables,...
LILYGO has launched the T‑Display‑P4, a smartphone‑sized development kit that pairs the new ESP32‑P4 RISC‑V MCU with an ESP32‑C6 Wi‑Fi 6/BT 5.x module and optional SX1262 or LR2021 LoRa transceiver. The board offers a 4‑inch TFT or AMOLED screen, 2 MP camera, 32 MB...
Samsung Electronics' foundry division announced its entry into the silicon photonics market, unveiling a roadmap that moves from photonic integrated circuits (PICs) this year to optical engines in 2027 and turnkey co‑packaged optics (CPO) by 2029, with a next‑generation CPO...
LG Chem announced a plan to double its semiconductor and automotive electronics materials revenue to 2 trillion won (about $1.5 billion) by 2030, up from roughly 1 trillion won today. The company created a new advanced R&D unit under its Advanced Materials Research Institute to...
Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have created a single semiconductor diode that simultaneously senses light, stores data and performs processing. By inserting an aluminum‑gallium‑nitride layer into a GaN p‑n junction, the device can switch among...
NIST researchers have introduced hydroxide catalysis bonding (HCB) as a new packaging method for photonic integrated circuits, replacing traditional polymer adhesives with a glass‑like inorganic bond. The HCB‑packaged chips survived cryogenic temperatures, intense ionizing radiation, high‑vacuum conditions, and rapid thermal...
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara and UMass Amherst have built a chip‑scale, visible‑light Brillouin laser that can be frequency‑stabilized to the narrow strontium optical‑clock transition and used to drive a trapped‑ion qubit. The integrated laser, paired with an on‑chip coil...
Rogue Valley Microdevices (RVM) announced the launch of MEMS Design Services, a foundry‑flexible offering that supports customers from concept through production‑ready design. The service provides three engagement models—Design only, Design with technology transfer, and full Design‑and‑Fabricate within RVM’s own fab—allowing...
The UK’s EXPRESS programme, a five‑year, £10.4 million EPSRC‑funded initiative led by the Universities of Warwick and Southampton, will develop next‑generation transistor and optoelectronic devices using transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Researchers will combine electrochemical deposition with bespoke precursor chemistry to grow...
STMicroelectronics introduced the Stellar P3E, an automotive microcontroller that embeds a Neural‑ART accelerator for on‑chip AI inference. The MCU consolidates multiple ECUs, features six Cortex‑R52+ cores up to 500 MHz, and includes high‑density xMemory. By offloading machine‑learning tasks to the NPU, the...
Dean Technology has launched two new high‑voltage diode families, the FH and SH series, expanding its medium‑power portfolio. The FH series delivers a reverse‑recovery time as low as 40 ns, a substantial improvement over the legacy 2CL line’s 100 ns, while supporting...
The semiconductor and AI ecosystem is entering a phase defined by efficiency gains, massive infrastructure scaling, and strategic localization. This week’s highlights include Gartner’s forecast of a sharp decline in large‑language‑model inference costs, NVIDIA’s dual‑model AI stack, and Google’s near‑lossless...
The latest Foundryecosystem Report highlights a severe shortage of leading‑edge foundry capacity for AI chips, as AMD, Nvidia and others scramble for wafers. Rising costs are also pressuring mature‑node display driver IC (DDIC) suppliers, prompting potential price hikes. Meanwhile, major...
Mitsubishi Electric, Rohm and Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage have signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan Industrial Partners and TBJ Holdings to explore merging their power‑semiconductor businesses. The proposed joint venture would combine silicon, gallium‑nitride (GaN) and silicon‑carbide (SiC)...
Jon Peddie Research tracks 133 active AI processor suppliers, with major players like Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Google and a host of startups operating fabless. Nvidia’s newest Rubin GPU is manufactured by TSMC using its N3P process, while its Groq 3...
Alpha & Omega Semiconductor (AOS) launched the AOTL037V60DE2, a 600‑V superjunction MOSFET built on its new MOS E2 platform. The device offers a low 37 mΩ on‑resistance, a robust intrinsic body diode with reduced reverse‑recovery charge, and a wide safe operating area,...
GlobalFoundries has initiated legal actions against Tower Semiconductor in both the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Western District of Texas. The complaints allege that Tower is infringing on eleven of GF’s U.S. patents covering high‑performance analog, RF, and silicon‑photonics...
Microchip Technology has launched a new family of 600‑V gate drivers, offering twelve devices across half‑bridge, high‑side/low‑side, and three‑phase configurations. The drivers deliver fast switching with current‑drive capabilities ranging from 600 mA to 4.5 A and operate on 3.3‑V logic, simplifying integration...
Cisco, Kioxia, Sandisk and Solidigm have collectively invested about $2.5 billion in Taiwan’s Nanya Technology through a private‑placement share offering. The capital will fund expansion of Nanya’s DRAM fabrication capacity, addressing a global memory shortage. Each investor also signed separate DRAM...
Tower Semiconductor will acquire full ownership and operational control of the 300mm Fab 7 in Uozu, Japan, from its joint‑venture partner Nuvoton. The 65nm facility produces RF‑SOI, power‑management ICs, sensors and silicon‑photonics chips, and Tower aims to quadruple its capacity...
Advanced packaging is reshaping the semiconductor sector by enabling higher transistor density and heterogeneous integration through 2.5D, 3D, and fan‑out wafer‑level techniques. The global market is projected to exceed $30 billion by 2028, driven by demand for AI, high‑performance computing, and...
Researchers at National Taiwan University introduced a unified analytical framework that captures how channel thickness, trap states, interface quality, and surface roughness jointly dictate the performance of atom‑thin indium‑oxide and tungsten‑doped indium‑oxide transistors. The model accurately reproduces I‑V characteristics for...
