US Reportedly Allows 10 Chinese Companies to Buy NVIDIA's Coveted H200 AI Chips
U.S. Commerce officials have granted ten Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com, Lenovo and Foxconn, clearance to purchase NVIDIA’s H200 AI processors. The firms can each order up to 75,000 chips, but NVIDIA has not yet delivered any units. The H200 is NVIDIA’s second‑tier high‑performance AI chip, trailing the B200, and was only cleared for export in December 2025 after earlier bans. Chinese authorities have reportedly advised the firms to pause purchases amid concerns over U.S. policy shifts and potential chip vulnerabilities.
Diodes Launches PCIe 7.0 Clock Generator for AI Servers
Diodes Incorporated introduced the PI6CG33A06, a six‑output ultra‑low jitter clock generator built for PCI Express 7.0 platforms in AI servers and high‑performance data‑center equipment. The device delivers RMS jitter below 30 femtoseconds, comfortably beating the PCIe 7.0 maximum of 67 fs, and supplies stable 25 MHz...
Tower Signs Customer Contracts for $1.3bn Silicon Photonics Revenue for 2027
Tower Semiconductor announced $1.3 bn of silicon photonics contracts for 2027, backed by $290 m in prepaid capacity reservations. The deals cover more than 50 active customers and set the stage for a larger wafer commitment in 2028. Tower is ramping multi‑fab...
Chiplets Need A New Workflow
Chiplet architectures are reshaping semiconductor development from single‑die design to a system‑level, multi‑die challenge. Engineers must adopt coordinated workflows that integrate design, packaging, verification, test, and reliability early to avoid costly failures before tape‑out. Multi‑physics analysis—thermal, mechanical, power, and signal...
Flash Getting Stacked High-Bandwidth Version
Sandisk, in partnership with SK Hynix, has unveiled a high‑bandwidth flash (HBF) memory stack that mirrors the footprint of HBM but delivers far greater capacity—up to 3 TB per 16‑die stack—and 1.6 TB/s read bandwidth. The NAND‑based architecture targets AI inference workloads, keeping...
Rigaku Working with Imec to Accelerate Next-Gen Semiconductor Metrology Development
Rigaku Corp. has launched a three‑year collaboration with European research hub imec to fast‑track X‑ray‑based metrology for next‑generation semiconductors. The partnership will develop 3D device metrology, ultra‑sensitive ultrathin‑film detection, and non‑destructive defect inspection to support emerging architectures such as Gate‑All‑Around...
MRAM Gets Its Own SIG
Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) has reached a maturity level that prompted the creation of the MRAM Alliance Special Interest Group (SIG) within the Storage Networking Industry Association. The SIG brings together foundries, chip makers, memory vendors, equipment suppliers and end‑users to...
UK AI Chip Startup Fractile Raises $220M to Tackle the Growing Inference Bottleneck
UK AI‑chip startup Fractile announced a $220 million Series B round to accelerate its next‑generation inference hardware. The funding, led by Accel, Factorial Funds and Founders Fund, backs Fractile’s effort to cut the time and cost of producing massive token outputs for...
Flyback ICs Extend Operating Power to 440 W
Power Integrations has launched the TOPSwitchGaN family, extending flyback converter capability to 440 W. The new ICs combine PowiGaN switches with TOPSwitch architecture, delivering up to 92% efficiency and eliminating the need for heatsinks in many applications. Operating at up to...
IC-Link by Imec Joins TSMC 3DFabric® Alliance to Accelerate Advanced Packaging and 3D IC Innovation
IC‑Link by imec has become a member of TSMC’s 3DFabric Alliance within the Open Innovation Platform, giving it direct access to TSMC’s 2.5D/3D silicon stacking and advanced packaging technologies such as SoIC, CoWoS and InFO. The partnership expands IC‑Link’s ASIC...
Unified Steep‐Slope Switching and Non‐Volatile Memory in a Complementarily Stabilized Van Der Waals Ferroelectric Transistor
Researchers have unveiled a van der Waals ferroelectric negative‑capacitance transistor (FeNC‑FET) that merges sub‑60 mV/dec steep‑slope switching with intrinsic non‑volatile memory in a single device. The innovation relies on a CIPS/h‑BN/α‑In₂Se₃ trilayer gate stack, where CIPS supplies a stabilized negative‑capacitance state,...
Paragraf Launches PMF2000 GFET
Paragraf has unveiled the PMF2000 graphene field‑effect transistor, the company’s first device fabricated on six‑inch silicon wafers. The launch is backed by a new large‑wafer facility in Huntingdon, billed as the world’s first graphene foundry, which boosts yield and consistency...
China’s AI Suppliers Can’t Keep Up as Component Shortages Bite
Chinese AI hardware vendors are confronting a severe component shortage that threatens to curb the rapid growth they enjoyed earlier this year. Demand for GPUs, ASICs and edge‑AI processors remains robust, but supply chain bottlenecks in semiconductors and advanced packaging...
Beijing Put Huawei’s Secret Chip Lab on National TV Two Days Before Trump Arrives. The Message Wasn’t for Chinese Viewers.
Beijing aired footage of Huawei’s secret chip laboratory on prime‑time CCTV just two days before President Trump’s state visit, turning the broadcast into a diplomatic signal. The Lianqiu Lake campus, a $1.4 billion complex that will host 35,000 researchers, showcases Huawei’s...
Why the Strait of Hormuz Is a Semiconductor Crisis Waiting to Happen
The article warns that the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for about one‑fifth of global LNG—83% of which heads to Asia—poses a hidden semiconductor risk. Asian power grids, heavily fed by LNG, supply the massive electricity needed for EUV...
Nvidia’s Huang Wants to Sell Chips to China. Trump Has Other Priorities.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will not join President Donald Trump on the administration’s upcoming trip to China, according to media reports. The omission suggests the White House is scaling back efforts to open the Chinese market for U.S. semiconductor firms....
Cerebras Targets $33B IPO as It Challenges Nvidia in AI Chips
Cerebras Systems announced an upsized IPO targeting $4.8 billion in proceeds at a roughly $33 billion valuation, with shares priced between $150 and $160. The chip maker, known for its wafer‑scale processor the size of a dinner plate, has secured a multi‑year...
Nvidia Is Buying the Chip Supply Chain
Nvidia disclosed that it has secured $95.2 billion in purchase commitments from its chip‑making and memory suppliers, an 89% increase over the prior quarter. The figure dwarfs the $11.4 billion the company is investing directly in its own facilities, highlighting a strategy...
Intel CEO Promises Partnership with Nvidia Will Produce "Exciting New Products"
Intel CEO Lip‑Bu Tan reaffirmed the ongoing partnership with Nvidia, highlighting joint development of hybrid System‑on‑Chip products that combine Intel Xeon or Titan Lake CPUs with Nvidia Blackwell, Rubin and RTX GPUs. The collaboration includes a custom Xeon‑based SoC with NVLink...
Trump Is Taking More than a Dozen U.S. Executives to China. Jensen Huang Isn’t One of Them
President Donald Trump is traveling to Beijing with a delegation of more than a dozen U.S. executives, but Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will not join them. Huang has made several trips to China over the past 18 months, yet his...
Intel Rally Faces Reality Check After Triple-Digit Surge
Intel’s stock has surged more than three‑fold since late March as investors bet the chipmaker will win a sizable Apple foundry contract. Bank of America estimates the Apple opportunity could be worth $35‑$40 billion, potentially adding over $10 billion of annual revenue...
Nvidia: Still A Buy Despite Mounting Risks
Nvidia remains the AI and semiconductor bellwether despite recent under‑performance versus peers. The company targets over $88 billion in Q2 sales and maintains margins near 75 percent. Analyst Victor Dergunov keeps a Buy rating, raising the 12‑month price target to $275 while...
AI Delivers Faster, Actionable DRC Closure for Complex SoC Designs
As semiconductor designs push below 2 nm, full‑chip design rule checking (DRC) can generate billions of violations, threatening tape‑out schedules. Siemens EDA’s Calibre Vision AI applies machine‑learning to group these violations into a few hundred actionable clusters and supports incremental OASIS loading,...
Massive News for Marvell Stock Investors: Nvidia Just Changed the Story
Marvell Technology (MRVL) announced a strategic partnership with Nvidia to supply custom silicon for AI data‑center workloads, bolstering its position in the growing AI infrastructure market. The collaboration has already spurred a sharp share price rally, with the stock up...
NASA Partners with Microchip to Build Next-Generation Spaceflight Chips with 100x the Power of Current Offerings — Chip Designed to...
NASA has teamed up with Microchip Technology to create a next‑generation system‑on‑a‑chip (SoC) for spacecraft that promises 100 times the computing capacity of today’s spaceflight processors. The partnership will produce two variants: a radiation‑hardened chip for deep‑space, Moon and Mars missions,...
SoftBank Has Injected $450 Million Into This British AI Chip Company
SoftBank has poured $457 million into Graphcore, the UK AI‑chip maker it acquired in 2024. The capital injection is intended to accelerate Graphcore’s development of intelligence processing units for artificial general intelligence projects. The funding also dovetails with SoftBank’s wider AI...
China's Next-Gen CPUs and GPUs Prepare to Challenge Last-Gen Intel and AMD in 2027 — Loongson 3B6600 and 9A1000 Aim...
Loongson Technology announced its next‑generation 3B6600 CPU and 9A1000 GPU, slated for retail release in 2027. The 3B6600, built on a 12 nm process, aims to match the performance of Intel’s 12th‑Gen Alder Lake i5/i7 chips, while the 9A1000 targets parity with...
VIS Says AI Demand Drives Growth as Singapore Fab Fully Booked
Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) says AI demand is fueling semiconductor growth, with its Singapore 12‑inch wafer fab's first phase already fully booked. The fab will begin sample shipments in July 2025 and target mass production in the first quarter of...
The Semiconductor Industry Is Set to Surpass $1 Trillion by 2030, Driving Industry Innovation
The global semiconductor market posted a record $791.7 billion in 2025, a 25.6% jump, and is projected to top $1 trillion by 2026. Growth is driven by AI, data centers, 5G/6G, electric vehicles and edge computing. Marco Van Der Haar of Malvern...
Chip-Processing Method Could Assist Cryptography Schemes to Keep Data Secure
MIT engineers unveiled two low‑cost hardware innovations that could reshape security and computing at the edge. First, they devised a twin physical‑unclonable‑function (PUF) fabrication method that splits a chip so each half shares a unique fingerprint, enabling direct authentication without...
CEA-Leti and NcodiN Partner to Industrialise 300 Mm Silicon Photonics
CEA‑Leti announced a series of strategic collaborations aimed at scaling next‑generation silicon photonics and memory technologies. In partnership with French startup NcodiN, the institute will transfer the company’s nanolaser‑enabled optical interposer to a 300 mm silicon‑photonic process, targeting sub‑0.1 pJ/bit links for...
Unlocking Yield Improvements in Advanced Packaging Through Materials-Driven Failure Analysis
Advanced packaging—3D ICs, FOWLP, chiplets—now underpins AI, 5G, and edge computing, but its complex material interfaces are creating severe yield pressure. Traditional defect inspection alone cannot capture the subtle, multiscale failures that arise from thermal stress, CTE mismatch, and contamination....
Optimising SiCr Deposition for High-Yield Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS Manufacturing with Picosecond Ultrasonics
Picosecond ultrasonic (PULSE™) technology provides non‑contact, sub‑angstrom thickness metrology for silicon‑chromium (SiCr) films used in bipolar‑CMOS‑DMOS (BCD) devices. The technique, validated against TEM, achieved repeatability better than 0.5 Å (1σ) and captured wafer‑wide uniformity across 49 points. Simultaneously, reflectivity measurements revealed...
Shifting Supply Chains in the Era of Photonics
The article titled “Shifting supply chains in the era of photonics” appears to be unavailable, offering only a 404 error page. Nonetheless, the headline signals a growing focus on how photonics manufacturers are re‑engineering their supply chains amid component shortages,...
Beyond High-NA EUV: Particle Accelerator Technology Promises Exciting Future for Lithography
TAU Systems CEO Jerome Paye proposes compact laser‑wakefield acceleration (LWFA) free‑electron laser sources to replace traditional EUV lithography. High‑NA EUV is hitting both physical and economic limits, prompting a search for brighter, tunable light. LWFA can deliver orders‑of‑magnitude higher photon...
Another Surge for SiC
At CS International, onsemi’s senior director Mrinal Das highlighted silicon‑carbide (SiC) as the key enabler for megawatt‑scale power electronics in electric‑vehicle (EV) fast charging and AI data‑center servers. He noted that 1 MW charging is already available and that SiC’s modest...
What’s Really Needed For Advanced Test?
Advanced test in semiconductor manufacturing promises adaptive binning, feed‑forward models and real‑time analytics, but the industry’s biggest obstacle is data quality. PDF Solutions highlights that misaligned metadata and incomplete tool‑level data routinely break automated test flows, forcing engineers to intervene...
The Specialty Device Surge Part 3: Solving The Process Control Challenges Of MEMS, Photonics, Co-Packaged Optics, And More
The article outlines how specialty semiconductor devices—MEMS sensors, CMOS image sensors, SiC/GaN power transistors, and photonic/co‑packaged optics—require tighter process control than traditional logic chips. It details the specific challenges each class faces, such as wafer‑level uniformity, multi‑layer variability, and defect...
Complete End-To-End Closed-Loop Product Yield Ramp And Learning
Yield ramping at advanced semiconductor nodes is increasingly difficult as designs grow larger, more heterogeneous, and generate massive test data. A closed‑loop learning flow that ties together test pattern generation, diagnosis, volume analytics, and failure analysis can compress the learning...
Ensuring AI Reliability: Mitigating Silent Data Corruption Risks
Silent Data Corruption (SDC) is emerging as a critical reliability threat for large‑scale AI training and inference, as highlighted in a new Open Compute Project whitepaper co‑authored by NVIDIA, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The paper links rising SDC rates to...
AI Accelerator Testing Depends On DFT Innovations
The rise of AI accelerators is reshaping semiconductor test flows, demanding deeper functional testing, advanced DFT techniques, and continuous monitoring throughout a chip’s lifecycle. I/O and lane‑repair capabilities are emerging as critical yield‑enhancing tools, while system‑level testing is essential for...
Advanced Metrology for Backside Metallization Using Picosecond Laser Ultrasonics
Picosecond Ultrasonics (PULSE) technology is emerging as the preferred metrology solution for backside metallization (BSM) in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. The non‑contact, non‑destructive method can accurately measure film thickness and elastic modulus across single‑layer and multilayer metal stacks ranging from 50 nm...
The AI Server Challenge: Testing Power At Scale
AI servers are hitting a power‑delivery bottleneck as accelerators run at ultra‑low voltages while drawing tens of amps. Multi‑stage converters are consolidating to higher distribution voltages to cut losses, but this raises the stakes for accurate, high‑current testing. Traditional test...
Home Win: Challenging The Traditional Semiconductor Manufacturing Model
Custom Interconnect Ltd. (CIL) has opened a 64,000 sq ft BP2 facility, the UK’s largest semiconductor packaging operation, featuring a 15,000 sq ft ISO 7 cleanroom and the only domestic wafer‑level chip‑scale packaging system. The plant integrates high‑volume PCB assembly with semiconductor assembly, delivering up...
Arm’s Software Chief Sees Human Language as the New Way to Program
Arm’s senior vice president for AI and developer platforms, Alex Spinelli, says the company is moving beyond chip design to build its own AGI‑class CPU and a new Performix software suite that lets engineers write code using natural‑language “recipes.” The...
Senasic Clears HKEX Hearing as CATL-Backed Chip Platform Eyes IPO
Senasic Electronics Technology cleared its Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing hearing and is moving toward an IPO, backed by joint sponsors CICC and Guotai Haitong. The company, the world’s third‑largest automotive wireless sensing SoC maker and China’s largest, counts CATL...
Archer Materials Strengthens Pathway to Wafer-Scale Quantum Device Manufacturing
Archer Materials (ASX: AXE) is shifting its graphene‑based quantum device program from laboratory prototypes to wafer‑scale production using standard semiconductor processes. The company remains on track to showcase a functional qubit before year‑end, marking a critical milestone in its development...
Supercharging Local AI Development with RHEL on NVIDIA DGX Spark
Red Hat announced a development preview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 running on NVIDIA’s DGX Spark workstation. The DGX Spark, built on the Grace Blackwell GPU architecture, offers up to 1 petaflop of compute and 128 GB of unified memory, enabling developers to train and test...
Taiwanese Indicted over Illegal Chinese Company Operations
A Taipei District Court indicted Kidder Shen, the East Asia sales director of Chinese IC‑design firm Novosense Microelectronics, for operating the company in Taiwan without the required government approval. Shen rented office space, hired four former Texas Instruments employees, and...
Chinese Chip Pioneer Calls for Focus on ‘Pragmatic Breakthroughs’ over Chasing 2nm Hype
Richard Chang Rugin, the founder of SMIC and veteran of Texas Instruments, warned China’s semiconductor sector against fixating on 2‑nm and 3‑nm hype. He urged a shift toward mature‑node and specialty processes, which account for more than 80% of global...