Apple is updating its business terms in the EU to allow developers to link to external payment systems or promote offers form other platforms that do not use the built-in iOS payment system.

But these options will only be available to developers who agree to the updated terms, and Apple will still be taking a cut of each purchase.

In a post on its developer support website, Apple explains that it will claim a 5% 'initial acquisition fee' on any digital goods and services purchased during the first year after an initial install. This is for new users only and will not apply to customers already using the app before the new link out options come into play.

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EU regulators have opened a new investigation following claims Apple is not complying with EU rules.

The European Commission – which started investigating Apple's alleged non-compliance back in March – has accused Apple of breaching its Digital Markets Act, meaning Apple could face a fine of up to 10 percent of the firm's global annual revenue. That may not sound like much, but when you consider that Apple generates £301bn ($383bn) a year, that's a sizeable punishment.

Any further offences could even see the fine increased to 20 percent.

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BAE Systems and GlobalFoundries are teaming up to strengthen the supply of chips for national security programs, aligning technology roadmaps and collaborating on innovation and manufacturing. Focus areas include advanced packaging, GaN-on-silicon chips, silicon photonics, and advanced technology process development.

Onsemi plans to build a $2 billion silicon carbide production plant in the Czech Republic. The site would produce smart power semiconductors for electric vehicles, renewable energy technology, and data centers.

The global chip manufacturing industry is projected to boost capacity by 6% in 2024 and 7% in 2025, reaching 33.7 million 8-inch (200mm) wafers per month, according to SEMI‘s latest World Fab Forecast report. Leading-edge capacity for 5nm nodes and below is expected to grow by 13% in 2024, driven by AI demand for data center applications. Additionally, Intel, Samsung, and TSMC will begin producing 2nm chips using gate-all-around (GAA) FETs next year, boosting leading-edge capacity by 17% in 2025.

At the IEEE Symposium on VLSI Technology & Circuits, imec introduced:

• Functional CMOS-based CFETs with stacked bottom and top source/drain contacts.
• CMOS-based 56Gb/s zero-IF D-band beamforming transmitters to support next-gen short-range, high-speed wireless services at frequencies above 100GHz.
• ADCs for base stations and handsets, a key step toward scalable, high-performance beyond-5G solutions, such as cloud-based AI and extended reality apps.

Quick links to more news:

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Global

Wolfspeed postponed plans to construct a $3 billion chip plant in Germany, underscoring the EU‘s challenges in boosting semiconductor production, reports Reuters. The North Carolina-based company cited reduced capital spending due to a weakened EV market, saying it now aims to start construction in mid-2025, two years later than 0riginally planned.

Micron is building a pilot production line for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in the U.S., and considering HBM production in Malaysia to meet growing AI demand, according to a Nikkei report. The company is expanding HBM R&D facilities in Boise, Idaho, and eyeing production capacity in Malaysia, while also enhancing its largest HBM facility in Taichung, Taiwan.

Kioxia restored its Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants in Japan to full capacity, ending production cuts as the memory market recovers, according to Nikkei. The company, which is focusing on NAND flash production, has secured new bank credit support, including refinancing a ¥540 billion loan and establishing a ¥210 billion credit line. Kioxia had reduced output by more than 30% in October 2022 due to weak smartphone demand.

Europe’s NATO Innovation Fund announced its first direct investments, which includes semiconductor materials. Twenty-three NATO allies co-invested in this over $1B fund devoted to address critical defense and security challenges.

The second meeting of the U.S.–India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) was held in New Delhi, with various funding and initiatives announced to support semiconductor technology, next-gen telecommunications, connected and autonomous vehicles, ML, and more.

Amazon announced investments of €10 billion in Germany to drive innovation and support the expansion of its logistics network and cloud infrastructure.

Quantum Machines opened the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (IQCC) research facility, backed by the Israel Innovation Authority and located at Tel Aviv University. Also, Israel-based Classiq is collaborating with NVIDIA and BMW, using quantum computing to find the optimal automotive architecture of electrical and mechanical systems.

Global data center vacancy rates are at historic lows, and power availability is becoming less available, according to a Siemens report featured on Broadband Breakfast. The company called for an influx of financing to find new ways to optimize data center technology and sustainability.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Manufacturing, Packaging & Materials newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:

• Single Vs. Multi-Patterning Advancements For EUV
• Precise Control Of Copper Plating And CMP
• Ruthenium Interconnects On Tap
• Opportunities Grow For GPU Acceleration

More reporting this week:

• IC Industry’s Growing Role In Sustainability
• What’s Missing In Test

Market Reports

Renesas completed its acquisition of Transphorm and will immediately start offering GaN-based power products and reference designs to meet the demand for wide-bandgap (WBG) chips.

Revenues for the top five wafer fab equipment (WFE) companies fell 9% YoY in Q1 2024, according to Counterpoint. This was offset partially by increased demand for NAND and DRAM, which increased 33% YoY, and strong growth in sales to China, which were up 116% YoY.

The SiC power devices industry saw robust growth in 2023, primarily driven by the BEV market, according to TrendForce. The top five suppliers, led by ST with a 32.6% market share and onsemi in second place, accounted for 91.9% of total revenue. However, the anticipated slowdown in BEV sales and weakening industrial demand are expected to significantly decelerate revenue growth in 2024. 

About 30% of vehicles produced globally will have E/E architectures with zonal controllers by 2032, according to McKinsey & Co. The market for automotive micro-components and logic semiconductors is predicted to reach $60 billion in 2032, and the overall automotive semiconductor market is expected to grow from $60 billion to $140 billion in the same period, at a 10% CAGR.

The automotive processor market generated US$20 billion in revenue in 2023, according to Yole. US$7.8 billion was from APUs and FPGAs and $12.2 billion was from MCUs. The ADAS and infotainment processors market was worth US$7.8 billion in 2023 and is predicted to grow to $16.4 billion by 2029 at a 13% CAGR. The market for ADAS sensing is expected to grow at a 7% CAGR.

Security

The CHERI Alliance was established to drive adoption of memory safety and scalable software compartmentalization via the security technology CHERI, or Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions. Founding members include Capabilities Limited, Codasip, the FreeBSD Foundation, lowRISC, SCI Semiconductor, and the University of Cambridge.

In security research:

• Japan and China researchers explored a NAND-XOR ring oscillator structure to design an entropy source architecture for a true random number generator (TRNG).
• University of Toronto and Carleton University researchers presented a survey examining how hardware is applied to achieve security and how reported attacks have exploited certain defects in hardware.
• University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University researchers explored the potential of hardware security primitive Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) for mitigation of visual deepfakes.
• Villanova University researchers proposed the Boolean DERIVativE attack, which generalizes Boolean domain leakage.

Post-quantum cryptography firm PQShield raised $37 million in Series B funding.

Former OpenAI executive, Ilya Sutskever, who quit over safety concerns, launched Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI).

EU industry groups warned the European Commission that its proposed cybersecurity certification scheme (EUCS) for cloud services should not discriminate against Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, reported Reuters.

Cyber Europe tested EU cyber preparedness in the energy sector by simulating a series of large-scale cyber incidents in an exercise organized by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a number of alerts/advisories.

Education and Training

New York non-profit NY CREATES and South Korea’s National Nano Fab Center partnered to develop a hub for joint research, aligned technology services, testbed support, and an engineer exchange program to bolster chips-centered R&D, workforce development, and each nation’s high-tech ecosystem.

New York and the Netherlands agreed on a partnership to promote sustainability within the semiconductor industry, enhance workforce development, and boost semiconductor R&D.

Rapidus is set to send 200 engineers to AI chip developer Tenstorrent in the U.S. for training over the next five years, reports Nikkei. This initiative, led by Japan’s Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center (LSTC), aims to bolster Japan’s AI chip industry.

Product News

UMC announced its 22nm embedded high voltage (eHV) technology platform for premium smartphone and mobile device displays. The 22eHV platform reduces core device power consumption by up to 30% compared to previous 28nm processes. Die area is reduced by 10% with the industry’s smallest SRAM bit cells.​

Alphawave Semi announced a new 9.2 Gbps HBM3E sub-system silicon platform capable of 1.2 terabytes per second. Based on the HBM3E IP, the sub-system is aimed at addressing the demand for ultra-high-speed connectivity in high-performance compute applications.

Movellus introduced the Aeonic Power product family for on-die voltage regulation, targeting the challenging area of power delivery.

Cadence partnered with Semiwise and sureCore to develop new cryogenic CMOS circuits with possible quantum computing applications. The circuits are based on modified transistors found in the Cadence Spectre Simulation Platform and are capable of processing analog, mixed-signal, and digital circuit simulation and verification at cryogenic temperatures.

Renesas launched R-Car Open Access (RoX), an integrated development platform for software-defined vehicles (SDVs), designed for Renesas R-Car SoCs and MCUs with tools for deployment of AI applications, reducing complexity and saving time and money for car OEMs and Tier 1s.

Infineon released industry-first radiation-hardened 1 and 2 Mb parallel interface ferroelectric-RAM (F-RAM) nonvolatile memory devices, with up to 120 years of data retention at 85-degree Celsius, along with random access and full memory write at bus speeds. Plus, a CoolGaN Transistor 700 V G4 product family for efficient power conversion up to 700 V, ideal for consumer chargers and notebook adapters, data center power supplies, renewable energy inverters, and more.

Ansys adopted NVIDIA’s Omniverse application programming interfaces for its multi-die chip designers. Those APIs will be used for 5G/6G, IoT, AI/ML, cloud computing, and autonomous vehicle applications. The company also announced ConceptEV, an SaaS solution for automotive concept design for EVs.

Fig. 1: Field visualization of 3D-IC with Omniverse. Source: Ansys

QP Technologies announced a new dicing saw for its manufacturing line that can process a full cassette of 300mm wafers 7% faster than existing tools, improving throughput and productivity.

NXP introduced its SAF9xxx of audio DSPs to support the demand for AI-based audio in software-defined vehicles (SDVs) by using Cadence’s Tensilica HiFi 5 DSPs combined with dedicated neural-network engines and hardware-based accelerators.

Avionyx, a provider of software lifecycle engineering in the aerospace and safety-critical systems sector, partnered with Siemens and will leverage its Polarion application lifecycle management (ALM) tool. Also, Dovetail Electric Aviation adopted Siemens Xcelerator to support sustainable aviation.

Research

Researchers from imec and KU Leuven released a +70 page paper “Selecting Alternative Metals for Advanced Interconnects,” addressing interconnect resistance and reliability.

A comprehensive review article — “Future of plasma etching for microelectronics: Challenges and opportunities” — was created by a team of experts from the University of Maryland, Lam Research, IBM, Intel, and many others.

Researchers from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris’s Laboratory of Condensed Matter for Physics developed an approach to investigate defects in semiconductors. The team “determined the spin-dependent electronic structure linked to defects in the arrangement of semiconductor atoms,” the first time this structure has been measured, according to a release.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-led researchers developed a small enclosed chamber that can hold all the components of an electrochemical reaction, which can be paired with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to generate precise views of a reaction at atomic scale, and can be frozen to stop the reaction at specific time points. They used the technique to study a copper catalyst.

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved a clinical trial to test a device with 1,024 nanoscale sensors that records brain activity during surgery, developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego).

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here.

Semiconductor Engineering’s latest newsletters:

Automotive, Security and Pervasive Computing
Systems and Design
Low Power-High Performance
Test, Measurement and Analytics
Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials

The post Chip Industry Week In Review appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.

Various scenarios to getting to net zero carbon emissions from power generation by 2050 hinge on the success of some hugely ambitious initiatives in renewable energy, grid enhancements, and other areas. Perhaps none of these are more audacious than an envisioned renaissance of nuclear power, driven by advanced-technology reactors that are smaller than traditional nuclear power reactors.

What many of these reactors have in common is that they would use a kind of fuel called high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). Its composition varies, but for power generation, a typical mix contains slightly less than 20 percent by mass of the highly fissionable isotope uranium-235 (U-235). That’s in contrast to traditional reactor fuels, which range from 3 percent to 5 percent U-235 by mass, and natural uranium, which is just 0.7 percent U-235.

Now, though, a paper in Science magazine has identified a significant wrinkle in this nuclear option: HALEU fuel can theoretically be used to make a fission bomb—a fact that the paper’s authors use to argue for the tightening of regulations governing access to, and transportation of, the material. Among the five authors of the paper, which is titled “The Weapons Potential of High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium,” is IEEE Life Fellow Richard L. Garwin. Garwin was the key figure behind the design of the thermonuclear bomb, which was tested in 1952.

The Science paper is not the first to argue for a reevaluation of the nuclear proliferation risks of HALEU fuel. A report published last year by the National Academies, “Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the Waste Aspects of Advanced Nuclear Reactors,” devoted most of a chapter to the risks of HALEU fuel. It reached similar technical conclusions to those of the Science article, but did not go as far in its recommendations regarding the need to tighten regulations.

Why is HALEU fuel concerning?

Conventional wisdom had it that U-235 concentrations below 20 percent were not usable for a bomb. But “we found this testimony in 1984 from the chief of the theoretical division of Los Alamos, who basically confirmed that, yes, indeed, it is usable down to 10 percent,” says R. Scott Kemp of MIT, another of the paper’s authors. “So you don’t even need centrifuges, and that’s what really is important here.”

Centrifuges arranged very painstakingly into cascades are the standard means of enriching uranium to bomb-grade material, and they require scarce and costly resources, expertise, and materials to operate. In fact, the difficulty of building and operating such cascades on an industrial scale has for decades served as an effective barrier to would-be builders of nuclear weapons. So any route to a nuclear weapon that bypassed enrichment would offer an undoubtedly easier alternative. The question now is, how much easier?

“It’s not a very good bomb, but it could explode and wreak all kinds of havoc.”

Adding urgency to that question is an anticipated gold rush in HALEU, after years of quiet U.S. government support. The U.S. Department of Energy is spending billions to expand production of the fuel, including US $150 million awarded in 2022 to a subsidiary of Centrus Energy Corp., the only private company in the United States enriching uranium to HALEU concentrations. (Outside of the United States, only Russia and China are producing HALEU in substantial quantities.) Government support also extends to the companies building the reactors that will use HALEU. Two of the largest reactor startups, Terrapower (backed in part by Bill Gates) and X-Energy, have designed reactors that run on forms of HALEU fuel, and have received billions in funding under a DOE program called Advanced Reactor Demonstration Projects.

The difficulty of building a bomb based on HALEU is a murky subject, because many of the specific techniques and practices of nuclear weapons design are classified. But basic information about the standard type of fission weapon, known as an implosion device, has long been known publicly. (The first two implosion devices were detonated in 1945, one in the Trinity test and the other over Nagasaki, Japan.) An implosion device is based on a hollow sphere of nuclear material. In a modern weapon this material is typically plutonium-239, but it can also be a mixture of uranium isotopes that includes a percentage of U-235 ranging from 100 percent all the way down to, apparently, around 10 percent. The sphere is surrounded by shaped chemical explosives that are exploded simultaneously, creating a shockwave that physically compresses the sphere, reducing the distance between its atoms and increasing the likelihood that neutrons emitted from their nuclei will encounter other nuclei and split them, releasing more neutrons. As the sphere shrinks it goes from a subcritical state, in which that chain reaction of neutrons splitting nuclei and creating other neutrons cannot sustain itself, to a critical state, in which it can. As the sphere continues to compress it achieves supercriticality, after which an injected flood of neutrons triggers the superfast, runaway chain reaction that is a fission explosion. All this happens in less than a millisecond.

The authors of the Science paper had to walk a fine line between not revealing too many details about weapons design while still clearly indicating the scope of the challenge of building a bomb based on HALEU. They acknowledge that the amount of HALEU material needed for a 15-kiloton bomb—roughly as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima during the second World War—would be relatively large: in the hundreds of kilograms, but not more than 1,000 kg. For comparison, about 8 kg of Pu-239 is sufficient to build a fission bomb of modest sophistication. Any HALEU bomb would be commensurately larger, but still small enough to be deliverable “using an airplane, a delivery van, or a boat sailed into a city harbor,” the authors wrote.

They also acknowledged a key technical challenge for any would-be weapons makers seeking to use HALEU to make a bomb: preinitiation. The large amount of U-238 in the material would produce many neutrons, which would likely result in a nuclear chain reaction occurring too soon. That would sap energy from the subsequent triggered runaway chain reaction, limiting the explosive yield and producing what’s known in the nuclear bomb business as a “fizzle.“ However, “although preinitiation may have a bigger impact on some designs than others, even those that are sensitive to it could still produce devastating explosive power,” the authors conclude.

In other words, “it’s not a very good bomb, but it could explode and wreak all kinds of havoc,” says John Lee, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. Lee was a contributor to the 2023 National Academies report that also considered risks of HALEU fuel and made policy recommendations similar to those of the Science paper.

Critics of that paper argue that the challenges of building a HALEU bomb, while not insurmountable, would stymie a nonstate group. And a national weapons program, which would likely have the resources to surmount them, would not be interested in such a bomb, because of its limitations and relative unreliability.

“That’s why the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], in their wisdom, said, ‘This is not a direct-use material,’” says Steven Nesbit, a nuclear-engineering consultant and past president of the American Nuclear Society, a professional organization. “It’s just not a realistic pathway to a nuclear weapon.”

The Science authors conclude their paper by recommending that the U.S. Congress direct the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to conduct a “fresh review” of the risks posed by HALEU fuel. In response to an email inquiry from IEEE Spectrum, an NNSA spokesman, Craig Branson, replied: “To meet net-zero emissions goals, the United States has prioritized the design, development, and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies, including advanced and small modular reactors. Many will rely on HALEU to achieve smaller designs, longer operating cycles, and increased efficiencies over current technologies. They will be essential to our efforts to decarbonize while meeting growing energy demand. As these technologies move forward, the Department of Energy and NNSA have programs to work with willing industrial partners to assess the risk and enhance the safety, security, and safeguards of their designs.”

The Science authors also called on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the IAEA to change the way they categorize HALEU fuel. Under the NRC’s current categorization, even large quantities of HALEU are now considered category II, which means that security measures focus on the early detection of theft. The authors want weapons-relevant quantities of HALEU reclassified as category I, the same as for quantities of weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium sufficient to make a bomb. Category I would require much tighter security, focusing on the prevention of theft.

Nesbit scoffs at the proposal, citing the difficulties of heisting perhaps a metric tonne of nuclear material. “Blindly applying all of the baggage that goes with protecting nuclear weapons to something like this is just way overboard,” he says.

But Lee, who performed experiments with HALEU fuel in the 1980s, agrees with his colleagues. “Dick Garwin and Frank von Hipple [and the other authors of the Science paper] have raised some proper questions,” he declares. “They’re saying the NRC should take more precautions. I’m all for that.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Enlarge / Features like Image Playground won't arrive in Europe at the same time as other regions. (credit: Apple)

Three major features in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia will not be available to European users this fall, Apple says. They include iPhone screen mirroring on the Mac, SharePlay screen sharing, and the entire Apple Intelligence suite of generative AI features.

In a statement sent to Financial Times, The Verge, and others, Apple says this decision is related to the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA). Here's the full statement, which was attributed to Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz:

Two weeks ago, Apple unveiled hundreds of new features that we are excited to bring to our users around the world. We are highly motivated to make these technologies accessible to all users. However, due to the regulatory uncertainties brought about by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we do not believe that we will be able to roll out three of these features — iPhone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence — to our EU users this year.

Specifically, we are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security. We are committed to collaborating with the European Commission in an attempt to find a solution that would enable us to deliver these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety.

It is unclear from Apple's statement precisely which aspects of the DMA may have led to this decision. It could be that Apple is concerned that it would be required to give competitors like Microsoft or Google access to user data collected for Apple Intelligence features and beyond, but we're not sure.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act took effect earlier this year with the goal of tackling anti-competitive behaviors from big tech companies, among other things. That’s why Apple rolled out a bunch of changes to the App Store, iOS, Safari web browser, and payment processing earlier this year… with most of those changes only applying […]

The post European Commission says Apple’s new App Store & payment rules still violate the DMA appeared first on Liliputing.

Earlier this month Apple unveiled some of the new AI features coming to its smartphones, tablets, and laptop and desktop computers. But it looks like not everyone will get these so-called “Apple Intelligence” features. We already knew that you’d need an Apple A17 Pro or faster processor, which leaves behind anyone that doesn’t have an […]

The post Lilbits: Apple Intelligence skips the EU appeared first on Liliputing.

A technical paper titled “Using Formal Verification to Evaluate Single Event Upsets in a RISC-V Core” was published by researchers at University of Southampton.

Abstract:

“Reliability has been a major concern in embedded systems. Higher transistor density and lower voltage supply increase the vulnerability of embedded systems to soft errors. A Single Event Upset (SEU), which is also called a soft error, can reverse a bit in a sequential element, resulting in a system failure. Simulation-based fault injection has been widely used to evaluate reliability, as suggested by ISO26262. However, it is practically impossible to test all faults for a complex design. Random fault injection is a compromise that reduces accuracy and fault coverage. Formal verification is an alternative approach. In this paper, we use formal verification, in the form of model checking, to evaluate the hardware reliability of a RISC-V Ibex Core in the presence of soft errors. Backward tracing is performed to identify and categorize faults according to their effects (no effect, Silent Data Corruption, crashes, and hangs). By using formal verification, the entire state space and fault list can be exhaustively explored. It is found that misaligned instructions can amplify fault effects. It is also found that some bits are more vulnerable to SEUs than others. In general, most of the bits in the Ibex Core are vulnerable to Silent Data Corruption, and the second pipeline stage is more vulnerable to Silent Data Corruption than the first.”

Find the technical paper here. Published May 2024 (preprint).

Xue, Bing, and Mark Zwolinski. “Using Formal Verification to Evaluate Single Event Upsets in a RISC-V Core.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.12089 (2024).

Related Reading
Formal Verification’s Usefulness Widens
Demand for IC reliability pushes formal into new applications, where complex interactions and security risks are difficult to solve with other tools.
RISC-V Micro-Architectural Verification
Verifying a processor is much more than making sure the instructions work, but the industry is building from a limited knowledge base and few dedicated tools.

The post Using Formal Verification To Evaluate The HW Reliability Of A RISC-V Ibex Core In The Presence Of Soft Errors appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

• Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act related to the protection of minors on Facebook and Instagram (European Commission)
• Meta, TikTok, other platforms told to expect EU guidelines soon on child protection, age verification (MLex)
• Got a text that you think is a scam? S’pore’s new centre to fight online harms can help verify it (Straits Times)
• Bipartisan Bill To Repeal Section 230 Defended In Facts-Optional Op-Ed (Techdirt)
• Indian journalists turned to YouTube to dodge Modi’s censorship. Some of their channels are now being blocked (Reuters Institute for Journalism)
• She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all (The Guardian)
• Commission services sign administrative arrangement with Ofcom to support the enforcement of social media regulations (Pub Affairs Bruxelles)
• Singapore’s proposed online safety laws look like more censorship in disguise (Rest of World)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

Samsung and Synopsys collaborated on the first production tapeout of a high-performance mobile SoC design, including CPUs and GPUs, using the Synopsys.ai EDA suite on Samsung Foundry’s gate-all-around (GAA) process. Samsung plans to begin mass production of 2nm process GAA chips in 2025, reports BusinessKorea.

UMC developed the first radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF-SOI)-based 3D IC process for chips used in smartphones and other 5G/6G mobile devices. The process uses wafer-to-wafer bonding technology to address radio frequency interference between stacked dies and reduces die size by 45%.

Fig. 1: UMC’s 3D IC solution for RFSOI technology. Source: UMC

The first programmable chip capable of shaping, splitting, and steering beams of light is now being produced by Skywater Technology and Lumotive. The technology is critical for advancing lidar-based systems used in robotics, automotive, and other 3D sensing applications.

Driven by demand for AI chips, SK hynix revealed it has already booked its entire production of high-bandwidth memory chips for 2024 and is nearly sold out of its production capacity for 2025, reported the Korea Times, while SEMI reported that silicon wafer shipments declined in Q1 2024, quarter over quarter, a 13% drop, attributed to continued weakness in IC fab utilization and inventory adjustments.

PCI-SIG published the CopprLink Internal and External Cable specifications to provide PCIe 5.0 and 6.0 signaling at 32 and 64 GT/s and leverage standard connector form factors for applications including storage, data centers, AI/ML, and disaggregated memory.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) launched the CHIPS Women in Construction Framework to boost the participation of women and economically disadvantaged people in the workforce, aiming to support on-time and successful completion of CHIPS Act-funded projects. Intel and Micron adopted the framework.

Quick links to more news:

Market Reports
Global
In-Depth
Education and Training
Security
Product News
Quantum
Research
Events
Further Reading

Markets and Money

The SiC wafer processing equipment market is growing rapidly, reports Yole. SiC devices will exceed $10B by 2029 at a CAGR of 25%, and the SiC manufacturing tool market is projected to reach $5B by 2026.

imec.xpand launched a €300 million (~$321 million) fund that will invest in semiconductor and nanotechnology startups with the potential to push semiconductor innovation beyond traditional applications and drive next-gen technologies.

Blaize raised $106 million for its programmable graph streaming processor architecture suite and low-code/no-code software platform for edge AI.

Guerrilla RF completed the acquisition of Gallium Semiconductor‘s portfolio of GaN power amplifiers and front-end modules.

About 90% of connected cars sold in 2030 will have embedded 5G capability, reported Counterpoint. Also, about 75% of laptop PCs sold in 2027 will be AI laptop PCs with advanced generative AI, and the global high-level OS (HLOS) or advanced smartwatch market is predicted to grow 15% in 2024.

Global

Powerchip Semiconductor opened a new 300mm facility in northwestern Taiwan targeting the production of AI semiconductors. The facility is expected to produce 50,000 wafers per month at 55, 40, and 28nm nodes.

Taiwan-based KYEC Semiconductor will withdraw its China operations by the third quarter due to increasing geopolitical tensions, reports the South China Morning Post.

Japan will expand its semiconductor export restrictions to China related to four technologies: Scanning electron microscopes, CMOS, FD-SOI, and the outputs of quantum computers, according to TrendForce.

IBM will invest CAD$187 million (~US$137M in Canada’s semiconductor industry, with the bulk of the investment focused on advanced assembly, testing, and packaging operations.

Microsoft will invest US$2.2 billion over the next four years to build Malaysia’s digital infrastructure, create AI skilling opportunities, establish an AI Center of Excellence, and enhance cybersecurity.

In-Depth

New stories and tech talks published by Semiconductor Engineering this week:

• Multi-Die Design Pushes Complexity To The Max
• Design Considerations In Photonics
• Overlay Optimization In Advanced IC Substrates
• Fundamental Issues In Computer Vision Still Unresolved
• Sensor Fusion Challenges In Automotive

Security

Infineon collaborated with ETAS to integrate the ESCRYPT CycurHSM 3.x automotive security software stack into its next-gen AURIX MCUs to optimize security, performance, and functionality.

Synopsys released Polaris Assist, an AI-powered application security assistant on its Polaris Software Integrity Platform, combining LLM technology with application security knowledge and intelligence.

In security research:

• UT Dallas, Intel, NXP, and TI published a framework for early anomaly detection in AMS components of automotive SoCs.
• The University of Central Florida said that LLMs can be harnessed to automatically rectify security-relevant vulnerabilities inherent in hardware designs within the semiconductor context.
• Western University leveraged hardware security modules for enhanced intra-domain security.
• A team in India proposed a post-quantum secure PUF-based cross-domain authentication mechanism for Internet of Drones.

U.S. President Biden signed a National Security Memorandum to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure, and the White House announced key actions taken since Biden’s AI Executive Order, including measures to mitigate risk.

CISA and partners published a fact sheet on pro-Russia hacktivists who seek to compromise industrial control systems and small-scale operational technology systems in North American and European critical infrastructure sectors. CISA issued other alerts including two Microsoft vulnerabilities.

Education and Training

The U.S. National Institute for Innovation and Technology (NIIT) and the Department of Labor (DoL) partnered to celebrate the inaugural Youth Apprenticeship Week on May 5 to 11, highlighting opportunities in critical industries such as semiconductors and advanced manufacturing.

SUNY Poly received an additional $4 million from New York State for its Semiconductor Processing to Packaging Research, Education, and Training Center.

The University of Pennsylvania launched an online Master of Science in Engineering in AI degree.

The American University of Armenia celebrated its 10-year collaboration with Siemens, which provides AUA’s Engineering Research Center with annual research grants.

Product News

Renesas and SEGGER Embedded Studio launched integrated code generator support for its 32-bit RISC-V MCU. 

Rambus introduced a family of DDR5 server Power Management ICs (PMICs), including an extreme current device for high-performance applications.

Fig. 2: Rambus’ server PMIC on DDR5 RDIMM. Source: Rambus

Keysight added capabilities to Inspector, part of the company’s recently acquired device security research and test lab Riscure, that are designed to test the robustness of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and help device and chip vendors identify and fix hardware vulnerabilities. Keysight also validated new conformance test cases for narrowband IoT non-terrestrial networks standards.

Ansys’ RedHawk-SC and Totem power integrity platforms were certified for TSMC‘s N2 nanosheet-based process technology, while its RaptorX solution for on-chip electromagnetic modeling was certified for TSMC’s N5 process.

Netherlands-based athleisure brand PREMIUM INC selected CLEVR to implement Siemens’ Mendix Digital Lifecycle Management for Fashion & Retail solution.

Micron will begin shipping high-capacity DRAM for AI data centers.

Microchip uncorked radiation-tolerant SoC FPGAs for space applications that uses a real-time Linux-capable RISC-V-based microprocessor subsystem.

Quantum

University of Chicago researchers developed a system to boost the efficiency of quantum error correction using a framework based on quantum low-density party-check (qLDPC) codes and new hardware involving reconfigurable atom arrays.

PsiQuantum will receive AUD $940 million (~$620 million) in equity, grants, and loans from the Australian and Queensland governments to deploy a utility-scale quantum computer in the regime of 1 million physical qubits in Brisbane, Australia.

Japan-based RIKEN will co-locate IBM’s Quantum System Two with its Fugaku supercomputer for integrated quantum-classical workflows in a heterogeneous quantum-HPC hybrid computing environment. Fugaku is currently one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

QuEra Computing was awarded a ¥6.5 billion (~$41 million) contract by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to deliver a gate-based neutral-atom quantum computer alongside AIST’s ABCI-Q supercomputer as part of a quantum-classical computing platform.

Novo Holdings, the controlling stakeholder of pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, plans to boost the quantum technology startup ecosystem in Denmark with DKK 1.4 billion (~$201 million) in investments.

The University of Sydney received AUD $18.4 million (~$12 million) from the Australian government to help grow the quantum industry and ecosystem.

The European Commission plans to spend €112 million (~$120 million) to support AI and quantum research and innovation.

Research

Intel researchers developed a 300-millimeter cryogenic probing process to collect high-volume data on the performance of silicon spin qubit devices across whole wafers using CMOS manufacturing techniques.

EPFL researchers used a form of ML called deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to train a four-legged robot to avoid falls by switching between walking, trotting, and pronking.=

The University of Cambridge researchers developed tiny, flexible nerve cuff devices that can wrap around individual nerve fibers without damaging them, useful to treat a range of neurological disorders.

Argonne National Laboratory and Toyota are exploring a direct recycling approach that carefully extracts components from spent batteries. Argonne is also working with Talon Metals on a process that could increase the number of EV batteries produced from mined nickel ore.

Events

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here.

Further Reading

Read the latest special reports and top stories, or check out the latest newsletters:

Systems and Design
Low Power-High Performance
Test, Measurement and Analytics
Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials
Automotive, Security and Pervasive Computing

The post Chip Industry Week In Review appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.

Enlarge (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Starting in March with the release of iOS 17.4, iPhones in the European Union have been subject to the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), a batch of regulations that (among other things) forced Apple to support alternate app stores, app sideloading, and third-party browser engines in iOS for the first time. This week, EU regulators announced that they are also categorizing Apple's iPadOS as a "gatekeeper," meaning that the iPad will soon be subject to the same regulations as the iPhone.

In a developer blog post released today, Apple said that it would comply with the EU's regulations "later this fall, as required." All changes that Apple has made to iOS on European iPhones to comply with the DMA will be implemented in the same way on the iPad, though it's not clear whether these changes will be brought to iPadOS 17 or if they'll just be a part of the upcoming iPacOS 18 update.

The EU began investigating whether iPadOS would qualify as a gatekeeper in September 2023, the same day it decided that iOS, the Safari browser, and the App Store were all gatekeepers.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

After years of blocking third-party app stores from iPhones and iPads, Apple has changed its rules regarding installation of apps from sources other than its own App Store… at least in Europe. The changes come in response to the European Union’s Digital Markets Acts, and Apple’s not particularly happy about them. But now that the […]

The post AltStore PAL is the first “Apple-approved” third-party app store for iOS (in Europe-only) appeared first on Liliputing.

Today, Apple reversed its previous decision and restored Epic Games’ developer account in the EU. Apple said in a statement to MacRumors that Epic Games is ...

The post Apple reinstates Epic Games EU developer account after EU intervention appeared first on Gizchina.com.

A few weeks after announcing a series of changes coming to iOS users in the European Union as a response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple has reversed course on one of the most controversial changes. Apple had planned to stop users from installing Progressive Web Apps to the Home Screen starting with […]

The post Apple will continue to allow web apps on the iOS Home Screen in the EU after all appeared first on Liliputing.

Enlarge / EU legislation has pushed a number of changes previously thought unthinkable in Apple products, including USB-C ports in iPhones sold in Europe. (credit: Getty Images)

Apple has changed its stance on allowing web apps on iPhones and iPads in Europe and will continue to let users put them on their home screens after iOS 17.4 arrives. They will, however, have to be "built directly on WebKit and its security architecture," rather than running in alternative browsers, which is how it had worked up until new legislation forced the issue.

After the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) demanded Apple open up its mobile devices to alternative browser engines, the company said it would remove the ability to install home screen web apps entirely. In a developer Q&A section, under the heading "Why don't users in the EU have access to Home Screen web apps?", Apple said that "the complex security and privacy concerns" of non-native web apps and what addressing them would require "given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps," made it so that the company "had to remove the Home Screen web apps feature in the EU." Any web app installed on a user's home screen would have simply led them back to their preferred web browser.

Apple further warned against "malicious web apps," which, without the isolation built into its WebKit system, could read data, steal permissions from other web apps, and install further web apps without permission, among other concerns.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well… this is an unexpected (and fun!) turn of events. The EU Commission has spent most of the last couple of years trying to talk EU members into voting in favor of weakened encryption, if not actual encryption backdoors. You know, for the children.

On the table are things ranging from mandated client-side content scanning to the compelled breaking of encryption whenever law enforcement wants access to communications. These plans — including parallel efforts by the UK government (which is no longer an EU member) — have attracted more opposition than support, but that hasn’t stopped the commission from moving forward with these efforts, even when its own legal counsel has stated these mandates would violate EU laws.

While it’s possible (but extremely unwise) to blow off your own internal legal guidance to get with the encryption breaking, it’s much more difficult to ignore overriding external legal guidance that says what you’re trying to do is blatantly illegal. You can always hire more subservient lawyers if you don’t like what’s being said by the ones you have. But you can’t blow off the European Court of Human Rights quite as easily.

As Thomas Claburn reports for The Register, a long-running case involving (of all things) the Russian government’s attempt to force Telegram to decrypt communications has resulted in a loss that will be felt by all of the EU’s anti-encryption lawmakers.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that laws requiring crippled encryption and extensive data retention violate the European Convention on Human Rights – a decision that may derail European data surveillance legislation known as Chat Control.

The court issued a decision on Tuesday stating that “the contested legislation providing for the retention of all internet communications of all users, the security services’ direct access to the data stored without adequate safeguards against abuse and the requirement to decrypt encrypted communications, as applied to end-to-end encrypted communications, cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society.”

Ouch. Good luck pushing anti-encryption mandates when the court has declared them unnecessary in a democratic society. And, somehow, we have the Russian government to thank for this turn of events.

The case dates back to 2017, which is when Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) tried to force Telegram to engage in compelled decryption of Anton Podchasov’s communications. Podchasov challenged the order in Russia but the Russian court dismissed it. So, Podchasov brought the matter to the ECHR because — prior to its 2022 invasion of Ukraine — Russia was still part of the Council of Europe and (at least theoretically) subject to ECHR rulings.

Well, Russia may have exited the Council with its illegal invasion, but the courtroom challenge was still active. The final ruling — which will have zero effect on how Russia handles compelled decryption — is throwing a considerably sized wrench into the mechanations of anti-encryption legislators in the EU government.

The court concluded that the Russian law requiring Telegram “to decrypt end-to-end encrypted communications risks amounting to a requirement that providers of such services weaken the encryption mechanism for all users.” As such, the court considers that requirement disproportionate to legitimate law enforcement goals.

The EU Commission dropped its anti-encryption demands last summer following considerable pushback from EU member governments. But that doesn’t mean those desires aren’t still there, even if they’re dormant at the moment.

But this ruling will make it almost impossible to resurrect most of the EU Commission’s anti-encryption efforts. The court’s ruling makes it clear there’s no legally justifiable reason for breaking end-to-end encryption. And the ancillary stuff — like client-side scanning and extensive logging demands — is far less likely to receive a warm welcome from member states, not to mention EU courts, following this ruling (even as the European Court of Human Right is not a part of the EU, its judgments cover the EU members as well as other members in the Council of Europe).

Most of the stuff the EU Commission has been trying to enact over the past few years has been declared illegal. If it wants to do these things, it will have to change several other laws first. And that effort is far less likely to succeed, since changing these laws means breaking the law. You can always write illegal laws. You just can’t enforce them.

So, unless the EU Commission has the power to talk its members into backing its preferred brand of friendly fascism, it will just have to dial back its expectations. Sure, those who think any means can be justified by the ends will throw up their hands in despair and proclaim this is the beginning of a new criminal apocalypse. But for everyone else, this ruling means their communications will remain secure — both from EU government agencies as well as entities far more malicious.

(credit: Apple)

Apple is coming under fire from rivals Meta and Microsoft who say its plans to open up its mobile software to comply with a landmark EU law fail to go far enough, as the iPhone maker faces unprecedented regulatory challenges from Brussels over the coming month.

EU regulators, who are preparing to fine the tech giant 500 million euros in March over allegedly favoring its music-streaming app against competitors like Spotify, are also being lobbied to reject Apple’s proposals to satisfy the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.

The growing backlash against Apple comes as it is forced to make some of the biggest changes to its business model in years, following concerns over the dominance of its App Store, which forms a large share of the company’s $85 billion-a-year services business.

Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Big changes are coming to the way iPhones work in the European Union this year. In response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple says that starting with iOS 17.4, the iPhone operating system will support third-party app stores and browser engines, among other things… even if the company bends over backward to discourage […]

The post Apple drops support for iOS Home Screen web apps, blames the EU’s Digital Markets Act appeared first on Liliputing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.