Turns out that when you tell advertisers to go fuck themselves, sue the advertisers who did so, and then promise you won’t do anything to stop the worst people in the world from spewing hate and bigotry on your platform, it might not be great for business.

Who knew? Elon, apparently.

Last week we noted that ad execs were saying that Elon’s latest antics were only making them even less interested in advertising on ExTwitter, but there hasn’t been as much talk lately about the financial situation the company is in.

In the first year after Elon took over, there were a number of reports suggesting ad revenue dropped somewhere between 50% and 70%. Elon has admitted that the company’s overall valuation of the company is probably down by nearly 60%.

But most of that was all talking about where it was in that first year post Elon. Since then, there’s been little data on how things were actually going. Linda Yaccarino has insisted that many of the advertisers who left came back, though when people looked at the details, it looked like a few that had come back only dipped their toes in the ExTwitter waters, rather than fully coming back.

And indeed, all we’ve been hearing this year is that Musk and Yaccarino are trying to woo back advertisers. Again. And again. Though, suing them isn’t doing them any favors.

However, buried in a recent Fortune article is the first time I’ve seen any data showing how badly the second year of Elon has gone. While the main focus of the article is on how Elon may have to sell some more of his Tesla stock to fund ExTwitter, it notes that ad revenue has continued to drop and was 53% lower than it was in 2023 (i.e., already after Elon had taken over, and many advertisers had bailed).

And the article says that ad revenue is down an astounding 84% from when Elon took over, based on an analysis by Bradford Ferguson, the chief investment officer at an asset management firm:

Ferguson based his assessment on internal second-quarter figures recently obtained by the New York Times. According to this report, X booked $114 million worth of revenue in the U.S., its largest market by far. This represented a 25% drop over the preceding three months and a 53% drop over the year-ago period.

That already sounds bad. But it gets worse. The last publicly available figures prior to Musk’s acquisition, from Q2 of 2022, had revenue at $661 million. After you account for inflation, revenue has actually collapsed by 84%, in today’s dollars.

Ouch.

A separate report from Quartz (pulling from MediaRadar research) suggests the numbers aren’t quite that dire, but they still see a 24% decline in 2024 compared to 2023. And when the 24% decline is the better report, you know you’re in serious trouble.

Advertisers apparently spent almost $744 million on X, formerly known as Twitter, during the first six months of 2024. That’s about 24% lower than the more than $982 million advertisers dropped on the platform in the first half of 2023, according to ad-tracking company MediaRadar.

No matter how you look at it, it appears that in the second year of Elon’s control, advertising revenue remains in free fall.

No wonder he’s resorted to suing. Platforming more awful people and undermining each deal that Yaccarino brings in hasn’t magically helped turn things around.

Anyway, for no reason at all, I’ll just remind people that Elon’s pitch to investors to help fund some of the $44 billion takeover of Twitter was that he would increase revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028. And, yes, the plan was to diversify that revenue, but his pitch deck said that ad revenue would generate $12 billion by 2028. This would mean basically doubling the ~$6 billion in ad revenue the company was making at the time Elon purchased it. But now that’s been cut to maybe $1.5 billion and probably less.

I’m guessing that Elon and Linda might fall a wee bit short of their target here.

Apparently, Judge Reed O’Connor doesn’t think that owning a massive amount of Tesla stock constitutes a conflict of interest when it comes to judging Elon Musk’s legal battles.

Last week, we were briefly surprised when infamously partisan Judge Reed O’Connor recused himself from Elon’s nonsense SLAPP suit against GARM and some advertisers.

As we had reported back in June, Media Matters had raised the issue that Judge O’Connor owns a ton of Tesla stock, which arguably is a conflict of interest in ExTwitter’s lawsuit against Media Matters (which Judge O’Connor had refused to dismiss despite its obvious problems). That matter had still been pending last week when O’Connor surprised lots of people (almost certainly including Elon’s lawyers) by recusing himself from the GARM suit.

We had wondered if it was a sign that Judge O’Connor realized how bad it looked for him to hold Tesla stock while repeatedly ruling on behalf of Elon. But, no, it quickly came out that the issue was almost certainly that O’Connor also owned stock in Unilever, one of the firms that Elon was suing in the case.

And then, just days later, it was made clear that Judge O’Connor sees no conflict in owning Tesla stock. He not only rejected Media Matters’ request that Elon be forced to list Tesla as an interested party, but he also made Media Matters pay Elon’s legal fees over this matter.

Judge O’Connor insists it’s just crazy to suggest that Tesla is somehow an interested party:

First, there is no evidence that shows Tesla has a direct financial interest in the outcome of this case. Tesla neither directly nor indirectly holds equity in X, Tesla is not a director or advisor, and it does not participate in the affairs of X. In other words, there is no indication that Tesla has any control over X or any financial ties to X, and Defendants do not claim as much. The question for disclosure is whether Tesla has a “legal or equitable interest” in X. Defendants merely point to news articles that report some blurred lines between Tesla and X that do not rise to the level of financial interest. These articles do not amount to evidence of a financial interest. Tesla is a publicly traded company, with tens of thousands of stockholders, its own board of directors, and external auditors. X is a privately owned company. The mere assertions that Musk owns a constellation of companies, some former Tesla employees now work at X, and that Tesla leased workspace from X do not support a finding that Tesla and X are not separate legal entities or that they share a financial interest.

Later, in response to points about Tesla stock fluctuating in direct connection to Elon doing stupid shit on ExTwitter, O’Connor notes in a footnote: “Musk, who is neither a plaintiff nor defendant in this suit.”

C’mon. None of us were born yesterday.

Elon is totally driving this lawsuit. He was the one who announced that this lawsuit would be coming based on a tweet that he saw. And, obviously, Tesla’s stock is tied to nonsense going on at ExTwitter. He sold a ton of Tesla stock to do the deal, and there are constant reports that he’s almost certainly going to need sell more to keep ExTwitter afloat.

None of this is that big of a surprise, though. Talking to lawyers, I didn’t find one who thought that O’Connor would buy this argument (which is partly why his recusal in the GARM case took me by surprise, before it was revealed that that was due to the Unilever stock).

But just to add absolute insult to injury, O’Connor said that Media Matters, a small non-profit, has to cover ExTwitter’s legal fees over this motion, despite it being owned by the world’s richest man:

Defendants’ Motion to Compel does not have a basis in law. It lacks a reasonable basis in law because the motion is motivated by an effort to force recusal, as opposed to disclosure of unknown information. Compelling disclosure is proper only when a party lacks necessary information. Carr, 2024 WL 1675185, at *1 (compelling disclosure of unknown LLC members); Steel Erectors, 312 F.R.D. at 677 (compelling disclosure of an unknown parent corporation). The information Defendants seek to compel was not unknown to them.

A Motion to Compel Corrected Certificate of Interested Persons when that information was known appears to be unprecedented. Indeed, Defendants did not cite a single case in which a motion to compel a corrected certificate of interested person was brought under this posture, much less one in which the effort was successful under the Local Rule 3.1 “financially interested” standard. Additionally, Defendants’ motion has no basis in fact. Local Rule 3.1’s clear incorporation of “financial interest” requires “legal or equitable interest.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(d)(4). Defendants failed to show facts that X’s alleged connection to Tesla meets this standard. Instead, it appears Defendants seek to force a backdoor recusal through their Motion to Compel. Gamesmanship of this sort is inappropriate and contrary to the rules of the Northern District of Texas.10 Accordingly, Defendants’ Motion is not substantially justified and attorney’s fees are appropriate.

Already, Judge O’Connor’s ridiculous decision to order discovery in this case, rather than properly dismissing it for lack of jurisdiction (among many other reasons), has resulted in layoffs at the non-profit. The impact of this ruling and the fee shifting is likely to do even more damage.

From the beginning, it has been clear that this was a SLAPP suit by Elon, angry that Media Matters (accurately) called out how ads on ExTwitter were appearing next to literal neo-Nazi content. The complaint from ExTwitter admitted that Media Matters accurately reported what it found. The only purpose of this lawsuit is to try to bleed Media Matters dry and to warn away other critics from doing similar reporting.

There’s a reason that most anti-SLAPP laws include fee shifting going the other way (making the wealthy vexatious plaintiffs pay the legal fees of the weaker defendants). Seeing O’Connor basically flip the script here is yet another reason why anti-SLAPP laws are so important.

Having Judge O’Connor let the case move forward to discovery in the first place was already a travesty. Now awarding fee shifting over Media Matters for calling out the potential conflict regarding Tesla’s connection to the case just feels like O’Connor, somewhat gleefully, twisting the knife that Elon plunged into the non-profit.

Footage out of Florida shows a parking lot full of cybertrucks, all vandalized. Tesla leased the lot, according to the filmer of the video, posted to the Only in Broward Instagram account, but apparently made no effort to secure it. — Read the rest

The post Florida car lot full of vandalized cybertrucks appeared first on Boing Boing.

Just one day after media reported that a Phoenix-area woman was trapped in her Tesla when the car's battery died, a follow-up story reveals a similar incident with a toddler in the disabled vehicle: the 20-month-old granddaughter of Renee Sanchez.

Sanchez had strapped her granddaughter into her car seat to take her on a trip to the Phoenix Zoo, and before Sanchez could get into the car herself, the car's battery died and all of the doors locked. — Read the rest

The post Toddler trapped in a Tesla after its battery discharged appeared first on Boing Boing.

Elon Musk, the high-profile CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has recently welcomed another child with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink, one of Musk’s companies. ...

The post Elon Musk Welcomes Third Child with Neuralink Executive Shivon Zilis: No Secret, Says Musk appeared first on Gizchina.com.

JEDEC and the Open Compute Project rolled out a new set of guidelines for standardizing chiplet characterization details, such as thermal properties, physical and mechanical requirements, and behavior specs. Those details have been a sticking point for commercial chiplets, because without them it’s not possible to choose the best chiplet for a particular application or workload. The guidelines are a prerequisite for a multi-vendor chiplet marketplace.

AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, HPE, Intel, Meta, and Microsoft proposed a new high-speed, low-latency interconnect specification, Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), between accelerators and switches in AI computing pods. The 1.0 specification will enable the connection of up to 1,024 accelerators within a pod and allow for direct loads and stores between the memory attached to accelerators.

Arm debuted a range of new CPUs, including the Cortex-X925 for on-device generative AI, and the Cortex-A725 with improved efficiency for AI and mobile gaming. It also announced the Immortalis-G925 GPU for flagship smartphones, and the Mali-G725/625 GPUs for consumer devices. Additionally, Arm announced Compute Subsystems (CSS) for Client to provide foundational computing elements for AI smartphone and PC SoCs, and it introduced KleidiAI, a set of compute kernels for developers of AI frameworks. The Armv9-A architecture also added support for the Scalable Matrix Extension to accelerate AI workloads.

TSMC said its 2nm process is on target to begin mass production in 2025. Meanwhile, Samsung is expected to release its 1nm plan next month, targeting mass production for 2026 — a year ahead of schedule, reports Business Korea.

CHIPs for America and NATCAST released a 2024 roadmap for the U.S. National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), identifying priorities for facilities, research, workforce development, and membership.

China is investing CNY 344 billion (~$47.5 billion) into the third phase of its National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known as the Big Fund, to support its semiconductor sector and supply chain, according to numerous reports.

Malaysia plans to invest $5.3 billion in seed capital and support for semiconductor manufacturing in an effort to attract more than $100 billion in foreign investments, reports Reuters. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the effort to create at least 10 companies focused on IC design, advanced packaging, and equipment manufacturing.

imec demonstrated a die-to-wafer hybrid bonding flow for Cu-Cu and SiCN-SiCN at pitches down to 2µm at the IEEE’s ECTC conference. This breakthrough could enable die and wafer-level optical interconnects.

The chip industry is racing to develop glass for advanced packaging, setting the stage for one of the biggest shifts in chip materials in decades — and one that will introduce a broad new set of challenges that will take years to fully resolve.

Quick links to more news:

In-Depth
Global
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Events and Further Reading

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Systems & Design newsletter featuring these top stories:

• RISC-V Heralds New Era Of Cooperation
• AI For Data Management
• Trouble Ahead For IC Verification

Global

STMicroelectronics is building a fully integrated SiC facility in Catania, Italy.  The high-volume 200mm facility is projected to cost over $5 billion.

Siliconware Precision Industries Co. Ltd.(SPIL) broke ground on an RM 6 billion (~$1.3 billion) advanced packaging and testing facility in Malaysia. Also, Google will invest $2 billion in Malaysia for its first data center, and a Google Cloud hub to meet growing demand for cloud services and AI literacy programs, reports AP.

In an SEC filing, Applied Materials received additional subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DoC) Bureau of Industry and Security related to shipments of advanced semiconductor equipment to China. This comes on the heels of similar subpoenas issued last year.

A Chinese contractor working for SK hynix was arrested in South Korea and is being charged with funneling more than 3,000 copies of a paper on solving process failure issues to Huawei, reports South Korea’s Union News.

VSORA, CEA-Grenoble, and Valeo were awarded $7 million from the French government to build low-latency, low-power AI inference co-processors for autonomous driving and other applications.

In the U.S., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating unexpected driving behaviors of vehicles equipped with Waymo‘s 5th Generation automated driving system (ADS), with details of nine new incidents on top of the first 22.

Product News

ASE introduced powerSIP, a power delivery platform designed to reduce signal and transmission loss while addressing current density challenges.

Infineon announced a roadmap for energy-efficient power supply units based on Si, SiC, and GaN to address the energy needs of AI data centers, featuring new 8 kW and 12 kW PSUs, in addition to the 3 kW and 3.3 kW units available today. The company also released its CoolSiC MOSFET 400 V family, specially developed for use in the AC/DC stage of AI servers, complementing the PSU roadmap.

Fig. 1: Infineon’s 8kW PSU. Source: Infineon

Infineon also introduced two new generations of high voltage (HV) and medium voltage (MV) CoolGaN TM devices, enabling customers to use GaN in voltage classes from 40 V to 700 V. The devices are built using Infineon’s 8-inch foundry processes.

Ansys launched Ansys Access on Microsoft Azure to provide pre-configured simulation products optimized for HPC on Azure infrastructure.

Foxconn Industrial Internet used Keysight Technology’s Open RAN Studio solution to certify an outdoor Open Radio Unit (O-RU).

Andes Technology announced an SoC and development board for the development and porting of large RISC-V applications.

MediaTek uncorked a pair of mobile chipsets built on a 4nm process that use an octa-core CPU consisting of 4X Arm Cortex-A78 cores operating at up to 2.5GHz paired with 4X Arm Cortex-A55 cores.

The NVIDIA H200 Blackwell platform is expected to begin shipping in Q3 of 2024 and will be available to data centers by Q4, according to TrendForce.

A room-temperature direct fusion hybrid bonding system from Be Semiconductor has shipped to the NHanced advanced packaging facility in North Carolina. The new system offers faster throughput for copper interconnects with submicron pad sizes, greater accuracy and reduced warpage.

Markets and Money

Frore Systems raised $80 million for its solid-state active cooling module, which removes heat from the top of a chip without fans. The device in systems ranging from notebooks and network edge gateways to data centers.

Axus Technology received $12.5 million in capital equity funding to make its chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) equipment for semiconductor wafer polishing, thinning, and cleaning, including of silicon carbide (SiC) wafers.

Elon Musk’s xAI announced a series B funding round of $6 billion.

Micron was ordered to pay $445 million in damages to Netlist for patent infringement of the company’s DDR4 memory module technology between 2021 and 2024.

Global revenue from AI semiconductors is predicted to total $71 billion in 2024, up 33% from 2023, according to Gartner. In 2025, it is expected to jump to $91.9 billion. The value of AI accelerators used in servers is expected to total $21 billion in 2024 and reach $33 billion by 2028.

NAND flash revenue was $14.71 billion in Q1 2024, an increase of 28.1%, according to TrendForce.

The optical transceiver market dipped from $11 billion in 2022 to $10.9 billion in 2023, but it is predicted to reach $22.4 billion by 2029, driven by AI, 800G applications, and the transition to 200G/lane ecosystem technologies, reports Yole.

Yole also found that ultra-wideband technical choices and packaging types used by NXP, Apple, and Qorvo vary considerably, ranging from 7nm to 90nm, with both CMOS and finFET transistors.

The global market share of GenAI-capable smartphones increased to 6% in Q1 2024 from 1.3% in the previous quarter, reports Counterpoint. The premium segment accounted for over 70% of sales with Samsung on top and contributing 58%. Meanwhile, global foldable smartphone shipments were up 49% YoY in Q1 2024, led by Huawei, HONOR, and Motorola.

Security

The National Science Foundation awarded Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Shahin Tajik almost $0.6 million to develop new technologies to address hardware security vulnerabilities.

The Hyperform consortium was formed to develop European sovereignty in post-quantum cryptography, funded by the French government and EU credits. Members include IDEMIA Secure Transactions, CEA Leti, and the French cybersecurity agency (ANSSI).

In security research:

• University of California Davis and University of Arizona researchers proposed a framework leveraging generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) models to automate the obfuscation process.
• Columbia University and Intel researchers presented a secure digital low dropout regulator that integrates an attack detector and a detection-driven protection scheme to mitigate correlation power analysis.
• Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) researchers analyzed threshold switch devices and their performance in hardware security.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) seeks proposals for its AI Quantified program to develop technology to help deploy generative AI safely and effectively across the Department of Defense (DoD) and society.

Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) partnered to develop dependable AI for national security applications.

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

Research and Training

New York continues to amp up their semiconductor offerings. NY CREATES and Raytheon unveiled a semiconductor workforce training program. And Syracuse  University is hosting a free virtual course focused on the semiconductor industry this summer.

In research news:

• A team of researchers at MIT and other universities found that extreme temperatures up to 500°C did not significantly degrade GaN materials or contacts.
• University of Cambridge researchers developed adaptive and eco-friendly sensors that can be directly and imperceptibly printed onto biological surfaces, such as a finger or flower petal.
• Researchers at Rice University and Hanyang University developed an elastic material that moves like skin and can adjust its dielectric frequency to stabilize RF communications and counter disruptive frequency shifts that interfere with electronics when a substrate is twisted or stretched, with potential for stretchable wearable electronic devices.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $36 million to three projects chosen for their potential to revolutionize computing. The University of Texas at Austin-led project aims to create a next-gen open-source intelligent and adaptive OS. The Harvard University-led project targets sustainable computing. The University of Massachusetts Amherst-led project will develop computational decarbonization.

Quantum

Singapore will invest close to S$300 million (~$222 million) into its National Quantum Strategy to support the development and deployment of quantum technologies, including an initiative to design and build a quantum processor within the country.

Several quantum partnerships were announced:

• Riverlane and Alice & Bob will integrate Riverlane’s quantum error correction stack within Alice & Bob’s larger quantum computing system based on cat qubit technology.
• New York University and the University of Copenhagen will collaborate to explore the viability of hybrid superconductor-semiconductor quantum materials for the production of quantum chips and integration with CMOS processes.
• NXP, eleQtron, and ParityQC showed off a full-stack, ion-trap based quantum computer demonstrator for Germany’s DLR Quantum Computing Initiative.
• Photonic says it demonstrated distributed entanglement between quantum modules using optically-linked silicon spin qubits with a native telecom networking interface as part of a quantum internet effort with Microsoft.
• Classiq and HPE say they developed a rapid method for solving large-scale combinatorial optimization problems by combining quantum and classical HPC approaches.

Events and Further Reading

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here, including integrated SLM analytics solution, prototyping and validation of perception sensor systems, and improving PCB designs for performance and reliability.

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.

President Biden will raise the tariff rate on Chinese semiconductors from 25% to 50% by 2025, among other measures to protect U.S. businesses from China’s trade practices. Also, as part of President Biden’s AI Executive Order, the Administration released steps to protect workers from AI risks, including human oversight of systems and transparency about what systems are being used.

Intel is in advanced talks with Apollo Global Management for the equity firm to provide more than $11 billion to build a fab in Ireland, reported the Wall Street Journal. Also, Intel’s Foundry Services appointed Kevin O’Buckley as the senior vice president and general manager.

Polar is slated to receive up to $120 million in CHIPS Act funding to establish an independent American foundry in Minnesota. The company expects to invest about $525 million in the expansion of the facility over the next two years, with a $75 million investment from the State of Minnesota.

Arm plans to develop AI chips for launch next year, reports Nikkei Asia.

South Korea is planning a support package worth more than 10 trillion won ($7.3 billion) aimed at chip materials, equipment makers, and fabless companies throughout the semiconductor supply chain, according to Reuters.

Quick links to more news:

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Global

Edwards opened a new facility in Asan City, South Korea. The 15,000m² factory provides a key production site for abatement systems, and integrated vacuum and abatement systems for semiconductor manufacturing.

France’s courtship with mega-tech is paying off.  Microsoft is investing more than US $4 billion to expand its cloud computing and AI infrastructure, including bringing up to 25,000 advanced GPUs to the country by the end of 2025. The “Choose France” campaign also snagged US $1.3 billion from Amazon for cloud infrastructure expansion, genAI and more.

Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are teaming up on AI and chips for next-gen cars with support from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, (METI), reports Nikkei Asia.

Meanwhile, IBM and Honda are collaborating on long-term R&D of next-gen technologies for software-defined vehicles (SDV), including chiplets, brain-inspired computing, and hardware-software co-optimization.

Siemens and Foxconn plan to collaborate on global manufacturing processes in electronics, information and communications technology, and electric vehicles (EV).

TSMC confirmed a Q424 construction start date for its first European plant in Dresden, Germany.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to invest €7.8 billion (~$8.4B) in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany through 2040. The system is designed to serve public sector organizations and customers in highly regulated industries.

In-Depth

Semiconductor Engineering published its Low Power-High Performance newsletter this week, featuring these stories:

• • Will Domain-Specific ICs Become Ubiquitous?
  • Running More Efficient AI/ML Code With Neuromorphic Engines
  • Power/Performance Costs In Chip Security

And this week’s Test, Measurement & Analytics newsletter featured these stories:

• Using Predictive Maintenance To Boost IC Manufacturing Efficiency
• The Future Of Fault Coverage In Chips
• Doing More At Functional Test

Markets and Money

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded more than $1.2 million to 12 businesses in 8 states under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program to fund R&D of products relating to cybersecurity, quantum computing, health care, semiconductor manufacturing, and other critical areas.

Engineering services and consulting company Infosys completed the acquisition of InSemi Technology, a provider of semiconductor design and embedded software development services.

The quantum market, which includes quantum networking and sensors alongside computing, is predicted to grow from $838 million in 2024 to $1.8 billion in 2029, reports Yole.

Shipments of OLED monitors reached about 200,000 units in Q1 2024, a year over year growth of 121%, reports TrendForce.

Global EV sales grew 18% in Q1 2024 with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) sales seeing 46% YoY growth and battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales growing just 7%, according to Counterpoint. China leads global EV sales with 28% YoY growth, while the US grew just 2%. Tesla saw a 9% YoY drop, but topped BEV sales with a 19% market share. BYD grew 13% YoY and exported about 100,000 EVs with 152% YoY growth, mainly in Southeast Asia.

DeepX raised $80.5 million in Series C funding for its on-device NPU IP and AI SoCs tailored for applications including physical security, robotics, and mobility.

MetisX raised $44 million in Series A funding for its memory solutions built on Compute Express Link (CXL) for accelerating large-scale data processing applications.

Security

While security experts have been warning of a growing threat in electronics for decades, there have been several recent fundamental changes that elevate the risk.

Synopsys and the Ponemon Institute released a report showing 54% of surveyed organizations suffered a software supply chain attack in the past year and 20% were not effective in their response. And 52% said their development teams use AI tools to generate code, but only 32% have processes to evaluate it for license, security, and quality risks.

Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum and TU Darmstadt presented a solution for the automated generation of fault-resistant circuits (AGEFA) and assessed the security of examples generated by AGEFA against side-channel analysis and fault injection.

TXOne reported on operational technology security and the most effective method for preventing production interruptions caused by cyber-attacks.

CrowdStrike and NVIDIA are collaborating to accelerate the use of analytics and AI in cybersecurity to help security teams combat modern cyberattacks, including AI-powered threats.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its guidelines for protecting sensitive data, known as controlled unclassified information, aimed at organizations that do business with the federal government.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded BAE Systems a $12 million contract to solve thermal challenges limiting electronic warfare systems, particularly in GaN transistors.

Sigma Defense won a $4.7 million contract from the U.S. Army for an AI-powered virtual training environment, partnering with Brightline Interactive on a system that uses spatial computing and augmented intelligence workflows.

SkyWater’s advanced packaging operation in Florida has been accredited as a Category 1A Trusted Supplier by the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

Videos of two CWE-focused sessions from CVE/FIRST VulnCon 2024 were made available on the CWE YouTube Channel.

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

Supercomputing

Supercomputers are battling for top dog.

The Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) retained the top spot on the Top500 list of the world’s fastest systems with an HPL score of 1.206 EFlop/s. The as-yet incomplete Aurora system at Argonne took second place, becoming the world’s second exascale system at 1.012 EFlop/s. The Green500 list, which tracks energy efficiency of compute, saw three new entrants take the top places.

Cerebras Systems, Sandia National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory used Cerebras’ second generation Wafer Scale Engine to perform atomic scale molecular dynamics simulations at the millisecond scale, which they claim is 179X faster than the Frontier supercomputer.

UT Austin‘s Stampede3 Supercomputer is now in full production, serving the open science community through 2029.

Education and Training

SEMI announced the SEMI University Semiconductor Certification Programs to help alleviate the workforce skills gap. Its first two online courses are designed for new talent seeking careers in the industry, and experienced workers looking to keep their skills current.  Also, SEMI and other partners launched a European Chip Skills Academy Summer School in Italy.

Siemens created an industry credential program for engineering students that supplements a formal degree by validating industry knowledge and skills. Nonprofit agency ABET will provide accreditation. The first two courses are live at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and a series is planned with Pennsylvania State University (Penn State).

Syracuse University launched a $20 million Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, with co-funding from Onondaga County.

Starting young is a good thing.  An Arizona school district, along with the University Of Arizona,  is creating a semiconductor program for high schoolers.

Product News

Siemens and Sony partnered to enable immersive engineering via a spatial content creation system, NX Immersive Designer, which includes Sony’s XR head-mounted display. The integration of hardware and software gives designers and engineers natural ways to interact with a digital twin. Siemens also extended its Xcelerator as a Service portfolio with solutions for product engineering and lifecycle management, cloud-based high-performance simulation, and manufacturing operations management. It will be available on Microsoft Azure, as well.

Advantest announced the newest addition to its portfolio of power supplies for the V93000 EXA Scale SoC test platform. The DC Scale XHC32 power supply offers 32 channels with single-instrument total current of up to 640A.

Fig. 1: Advantest’s DC Scale XHC32. Source: Advantest

Infineon released its XENSIV TLE49SR angle sensors, which can withstand stray magnetic fields of up to 8 mT, ideal for applications of safety-critical automotive chassis systems.

Google debuted its sixth generation Cloud TPU, 4.7X faster and 67% more energy-efficient than the previous generation, with double the high-bandwidth memory.

X-Silicon uncorked a RISC-V vector CPU, coupled with a Vulkan-enabled GPU ISA and AI/ML acceleration in a single processor core, aimed at embedded and IoT applications.

IBM expanded its Qiskit quantum software stack, including the stable release of its SDK for building, optimizing, and visualizing quantum circuits.

Northeastern University announced the general availability of testing and integration solutions for Open RAN through the Open6G Open Testing and Integration Center (Open 6G OTIC).

Research

The University of Glasgow received £3 million (~$3.8M) from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)’s Strategic Equipment Grant scheme to help establish “Analogue,” an Automated Nano Analysing, Characterisation and Additive Packaging Suite to research silicon chip integration and packaging.

EPFL researchers developed scalable photonic ICs, based on lithium tantalate.

DISCO developed a way to increase the diameter of diamond wafers that uses the KABRA process, a laser ingot slicing method.

CEA-Leti developed two complementary approaches for high performance photon detectors — a mercury cadmium telluride-based avalanche photodetector and a superconducting single photon detector.

Toshiba demonstrated storage capacities of over 30TB with two next-gen large capacity recording technologies for hard disk drives (HDDs): Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR).

Caltech neuroscientists reported that their brain-machine interface (BMI) worked successfully in a second human patient, following 2022’s first instance, proving the device is not dependent on one particular brain or one location in a brain.

Linköping University researchers developed a cheap, sustainable battery made from zinc and lignin, while ORNL researchers developed carbon-capture batteries.

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.

Less than 18 months after it was first rolled out, Tesla is allegedly pulling Steam support from its vehicles.

Back in December 2022, Tesla confirmed games like Cuphead, Sonic, and Cyberpunk 2077 could be played as part of a native beta Steam app in the company's S and X models.

Now, according to Electrek, the company is seemingly reversing that decision.

Read more

Synopsys refocused its security priorities around chips, striking a deal to sell off its Software Integrity Group subsidiary to private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group and Francisco Partners for about $2.1 billion. That deal comes on the heels of Synopsys’ recent acquisition of Intrinsic ID, which develops physical unclonable function IP. Sassine Ghazi, Synopsys’ president and CEO, said in an interview that the sale of the software group “gives us the ability to have management bandwidth, capital, and to double down on what we’re doing in our core business.”

The U.S. Commerce Department reportedly pulled export licenses from Intel and Qualcomm that permitted them to ship semiconductors to Huawei, the Financial Times reported. The move comes after advanced chips from Intel reportedly were used in new laptops and smartphones from the China-based company. 

Apple debuted its second-generation 3nm M4 chip with the launch of the new iPad Pro. The CPU and GPU each have up to 10 cores, with a neural engine capable of 38 TOPS, and a total of 28 billion transistors. Apple also is working with TSMC to develop its own AI processors for running software in data centers, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. is expected to triple its semiconductor manufacturing capacity by 2032, according to a new report by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting. By that year, the U.S. is projected to have 28% of global capacity for advanced logic manufacturing and over a quarter of total global capital expenditures.

Fig. 1: Source: Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting Group.

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Around The Globe

The U.S. Commerce Department plans to solicit bids from organizations interested in creating and managing a new CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute focused on digital twins in the semiconductor sector. The government will award up to $285 million to the selected proposal.

The U.S. National Science Foundation and Department of Energy announced the first 35 projects to be supported with computational time through the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot. The initial selected projects will gain access to several U.S. supercomputing centers and other resources, with the goal of advancing responsible AI research.

Through its new Federal AI Sandbox, MITRE is offering up its computing power to U.S. government agencies. “Our new Federal AI Sandbox will help level the playing field, making the high-quality compute power needed to train and test custom AI solutions available to any agency,” stated Charles Clancy, MITRE, senior vice president and chief technology officer, in the release.

Saudi Arabia’s $100 billion investment fund for semiconductor and AI technology pledged it would divest from China if requested by the U.S, reported Bloomberg.

Japan’s SoftBank is holding talks with UK-based AI Chip firm Graphcore about a possible acquisition, reports Bloomberg.

India’s chip industry is heating up. Mindgrove launched the country’s first SoC, named Secure IoT. The chip clocks at 700 MHz, and the company is touting its key security algorithms, secure boot, and on-chip OTP memory. Meanwhile, Lam Research is expanding its global semiconductor fabrication supply chain to include India.

Microsoft will build a $3.3 billion AI data center in Racine, Wisconsin, the same location as the failed Foxconn investment touted six years ago.

Markets And Money

The SIA announced first-quarter global semiconductor sales grew more than 15% YoY, still 5.7% below Q4 2023, but a big improvement over last year. Consider that the semiconductor materials market contracted 8.2% in 2023 to $66.7 billion, down from a record $72.7 billion in 2022, according to a new report from SEMI.

The demand for AI-powered consumer electronics will drive global AI chipset shipments to 1.3 billion by 2030, according to ABI Research.

TrendForce released several new industry reports this week. Among the highlights:

• HBM prices are expected to increase by up to 10% in 2025, representing more than 30% of total DRAM value.
• In Q2, DRAM contract prices rose 13% to 18%, while NAND flash prices increased 15% to 20%.
• The top 10 design firms’ combined revenue increased 12% in 2023, with NVIDIA taking the lead for the first time.

A number of acquisitions were announced recently:

• High-voltage IC company, Power Integrations, will purchase the assets of Odyssey Semiconductor Technologies, a developer of gallium nitride (GaN) transistors.
• Mobix Labs agreed to buy RF design company RaGE Systems for $20 million in cash, stock, and incentives.
• V-Tek, a packaging services and inspection company, acquired A&J Programming, a manufacturer of automated handling and programming equipment.

The global smartphone market grew 6% year-over-year, shipping 296.9 million units in Q124, according to a Counterpoint report.  Samsung toppled Apple for the top spot with a 20% share.

Automotive

U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Tesla committed securities or wire fraud for misleading consumers and investors about its EV’s autopilot capabilities, according to Reuters.

The automotive ecosystem is undergoing a huge transformation toward software-defined vehicles, spurring new architectures that can be future-proofed and customized with software.

Infineon introduced a microcontroller for the automotive battery management sector, integrating high-precision analog and high-voltage subsystems on a single chip. Infineon also inked a deal with China’s Xiaomi to provide SiC power modules for Xiaomi’s new SU7 smart EV.

Keysight and ETAS are teaming up to embed ETAS fuzz testing software into Keysight’s automotive cybersecurity platform.

Also, Keysight’s device security research lab, Riscure Security Solutions, can now conduct vehicle type approval evaluations under United Nations R155/R156 regulations. Keysight acquired Riscure in March.

Two autonomous driving companies received big funding. British AI company Wayve received a $1.05 billion Series C investment from SoftBank, with contributions from NVIDIA and Microsoft. Hyundai spent an additional $475 million on Motional, according its recent earnings report.

The automotive imaging market grew to U.S. $5.7 billion in 2023 due to increased production, autonomy demand, and higher-resolution offerings.

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a collaborative cross-industry effort developing an open source platform for all Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), released cloud-native functionality, RISC-V architecture and flutter applications.

Security

SRAM security concerns are intensifying as a combination of new and existing techniques allow hackers to tap into data for longer periods of time after a device is powered down. This is particularly alarming as the leading edge of design shifts to heterogeneous systems in package, where chiplets frequently have their own memory hierarchy.

Machine learning is being used by hackers to find weaknesses in chips and systems, but it also is starting to be used to prevent breaches by pinpointing hardware and software design flaws.

txOne Networks, provider of Cyber-Physical Systems security, raised $51 million in Series B extension round of funding.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged a Russian national with his role as the creator, developer and administrator of the LockBit, a prolific ramsomware group, that allegedly stole $100 million in payments from 2,000 victims.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) launched “We Can Secure Our World,” a new public awareness program promoting “basic cyber hygiene” and the agency also issues a number of alerts/advisories.

Product News

Siemens unveiled its Solido IP Validation Suite software, an automated quality assurance product designed to work across all design IP types and formats. The suite includes Solido Crosscheck and IPdelta software, which both provide in-view, cross-view and version-to-version QA checks.

proteanTecs announced its lifecycle monitoring solution is being integrated into SAPEON’s new AI processors.

SpiNNcloud Systems revealed their SpiNNaker2 system, an event-based AI platform supercomputer containing chips that are a mesh of 152 ARM-based cores. The platform has the ability to emulate 10 billion neurons while still maintaining power efficiency and reliability.

Ansys partnered with Schrodinger to develop new computational materials. The collaboration will see Schrodinger’s molecular modeling technology used in Ansys’ simulation tools to evaluate performance ahead of the prototype phase.

Keysight introduced a pulse generator to its handheld radio frequency analyzer software options. The Option 357 pulse generator is downloadable on B- and C-Series FieldFox analyzers.

Education and Training

Semiconductor fever is hitting academia:

• Penn State discussed its role in leading 15 universities to drive advances in chip integration and packaging.
• Georgia Tech’s explained its research is happening at all the levels of the “semiconductor stack,” touting its 28,500 square feet of academic cleanroom space.
• And in the past month Purdue University, Dassault Systems and Lam Research expanded an existing deal to use virtual twins and simulation tools in workforce development.

Arizona State University is beefing up their technology programs with a new bachelor’s and doctoral degree in robotics and autonomous systems.

Microsoft is partnering with Gateway Technical College in Wisconsin to create a Data Center Academy to train Wisconsinites for data center and STEM roles by 2030.

Research

Stanford-led researchers used ordinary-appearing glasses for an augmented reality headset, utilizing waveguide display techniques, holographic imaging, and AI.

UC Berkeley, LLNL, and MIT engineered a miniaturized on-chip energy storage and power delivery, using an atomic-scale approach to modify electrostatic capacitors.

ORNL and other researchers observed a “surprising isotope effect in the optoelectronic properties of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide” when they substituted heavier isotope of molybdenum in the crystal.

Three U.S. national labs are partnering with NVIDIA to develop advanced memory technologies for high performance computing.

In-Depth

In addition to this week’s Automotive, Security and Pervasive Computing newsletter, here are more top stories and tech talk from the week:

• Communication Is Key To Finding And Fixing Bugs In ICs
• Can Models Created With AI Be Trusted?
• Adapting To Evolving IC Requirements

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:

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.

Synopsys refocused its security priorities around chips, striking a deal to sell off its Software Integrity Group subsidiary to private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group and Francisco Partners for about $2.1 billion. That deal comes on the heels of Synopsys’ recent acquisition of Intrinsic ID, which develops physical unclonable function IP. Sassine Ghazi, Synopsys’ president and CEO, said in an interview that the sale of the software group “gives us the ability to have management bandwidth, capital, and to double down on what we’re doing in our core business.”

The U.S. Commerce Department reportedly pulled export licenses from Intel and Qualcomm that permitted them to ship semiconductors to Huawei, the Financial Times reported. The move comes after advanced chips from Intel reportedly were used in new laptops and smartphones from the China-based company. 

Apple debuted its second-generation 3nm M4 chip with the launch of the new iPad Pro. The CPU and GPU each have up to 10 cores, with a neural engine capable of 38 TOPS, and a total of 28 billion transistors. Apple also is working with TSMC to develop its own AI processors for running software in data centers, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. is expected to triple its semiconductor manufacturing capacity by 2032, according to a new report by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting. By that year, the U.S. is projected to have 28% of global capacity for advanced logic manufacturing and over a quarter of total global capital expenditures.

Fig. 1: Source: Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting Group.

Quick links to more news:

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

Around The Globe

The U.S. Commerce Department plans to solicit bids from organizations interested in creating and managing a new CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute focused on digital twins in the semiconductor sector. The government will award up to $285 million to the selected proposal.

The U.S. National Science Foundation and Department of Energy announced the first 35 projects to be supported with computational time through the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot. The initial selected projects will gain access to several U.S. supercomputing centers and other resources, with the goal of advancing responsible AI research.

Through its new Federal AI Sandbox, MITRE is offering up its computing power to U.S. government agencies. “Our new Federal AI Sandbox will help level the playing field, making the high-quality compute power needed to train and test custom AI solutions available to any agency,” stated Charles Clancy, MITRE, senior vice president and chief technology officer, in the release.

Saudi Arabia’s $100 billion investment fund for semiconductor and AI technology pledged it would divest from China if requested by the U.S, reported Bloomberg.

Japan’s SoftBank is holding talks with UK-based AI Chip firm Graphcore about a possible acquisition, reports Bloomberg.

India’s chip industry is heating up. Mindgrove launched the country’s first SoC, named Secure IoT. The chip clocks at 700 MHz, and the company is touting its key security algorithms, secure boot, and on-chip OTP memory. Meanwhile, Lam Research is expanding its global semiconductor fabrication supply chain to include India.

Microsoft will build a $3.3 billion AI data center in Racine, Wisconsin, the same location as the failed Foxconn investment touted six years ago.

Markets And Money

The SIA announced first-quarter global semiconductor sales grew more than 15% YoY, still 5.7% below Q4 2023, but a big improvement over last year. Consider that the semiconductor materials market contracted 8.2% in 2023 to $66.7 billion, down from a record $72.7 billion in 2022, according to a new report from SEMI.

The demand for AI-powered consumer electronics will drive global AI chipset shipments to 1.3 billion by 2030, according to ABI Research.

TrendForce released several new industry reports this week. Among the highlights:

• HBM prices are expected to increase by up to 10% in 2025, representing more than 30% of total DRAM value.
• In Q2, DRAM contract prices rose 13% to 18%, while NAND flash prices increased 15% to 20%.
• The top 10 design firms’ combined revenue increased 12% in 2023, with NVIDIA taking the lead for the first time.

A number of acquisitions were announced recently:

• High-voltage IC company, Power Integrations, will purchase the assets of Odyssey Semiconductor Technologies, a developer of gallium nitride (GaN) transistors.
• Mobix Labs agreed to buy RF design company RaGE Systems for $20 million in cash, stock, and incentives.
• V-Tek, a packaging services and inspection company, acquired A&J Programming, a manufacturer of automated handling and programming equipment.

The global smartphone market grew 6% year-over-year, shipping 296.9 million units in Q124, according to a Counterpoint report.  Samsung toppled Apple for the top spot with a 20% share.

Automotive

U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Tesla committed securities or wire fraud for misleading consumers and investors about its EV’s autopilot capabilities, according to Reuters.

The automotive ecosystem is undergoing a huge transformation toward software-defined vehicles, spurring new architectures that can be future-proofed and customized with software.

Infineon introduced a microcontroller for the automotive battery management sector, integrating high-precision analog and high-voltage subsystems on a single chip. Infineon also inked a deal with China’s Xiaomi to provide SiC power modules for Xiaomi’s new SU7 smart EV.

Keysight and ETAS are teaming up to embed ETAS fuzz testing software into Keysight’s automotive cybersecurity platform.

Also, Keysight’s device security research lab, Riscure Security Solutions, can now conduct vehicle type approval evaluations under United Nations R155/R156 regulations. Keysight acquired Riscure in March.

Two autonomous driving companies received big funding. British AI company Wayve received a $1.05 billion Series C investment from SoftBank, with contributions from NVIDIA and Microsoft. Hyundai spent an additional $475 million on Motional, according its recent earnings report.

The automotive imaging market grew to U.S. $5.7 billion in 2023 due to increased production, autonomy demand, and higher-resolution offerings.

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a collaborative cross-industry effort developing an open source platform for all Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), released cloud-native functionality, RISC-V architecture and flutter applications.

Security

SRAM security concerns are intensifying as a combination of new and existing techniques allow hackers to tap into data for longer periods of time after a device is powered down. This is particularly alarming as the leading edge of design shifts to heterogeneous systems in package, where chiplets frequently have their own memory hierarchy.

Machine learning is being used by hackers to find weaknesses in chips and systems, but it also is starting to be used to prevent breaches by pinpointing hardware and software design flaws.

txOne Networks, provider of Cyber-Physical Systems security, raised $51 million in Series B extension round of funding.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged a Russian national with his role as the creator, developer and administrator of the LockBit, a prolific ramsomware group, that allegedly stole $100 million in payments from 2,000 victims.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) launched “We Can Secure Our World,” a new public awareness program promoting “basic cyber hygiene” and the agency also issues a number of alerts/advisories.

Product News

Siemens unveiled its Solido IP Validation Suite software, an automated quality assurance product designed to work across all design IP types and formats. The suite includes Solido Crosscheck and IPdelta software, which both provide in-view, cross-view and version-to-version QA checks.

proteanTecs announced its lifecycle monitoring solution is being integrated into SAPEON’s new AI processors.

SpiNNcloud Systems revealed their SpiNNaker2 system, an event-based AI platform supercomputer containing chips that are a mesh of 152 ARM-based cores. The platform has the ability to emulate 10 billion neurons while still maintaining power efficiency and reliability.

Ansys partnered with Schrodinger to develop new computational materials. The collaboration will see Schrodinger’s molecular modeling technology used in Ansys’ simulation tools to evaluate performance ahead of the prototype phase.

Keysight introduced a pulse generator to its handheld radio frequency analyzer software options. The Option 357 pulse generator is downloadable on B- and C-Series FieldFox analyzers.

Education and Training

Semiconductor fever is hitting academia:

• Penn State discussed its role in leading 15 universities to drive advances in chip integration and packaging.
• Georgia Tech’s explained its research is happening at all the levels of the “semiconductor stack,” touting its 28,500 square feet of academic cleanroom space.
• And in the past month Purdue University, Dassault Systems and Lam Research expanded an existing deal to use virtual twins and simulation tools in workforce development.

Arizona State University is beefing up their technology programs with a new bachelor’s and doctoral degree in robotics and autonomous systems.

Microsoft is partnering with Gateway Technical College in Wisconsin to create a Data Center Academy to train Wisconsinites for data center and STEM roles by 2030.

Research

Stanford-led researchers used ordinary-appearing glasses for an augmented reality headset, utilizing waveguide display techniques, holographic imaging, and AI.

UC Berkeley, LLNL, and MIT engineered a miniaturized on-chip energy storage and power delivery, using an atomic-scale approach to modify electrostatic capacitors.

ORNL and other researchers observed a “surprising isotope effect in the optoelectronic properties of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide” when they substituted heavier isotope of molybdenum in the crystal.

Three U.S. national labs are partnering with NVIDIA to develop advanced memory technologies for high performance computing.

In-Depth

In addition to this week’s Automotive, Security and Pervasive Computing newsletter, here are more top stories and tech talk from the week:

• Communication Is Key To Finding And Fixing Bugs In ICs
• Can Models Created With AI Be Trusted?
• Adapting To Evolving IC Requirements

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:

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.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | Beata Zawrzel)

No car company in recent years has been able to generate more news headlines than Tesla. Its original founders were among the very first to realize that lithium-ion laptop cells were just about good enough to power a car, assuming you put enough of them in a pack, and with critical funding from current CEO Elon Musk, the company was able to kick-start an electric vehicle revolution. But those headlines of late have been painting a picture of a company in chaos. Sales are down, the cars are barely profitable, and now the CEO is culling vast swaths of the company. Just what is going on?

Tesla had some good times

Always erratic, Musk's leadership has nevertheless seen the company sell electric cars in volume, profitably. What's more, Musk has at times been able to inspire faith in and devotion to his company's products in a way that makes the late Steve Jobs look like a neophyte—after the Model 3 debuted in 2016, 450,000 people gave $1,000 deposits to Tesla for a product that wouldn't go into production for at least 18 months.

Of course, that example also illustrates a long-running concern with the company and Musk's investment-attracting pitches: overhyping and underdelivering. By 2018, more than one in five reservation holders wanted a refund after cheaper models were delayed and delayed.

Read 35 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge / Tesla's "Full Self Driving" system just got a third cheaper. (credit: Edie Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Tesla has dropped the price of its controversial "Full Self Driving" partially automated driver assist. Last week, getting access to FSD would cost you $12,000—today, it's a third cheaper at $8,000. Alternatively, customers can subscribe to the feature for $99 a month.

Tesla has bet heavily on FSD for the future of the company. It's one of two partially automated driving systems offered by Tesla—Autopilot is the older and less-capable system. FSD includes features such as auto lane changes, auto parking, the ability to summon the car from its parking space, and lane keeping (Autosteer in Tesla-speak) on surface streets.

Tesla claims that "[y]our car will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve," but then also notes that "[t]he currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Tesla's poorly built Cybertruck issued a voluntary recall after a TikToker showed us just how the car's slapped-together gas pedal gets stuck. And wow, it's pretty unbelievable. (See video below, posted by el.chepito1985.)

"Serious problem with my Cybertruck," reads the post, in which the Tesla owner opens the driver's door to show us the incredibly cheap-looking "stuck pedal" that looks more like a bad craft project than an actual car part. — Read the rest

The post Man shows us the scary Cybertruck gas pedal that is causing a Tesla recall (video) appeared first on Boing Boing.

Enlarge / The Tesla Cybertruck. (credit: Tesla)

On Monday, we learned that Tesla had suspended customer deliveries of its stainless steel-clad electric pickup truck. Now, the automaker has issued a recall for all the Cybertrucks in customer hands—nearly 4,000 of them—in order to fix a problem with the accelerator pedal. It has come at an inconvenient time for Tesla, which is laying off more than 10 percent of its workforce due to shrinking sales even as CEO Elon Musk asks for an extra $55.8 billion in compensation.

The problem, which affects all 3,878 Cybertrucks delivered so far, has to do with the EV's accelerator pedal. Tesla has fitted this with a metal-finish cover to match the brushed metal appearance of the truck itself—no word on whether the pedals rust, too—but it says that at some point, "an unapproved change introduced lubricant (soap) to aid in the component assembly of the pad onto the accelerator pedal. Residual lubricant reduced the retention of the pad to the pedal."

Thanks to the profile of the Cybertruck's under dash, if the pedal cover becomes partially detached it can slide up and become trapped in place, wedging the pedal down and unleashing all of the Cybertruck's substantial power—the dual-motor truck boasts 600 hp (447 kW) and can reach 60 mph (98 km/h) in just over four seconds.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

By Adam Kovac, Gregory Haley, and Liz Allan.

Cadence plans to acquire BETA CAE Systems for $1.24 billion, the latest volley in a race to sell multi-physics simulation and analysis across a broad set of customers with deep pockets. Cadence said the deal opens the door to structural analysis for the automotive, aerospace, industrial, and health care sectors. Under the terms of the agreement, 60% of the purchase would be paid in cash, and the remainder in stock.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported that North Korea was targeting cyberattacks at domestic semiconductor equipment companies, using a “living off the land” approach, in which the attacker uses minimal malware to attack common applications installed on the server. That makes it more difficult to spot an attack. According to the government, “In December last year, Company A, and in February this year, Company B, had their configuration management server and security policy server hacked, respectively, and product design drawings and facility site photos were stolen.”

As the memory market goes, so goes the broader chip industry. Last quarter, and heading into early 2024, both markets began showing signs of sustainable growth. DRAM revenue jumped 29.6% in Q4 for a total of $17.46 billion. TrendForce attributed some of that to  new efforts to stockpile chips and strategic production control. NAND flash revenue was up 24.5% in Q4, with solid growth expected to continue into the first part of this year, according to TrendForce. Revenue for the sector topped $11.4 billion in Q4, and it’s expected to grow another 20% this quarter. SSD prices rebounded in Q4, as well, up 15% to $23.1 billion. Across the chip industry, sales grew 15.2% in January compared to the same period in 2023, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). This is the largest increase since May 2022, and that trend is expected to continue throughout 2024 with double-digit growth compared to 2023.

Marvell said it is working with TSMC to develop a technology platform for the rapid deployment of analog, mixed-signal, and foundational IP. The company plans to sell both custom and commercial chiplets at 2nm.

The Dutch government is concerned that ASML, the only maker of EUV/high-NA EUV lithography equipment in the world, is considering leaving the Netherlands, according to De Telegraaf.

Quick links to more news:

Design and Power
Manufacturing and Test
Automotive and Batteries
Security
Pervasive Computing and AI
Events

Design and Power

AMD appears to have hit a roadblock with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) over a new AI chip it designed for the Chinese market, as reported by Bloomberg. U.S. officials told the company the new chip is too powerful to be sold without a license.

JEDEC released its new memory standard as a free download on its website. The JESD239 Graphics Double Data Rate SGRAM can reach speeds of 192 GB/s and improve signal-to-noise ratio.

Accellera rolled out its IEEE Std. 1800‑2023 Standard for SystemVerilog—Unified Hardware Design, Specification, and Verification Language, which is now available for free download. The decision to offer it at no cost is due to Accellera’s participation in the IEEE GET Program, which was founded in 2010 with the intention of providing  open access to some standards. Accellera also announced it had approved for release the Verilog-AMS 2023 standard, which offers enhancements to analog constructs, dynamic tolerance for event control statements, and other upgrades.

Chiplets are a hot topic these days. Six industry experts discuss chiplet standards, interoperability, and the need for highly customized AI chiplets.

Optimizing EDA hardware for the cloud can shorten the time required for large and complex simulations, but not all workloads will benefit equally, and much more can be done to improve those that can.

Flex Logix is developing InferX DSP for use with existing EFLX eFPGA from 40nm to 7nm. InferX achieves about 30 times the DSP performance/mm² than eFPGA.

The number of challenges is growing in power semiconductors, just as it is in traditional chips. This tech talk looks at integrating power semiconductors with other devices, different packaging impacts, and how these devices will degrade over time.

Vultr announced it will use NVIDIA’s HGX H100 GPU clusters to expand its Seattle-based cloud data center. The company said the expansion, which will be powered by hydroelectricity, will make the facility one of the cleanest, most power efficient data centers in the country.

Amazon Web Services will expand its presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing a new $5.3 billion infrastructure region in the country that will launch in 2026. The new region will offer developers, entrepreneurs and companies access to healthcare, education and other services.

Google is teaming up with the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) to launch the XPRIZE Quantum Applications, with a $5 million in prizes for winners who can demonstrate ways to use quantum computing to solve real-world problems. Teams must submit a proposal that includes analysis of how long their algorithm would need to run before reaching a solution to a problem, such as improving drug development or designing new battery materials.

South Korea’s nepes corporation has turned to Siemens EDA for solutions in the development of advanced 3D-IC packages. The deal will see nepes incorporating several Siemens technologies, including the Calibre nmPlatform, Hyperlynx software and Xpedition Substrate Integrator software.

Siemens also formalized a partnership with Nuclei System Technology in which the pair of companies will work together on solution support for Nuclei’s RISC-V processor cores. The collaboration will allow clients to monitor CPU program execution in real-time via Nuclei’s RISC-V CPU Ips.

Keysight and ETS-Lindgren announced a breakthrough test solution for cellular devices using non-terrestrial networks. The solution is capable of measuring and validating the performance of both the transmitter and receiver of devices capable of supporting the network.

Nearly fifty companies raised $800 million for power electronics, data center interconnects, and more last month.

Manufacturing and Test

SEMI Europe issued a position statement to the European Union, warning against additional export controls or rules on foreign investment. SEMI argued that free trade partnerships are a better method for ensuring security than bans or restrictions.

Revenues for the top five wafer fab equipment manufacturers declined 1% YoY in 2023 to $93.5 billion, according to Counterpoint Research. The drop was attributed to weak spending on memory, inventory adjustments, and low demand in consumer electronics. The tide is changing, though.

Bruker closed two acquisitions. One involved Chemspeed Technologies, a Switzerland-based provider of automated laboratory R&D and QC workflow solutions. The second involved Phasefocus, an image processing company based in the UK.

A Swedish company, SCALINQ, released a commercially available large-scale packaging solution capable of controlling quantum devices with hundreds of qubits.

Solid Sands, a provider of testing and qualification technology for compilers and libraries, will partner with California-based Emprog to establish a representative presence in the U.S.

Automotive

Tesla halted production at its Brandenberg, Germany, gigafactory after an environmental activist group attacked an electricity pylon, reports the Guardian.

Stellantis will invest €5.6 billion (~$6.1B) in South America to support more than 40 new products, decarbonization technologies, and business opportunities.

The amount of data being collected, processed, and stored in vehicles is exploding, and so is the value of that data. That raises questions that are still not fully answered about how that data will be used, by whom, and how it will be secured.

While industry experts expect many benefits of V2X technology, technological and social hurdles to cross. But there is progress.

Infineon released its next-gen silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET trench technology with 650V and 1,200V options improving stored energies and charges by up to 20%, ideal for power semiconductor applications such as photovoltaics, energy storage, DC EV charging, motor drives, and industrial power supplies.

Hyundai selected Ansys to supply structural simulation solutions for vehicle body system analysis, providing end-to-end, predictively accurate capabilities for virtual performance validation.

ION Mobility used the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio for styling, mechanical engineering, and electric battery pack development for its ION M1-S electric motorbike.

Ethernovia sampled a family of automotive PHY transceivers that scale from 10 Gbps to 1 Gbps over 15 meters of automotive cabling.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved Waymo’s plan to expand its driverless robotaxi services to Los Angeles and other cities near San Francisco, reports Reuters.

By 2027, next-gen battery EVs (BEVs) will on average be cheaper to produce than comparable gas-powered cars, reports Gartner. But the firm noted that average cost of EV accident repair will rise by 30%, and 15% of EV companies founded in the last decade will be acquired or bankrupt.

University of California San Diego (UCSD) researchers developed a cathode material for solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries that is electrically conductive and structurally healable.

ION Storage Systems announced its anodeless and compressionless solid-state batteries (SSBs) achieved 125 cycles with under 5% capacity degradation in performance. ION has been working with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to test its SSB before expanding into markets such as EVs, energy storage, consumer electronics, and aerospace.

Security

Advanced process nodes and higher silicon densities are heightening DRAM’s susceptibility to Rowhammer attacks, as reduced cell spacing significantly decreases the hammer count needed for bit flips. A multi-layered, system-level approach is crucial to DRAM protection.

Researchers at Bar-Ilan University and Rafael Defense Systems proposed an analytical electromagnetic model for IC shielding against hardware attacks.

Keysight acquired the IP of Firmalyzer, whose firmware security analysis technology will be integrated into the Keysight IoT Security Assessment and Automotive Security solutions, providing analysis into what is happening inside the IoT device itself.

Flex Logix joined the Intel Foundry U.S. Military Aerospace Government (USMAG) Alliance, ensuring U.S. defense industrial base and government customers have access to the latest technology, enabling successful designs for mission critical programs.

The EU Council presidency and European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a Cyber Solidarity Act and an amendment to the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) concerning managed security services.

The EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and partners updated the compendium on elections cybersecurity in response to issues such as AI deep fakes, hacktivists-for-hire, the sophistication of threat actors, and the current geopolitical context.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) launched efforts to help secure the open source software ecosystem; updated its Public Safety Communications and Cyber Resiliency Toolkit; and issued other alerts including security advisories for VMware, Apple, and Cisco.

Pervasive Computing and AI

Johns Hopkins University engineers used natural language prompts and ChatGPT4 to produce detailed instructions to build a spiking neural network (SNN) chip. The neuromorphic accelerators could power real-time machine intelligence for next-gen embodied systems like autonomous vehicles and robots.

The global AI hardware market size was estimated at $53.71 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach about $473.53 billion by 2033, at a compound annual growth rate of 24.5%, reports Precedence Research.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers and partners built compact chips capable of converting light into microwaves, which could improve navigation, communication, and radar systems.

Fig. 1: NIST researchers test a chip for converting light into microwave signals. Pictured is the chip, which is the fluorescent panel that looks like two tiny vinyl records. The gold box to the left of the chip is the semiconductor laser that emits light to the chip. Credit: K. Palubicki/NIST

The Indian government is investing 103 billion rupees ($1.25B) in AI projects, including computing infrastructure and large language models (LLMs).

Infineon is collaborating with Qt Group, bringing Qt’s graphics framework to Infineon’s graphics-enabled TRAVEO T2G cluster MCUs to optimize graphical user interface (GUI) development.

Keysight leveraged fourth-generation AMD EPYC CPUs to develop a new benchmarking methodology to test mobile and 5G private network performance. The method uses realistic traffic generation to uncover a CPU’s true power and scalability while observing bandwidth requirements.

The AI industry is pushing a nuclear power revival, reports NBC, and Amazon bought a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania from Talen Energy for $650 million, according to WNEP.

Bank of America was awarded 644 patents in 2023 for technology including information security, AI, machine learning (ML), online and mobile banking, payments, data analytics, and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR).

Mistral AI’s large language model, Mistral Large, became available in the Snowflake Data Cloud for customers to securely harness generative AI with their enterprise data.

China’s smartphone unit sales declined 7% year over year in the first six weeks of 2024, with Apple declining 24%, reports Counterpoint.

Shipments of LCD TV panels are expected to reach 55.8 million units in Q1 2024, a 5.3% quarter over quarter increase, reports TrendForce. And an estimated 5.8 billion LED lamps and luminaires are expected to reach the end of their lifespan in 2024, triggering a wave of secondary replacements and boosting total LED lighting demand to 13.4 billion units.

Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) researchers mined high-purity gold from electrical and electronic waste.

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the University of Utah launched a National Data Platform pilot project, aimed at making access to and use of scientific data open and equitable.

Events

Find upcoming chip industry events here, including:

Upcoming webinars are here.

Further Reading and Newsletters

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.

When Tesla introduced the Cybertruck, it posted a photo of an add-on tent so owners could sleep in the back of the vehicle. The price tag for the tent, named "Basecamp," was a steep $3,000, but for people who think the Cybertruck is cool, it's probably not an outrageous amount. — Read the rest

The post The $3,000 Cybertruck tent looks like cheap junk compared to the official photos appeared first on Boing Boing.

Enlarge / Tesla Superchargers. (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Tesla drivers who say the carmaker "grossly" exaggerated the ranges of its electric vehicles have lost their attempt to sue Tesla as a class. They will have to pursue claims individually in arbitration, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

Two related lawsuits were filed after a Reuters investigation last year found that Tesla consistently exaggerated the driving range of its electric vehicles, leading car owners to think something was broken when the actual driving range was much lower than advertised. Tesla reportedly created a "Diversion Team" to handle these complaints and routinely canceled service appointments because there was no way to improve the actual distance Tesla cars could drive between charges.

Several Tesla drivers sued in US District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking class-action status to represent buyers of Tesla cars.

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Enlarge / Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on September 18, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Justin Sullivan )

Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6,000 Black people who allege that they faced discrimination and harassment while working at the company's Fremont factory, a California judge ruled.

The tentative ruling from Alameda County Superior Court "certifies a class defined as the specific approximately 5,977 persons self-identified as Black/African-American who worked at Tesla during the class period from November 9, 2016, through the date of the entry of this order to prosecute the claims in the complaint."

The tentative ruling was issued Tuesday by Judge Noël Wise. Tesla can contest the ruling at a hearing on Friday, but tentative rulings are generally finalized without major changes.

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