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Commentary / Analysis

• U.S.-China Tech War Likely to Escalate, Analysts Say (Monday Jul. 22, 2024)
  The U.S.-China tech war is likely to escalate in this U.S. presidential election year and afterward, according to analysts interviewed by EE Times.
  
  
• China's EDA startup X-Epic forced to lay off staff, says report (Monday Jul. 22, 2024)
  Chinese EDA software startup X-Epic Ltd. (Nanjing, China) is cutting up to half its staff according to the South China Morning Post, quoting unnamed sources.
  
  
• RISC-V Shows Ambitious Prospects in Europe (Friday Jul. 19, 2024)
  The European tech landscape is witnessing a notable evolution with the growing embrace of RISC-V, the open-source instruction set architecture.
  
  
• CXL Fulfills AI's Need for Open Industry Standard Interconnect (Thursday Jul. 18, 2024)
  We have been in a virtuous cycle of innovation for decades now where dramatic improvements in compute capability—primarily driven by extraordinary advances in transistor and process technologies—have enabled diverse applications.
  
  
• Electronic System Design Industry Posts $4.5 Billion in Revenue in Q1 2024, ESD Alliance Reports (PRNewsfoto/SEMI) (Tuesday Jul. 16, 2024)
  Electronic System Design (ESD) industry revenue increased 14.4% to $4,521.6 million in the first quarter of 2024 from the $3,951.1 million registered in the first quarter of 2023
  
  
• RISC-V Thrives Through Research, International Collaboration (Wednesday Jul. 10, 2024)
  During the conference, Gürkaynak described how his team could go from design to tape-out of a RISC-V processor in 60 days.
  
  
• Addressing AI While Keeping the MIPSiness In MIPS (Monday Jul. 08, 2024)
  MIPS, now targeting AI applications for its application-specific data movement cores, is evolving with a careful eye on its strengths.
  
  
• STMicroelectronics restructures for the AI age (Monday Jul. 01, 2024)
  STMicroelectronics is fundamentally restructuring its business for the AI age, introducing predictive qualification and fully automated IP, library, test and packaging.
  
  
• Creating a Center of Excellence for IC Design (Monday Jul. 01, 2024)
  Amidst the recent, intense discussion of semiconductor supply chains, one key element is often overlooked: the need for alternative sources of design expertise. Traditionally, an advanced system-on-chip (SoC) design is achievable in only a few geographic clusters of expertise formed around an outstanding university engineering model—and thriving symbiotically with it.
  
  
• CEO Interview: Sameer Wasson of MIPS -- "Have a Steady Hand, Don't be Distracted" (Monday Jul. 01, 2024)
  In this episode of Silicon Grapevine, we talk to MIPS CEO Sameer Wasson about the experience of going from an intern doing FPGA programming, to the breadth of experience of almost 18 years at Texas Instruments (TI).
  
  
• Tenstorrent To Offer AI Workstation For Developers (Wednesday Jun. 26, 2024)
  Tenstorrent’s first generation AI chips will soon come in a workstation format for AI developers, the company’s CEO Jim Keller told EE Times.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 15.8% Year-to-Year in April; New Industry Forecast Projects Market Growth of 16.0% in 2024 (Monday Jun. 10, 2024)
  SIA today announced global semiconductor industry sales were $46.4 billion during the month of April 2024, an increase of 15.8% compared to the April 2023 total of $40.1 billion and 1.1% more than the March 2024 total of $45.9 billion.
  
  
• Q1 2024 Global Semiconductor Equipment Billings Edge Down 2% Year-Over-Year, SEMI Reports (Thursday Jun. 06, 2024)
  Global semiconductor equipment billings contracted 2% year-over-year to US$26.4 billion in the first quarter of 2024, while quarter-over-quarter billings dropped 6% during the same period
  
  
• Arm looking for 50% of Windows PC market (Thursday Jun. 06, 2024)
  Arm CEO Renee Haas has told Reuters that Arm could have a 50% share of the Windows PC market by 2029.
  
  
• Fifth generation ARM Cortex-X for 3nm AI chip designs (Thursday May. 30, 2024)
  
  
  
• GDDR7 Adds Headroom to Meet AI Pressures (Thursday May. 16, 2024)
  Recent advances in artificial intelligence may appear revolutionary, but JEDEC is keeping an evolutionary approach for Graphics Double Data Rate (GDDR) standards, even as it’s being increasingly used for AI applications.
  
  
• Is Graphcore Deal Finally About to Close? (Monday May. 13, 2024)
  Since last fall, rumors have been circulating about Graphcore: having raised huge amounts of funding from some key strategic investors, the company was close to running out of funding and was looking for a buyer.
  
  
• Arm revenues up 47%; shares fall (Thursday May. 09, 2024)
  Arm’s calendar Q1 (FY Q4) revenues were up 47% y-o-y at $928 million for a profit of $391 million.
  
  
• Softbank reported to be in talks to buy Graphcore (Thursday May. 09, 2024)
  Graphcore, the Bristol IPU developer, is said to be in talks with Softbank about a sale of a company for around $500 million, reports Bloomberg.
  
  
• Arm Brings Transformers to IoT Devices (Monday May. 06, 2024)
  The next generation of Arm’s Ethos micro-NPU, Ethos-U85, is designed to support transformer operations, bringing generative AI models to IoT devices.
  
  
• A Conversation with GlobalFoundries Europe's Manfred Horstmann (Monday May. 06, 2024)
  Dresden has been a microelectronics hub since its days as an East German city. Building on that strong foundation has been a win for GlobalFoundries and for Europe at large, says GlobalFoundries’ top executive on the continent.
  
  
• Worldwide Silicon Wafer Shipments Dip 5% in Q1 2024, SEMI Reports (Thursday May. 02, 2024)
  Worldwide silicon wafer shipments decreased 5.4% quarter-over-quarter to 2,834 million square inches in the first quarter of 2024, a 13.2% drop from the 3,265 million square inches recorded during the same quarter last year
  
  
• TSMC's A16 Process Moves Goalposts in Tech-Leadership Game (Monday Apr. 29, 2024)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has changed the tech leadership game with the announcement of its latest A16 chipmaking process, which analysts say may be a leap ahead of Intel’s 18A node.
  
  
• EDA toolset parade at TSMC's U.S. design symposium (Monday Apr. 29, 2024)
  The EDA trio—Cadence Design Systems, Siemens EDA, and Synopsys—is working hands in hand with TSMC to facilitate production-ready EDA tools for the mega-fab’s newest and most advanced processes.
  
  
• Altera in negotiation on private equity partner (Monday Apr. 29, 2024)
  Intel expects to see a partnership with private equity on the spin out of its Altera FPGA business later this year.
  
  
• Arm China's ex-CEO sets up RISC-V company (Monday Apr. 29, 2024)
  Allen Wu, the sacked CEO of Arm China who wouldn’t leave, has set up a RISC-V company called Zhongzhi Chip, according to TrendForce, citing WeChat.
  
  
• TSMC plans 1.6nm process for 2026 (Friday Apr. 26, 2024)
  TSMC is planning a 1.6nm process, called A16, for production in 2026 alongside a wafer-scale chiplet substrate and an automotive chiplet process.
  
  
• Ceva multi-protocol wireless IP could simplify IoT MCU and SoC development (Thursday Apr. 25, 2024)
  Ceva’s new line up of IPs include Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, next-generation Bluetooth, narrowband IEEE 802.15.4 (for Thread, ZigBee, Matter), and UWB (FiRA 2.0 for consumer applications and CCC Digital Key 3.0 for automotive applications).
  
  
• Controversial former Arm China CEO founds RISC-V chip startup (Thursday Apr. 25, 2024)
  A number of former Arm China employees have reportedly followed Allen Wu to new venture
  
  
• Leveraging Cryogenics and Photonics for Quantum Computing (Wednesday Apr. 24, 2024)
  While sureCore focuses on cryogenic semiconductor design, Quantum Computing works on photonics-based technologies.