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Esperanto Technologies, a provider of high-performance, energy-efficient AI and HPC solutions built on the RISC-V instruction set, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Rapidus. The partnership's initial goal is to help future semiconductor designers produce more energy-efficient solutions.
Company release
India is known for its semiconductor design expertise, which has been successfully nurtured since the 1980s. However, manufacturing capability and capacity has been limited despite having built a fab as far back as 1983 in the form of Semiconductor Complex Limited (SCL), established by M.J. Zarabi, considered one of the pioneers of the current chip industry in India.
EE Times
China has launched an anti-dumping probe into imports of a widely used plastic from the US, EU, Taiwan and Japan.
BBC News
SoftBank Group subsidiary Arm will foray into the development of artificial intelligence chips, seeking to launch the first products next year.
Nikkei Asia
Huawei's latest high-end phone features more Chinese suppliers, including a new flash memory storage chip and an improved chip processor, a teardown analysis showed, pointing to the progress China is making towards technology self-sufficiency.
Reuters
China passed a law on Friday strengthening its trade defence capabilities as the United States and the European Union take aim at Beijing over excess industrial capacity.
Reuters
The next generation of Arm's Ethos micro-NPU, Ethos-U85, is designed to support transformer operations, bringing generative AI models to IoT devices.
EE Times
The company said that demand for its smartphones dropped by more than 10% in the first three months of this year, while overall sales fell in every geographic region except for Europe.
BBC News
Three months ago, some investors thought the company might be able to drive perhaps $10 billion in full-year revenue for its MI300 AI accelerator line, but management ended up giving a target of more than $3.5 billion. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote last week that "until recently," expectations seemed to be creeping back up near $6 billion, but now investors are worried about possible customer order pushouts.
MarketWatch
Unionized workers of Samsung Electronics have voted in favor of a strike after failing to reach a deal on wage hikes with management, according to industry sources. Wage negotiations between management and labor broke down in February after rounds of talks over this year's wage increase.
The Korea Times
Consumer prices in the US rose faster than expected last month, in a sign that the fight to slow inflation has stalled.
BBC News
The US has added four Chinese companies to an export blacklist for buying US-origin goods to support China's military modernization efforts, the Department of Commerce said in a statement published Thursday.
Bloomberg
Huawei Technologies and a secretive chipmaking partner in China have filed patents for a low-tech but potentially effective way to make advanced semiconductors, raising the prospect that China could improve chip production techniques despite US efforts to halt its progress.
Bloomberg
China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel and AMD from government personal computers and servers.
The Financial Times
TSMC is set to win more than $5 billion in federal grants to support a chipmaking project in Arizona, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would mark a major milestone in President Joe Biden's effort to revitalize American semiconductor manufacturing.
Bloomberg
China is in the process of raising more than US$27 billion for its largest chip fund to date, accelerating the development of cutting-edge technologies to counter a US campaign to thwart its rise.
Bloomberg
Water scarcity threatens chipmakers like TSMC and could push prices higher, according to S&P (Mar 6)
Semiconductor firms such as TSMC are at risk of water shortages as processing technology advances, S&P Global Ratings said in a report.
CNBC
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology said the graphene semiconductor they have developed is compatible with standard microelectronic processing methods, a fundamental requirement for any viable alternative to silicon.
EETimes Europe
With Vision Pro out the door and the recent cancellation of work on a car, it's becoming crystal clear that Apple is shifting huge resources into its forthcoming introduction of something like generative AI (genAI).
Computerworld
North Korean hackers have broken into South Korean chip equipment makers, according to South Korea's spy agency.
BBC News
European Union leaders recently opened several initiatives to promote the development of RISC-V-based chips-in response to anxiety over member countries' reliance on foreign companies for semiconductors. The recent global chip shortage, which has disrupted supply chains and highlighted the importance of chip sovereignty, exacerbated that concern.
EE Times
US chipmakers Intel and Micron are likely to win the largest share of the US$52 billion in CHIPS Act awards this year, analysts told EE Times. With the US 2024 presidential election approaching, the awards will help President Joe Biden show that he's creating jobs and returning semiconductor manufacturing to the nation following a long history of offshoring, the analysts said.
EE Times
Self-healing machines are becoming a reality, one generative AI (genAI) fault diagnosis tool at a time; one day, even your iPhone will tell you when it thinks it has a problem.
Computerworld
Japan's efforts to rebuild its semiconductor industry are getting a shot in the arm as more and more Taiwanese chip companies expand here - not only to support a new TSMC plant but also excited about the Japanese sector's prospects.
Reuters
Samsung Electronics sold its entire remaining stake in ASML Holding in the December quarter as part of its push to expand into new areas of chipmaking.
Bloomberg
Graphcore has struggled to gain a foothold in the market for AI chips despite huge spending on artificial intelligence. It has also been hit by the closure of its business in China amid US controls on selling AI technology.
Daily Telegraph (UK)
The Biden administration is considering restrictions on imports of Chinese "smart cars" and related components that would go beyond tariffs to address growing US concerns about data security, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg
Kioxia and Western Digital's joint venture manufacturing facilities in Yokkaichi and Kitakami have been approved for up to JPY150 billion (US$1 billion) in government subsidies.
Company release
Although economic factors are the main reason for tech layoffs, many companies are citing the race for artificial intelligence as a factor, as they are shifting resources to focus on AI talent.
Bloomberg
Soaring appetite for Huawei's artificial intelligence (AI) chips coupled with manufacturing constraints has forced the Chinese tech giant to prioritise AI and slow production for its premium Mate 60 phones, people familiar with the matter said.
Reuters
His disappearance came against the backdrop of a crackdown on leading technology companies by Chinese authorities. In late 2020, Alibaba founder Jack Ma also disappeared from public view for three months. Ma had been due to publicly list his digital payments firm Ant Financial - which would have most likely made him the richest man in China.
BBC News
The US Justice Department said Wednesday that the FBI surreptitiously sent commands to hundreds of infected small office and home office routers to remove malware China state-sponsored hackers were using to wage attacks on critical infrastructure.
Ars Technica
The most pressing question for Canada's semiconductor industry isn't whether it can scale up its chipmaking capabilities but how to go about doing so.
EE Times
Facebook owner Meta Platforms opens new tab plans to deploy into its data centers this year a new version of a custom chip aimed at supporting its artificial intelligence (AI) push, according to an internal company document seen by Reuters on Thursday.
Reuters
Teradyne, a supplier of semiconductor testing equipment, pulled manufacturing worth about $1 billion out of China last year, a Teradyne spokesperson said on Monday, after US export regulations led to supply chain disruptions.
Reuters
Chipmaking startup Cerebras Systems is weighing an initial public offering as soon as this year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg
Ericsson said it expects further decline in 5G gear demand from mobile operators this year after beating fourth-quarter operating profit expectations on Tuesday helped by software sales.
Reuters
Shares of KLA declined 6% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company posted a profit miss in its fiscal second quarter amid weaker demand levels.
MarketWatch
Western Digital on Thursday posted December quarter sales that edged Wall Street estimates, and provided better-than-expected guidance for the March quarter-but the disk-drive and flash memory chip company's shares nonetheless were falling in late trading.
Barron's
Industry predictions suggest Samsung Electronics will significantly expand its HBM production capabilities with substantial equipment investment. This intensifies the industry leadership competition with SK Hynix, which is entering mass production of its fifth-generation HBM3E product in the first half of this year.
BusinessKorea
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