Chip Industry Week in Review\n\nTariffs; $16.5B Samsung-Tesla deal; China’s backdoor worries; Ambiq goes public; big funding for AI and e-beam; Silvaco buys Mixel; AI breaches; interconnects in-depth; chiplet architectures; AI-powered simulation.\n\nAugust 1st, 2025 - By: The SE Staff\n\nThe U.S. government announced new import tariff actions and deals this week, including:\n\nThe EU: 15% tariff on most goods including semiconductors. According to the EU’s president, the action excludes semiconductor equipment. Copper: 50% tariff on all imports of semi-finished copper products and intensive copper derivative products, effective Aug. 1, but raw input material is excluded. South Korea: 15% tariff on most goods, with a promise that semiconductors are \"not to be treated any worse\" than any other country. Malaysia: semiconductors are currently exempt, other goods are at 19%, with ongoing talks. China and Taiwan: talks are ongoing. Note: The Trump administration will publish the results of its Section 232 investigation into foreign chip imports within two weeks, which could pave the way for new tariffs, reports Reuters.\n\nSamsung signed a multi-year, $16.5 billion deal to manufacture Tesla’s next-gen AI6 chips at its new Texas foundry through 2033. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that amount is only the base value, and that actual orders could be much higher. The agreement was first noted in a regulatory filing by Samsung.\n\nNVIDIA told China’s Cyberspace Administration that its H20 AI accelerator chips contain no \"backdoors,\" The agency cited concerns about proposed U.S. requirements for tracking/location features.\n\nIn big funding news:\n\nAmbiq Micro, which designs ultra-low power SoCs for battery-powered edge AI, went public on the New York Stock Exchange, raising more than $110 million as of July 31. SiMa.ai raised $85 million in a recent round to expand and accelerate the scale-up of its Physical AI platform. FuriosaAI raised $125 million to scale production of its LLM and multi-modal AI inference accelerators, designed for efficient tensor contraction operations. Multibeam raised $31 million to accelerate development of its next-generation multi-column e-beam lithography platform for 300mm wafer and panel-level maskless lithography. Positron AI raised $51 million to develop a custom ASIC for large-scale transformer model inference.\n\nSilvaco entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mixel, which specializes in low-power, high-performance SerDes and PHY silicon IP. The deal, which includes a combination of cash and stock, is expected to close immediately.\n\nIBM’s Cost of Data Breach Report found 13% of organizations reported breaches of AI models or applications, while 8% of organizations did not know if they had been compromised. Of those that were compromised, 97% did not have AI access controls in place.\n\nSemiconductor Engineering rolled out a 94-page in-depth report this week about on-die and in-package interconnects.\n\nThis week’s earnings reports: Arm, Amkor, ASE, Air Liquide, Cadence, Cohu, FormFactor, Lam Research, Qualcomm, Rambus, Samsung (consolidated), Siltronic, Teradyne, UMC, and Western Digital. Industry stock price impacts are here.\n\nQuick links to more news:\n\nGlobal In-Depth Markets and Money Product News Research Automotive and Batteries Security People Events and Further Reading\n\nGlobal\n\nEurope: The German government adopted a \"High-Tech Agenda Germany\" policy to boost investment in AI, quantum, microelectronics, and other technologies. Among the microelectronics goals are establishing a chip design competence center by 2026, development of smart and energy-efficient AI chips, promotion of advanced packaging and lab-to-fab infrastructure, and more. Silicon Saxony weighed in on the new innovation policy here.\n\nAsia: Canon opened a $336 million facility in Japan for i-line and krypton fluoride lithography equipment, as well as nanoimprint devices. Keysight delivered a commercial quantum control system that supports 1,000-plus qubits to Japan’s AIST center as part of an evaluation testbed.\n\nUSA: The NSF, Intel and Capital One will jointly spend $100 million to support five national AI research institutes and a central community hub. The Council on Foreign Relations convened experts to analyze the opportunities and risks associated with the Trump administration’s AI action plan.\n\nIn-Depth\n\nSemiconductor Engineering published its Systems and Design newsletter this week, featuring these top stories:\n\nSpecial Report: Multi-Modal AI In EDA Development Flows For Chip Developers, HW/SW Co-Design Key To Data Center Efficiency How AI Will Impact Chip Design And Designers\n\nMore reporting this week:\n\nSpecial Report: On-Die And In-Package Interconnects When Standards Enable Chiplets Opinion: Hallucination And Innovation At DAC Video: Changes In Scan Test Data\n\nMarkets and Money\n\nDeals/Collaborations:\n\nSiMa.ai and Synopsys are teaming up to develop chiplet architectures and reference SoC designs optimized for ADAS and in-vehicle infotainment. Rebellions and CoAsia SEMI will co-develop AI chiplets and software for data centers. SkyWater Technology inked a license agreement with Infineon, allowing access to a library of silicon-proven, mixed-signal ASIC IP. GS Microelectronics acquired Sinble Technology Vietnam to enhance its design services offerings for TSMC-based advanced process nodes. Acumera acquired Scale Computing to strengthen its integrated scalable edge platform.\n\nReports:\n\nSEMI reported that global silicon wafer shipments rose almost 10% year-over-year to 3,327 million square inches (MSI) in Q2 2025, and surged ~15% sequentially from Q1, driven primarily by robust AI data-center and high-bandwidth memory demand. Counterpoint expects global pure-play foundry revenues will rise to over $165 billion in 2025, a 17% increase year-on-year, driven by demand for AI and high-performance computing chips built on advanced process nodes (7 nm and below). The global wafer fab equipment market is projected to reach $184 billion by 2030, driven by increased demand for specialized tools in advanced logic, memory, and packaging, as well as geopolitical shifts reshaping global manufacturing, according to Yole Group. More industry reports: CMOS image sensors, RF front-end, back-end semiconductor equipment, and Samsung memory.\n\nMore Fundings:\n\nNetrasemi raised ~$12.5 million for its edge AI SoCs and chiplets that use a graph stream architecture. Oxide Computer raised $100 million for its data center racks for on-prem clouds. Teramount raised $50 million for its detachable connector for data centers that links optical fibers coming from outside the rack to the silicon photonics chips inside co-packaged optics systems. Aeva raised up to $50 million from LG Innotek for its sensing and perception technology that integrates all key lidar components onto a silicon photonics chip for automotive and autonomous systems.\n\nProduct News\n\nMemory/Storage:\n\nMicron Technology debuted new data center SSDs built on its G9 NAND process. MaxLinear uncorked a storage accelerator with 450Gbps throughput for enterprise and hyperscale data centers. Enfabrica debuted a memory fabric system for large-scale, distributed AI inference workloads that integrates Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) Ethernet networking with parallel CXL-based DDR5 memory channels.\n\nDesign/Architecture/Power:\n\nAnsys, now part of Synopsys, released 2025 R2 with AI-powered simulation tools, enhanced solvers, and expanded support for Python scripting and on-demand cloud computing. QuickLogic released a new version of its Aurora FPGA design tool that integrates Synopsys Synplify FPGA design synthesis. onsemi announced it is collaborating with NVIDIA to accelerate deployment of 800 VDC direct-current power systems, leveraging its silicon and SiC-based power solutions.\n\nManufacturing\n\nRigaku launched mass production of its XTRAIA XD-3300 X-ray diffraction and reflectometry system, uniquely capable of ultra-high-resolution, non-destructive measurements on Si/SiGe superlattices and nanoscale film stacks, with up to 100X faster throughput compared to previous models. Rapidus adopted Siemens’ Teamcenter semiconductor lifecycle management software to connect design, development, manufacturing preparation, testing, and quality management for its upcoming 2nm fab.\n\nQuantum/Photonics:\n\nXanadu and HyperLight demonstrated thin-film lithium niobate photonic chips with waveguide losses below 2 dB/m and switch loss of approximately 20 mdB. D-Wave launched a strategic development initiative focused on developing advanced cryogenic packaging for both gate model and annealing quantum processors.\n\nResearch\n\nAI/ML:\n\nGeorgia Tech proposed an acceleration of LLMs via 3D heterogeneous integration. Research teams from the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics and others developed a new class of AI models called curved neural networks. MIT researchers illustrated a method for ML with symmetry that is efficient in terms of both the amount of computation and data needed. IBM researchers devised new tools to help LLM users check AI-generated content for accuracy and relevance and defend against jailbreak attacks. Carnegie Mellon researchers are building models to forecast the impact of AI on the American power grid.\n\nMaterials:\n\nPenn State researchers led a team that developed a new fabrication approach that optimizes the internal structure of electrospun fibers to improve their performance in electronic applications. Argonne National Laboratory researchers explored the use of magnesium oxide, specifically a defect in the mineral, in quantum technologies.\n\nAutomotive and Batteries\n\nInfineon launched new CoolSiC MOSFET technology that delivers optimized thermal performance, system efficiency, and power density in a top-side-cooled Q-DPAK package.\n\nBatteries: LG Energy Solution signed a $4.3B deal to supply Tesla with energy storage system batteries from its factory in Michigan. Texas Instruments introduced single-chip battery fuel gauges with predictive battery management technology that delivers up to 30% longer run time in battery-powered electronics. Argonne National Lab and UT Dallas signed an MoU to advance research in battery science and strengthen supply chains for critical materials.\n\nReports: The Automotive Semiconductor Trend 2025 report looks at the competitive shifts in the automotive IC market, as well as the overall growth projections of $68 billion in 2024 to $132 billion forecasted in 2030 (Yole). IDTechEx released a report on the major players in autonomous driving, including Waymo in the U.S. and Apollo Go in China, and how the companies are approaching end-to-end software development. CLEPA published a data digest on Europe’s declining automotive industry competitiveness, citing higher energy prices, strict regulations, and shrinking investment.\n\nNidec, a Japanese manufacturer and distributor of electric motors, adopted Siemens’ Teamcenter X to drive innovation.\n\nSecurity\n\nNIST’s Software Supply Chain and DevOps Security Practices Consortium drafted guidelines to help ensure software is secure against cyber breaches and free of malicious code.\n\nSandia National Labs developed a more efficient way to generate and send temporary security codes, a technique that is not time-dependent.\n\nLos Alamos National Laboratory researchers developed a framework that identifies adversarial threats to foundation models, including AI approaches that integrate and process text and image data.\n\nRecent security research: Highly Stable Reconfigurable TERO PUF Architecture for Hardware Security Applications (Univ. of Calabria, ISEP) A Zero-overhead Flow for Security Closure (Tallinn University of Technology, Carnegie Mellon) CANDoSA: A Hardware Performance Counter-Based Intrusion Detection System for DoS Attacks on Automotive CAN bus (Dumarey et al.)\n\nCISA issued a number of alerts/advisories.\n\nPeople\n\nThe U.S. Department of Commerce announced the placement of Bill Frauenhofer as the director of the CHIPS Program Office.\n\nThe Semiconductor Industry Association’s Robert N. Noyce Award recipients this year are C.C. Wei, TSMC’s chairman and CEO, and Mark Liu, TSMC’s former chairman, president, and co-CEO.\n\nThe SMART USA Institute today announced the formation of its inaugural board of directors.\n\nEvents and Further Reading\n\nUpcoming webinars are here, including: Predictive Maintenance through Digital Twins and DME Workflows (Aug 5) 448G: Ready or Not, Here it Comes! (Aug 5) Mon CHERI: Mitigating Uninitialized Memory Access with Conditional Capabilities (Aug 7)\n\nFind upcoming chip industry events here, including:\n\nSPIE Optics + Photonics 2025 Aug 3 – 7 San Diego, CA Future of Memory & Storage (formerly Flash Memory Summit) Aug 5 – 7 Santa Clara, CA USENIX Security Conference Aug 13 – 15 Seattle, WA CadenceLive India Aug 13 Bengaluru Chiplet and heterogeneous integration training Aug 18 – 19 Virtual SNUG Korea Aug 19 Grand Intercontinental Seoul Parnas CadenceLive China Aug 19 Shanghai IEEE Hot Interconnects Aug 20 -22 Virtual Hot Chips 2025 Aug 24 – 26 Stanford/Palo Alto SNUG Vietnam Aug 26 Saigon, Vietnam ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Technology Summit Aug 27 – 28 San Jose, CA Find all events here.\n\nSemiconductor Engineering’s latest newsletters:\n\nAutomotive, Security and Pervasive Computing Systems and Design Low Power-High Performance Test, Measurement and Analytics Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials\n\nTags: Aeva Ambiq Micro and Kyoto University ANSYS Araya Inc. Argonne National Laboratory Basque Center for Applied Mathematics Cadence Cadence Design Systems Canon Capital One Carnegie Mellon University CLEPA CoAsia SEMI computing news Council on Foreign Relations Counterpoint D-Wave Dumarey Efficient Computer Enfabrica FuriosaAI Georgia Tech GS Microelectronics HyperLight IBM IDTechEX Infineon Intel Corporation ISEP Keysight LG Energy Solution LG Innotek Los Alamos National Laboratory MaxLinear Mentor Micron Technology MIT Mixel Mixel Group Multibeam Corporation National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Netrasemi Nidec Corporation NSF Nvidia Oxide Computer Penn State Positron AI Quicklogic Rapidus Rapidus Corporation Rebellions Rigaku Samsung Sandia National Laboratories SEMI Semiconductor Industry Association semiconductor news semiconductor tariffs Siemens Silicon Manufacturers Group Silicon Saxony Silvaco Silvaco Group SiMa.ai Sinble Technology Vietnam SkyWater Technology SMART USA Institute Synopsys TalTech tariffs TeraMount Tesla Texas Instruments the University of Sussex TSMC U.S. Department of Commerce University of Calabria UT Dallas World Artificial Intelligence Conference Xanadu Yole Group

Chip Industry Week in Review

This week's chip industry update highlights new tariffs, major deals like Samsung's $16.5B Tesla AI chip contract, AI funding rounds, and acquisitions. Key topics include semiconductor regulations, AI advancements, and industry reports on chip design, manufacturing, and quantum technologies.