HBM Shifts Testing Left To Preserve AI Chip Yield


Key Takeaways: A high-yield, known-good stack requires multiple test insertions. Known good stack testing poses challenges for power delivery and thermal management. The shift to HBM4 and HBM5 will increase the pressure for shift-left test flows. Taller high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks and tighter TSV pitch are impacting AI module yields. The solution is to push test furth... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


War impacts The Iran War's toll on the chip industry is widening. Over 95% of Taiwan's energy is imported, causing the country to secure alternative sources. Korea is also heavily dependent on energy imports from the Middle East. Shortages of key materials are cropping up everywhere. Helium from Qatar, the second largest producer behind the U.S., is constrained by hostilities in the Per... » read more

Annual Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report


Semiconductor companies announced a significant number of facilities in 2025 as global onshoring efforts continued across manufacturing, materials, packaging, design, and R&D. Investments came from both industry and government sources. Organizations worked together to solve current technology challenges, including soaring demand for AI chips and advanced memory, as well as complex applic... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Government funding/defunding NIST is terminating funding for the SMART USA Institute, a CHIPS Act research center focused on digital twins, prompting congressional concern that the decision disrupts active awards and weakens U.S. semiconductor R&D commitments. Korea Zinc was awarded $210M in CHIPS Act funding towards a new $6.6B Tennessee advanced smelter and minerals processing facility,... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


San Francisco-based Substrate raised more than $100 million to build a vertically integrated foundry that uses particle accelerators to produce "the world's brightest beams, enabling a new method of advanced X-ray lithography." The company claims its technology is comparable to ASML's high NA EUV, and notes it can extend well beyond 2nm. ASML has not publicly commented. The Nexperia chip sho... » read more

Transforming Test For Co-packaged Optics


Data centers are undergoing a dramatic transformation to reduce the power consumption of high-speed data transmissions by 70% or more with co-packaged optics. By moving optical transceivers from the fronts of racks into the same package as the networking switch and HBMs, AI programs that used to take a week to run can now be completed in a day. To enable this change in production manufacturi... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Qualcomm announced plans to buy Alphawave Semi for ~$2.4 billion in a deal expected to close in Q1 2026. Qualcomm plans to leverage Alphawave Semi's connectivity products, including chiplets, to develop high-performance, low-power solutions for AI inferencing and customized CPUs in data centers. Qualcomm's traditional targets were mobile phones and edge computing. [Updated 6/9.] Global semic... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Global semiconductor sales hit $57.8 billion in November 2024, an increase of 20.7% compared to the same month last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. In U.S. government news: The U.S. Department of Commerce finalized up to $325 million in CHIPS Act funding for Hemlock Semiconductor, which will support construction of a new semiconductor-grade polysilicon manufac... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Adam Kovac, Karen Heyman, and Liz Allan. India approved the construction of two fabs and a packaging house, for a total investment of about $15.2 billion, according to multiple sources. One fab will be jointly owned by Tata and Taiwan's Powerchip. The second fab will be a joint investment between CG Power, Japan's Renesas Electronics, and Thailand's Stars Microelectronics. Tata will run t... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Jesse Allen, Karen Heyman, and Liz Allan The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced $238 million in awards toward establishing eight regional innovation hubs under the CHIPS and Science Act. The hubs aim to accelerate hardware prototyping and "lab-to-fab" transition of semiconductor technologies for secure edge/IoT, 5G/6G, AI hardware, quantum technology, electromagnetic warfare, and ... » read more

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