Synopsys acquired Intrinsic ID, which develops physical unclonable functions (PUFs). The deal, which was announced at the Synopsys User Group, is yet another potentially significant addition to the company’s IP portfolio in recent months. In November, Synopsys announced it would begin developing RISC-V processor IP, leveraging technology and tools developed for its ARC processors. The company also rolled out an AI-enabled 3D space optimization tool for 3D-IC floor planning and thermal analysis, and a new emulation and prototyping platform.
Intel is slated to receive $8.5 billion in CHIPS Act funding to support two new fabs in Arizona, and to modernize existing fabs in New Mexico. The funds also include support for a regional chipmaking ecosystem in Ohio and Intel’s upcoming high-NA installation in Oregon. This non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms (PMT) is contingent on additional reviews and negotiations, a bureaucratic process that has been criticized for the slow roll-out of actual funding under the program, reports the New York Times.
At its 2024 GTC AI Conference, NVIDIA unveiled its Blackwell GPU architecture with 208 billion transistors, manufactured using a custom 4NP TSMC process with two reticle-limit GPU dies connected by 10TB/second chip-to-chip link.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice, 15 states, and the District of Columbia filed an antitrust suit against Apple in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, charging Apple with unfair business practices. Apple disagreed.
ASE introduced an interconnect extension for chiplet integration in AI applications under its VIPack platform. The new microbump technology allows for a reduction in interconnect pitch from 40um down to 20um using a new metallurgical stack.
TSMC and Synopsys are entering production with the NVIDIA cuLitho platform to help reduce the workload of computational lithography. The companies claim a 45X speedup of curvilinear flows and a nearly 60X improvement on rectilinear flows in their tests.
Teradyne will work with NVIDIA to bring AI capabilities to automated inspection and pallet handling in the company’s robotics division. The solution will combine NVIDIA’s system-on-module (SOM) application designed for edge solutions and its cuMotion technology with Teradyne Robotics’ autonomous material handling equipment and software.
The chip industry is racing to develop enough talent to support its rapid expansion. In the U.S., Intel pledged more than $50 million to 80 higher education institutions in Ohio as part of its CHIPs Act funding announced this week. Additionally, Arizona State University (ASU) and Deca announced plans to create North America’s first fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) research and development capability at ASU Research Park in Tempe. Other universities are ramping up their education programs, as well. The University of Texas at Austin announced a new Master of Science in Engineering, with a major in semiconductor science and engineering beginning in 2025, and UT Dallas will host the new Texas Innovation Consortium Fund to increase workforce training programs at Texas colleges.
On the memory front, SK Hynix announced it has begun high-volume production of HBM3E, with improved heat control and processing speed up to 1.18TB of data per second. The high-bandwidth memory (HBM) sector of the DRAM market is expected to grow by 260% in 2024, according to TrendForce, and HBM’s revenue share of the DRAM market is expected to increase from 8.4% in 2023 to 20.1% by the end of 2024. Meanwhile, NAND flash supply growth is expected to increase 10.9% in 2024, thanks in part to increased capacity utilization at Kioxia and Western Digital, according to a new report from TrendForce.
Renesas released its RA2A2 MCU based on the Arm Cortex-M23, featuring a dual-bank code flash and bank swap function that makes it easy to do firmware over-the-air updates for building automation, medical devices, IoT, and more.
Infineon expanded its XDP digital power protection controller line with a -48 V wide input voltage digital hot-swap controller featuring a programmable safe operating area control designed for telecom infrastructure.
Keysight demonstrated its IEEE P802.3dj draft specification compliant 1.6 terabit (T) Ethernet measurement system and validated a non-terrestrial network test scenario using Capgemini’s 5G New Radio central unit via its UeSIM UE Emulation RAN and Propsim Channel Emulator solutions.
UneeQ deployed NVIDIA Audio2Face to enable real-time digital humans to be even more lifelike.
The French Competition Authority fined Google €250 million (~$273M) for not respecting commitments made in 2022, noting Google had used content from publishers and press agencies to train its founding model without notifying them or the Authority.
OMNIVISION released a smartphone image sensor with TheiaCel technology, featuring a 1.2‑micron pixel in a 1/1.3‑inch optical format.
Global cellular IoT module shipments declined for the first time in 2023, dropping 2% year over year, according to Counterpoint.
MIT researchers created a high resolution computer vision system called FeatU.
Argonne National Laboratory researchers designed a remote-controlled, dual-arm telerobotics system to revolutionize hazardous waste clean-up with potential for broader applications.
