Chip Industry Week In Review

Micron ups US investments; Apple’s $30B deal; Solstice’s buy; onsemi divests; diamonds for inspection; fault-tolerant quantum $; analog IMC; patent infringements; Accellera’s functional safety standard; 189k workers shortage; USB standards; IC fab construction roadblocks. The memory maker rolled out a slew of announcements this week, including: Raised its planned U.S. investment to more than $250B through 2035, an incremental $50B above what was announced last June, with an ultimate goal of producing 40% of its DRAM in the U.S.; Planned new investments of $3B for U.S. IC supply-chain investments, including $500M in financing for GlobalWafers’ 300mm raw silicon wafer facility in Sherman, Texas, along with a 10-year wafer supply agreement; Entered into a long-term strategic customer agreement with Ford, providing a supply of memory and storage solutions for the carmaker’s next-gen vehicle production. Started construction on its $9.3B expansion of its Hiroshima Prefecture advanced memory chip facility. Large Deals Apple announced a $30B+ multiyear commitment with Broadcom to design and produce custom silicon components and wireless connectivity technologies for a wide range of Apple products. To supply RF and wireless components, Broadcom will undertake a $1.5B expansion of its Fort Collins, Colorado, manufacturing facilities. Solstice Advanced Materials agreed to acquire Element Solutions for $14.5B, adding Element’s electronics chemicals portfolio to Solstice’s specialty-materials business. SEALSQ and GlobalFoundries will co-develop secure semiconductor platforms, focusing on PQC, cryogenic CMOS technology, and trusted chip production. Onsemiplans to shed its Tarlac, Philippines manufacturing site to Greatek Electronics and its Mountain Top, Pennsylvania site to Silex Microsystems. QuantumDiamonds received US$104M to ramp up production of its quantum-based semiconductor inspection technology. SambaNova raised $1B to expand capacity for its on-prem agentic inference chips that use a dataflow architecture. Oratomic raised $300M to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer based on reconfigurable atomic arrays trapped in focused laser beams. SK hynix began trading on Nasdaq through American depositary receipts. The offering initially raised ~$26.5B, providing additional capital for manufacturing expansion and strengthening the company’s presence in U.S. capital markets. New analysis SIA/WSTS reports global semiconductor sales hit a record ~$121B in May 2026, up over 9% from April and over 104% from May 2025. A NNME/SEMI/NSF/McKinsey analysis found the U.S. semiconductor industry will need 189K additional workers by 2030, with 74% of the projected demand related to manufacturing. The report noted that 75% of surveyed employers had difficulty hiring engineers. TetraMem and SK hynix demonstrated progress on analog in-memory computing for AI, using resistive memory to process data closer to where it is stored. Flex and Cerebras expanded U.S. production of Cerebras’ AI supercomputers, supporting an expected 7X production ramp for wafer-scale AI systems through 2026. Cerebras also said it will bring its first European AI data-center capacity online by the end of this year. The Economist tested 25 leading AI models on morals and beliefs, finding that many don’t reflect the values held by most people around the world. That gap matters most when AI is used for judgment calls — in areas like advice, policy, education, or hiring — where a model’s built-in assumptions can shape the answer without users realizing it. Legal matters The U.S. ITC reaffirmed a previous patent finding that Innoscienceinfringed on an Infineon patent concerning GaN technology, resulting in import and sales bans against the Chinese semiconductor developer. Wolfspeed filed a patent-infringement lawsuit in Delaware, alleging Navitas’ GaN-based FETs and other products infringe on multiple Wolfspeed patents. Navitas disputes the allegations. Around the Valley Amkor SVP David McCann (L) and ASE VP of R&D CP Hung (R) discuss future challenges and directions for advanced packaging at iMAPS CHIPCon conference in Santa Clara, California. The EU’s Chips JU opened its latest round of applications for projects that aim to advance research, infrastructure, power electronics, photonics, health, 6G, and international cooperation. Harvard’s Belfer Center said the EU’s proposed Tech Sovereignty Package — including Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud/AI Development Act — marks a move from only subsidizing European fabs toward building demand for advanced chips across strategic sectors. The brief says the effort is more likely to strengthen niche AI-chip design and ecosystem capabilities than to dramatically raise Europe’s share of chip manufacturing. POLYN Technology and Alter Technology plan to establish a joint chip-validation lab in Toulouse, France, with specialized electrical validation capabilities for neuromorphic analog signal-processing chips. Accellera released a draft version of the upcoming Functional Safety Language standard for public review through August 14. FSL defines the syntax and semantics of a language and data model for representing and exchanging functional safety intent. Rambus introduced a DDR5 server RDIMM chipset operating at up to 9600 MT/s for AI infrastructure and HPC. Samsung Electronics started mass production of a 4-16TB PCIe 6.0 SSD for AI and HPC server environments. Infineon will supply 1,200 V CoolSiC MOSFETs and matching dual-channel EiceDRIVER 2EDB9259Y gate drivers to Advantics for its new line of liquid-cooled power converters. Keysight updated its software test tool to find UI elements by description rather than visual appearance. Daikin and NTT DATA launched a proof of concept for AI-based data-center cooling optimization, combining server thermal prediction with integrated control of HVAC, chillers, and liquid cooling for AI server environments. Research MITRE, UCBoulder, and other researchers built piezo-optomechanical photonic circuits directly on commercial CMOS driver wafers, creating a monolithic platform for dense electronic control of silicon nitride photonics used in AI, sensing, and quantum-computing systems. Keysight announced the APS-ONE-400, a new modular network cybersecurity test platform. This new 4x100GE platform increases performance for Layer 4-7 traffic, encrypted traffic, and Elephant Flow traffic, all within a 1-rack unit system. Government on cybersecurity The U.S. Department of Defense opened applications for its new cyber apprenticeship program after receiving more than 70,000 applicant inquiries since the program was first teased in April. The European Commissionpublished a new plan for AI security, setting new standards for AI evaluation, research, and cyber defense best practices. The UK government published a frontier-AI defense plan called Cyber Shield, calling on organizations to ensure rapid patching of vulnerabilities, reduce reliance on legacy systems, and adopt secure-by-design technologies. Warnings, vulnerabilities CISA published a post-mortem on lessons from its own cyber incident, warning organizations should restrict who can upload code or files to public repositories, monitor repositories for exposed secrets, and ensure exposed credentials can be quickly detected, revoked, and replaced. The cyber agency also posted new vulnerability alerts this week. Cloudflare said post-quantum signature migration cannot wait for better algorithms, arguing that ML-DSA’s size and implementation tradeoffs are acceptable for the first transition because newer NIST candidates are unlikely to be widely available before the 2030s. Cisco and Foundry predict AI will triple network traffic over the next three years, driving growing concerns over network infrastructure and security risks. Nearly a year after federal EV credits were terminated, first-time EV buyers in California can now get an instant $3,500 rebate for new cars under $50k. Fiat introduced a tiny all-electric Topolino to the U.S. market, pricing the two-seat neighborhood EV starting at $13,995. However, it can only go 19-25 mph, has a maximum range of just 46 miles, and functions more like a golf cart. Just because it’s a standard doesn’t mean everything will work together, and this is especially evident with conflicting USB standards. Cadence’s David Shin explains where incompatibilities can crop up, why it’s so difficult to control the different versions, and what’s behind all this confusion. Quantum Quantum technology is at a stage where maximum creativity meets maximum chaos. The industry hasn’t settled on a common approach to quantum computing, so different research groups have been working on different implementations simultaneously. Numerous small startups have sprung up, each addressing some aspect of a quantum system. IQM Quantum Computers was listed on Nasdaq following the completion of a SPAC deal. IQM also acquiredQuantistry, a provider of AI-powered quantum chemistry and materials simulation software. QpiAI open-sourced its SDK, which provides a Python-based interface to build and run quantum algorithms. Quantum research ETH Zurich researchers designed quantum memory using mechanical resonators that vibrate when storing information. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Cleveland Clinic, and IBM used a quantum computer to calculate nine molecular configurations of a potential fusion energy material. Government on quantum The U.S. NSF launched an initiative to integrate quantum sensing, quantum networking, and quantum computing into a single operational system. Illinois will offer $3M to encourage NSF X-Labs quantum research teams to set up in the state. Purdue expanded its semiconductor professional education portfolio with Taiwan’s NYCU, adding joint stackable industry courses in AI chip design, packaging, reliability, characterization, and more. SEMI warns that skilled trades are becoming a big roadblock on the IC construction buildout, with large fab projects requiring thousands of workers and more specialized training in cleanroom construction, electrical systems, safety, and contamination control. Florida’s St. Petersburg College received $1M in federal funding for its SMART Tech Industry 4.0 Lab, which will support semiconductor, mechatronics, automation, and robotics technician training. InP and SiPho join CMOS as critical technologies. Lasers, CPO and OCS will be everywhere (indium phosphide, silicon photonics, co-packaged optics, optical circuit switch). Reducing variation in manufacturing, monitoring behavior over time, and targeting specific workloads can have a big impact on power, performance, and area/cost. With SRAM failing to scale in recent process nodes, the industry must assess its impact on all forms of computing. There are no easy solutions on the horizon. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. The cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. 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