Chip Industry Week in Review

Memory density increases; 2026 chip industry revenue to hit $1.65T; imec metrology roadmap; MIT’s self-assembled contacts; new U.S. restrictions; IC training; NXP to buy Ambarella?;AI sandbox leaks; memory-centric accelerator; entangled photons. Denser, faster, and more distributed memory architectures for AI was the big news at the Future of Memory and Storageconference this week: Sandisk and SK Hynix released the High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) spec, outlining basic performance expectations, the xPU-HBF host interface, and reliability and packaging guidance for an HBF die stack. Samsung showed concept models of zHBM, which vertically stacks HBM directly above AI accelerators, and zNAND-O, which vertically stacks multiple V-NAND chips through TSVs, as well as a 400+ layer BV-NAND using wafer bonding. Kioxia and Sandisk unveiled 10th-gen QLC 3D flash memory technology, with bit density surpassing 37 Gb/mm² and a 4.8 Gb/s interface. NEO Semiconductor introduced a unified AI memory platform that combines SRAM with higher on-chip memory density, as well as 3D DRAM that uses 3D NAND manufacturing processes to increase HBM capacity. Marvell announced a PCIe 6.0 SSD controller for servers, rack-level memory expansion and pooling solutions, and a multi-rack optical shared-memory architecture for AI inference. SpaceX and Tesla provided new details for their previously announced Terafab semiconductor project in Grimes County, Texas, reporting a $16.8B initial phase, a planned 100 million s.f. complex, and at least 3,000 jobs. The vertically integrated facility is intended to manufacture, package, and test AI chips for Tesla vehicles and robots and SpaceX compute systems. AMD is acquiringTaalas, a Toronto startup developing specialized AI-inference silicon. Terms were not disclosed. NXP is in talks to buy Ambarella, a chipmaker valued at over $3B, reports The Financial Times. Lumilens emerged from stealth with $900M to make co-packaged, near-packaged, and pluggable optical interconnects. OLIX raised $312M to develop an AI platform that uses specialized chips for each stage of the token production process. SiEngine raised $200M for its in-cabin and ADAS SoCs for software-defined vehicles. Acrab raised $130M for its agentic AI platform that combines edge silicon, models, and SW orchestration. Industry Growth WSTS reports the worldwide semiconductor market hit $702B in the first half of 2026, a 102% increase year-over-year, with memory up 305% and logic up 45%. The organization predicts full-year revenue will hit nearly $1.65T. Also, see SIA’s June and Q2 report here. Metrology Roadmap Imec’s latest metrology roadmap calls for higher-energy e-beam tools, shorter-wavelength optical systems, and X-rays that probe deeper into silicon, supported by multi-e-beam inspection, multi-head AFM, AI denoising, and virtual metrology. Fig. 1: Imec’s metrology, inspection and characterization roadmap in support of advanced lithography, logic, memory, and packaging technologies U.S. government The Dept. of Commerce canceled or paused several original CHIPS R&D awards and is redirecting some funding into individual company investments, but GAO says it has not clearly explained how those investments will fulfill the national research and advanced-packaging programs required by Congress. The U.S. government announced a minimum import price program and a 15% duty on polysilicon-derived products, effective Dec. 4, aimed at countering Chinese competition for the material used in IC and solar manufacturing supply chains. The FCC is considering blocking imports of new Chinese optical transceivers, as a protective measure for U.S. data centers. Security No matter how AI-savvy an engineering team may be, sandbox escapes involving Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta are raising everyone’s blood pressure. For the IC industry, security no longer can be treated as a separate step. It must be integrated across chip design, manufacturing, and the broader lifecycle, changing both the priority and sequence in which vulnerabilities are addressed. Seven experts explain why security must be built into designs from the earliest stages of the flow. The threat even extends into space. As NASA brings internet connectivity to astronauts, rovers, and orbiters, a growing network of high-value data could become a target for ransomware groups and hostile nations. Notable research U. of Michigan researchers designed a memory-centric accelerator that splits the data and processing across 56 custom chiplets, each with about 2 GB of distributed SRAM, potentially cutting space-telescope image-processing power from 3,000W to as little as 51W. MIT researchers created a two-step fabrication method that adds fragile molecular layers after conventional chip processing, then uses capillary and van der Waals forces to self-assemble damage-free metal contacts. The team built more than 1,000 devices with sub-1nm molecular layers, achieving a 96% average yield and stable operation over tens of thousands of electrical cycles, including an interconnected molecular-memory array. D-Wave demonstrated “a fast, high-fidelity, two-qubit entangling gate that preserves the error-correction advantages of D-Wave’s superconducting dual-rail qubit architecture.” The company says the work enables “a faster path to error-corrected systems that rapidly suppress errors as they scale.” Italy joined the Pax Silica Initiative, a US-led partnership on AI and supply chain security. The European Commission can now enforce EU AI Act rules for general-purpose AI model providers, including transparency, copyright, and systemic-risk obligations. Bruker introduced two SEM detectors for faster, higher-resolution materials analysis. The eWARP TKD provides sub-2nm crystallographic mapping at up to 5,700 frames per second, while the XFlash FlatQUAD 2L simultaneously collects elemental EDS data and BSE images. ams OSRAM has begun developing micro-photodiode arrays for the receiver side of high-bandwidth optical interconnects in AI data centers, extending its optical-semiconductor roadmap beyond microLED transmitters. Anthropic plans to design custom chips for its AI models, per Reuters. More memory announcements at the FMS conference: XCENA debuted a CXL-based memory expansion platform with near-data processing. Microchip and Micron combined switches and NVMe SSDs in an end-to-end PCIe 6.0 storage architecture. Kioxia unveiled PCIe 6.0 SSDs with up to 10M IOPS for AI infrastructure. NVM Express published updated NVMe specifications, including enhancements for post-quantum cryptography, PCIe-exported NVM subsystem migration, and integrated voltage telemetry. Adoptions, certifications Cadence’s digital, custom, 3D-IC, analysis, signoff, and verification flows were certified for Samsung Foundry‘s SF2P node. Alif Semi licensed Arm‘s Keil MDK to provide customers with SW development tools for its Arm-based microcontrollers and fusion processors. In a step toward bringing 6G devices closer to reality, a team at Science Tokyo created an integrated phased-array wireless circuit with “144 Gbps dual-polarized MIMO communication in the 150 GHz sub-terahertz band.” MIT and Argonne researchers developed a way to map heat flow inside multilayer semiconductor devices using ultrafast X-ray diffraction and laser heating. In a GaN-on-silicon structure, they found that a micron-scale wrinkle reduced local heat transfer fourfold and cut heat flow across the interface by 25%, providing a new method for locating thermal bottlenecks in advanced chips. Attorneys general from 15 U.S. states sent a letter to OpenAI calling for company leaders to preserve evidence related to last month’s exposure of Hugging Face data. The state of New York is giving $9M to municipal water authorities across the state to improve their cybersecurity infrastructure after a wave of recent cyberattacks on local water systems around the country. AMD warned that precisely timed interrupts may weaken Linux’s Safe RET mitigation on Zen 1 and 2 processors, potentially exposing data through speculative execution. The chipmaker also issued alerts on memory aliasing and auto updater vulnerabilities. IBM found that 25% of malicious data breaches involved AI, with an average breach cost of $6M, while companies using AI-powered security tools reduced costs by nearly $2M. The UK’s AI Security Institute released an incident report on more unsanctioned activities against “real people and organizations” by OpenAI and Anthropic AI agents during cyber testing. French cybersecurity developer Thales released a new hardware security module built to provide quantum-resistant security, including PKI, certificate management, authentication, digital signing and identities. Infineon is partnering with MediaTek on advanced AI-driven in-cabin experience tech for future vehicles, with MediaTek qualifying the Infineon 512 Mb Quad SPI NOR flash for use in its Dimensity Auto Cockpit platform C-X1. Upstream Security’s new report on automotive and smart mobility cybersecurity found that automotive ransom attacks more than doubled last year compared to 2024. The power chip market for xEVs is expected to hit $14.5B by 2031, according to research published by Yole Group. Ford announced that its new mid-sized electric pickup truck will be called the “Fathom” and have a starting price of just over $28K. Mercedes-Benz debuted its new AMG GT 53, an electric sports car with ~500 miles of range, expected to hit the U.S. market next year. The California Teamsters union is suing multiple California government agencies over the state’s new rules guiding the rollout of autonomous trucking. Lucid Motors is pushing back the release of its anticipated electric crossover-SUV by about a year amid major cost-cutting efforts, with the vehicle now expected to hit the market in the second half of 2027. Indian electric two-wheeler manufacturer Simple Energy, cardiovascular medical device manufacturer Sahajanand Medical and electric air taxi developer Sarla Aviation all expanded their adoption of Siemens’ cloud-based software solutions. Trending Video AI Agent Orchestration For ASIC Autonomy: The use of AI agents in chip design has been limited to small portions of the design flow. Engineers have been proceeding cautiously to understand how agents work, how to ensure they are delivering consistent results, and how different agents work together. The next step is to extend their role beyond just gluing together coding and tooling functions. Mehir Arora, head of engineering at ChipAgents, explains what happens when the role of AI agents is expanded to include semantics and physics, what happens when agents work in parallel on different engineering problems, and what’s needed to achieve a 10X or greater improvement in productivity. Quantum NIST researchers and collaborators demonstrated a quantum network by sending entangled photons through 62 kilometers (~38.5 miles) of commercial fiber in Maryland. QuiX released a rack-mountable quantum silicon nitride photonic processor platform in 8-mode, 20-mode and 32-mode configurations for quantum optics research. IonQ will spend $15M over 5 years on a quantum communication R&D lab in Tennessee. OptQC and NTT will team up to build a fault-tolerant, 1 million-qubit-class optical quantum computer. A new DARPA program aims to establish a pilot manufacturing pipeline for tactical-grade optical clocks. SEMI University has several upcoming August training coursesupcoming, including “Inside the Fab” for Asia/EU on Aug. 17–20, semiconductor technology/business for the Americas on Aug. 18, and “Overview of Semiconductor Manufacturing” on Aug. 19–20. University of Florida’s Semiconductor Institute is encouraging educators to start a SemiClub, an initiative giving K-12 students hands-on activities, seminars, field trips, and career exploration focused on semiconductors and microelectronics. Oregon State University is churning out semiconductor spinouts. The technologies include Amorphyx‘s amorphous metal transistors, Inpria’s metal oxide photoresists, NexTC’s thin-film coating processes, Phosio’s materials for smart glasses/displays, and Valliscor’s domestically produced fluorinated etchant gases. Warning: Employers are experiencing growing numbers of fraudulent job applicants using stolen identities, AI-generated résumés and deepfakes, leading recruiters to tighten identity and background checks, reports Bloomberg. An Equifax survey found that 3 out of 4 HR professionals found challenges with fabricated/misleading applicant info. Reducing variation in manufacturing, monitoring behavior over time, and targeting specific workloads can have a big impact on power, performance, and area/cost. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. 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