We Dig Deep into Software-Defined Vehicles
What exactly is Software-Defined Vehicles (SDV)? Who wants it? Do we need it?
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Is It Groundhog Day for Memory Chip Suppliers?
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
The memory IC market is notorious for its dizzying cycles. Another one is playing out right now as pricing pressures finally level off, buoying sales. But as they are marking the end of a crisis, the new fabs that suppliers are competing to build under government pressure are pushing them towards the recurring nightmare of demand-supply disequilibrium. Will this market, whittled down to a handful of suppliers, ever gain some semblance of normality?
Memory semiconductor suppliers must be addicted to pricing turbulence. Or they are resigned to fate.
Having barely emerged from the last downcycle during which sales fell a stomach-churning 50 percent, memory IC makers are back at it again, adding new fabs and laying the groundwork for what could be the next punishing round of severe price swings.
They would say that is not the case, though.
Read More »Is It Groundhog Day for Memory Chip Suppliers?
Who Will Rule Software-Defined Vehicle Architecture?
What’s at stake:
At the height of autonomous vehicle hype, companies such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Mobileye were front-runners dictating next-generation vehicle architecture. As more full-fledged software-defined vehicles (SDV) evolve, the competitive landscape is rapidly changing.
The path to software-defined vehicles (SDV) isn’t a straight line. It is branching into multiple forks. With transitions in E/E vehicle architecture happening at various speeds even within a single OEM’s fleets, the consolidation and integration of ECUs and software — from domain to zonal controllers and central compute — has been daunting.
Hence, for automotive chip suppliers seeking traction in SDV derby, solutions that simplify this transition are imperative.
Car OEMs are moving fast, not because SDV is fashionable but because they see SDV as the most logical path to control their future, secure the supply chain, and bring down vehicle costs over the long run.
Read More »Who Will Rule Software-Defined Vehicle Architecture?
Can TSMC Turn Arizona into Taiwan?
What’s at stake:
TSMC is in a box in Arizona. It needs to explain its situation more frankly and transparently. If it doesn’t, TSMC looks more and more as though it plans to “make Arizona Taiwanese.”
A statement by TSMC CEO C.C. Wei at its latest earnings call raised eyebrows among semiconductor industry veterans. Wei said the cost to manufacture chips in Arizona will exceed chips made in Taiwan. TSMC expects customers to share the burden of the price hike.
As my colleague Bolaji Ojo wrote last week, many industry observers wonder how this prospect might fly with TSMC clients like Apple and Nvidia.
Before these big customers bite the TSMC bullet, they want to know more about long-term benefits it is receiving from federal, state and local governments.
More important, everyone deserves more specifics from TSMC as to how it plans to succeed in Arizona. Asking customers to share the higher cost of doing business in the US is one thing. But by blaming its thus far clunky operations in Arizona on American “work habits,” TSMC risks losing the trust of its generous host nation.
Read More »Can TSMC Turn Arizona into Taiwan?
Generative AI: The Bloom Is Off the Rose
Artificial Intelligence is not living up to the hype. Hallucinations are an intractable part of the problem.
Is TSMC Price Hike Threat Even Enforceable?
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
TSMC may be the world’s biggest chip foundry but, it is in the end, a contractor to even more powerful companies. The likes of Apple will not yield easily to pressures for wafer price increases just to help the foundry offset higher fab costs in the West. With competition stiffening from emerging and established foundries like Intel and Samsung, TSMC looks set to combine tight cost management with renewed appeals to customers for assistance in offsetting higher fab prices on its operations.
The chicken has come home to roost at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC).
At a huge cost, the world’s No. 1 contract chipmaker is finally becoming a truly global enterprise – with as many as six new fabs planned for sites outside Taiwan – and it hurts. So, TSMC wants customers to soothe its pains by consenting to an unpalatable pricing hike.
“If my customer requests to be in certain areas, then definitely, TSMC and the customer have to share the incremental cost,” said C.C. Wei, CEO at TSMC, while presenting the company’s first quarter earnings results last week.
How exactly will this work?
Read More »Is TSMC Price Hike Threat Even Enforceable?
Simplifying the Connected Future: Navigating Complexity in the IoT Landscape with Renesas Wireless Connectivity
Whatever device you can think of that makes our lives more convenient, safer and more enjoyable, in today’s world it’s likely to be connected, often wirelessly. Almost everywhere, connectivity is no longer an extra, it’s expected.
AI: Should I Be Faithful or Agnostic?
Artificial intelligence is progressing at a pace that would make Gordon Moore dizzy.
Pick any headline. From the unveiling of Nvidia’s Blackwell platform, supposedly heralding the arrival of trillion-parameter-scale AI models, to Open AI’s highly anticipated release of Chat GPT 5 (mid-2024) and Elon Musk’s latest Tesla robotaxi iteration (to be unveiled on August 8), we are swept into a barrage of promises and proclamations of the progress of artificial intelligence technologies.
Read More »AI: Should I Be Faithful or Agnostic?
Georgia Tech Aims for AI for All
Georgia Tech is bringing AI to undergraduates in a classroom setting.
Intel and ASML Sprint Toward a High-NA Future
By Ron Wilson
What’s at stake:
Intel has bet its chance to catch TSMC at the 1.4 nm node on being the first user of high-NA EUV lithography. It is a short road full of challenges, but early results look promising.
Lithography giant ASML announced this month that they have successfully printed a dense line pattern with 10 nm spacing, using the world’s first production high-NA EUV lithography system. In itself this is just another milestone in a long development schedule for ASML — similar patterns have already been printed using laboratory equipment. But in the global competition between Intel and TSMC for Angstrom-era semiconductor dominance, the announcement looms across the horizon like the first hints of dawn.
Read More »Intel and ASML Sprint Toward a High-NA Future