‘Together’ Europe: Is Collaboration the Best Chip Sourcing Strategy?
The European Union is encouraging local chipmakers to put aside their rivalry and team up in pursuit of their manufacturing, sourcing and technology innovation goals.
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ESMC, RISC-V: Supply Chain has Become the Electronics Industry’s Defining Topic
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
The electronics industry has always been consumed by the search for the “next big thing,” that huge design, product or new market that would create massive revenue and profits for the first group of companies to release it. The supply chain that brings these “breakthroughs” to the market is not typically in the limelight. Until now. Look no further than just announced European Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a Dresden-based new foundry led byTSMC, joined by Bosch, Infineon and NXP. Another example is a brand new RISC-V JV, equally shared among NXP, Infineon, Qualcomm, Bosch and Nordic, unveiled late last week. For the foreseeable future, creating effective supply chains via partnerships will be the industry’s greatest passion. Pay attention.
In the world of electronics, the design engineer is a demi-god.
He (usually a man but, thank goodness, increasingly less so nowadays), designs, throws his creation over the wall and everyone else scrambles to bring it to production and sell to customers. The only engineers who get involved in the post-design processes are typically those who moved into management, sales positions and components engineers.
This is a worn process. The industry goes through it daily, thousands of times, and all over the world. Which makes engineers believe they rule the roost.
Read More »ESMC, RISC-V: Supply Chain has Become the Electronics Industry’s Defining Topic
Automakers’ Chip Agenda: RISC-V, AI, Chiplets
What’s at stake:
Except for Tesla, no automaker has contrived to roll out an automotive processor of its own. This vacuum, however, has not curbed car OEMs’ deep-seated desire to design chips for their vehicles. Can chip vendors still provide automakers what they want but aren’t doing for themselves, and at what cost? Or, are automakers’ wonderland agenda sending semiconductor companies down the rabbit hole?
Carmakers’ appetite to develop proprietary processors waned as OEMs got occupied in dealing with chip shortages. Their dream of automated consumer vehicles before 2027 is a memory.
Now, replacing the autonomous vehicles, the momentum among carmakers is an industry-wide push for software-defined vehicles. Automotive OEMs are now beginning to think that if the vehicle’s real value will be in software under the new era, they shouldn’t be in the business of just layering their software on top of hardware selected by tier ones.
Read More »Automakers’ Chip Agenda: RISC-V, AI, Chiplets
Big Names in Automotive Go All in on RISC-V
What’s at stake:
The world’s biggest automotive chip suppliers – Robert Bosch, Infineon Technologies, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm – have banded together to “invest in a company aimed at advancing the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development.” Why now and what does it mean for the future of Arm.
RISC-V scored a major coup with the announcement that some of the electronics industry’s biggest suppliers of automotive semiconductors have teamed up to set up a joint venture focused on the open standard instruction set architecture.
Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, Robert Bosch and Qualcomm said the the JV, based in Germany, would be equally shared among them as a “single source to enable compatible RISC-V based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish industry standards,” according to the group’s spokesperson.
The company will focus initially on automotive applications while apparently leaving room for further expansion into other product areas, including mobile and IoT. Nonetheless, the announcement’s seismic impact will likely affect, first and foremost, automakers and tier ones.
Read More »Big Names in Automotive Go All in on RISC-V
Sustainable Chip Production, Affordability, Reliable Supply: Are All Three Doable?
We can reduce the environmental impact of semiconductor manufacturing and avoid the next chip shortage.
AI Hardware Startups Spoil for a Brawl
What’s at stake:
Except for a few recent funding announcements, all’s quiet on the Western front on AI. What must change to alter a market where Nvidia continues to be the sole winner?
The time has come to reflect on the many AI hardware startups that have popped up in the last several years. Advancements in AI sent investors into a fever pitch, elevating AI processor startups into “unicorn” stardom.
As Keven Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, recalls, “Intel really kicked off the explosion of AI startups when it bought Nervana in 2016. And it followed up by buying Habana.” He added, “I would argue that AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx was in large part because of Xilinx’s work in developing AI cores.”
Fast forward to 2023.
More than a handful of notable AI hardware startups are gone. Layoffs abound. During this predictable process of elimination, did industry analysts anticipate so little churn among AI processor companies? Why no consolidations, mergers or acquisitions in recent years?
Read More »AI Hardware Startups Spoil for a Brawl
Automakers & Chipmakers March Towards a New Clash of Interests
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
As the automotive semiconductor shortages ease, an old bogeyman is threatening to return to haunt the supply chain. Inventories are rising even as automakers grapple with the shift to Electric Vehicles from Internal Combustion Engines vehicles. As the memories of the painful auto IC shortages fade, will OEMs dump the playbook that enticed chipmakers to increase production and, if they do, will that action trigger another crisis if chipmakers refuse to again shoulder all the risks?
The automotive semiconductor supply chain is sliding into a new testy phase.
OEM orders for semiconductors are still rising albeit at a slower pace. Inventories are increasing but some products remain on allocation although nobody quite knows which.
Meanwhile, inventories are creeping up at chipmakers even as they continue to ramp up production. The specter of double ordering is haunting suppliers but analysts say it is almost impossible to distinguish between actual orders and duplicates.
Inconsistencies like these hark back to a past the semiconductor industry was supposed to have jettisoned.
Read More »Automakers & Chipmakers March Towards a New Clash of Interests
MeetKai Eyes on AI-Driven Digital Twin for Industrial Market
By Junko Yoshida
What’s at stake:
Digital Twin is not a new concept. But by combining it with a new generation of AI models, MeetKai, a startup, is committing resources to creating effective interactive tools – to be used by factories, for example – for optimizing the production process and training engineers remotely and virtually.
Meet MeetKai, an AI-Metaverse tool company. Also, meet James Kaplan, MeetKai’s CEO, who dropped out of Harvey Mudd College in 2014 to run a private equity fund for Michael Milken, once a junk-bond villain.
Kaplan co-founded MeetKai in 2018 in L.A. with Weili Dai, Marvell Technology’s co-founder.
Read More »MeetKai Eyes on AI-Driven Digital Twin for Industrial Market
India’s Chip Policy Reset Will Alter Its Future
By Peter Clarke
What’s a stake:
India’s semiconductor dream has just gotten a much needed reset. Partially at stake is India’s progress as a newly industrialized country. Also it matters to India’s ability to compete with China, Europe and other regions. If India’s 18-month-old semiconductor incentive scheme flops it could deny the subcontinent leverage in accessing leading-edge electronics, optoelectronics and quantum technology for many years to come.
Adjusting to New Normal in Auto Supply Chain
What’s at stake:
The chip shortage paralyzed the automotive industry during the pandemic. What have carmakers learned and what new strategies have emerged?
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically shrank the availability of semiconductor chips and decimated the automotive industry. Finally, in mid-2023. “The worst of the fallout seems to have settled, and the auto industry has found a new normal,” according to recent analysis by S&P Global Mobility. The report said, “In short, the dearth of supply of semiconductor chips that hobbled vehicle production for most of 2021 and 2022 has faded into the background — with some exceptions.”
However, it’s unclear which lessons car OEMs learned, and whether their new strategy – devised to deal with “a new normal” – will work.
Read More »Adjusting to New Normal in Auto Supply Chain