News & Analysis

Infineon: Europe’s Overachieving, yet ‘Undervalued’ Chip Gem

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What’s at stake?
Infineon Technologies blazed through the industry’s recent downturn unscathed, a testament to its well-placed bets on recession-proof segments of the semiconductor market. Now comes the hard part; proving this was not a fluke performance, fending off Chinese rivals and determining the right amount of fab capacity in a rapidly evolving market.

Infineon Technologies AG should be a hot stock. It is not.

Institutional equity investors and bargain hunters should be banging on the German semiconductor supplier’s doors and helping to boost its market value to several multiples of the current €47 billion ($51 billion). Infineon seems to be lacking such an appeal.

That’s a shame.

Does Nvidia Want to Remake the Foundry Business?

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By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?

Nvidia Corp. is growing at a rate that its current foundry partners may not be able to support. How will they respond and who else stands to benefit? In addition, Nvidia is tearing up the definition of foundry services, dubbing itself an “AI foundry.” What exactly does this mean and is this the beginning of a redefinition of terminologies in the industry?

Nvidia Corp. is not only setting sales records for the semiconductor industry, the AI and GPU chip supplier is creating what may be an almost impossible act to follow.

Microchip Puts Pedal to the Auto Design Metal

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By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
The automotive semiconductor market needs chipmakers, enterprises that not only excel at technology innovations, but which also anticipate and meet the evolving design and supply chain needs of their tier-one and OEM customers at an accelerated speed. Microchip is betting that offering extensive labs services for customers in all major auto manufacturing regions of the world will strengthen its relationship with OEMs and tier-ones.

Microchip Inc. is not a newbie in Detroit. The company has had a presence in America’s auto heartland for more than 20 years, but with a recent move and investment decision, the chipmaker tells customers and competitors it sees opportunities for greater engagements with leading automakers despite ongoing supply chain disruptions and design architectures evolution.

Synaptics’ Wedge in Edge AI is ‘Astra’

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Synaptics is joining the edge AI club with a platform called “Astra” – a glimpse of which the company teased out this week. Synaptics is banking on Astra to win a crowded, fragmented, and highly competitive edge AI segment. Can it pull it off?

Synaptics developed the Astra platform to enable system designers to make AI as easy, ubiquitous, and quotidian as possible in a host of products, including some not typically viewed as needing AI.

Can Chinese Chiplets Dodge Export Controls?

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Chiplets can advance the semiconductor industry by enabling system companies and semiconductor suppliers to mix and match chiplets manufactured by different foundries for heterogeneous integration. That concept, however, is also helping China to develop home-grown AI processors that could rival those manufactured by Western companies, currently banned from export.

Late last month, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published updated export controls covering advanced computing items and semiconductor manufacturing equipment under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

Buried within the dense bureaucratese was a reference to chiplets, a data point largely unreported in the tech media.

The agency’s updated export controls, set to go into effect on Nov. 17, 2023, added chiplet restrictions.

Renesas’ Automotive Future: Go Big on Chiplets

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
While Nvidia, Qualcomm and Mobileye tend to suck the oxygen out of the next-gen automotive E/E platform discussions, other automotive semiconductor companies must pick a spot where they think they can win and hold onto their share. But by pre-announcing this week the Gen 5 R-CAR SoCs and their new chiplet options, Renesas is planning to cover a broad range of automotive architecture. Will the new strategy work?

Renesas Electronics this week unveiled its latest automotive semiconductor strategy. Executives laid out the company’s planned product offerings ranging from high-performance SoCs to Arm-based automotive MCUs, and automotive chiplet options.

Apple is leaning hard on its suppliers to help achieve the iPhone giant’s 2030 net zero goal.

Ask Not What Apple Net Zero Can Do For You …

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By Junko Yoshida and George Leopold

What’s at stake:
So far, Apple’s leadership toward net-zero emissions is a mixture of sincere advocacy, lip service and marketing deflection. Even as it prescribes remedies to suppliers and partners, it must also heal itself.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently visited NXP Semiconductors at its Eindhoven headquarters.

This triggered a posting outburst by NXP’s social media team, including a photo of CEO Kurt Sievers with Cook posing near a workbench in what looks like a design/engineering room. NXP’s LinkedIn post called Cook’s visit “truly historic.”

Indeed, capturing Sievers and Cook together in a single frame was a “photo op” to make any corporate PR marketing team drool and apply adjectives like “historic.”

More historic, though, is the photo’s context.

G.M. in S.F.: Cruise in for a Bruisin’

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
It’s good to remember that for most utterances in life, whether you are a politician, a tech company, or a big-time CEO, it’s the half-truths you spout — to the public, to regulators, the media and customers — that get you into trouble.

Of course, some people get away with the flim-flam. Most of us, however, figure out early what the safest — if not the most lucrative — policy is.

In that spirit, the California Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV) this week announced the immediate suspension of General Motors’ Cruise robotaxi operation in San Francisco.

Nvidia-Arm: Where is this Relationship Headed?

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By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake
What exactly does Nvidia want with Arm, the chip IP vendor that the AI chip giant cannot seem to steer completely clear off nor digest? This could be a defensive move by Nvidia, or it could be a continuation of plans unfulfilled when it was forced to abandon plans to purchase Arm two years ago.

Nvidia Corp. and Arm Holdings can’t seem to get away from each other.

The AI chip giant and the semiconductor intellectual property developer are in the news again this week. This time, the report is about a speculative multi-party tango about the purported planned development of a new Arm-based PC central processing unit (CPU) by Nvidia.

Apple CEO Tim Cook in conversation with Mother Nature.

Can TSMC Meet Apple’s 2030 Net-Zero Pledge?

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By Junko Yoshida and George Leopold

What’s at stake:
The chip industry’s laudable shift to sustainable manufacturing so far fails to address a key contributor to greenhouse gasses: the complex, energy-hogging steps needed to produce advanced devices. Apple fails to mention that challenge in its recent green marketing campaign. That approach is disingenuous.

If you haven’t watched Apple Inc.’s well-crafted sustainability promo, “2030 Status/Mother Nature/Apple,” you should. Released on Sept. 12, the video generated more than 4 million views on YouTube in just a month.