What’s at stake:
As part of its climate agenda, the Biden administration is allocating billions in infrastructure funding to put more EVs on the nation’s roads. While seeding areas like EV battery research, it is also encouraging public-private partnerships to flesh out a sustainable transportation network.
What’s at stake?
Andes Technology, a Taiwanese CPU core IP company, began phasing out its proprietary processing architecture in favor of RISC-V in 2015, as it prepared to go public. Is adding RISC-V an option for Arm before its planned fiscal-2022 IPO? While Arm’s too-big-to-fail ecosystem makes this notion unlikely, can Arm convince investors and shareholders that it can continue to grow without an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA)?
What’s at stake?
Renesas is upping its stakes in power electronics at a time when all suppliers are beefing up production capacity. At stake is Renesas’ future. Can its use of 300mm wafers create enough of an edge to restore its manufacturing clout? More important, where is Renesas’ long-term plan to address the future of power electronics — namely, SiC and GaN?
What’s at stake?
Europe is no longer content to be a niche player in the global microelectronics industry. Instead of remaining focused only on established strengths (i.e. MEMS, sensors and power electronics), Europe has awakened to the significance of manufacturing. Three elite microelectronics research institutes aim to help actualize the EU’s new industrial policy.
By Ron Wilson
What’s at stake?
Fully depleted silicon-on-insulator solves the problem of leakage for chip makers, but the technology lags behind more-traditional FinFET processes. Now, the EU is banking on a new spin of FD-SOI as its ticket to sophisticated, next-generation ICs.
What’s at stake?
American and European policymakers are united in their efforts to begin moving chip manufacturing back from East Asia. The trick is targeting financial incentives to yield humming production lines, well-paying jobs, supply-chain security and strategic partnerships with growth industries. The European approach, which will hand industry a roadmap along with a check, appears more likely to succeed.
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Semiconductor manufacturers have based their capex budgets and fabrication capacity commitments on projections the market will nearly double by the end of the decade. A downturn by 2023 could undermine those plans.
What’s at stake?
China’s astounding R&D investments over the last two decades place it in direct competition with the United States, where declining federal investments are partially shored up by rising corporate R&D. The research sweepstakes represents the front lines of the global competition to lead in science and technology innovation.
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
STMicroelectronics has driven a stake into the heart of speculation it may become a fabless enterprise. With plans to sharply jack up capex and add to its fabs, ST breathes new life into the IDM model as supply constraints and geopolitical concerns continue to alter the dynamics of the semiconductor industry.
By Junko Yoshida
What’s at stake?
China achieved dominance in EVs by sewing up the battery supply chain. Will Chinese carmakers also command the global AV market, or will they be beholden to SoC platforms developed by Western semiconductor suppliers?
