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Soitec Develops 6-inch Engineered SiC Substrates for Bid EV Win

Soitec Aims for Big EV Win with Smart Cut SiC Wafers

By Adele Hars

France-based substrate maker Soitec has a lot riding on silicon carbide (SiC). The company believes its SiC wafers “are going to transform the EV industry,” as Thomas Piliszczuk, executive vice president of global strategy, recently told The Ojo-Yoshida Report. That’s an ambitious goal, but it’s a significant element of Soitec’s equally bold plan to become a two-billion-dollar company over the next five years.

Read More »Soitec Aims for Big EV Win with Smart Cut SiC Wafers
Ambarella Buys Oculii (Image: Ambarella)

Vision Plus Radar: Where Should Fusion Take Place?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?  ‌
‌Ambarella’s acquisition of Oculii brings the vision processor company a suite of radar perception algorithms. If Ambarella succeeds in executing vision-plus-radar sensor fusion in a single system-on-chip (SoC), it could raise the bar —  and industry expectations — on what a vision chip can do. That, in turn, raises questions about where in the vehicle sensor fusion should take place and who ultimately “owns” the sensor fusion stack.   

Read More »Vision Plus Radar: Where Should Fusion Take Place?
Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO

A New Semiconductor World Imagined

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at Stake?
The challenge posed by Nvidia – via its planned acquisition of Arm – to Intel’s x86 architecture is real and potentially unstoppable, and should not be casually dismissed. With a huge market at stake, we expect Intel to fight back hard. But no matter what kind of headwinds Nvidia faces from Intel, Arm licensees and international regulators, the deal signals that a new day is dawning in the chip market – one that will have major ramifications for all the players, and for consumers too.

Read More »A New Semiconductor World Imagined
Like All Deals in China, Expect Strings Attached to Nvidia/Arm

Like All Deals in China, Expect Strings Attached to Nvidia/Arm

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
The Nvidia-Arm deal idles at the intersection of U.S. politics, Jensen Huang’s promises and China’s long ambition to become the world’s tech industry leader. How badly does Huang want to get this done? How big a chunk of Nvidia’s technology arsenal is China looking to gain? And how fiercely will U.S. anti-China hardliners fight the proposed M&A? At stake is the future of U.S.–China relations.

Read More »Like All Deals in China, Expect Strings Attached to Nvidia/Arm
U.S. Lawyers Perpetuate Regulation Myths at The Autonomous

U.S. Lawyers Perpetuate Regulation Myths at The Autonomous

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Germany’s recently passed autonomous-vehicle regulations earned the country bragging rights as the first in the world to bring legal certainty to Level 4 AVs, in which automated driving features do not require human intervention.

Lawyers working for the U.S. AV industry, and those looking to score political points, maintain that delayed regulations in America could hamstring automakers in the global AV race. What’s really at stake, however, is public safety. Will AV rules under development in the United States come with enough muscle to help AV manufacturers raise public confidence in the long-term safety of driverless vehicles?

Read More »U.S. Lawyers Perpetuate Regulation Myths at The Autonomous
Apple Car: Makers & Sensors

Apple Car: Makers & Sensors

By Junko Yoshida

Early industry speculation, since debunked, was that Apple was making manufacturing deals with Hyundai and Kia. Earlier this year, Korea Times reported an Apple deal with “a joint venture of LG and Magna.” A report this month from Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper, however, says that Apple may go it alone.

Veteran auto industry observers put Magna high on the “likely” list. Automotive industry analyst Egil Juliussen called Magna “the most competent manufacturer” of vehicles but speculated that Apple “might recruit several different manufacturers.”

Read More »Apple Car: Makers & Sensors
Unlocking Apple Car’s Supply Chain

Unlocking Apple Car’s Supply Chain

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Phil Magney, founder of VSI Labs, often says that Tesla is “a proxy of the future vehicle.” What, then, will Apple Car become? Will it be Tesla on steroids, a safer and more secure Tesla, or just a more transparent version of Tesla?

The departure of Doug Field, who resigned as the head of Apple’s car project (codenamed Titan) and jumped ship to Ford Motor Co. earlier this month, generated a fresh round of speculation that the car project at Apple might be stalled. We disagree with that analysis.

Read More »Unlocking Apple Car’s Supply Chain
What About EV Batteries

What About EV Batteries?

By Junko Yoshida

Batteries are “by far the most expensive part of BEVs,” automotive industry analyst Egil Juliussen noted. “Supply chains are tricky.”

The big hitch in EV batteries is that there’s “so much new tech, new battery manufacturing, potential supply chain upheaval,” he said. However, he believes, “Apple will have a backup plan via China connections if the better technologies are not ready in time.”

Read More »What About EV Batteries?
TSMC Shifts West, Dodging Geopolitical Headwinds

TSMC Shifts West, Dodging Geopolitical Headwinds

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
Rising economic nationalism is causing fissures in the global semiconductor supply chain. The rifts are threatening the IC market at a time of rapid growth, when it most needs to retain the collaborative and unified structure that has driven its expansion over several decades. As economic powers like China, the EU, and the United States move to militarize the global electronics supply chain to achieve their geopolitical objectives, companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. are caught in the fray. How TSMC and its competitors respond to these geopolitical pressures will determine whether the industry will continue to grow unhindered or enter a phase of extreme uncertainty and uneven product development.

Read More »TSMC Shifts West, Dodging Geopolitical Headwinds