Let’s take them in reverse order…
5. BAe hooks up with GloFo
BAE Systems and GlobalFoundries are to align technology roadmaps and collaborate on long-term strategies for US fabrication and packaging of secure chips for use in aerospace and defense systems. Together, the companies will plan for emerging technologies and collaborate on R&D into packaging, GaN-on-Si, silicon photonics and process development. The non-exclusive collaboration brings together BAe’s expertise in microelectronics for defense systems with GloFo’s as a volume semiconductor manufacturer and supplier of essential chips to the U.S. DoD.
4. Europe to get 10nm and 7nm FD-SOI pilot line
A European pilot line for digital, analogue and RF ICs on 10nm and 7nm FD-SOI was announced today at French research lab CEA-Leti in Grenoble. Called Fames Pilot Line, it will create manufacturing processes for OxRAM, FeRAM, MRAM and FeFETs embedded non-volatile memories; RF switches, filters and capacitors; integrated inductors for dc-dc converters; and both heterogeneous and sequential 3D integration. “By integrating and combining a set of cutting-edge technologies, the Fames Pilot Line will open the door to disruptive system-on-chip architectures and provide smarter, greener and more efficient solutions for future chips,” said CEA-Leti CTO Jean-René Lèquepeys.
3. RISC-V Summit: SiFive’s 4th generation embedded cores
SiFive announced the 4th generation of RISC-V CPU cores for embedded applications at the RISC-V Summit Europe 2024. There are eight cores, three of which are 32bit while the other five are 64bit. To trade performance against power and area, their pipelines will span two-stage single-issue, to eight-stage dual-issue – see the table below. They are all covered by the companies ‘Essential’ range branding, and SiFive is claiming “up op 40% runtime power reduction” compared with its third generation Essential processors.
2. Etched chip 10x faster than Blackwell
Etched, a two year-old startup, has raised $120 million to develop servers running on chips which can perform AI inferencing an order of magnitude faster than Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell GB200 chip. Etched’s ASIC, named Sohu and made on TSMC 4nm, is designed to run only one model – transformers – the neural net-type architecture which learns context and meaning by tracking sequences of words and can transform an input into an output.
1. Auto IC market flagging
The automotive semiconductor market was $67 billion in 2023, up 12% from 2022, estimates Semiconductor Intelligence. The top twelve suppliers accounted for over three-quarters of the market. Infineon was the largest automotive semiconductor supplier, at $9.2 billion or 13.7% of the market. NXP was second at 11.2% and ST was third at 10.6%. These top three companies accounted for over one-third of the market. For most of these companies, automotive is a significant part of their total revenues.
