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Monday, March 10, 2025
A load store quantum computer, Bare Conductive closes, and an MWC 2025 roundup
Thursday, January 09, 2025
Automotive news from CES 2025 ... Honda's 100W chiplet-based AI central controller ... Nvidia certifies Drive OS on Orin chip
Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Top ten articles on eeNews Europe
The march of the RISC-V architecture continued through 2024, with neuromorphic computing from Innatera in the Netherlands and a universal processor that combines the functions of the CPU, GPU, and DSP from Ubitium in Dusseldorf which has raised $3.7m for the chip design.
But the year also saw the first 64bit microcontroller architecture from Texas Instruments with the C2000 core used in a range of devices.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/innatera-shows-risc-v-neuromorphic-edge-ai-microcontroller/
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/ti-launches-first-64bit-c2000-real-time-microcontroller/
The developments at Raspberry Pi in Cambridge, UK, have been a major theme through the year, notably with the use of the Raspberry Pi 5 for a software defined radio for 5G small cells in June. But it the development, testing and launch of the CM5 compute module with the same high performance Broadcom quad core chip that has captured the imagination through the middle of the year in our coverage, being used in a range of devices when it officially launched in November.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/raspberry-pi-sdr-for-5g-small-cells/
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/raspberry-pi-readies-cm5-compute-module/
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/raspberry-pi-launches-cm5-module/
Intel also readied its first graphic processor for automotive applications in August off the back of its acquisition of Silicon Mobility. The Arc Graphics for Automotive is aimed at AI cockpit designs and could be commercially deployed in vehicles in China as soon as 2025.
The discrete A760A GPU is aimed at the move to software defined vehicles (SDV) that has been accelerating throughout the year so that car makers can design a single vehicle platform that scales across trim levels, adding the discrete GPU to add premium features.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/intel-launches-its-first-dedicated-graphics-chip-for-automotive/
The $1bn EUV centre in the US also saw significant interest. The centre in Albany, New York, will install EUV lithography machines from Dutch developer ASML and aims to boost the domestic EUV supply chain. This was followed by the announcement of funding to develop a new type of glass for EUV machines at a factory in the US.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/us-funds-1bn-centre-to-take-on-asml-in-euv-lithography/
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/32m-for-new-euv-glass-in-the-us/
At the same time the US was pulling back on R&D funding in the Chips Act, cancelling the third round of funding. Other grants under the US CHIPS and Science Act are being made in December as the Biden administration comes to an end.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/us-pulls-back-on-chips-act-rd-funding/
The woes at Intel have been well documented, with CEO Pat Gelsinger leaving the company in December. Before that, four key CPU architects in Portland, Oregon, left the company to staff RISC-V startup AheadComputing.
But it was the Raspberry Pi flotation in June that captured the imagination of the industry.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/sony-plans-dedicated-raspberry-pi-5-line-ahead-of-ipo/
https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/raspberry-pi-booms-in-uk-stock-exchange-ipo/
Sony set up a production line in Japan for the Raspberry Pi 5 boards ahead of moving that production to Wales, and the IPO was oversubscribed, rising sharply in the first days of trading and highlighting the strength of some part so the European electronics industry in 2024.
Monday, December 23, 2024
AI hides a multitude of semiconductor sins
The demand for GPUs, accelerators, memory and interconnect
chips for the rollout of AI in data centres has driven the industry to boom levels,
elevating Nvidia and foundry TSMC to the very top.
This boom is welcome in that it pays for the next couple of
generations of process technology development. Designs on 2nm, 18A and 16A
process nodes will reduce power consumption and boost performance, both
prerequisites for AI datacentre applications, but the costs of designing and
making such chips, from the mask sets to the high NA lithography, are eye
wateringly high.
Recent market analysis and financial results are showing
that this boom in AI chips is hiding a significant weakness in other areas.
This was particularly apparent in discussion about the UK and European
distribution market, which services the rest of the industry. The AI chips and
high performance HBM memories are all shipped direct to server makers and so do
not show up in distribution
2025 will be a year of no growth for distributors in UK and
Ireland according to the latest forecast from the Electronic Components Supply
Network (ecsn). This follows a collapse in 2024 with a fall of 4.9% as the
result of excess inventory.
The weakness also became apparent this week in results from
Micron, Broadcom and Marvell.
Micron is warning of reduced profits next year as the underlying demand for memory in industrial and consumer applications is weak and unlikely to recover until the second half of 2025. This comes despite a doubling of quarterly revenue in the last year on the back of the AI boom.
“Data centre revenue grew over 400% year over year and 40%
sequentially, reaching a record level with data centre revenue mix surpassing
50% of Micron's revenue for the first time,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, president
and CEO of Micron Technology.
“We are now seeing a more pronounced impact of customer
inventory reductions. As a result, our fiscal Q2 bit shipment outlook is weaker
than we previously expected. We expect this adjustment period to be relatively
brief and anticipate customer inventories reaching healthier levels by spring,
enabling stronger bit shipments in the second half of fiscal and calendar 2025,”
he added.
The PC refresh cycle is unfolding more gradually, and Micron
expects PC shipments to be flat this year. However Mehrota remains optimistic
about AI PC adoption over time. AI PCs will require additional DRAM content
with a minimum of 16Gbyte of DRAM for entry-level PCs and 24Gbytes and above
for the higher-end segments versus 12Gbytes for PCs last year.
The slump in automotive and industrial has also hit.
“Lower-than-expected automotive unit production, combined
with a shift toward value-trim vehicles from premium models and EVs, has slowed
memory and storage content growth and resulted in inventory adjustments at
OEMs. Longer term, we remain optimistic that ADAS, infotainment, and AI
adoption across auto will drive long-term memory and storage content growth.
Industrial market demand continues to be impacted by inventory adjustments, and
we expect a recovery in this market later in calendar 2025,” he said.
Broadcom similarly is benefitting from the boom for itsinterconnect chips and its purchase of VMware, which provides virtual machine
infrastructure for all those datacentre CPUs. It saw revenues up 44% year over
year to a record $51.6bn, but excluding VMware, that was 9%.
However a closer look shows the same issues as Micron. The
AI revenue, which came from strength in custom AI accelerators or XPUs and
networking, grew 220% from $3.8 billion in fiscal 2023 to $12.2 billion in
fiscal 2024 and represented 41% of the semiconductor revenue. This drove
semiconductor revenue up to a record $30.1 billion during the year, says CEO Hock
Tan.
The wireless business grew 7% with new WiFi7 access points,
while the broadband business fell by 51%.
“So, the reality going forward for this company is that the AI semiconductor business will rapidly outgrow the non-AI semiconductor business,” said Tan. “Q4 AI revenue grew a strong 150% year on year to $3.7 billion. Non-AI semiconductor revenue declined by 23% year on year to $4.5 billion, but still a 10% recovery from the bottom of six months ago.
“On the broad portfolio of non-AI semiconductors with its
multiple end markets, we saw a cyclical bottom in fiscal 2024 at $17.8 billion.
We only expect a recovery in the second half of 2025 at the industry's
historical growth rate of mid-single digits.”
“In sharp contrast, we see our opportunity over the next
three years in AI as massive. Specific hyperscalers have begun their respective
journeys to develop their own custom AI accelerators or XPUs, as well as
network these XPUs with open and scalable Ethernet connectivity. For each of
them, this represents a multiyear, not a quarter-to-quarter journey,” he said.
Broadcom has three hyper-scale customers who have developed
their own multi-generational AI XPU road map to be deployed at varying rates
over the next three years. In 2027, we believe each of them plans to deploy one
million XPU clusters across a single fabric.
“Keep in mind though, this will not be a linear ramp. We'll
show quarterly variability. To compound this, we have been selected by two
additional hyperscalers and are in advanced development for their own
next-generation AI XPUs. We have line of sight to develop these prospects into
revenue-generating customers before 2027,” said Tan.
Marvell is taking even more drastic measures to focus on AI.
“Marvell is entering a new era of growth through the substantial volume production ramp of our custom silicon programs, along with continued strong growth in optics,” said Matthew Murphy, Chair, President, and CEO of Marvell.
The company is expanding its strategic relationship with
Amazon Web Services for data centre semiconductors, including custom AI
products, optical DSPs, active electrical cable DSPs, PCIe retimers,
interconnect optical modules, and Ethernet switching silicon solutions. It is
also working with AWS for EDA in the cloud to accelerate silicon design, with
significant interest in 2nm designs.
“In this third quarter, we made decisions to further
solidify and purposefully redirect our investments toward data centre relative
to our other end markets. These actions resulted in a restructuring charge in
the third quarter, which Willem will discuss in his section. The goal of these
actions is to increase our R&D intensity toward the data centre, our
largest and fastest-growing opportunity,”
Will edge AI be a saving grace? There is a strong focus on
AI technology migrating to the edge of the network with lower cost, lower power
implementations. That is likely to drive more local production of server
boards, boosting more local economies.
www.micron.com; www.broadcom.com; www.marvell.com
Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Top articles in November 2024
With Schneider ousting its CEO in a shock move, Samsung cutting staff in its foundry business and Atos selling off its supercomputer and quantum business, eeNews Europe in November had plenty of news about restructuring.
While the Chinese owner of chip designer FTDI in Glasgow is having to sell its stake under the new security law, Analog Device bought the assets of Flex Logix, opening up the opportunities for adding AI to the embedded microcontrollers it acquired with Maxim.
TSMC and Intel are capturing the last vestiges of the US CHIPS and Science Act, with Intel seeing its support trimmed. Germany also saw cash for a semiconductor skills academy across the country, bringing in many local institutions.
New chips were also popular news in November. The first 64bit microcontroller from Texas Instruments captured plenty of interest, as did Infineon’s TriCore-based Aurix TX4x and a universal RISC-V AI processor from Ubitium in Dusseldorf and Karlsruhe that promises to run all the algorithms from CPUs, GPUs and DSPs.
But the top news of the month was a billion dollars for a leading edge EUV centre in the US. While Dutch lithography technology leader ASML is part of the centre in Albany, New York, to stimulate a supply chain for EUV lithography in the US. That will be an interesting story that will run and run, starting with funding to develop new glass locally for EUV lenses.
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