ChinaEUV Alternatives
According to reports, Hefei Haoyu Chiplight Technology Co., Ltd. has developed a desktop-level high-order harmonic generation (HHG) light source capable of producing light with wavelengths as short as1 nanometer. It has been reported that a customer has used this light source to produce14 nanometer chips, which is the initial target process node for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV). In contrast, TSMC and Samsung only began usingEUV at the7 nanometer process node, having previously relied on immersion lithography and multiple exposure techniques.
New Actions by the United States:
o Reuters reports that due to concerns about escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China, the Trump administration may delay plans to impose comprehensive tariffs on semiconductor imports.
o The U.S. has authorized the export of up to35,000 NVIDIA Blackwell chips to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, provided that “strict security and reporting requirements must be met.”
o The U.S. House of Representatives has introduced the SEMI Investment Act. If passed, this act will extend the35% advanced manufacturing tax credit policy to U.S. semiconductor material manufacturers, including substrates, thin films, and process chemicals.
o Despite a recent Gallup poll showing that80% of American adults believe the government should establish safety regulations for artificial intelligence, the president is still trying to prevent states from regulating AI.
According to Reuters, the Dutch government announced a suspension of intervention in the Nexperia case after constructive talks with Beijing. China urged the Dutch government to take “pragmatic actions” to resolve the Nexperia dispute, stating that the Dutch intervention and court rulings have caused “chaos and turmoil” in the global semiconductor supply chain.
GlobalFoundries continued its acquisition spree this week.
o The company acquired the Singapore-based silicon photonics foundryAdvanced Micro Foundry to expand its capabilities in optical communications and AI infrastructure;
o Signed a long-term strategic partnership withNavitas Semiconductor to expand the scale of GaN technology and manufacturing in the U.S. for AI data centers, high-power computing, and critical power infrastructure;
o Entered into a collaboration agreement withBAE Systems to provide radiation-hardened chips for space missions.
Deloitte released its annual technology forecast report, predicting that by the end of2026, up to75% of companies may invest in intelligent agent artificial intelligence (AI). The report highlights the bottlenecks in the semiconductor supply chain: “The complexity of sourcing and packaging multiple chips and components from numerous suppliers across different regions is likely to make chipsets a significant geopolitical bottleneck by2026.” The company also predicts that information disclosure requirements related to export controls will increasingly hinder the development of electronic design automation (EDA).
Key Figures:
o Cadence announced the appointment ofDr. Luc Van den hove to its board of directors, effective fromJanuary 1, 2026.
o Synopsys announced that former Siemens EDA CEOMike Ellow will join the company as Chief Revenue Officer, effective fromNovember 20.
o AMD CEO Lisa Su has been elected as the chair of theSIA board.
This week’s earnings reports:NVIDIA and Soitec.
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Reports and Transactions
Deals
o X-FAB and Fraunhofer ENAS are collaborating to develop a wafer fab laboratory method for advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration.
o Arm has integrated NVIDIA’s NVLink Fusion universal interconnect technology into its Neoverse platform to accelerate the adoption of AI data centers.
o d-Matrix and AI Chip will jointly develop a data center inference accelerator based on 3D DRAM.
o Global leaderUnichip is collaborating withAyar Labs to integrate co-packaged optical devices intoUnichip‘s advancedASIC design services.
o Onto Innovation has completed the acquisition of Semilab‘s critical materials analysis product line.
o ASML and CEA-Leti will jointly work on technologies to “go beyond Moore’s Law,” including new substrates such as SiC, GaN photonic materials, and heterogeneous integration.
o Nearfield Instruments and imec are jointly developing metrology solutions for high numerical aperture EUV and 3D heterogeneous integration.
o NVIDIA and Microsoft will invest up to10 billion and5 billion respectively inAnthropic. In return,Anthropic will expand its AI modelClaude on Microsoft’s cloud platformAzure and adopt NVIDIA’sGrace Blackwell andVera Rubin chip architectures.
Funding Sources:
o PicoJool has concluded its secret R&D and secured12 million in funding to develop a new pixel-level photonics technology.
o Hummink has raised20 million to apply micron-level precision printing technology to advanced manufacturing.
o PowerLattice has emerged from stealth mode with25 million in funding to launch a power transmission chip that tightly integrates power and computing.
o AlixLabs has completed a14.1 million euros Series A funding round to accelerate the development and scaling of its atomic layer etching pitch splitting (APS) technology.
Reports:
o Due to an impending shortage of DRAM supply, advanced memory prices may double (Counterpoint).
o The MCU market is entering a new growth cycle, with revenues expected to reach34 billion by2030 (Yole Group).
o More reports: AI server design, OLED displays, memory prices (TrendForce).
Think Tanks:
o What does the new U.S.-Saudi mineral agreement entail? (G. Baskaran, Center for Strategic and International Studies)
o Assessing the performance of the Chinese semiconductor industry (USCC).
o How hackers linked to China took control of Anthropic‘s Claude (The Economist)
o Which jobs will be most affected by AI? (Brookings Institution)
o Tariffs, economic nationalism, and the future of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing (R. Cronin,Stimson).
o Will U.S. efforts to block China from obtaining advanced semiconductor chips maintain U.S. leadership in AI, or will it inadvertently accelerate China’s innovation? (Council on Foreign Relations)
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Global Updates:
Asia:
o Taiwan:
o Powertech Technology plans to invest over1.3 billion in capital expenditures next year to expand its panel-level packaging capacity.
o GMI Cloud has launched a500 million AI factory based on NVIDIA.
o Saudi Arabia:
o AMD, Cisco, and human-machine collaboration plan to establish a joint venture to deploy up to1 GW of AI infrastructure by2030.
o Elon Musk announced a partnership with HUMAIN to establish a500 MW xAI data center.
o India:
o Altera and AXISCADES will establish a lab in Bangalore aimed at developing advanced FPGA designs for critical mission applications.
o Cyient Semiconductors and Azimuth AI have launched a new chip-level power platform, the first of its kind designed in India.
o Marvell plans to increase hiring and R&D investment in India to meet the demand for AI infrastructure.
o In South Korea, SK Hynix plans to increase its investment in the Yongin semiconductor industry cluster to over128 trillion won (over85 billion USD) by2028.
Americas:
o IBM is collaborating with the University of Dayton to develop next-generation chip technologies and materials.IBM will provide equipment for the new semiconductor nano-manufacturing facility on the university campus, which is expected to be completed byearly 2027, providing practical learning opportunities from lab to factory.
o The University of Arkansas has opened a multi-user silicon carbide manufacturing facility (MUSiC), claiming it is the only publicly accessible facility of its kind in the U.S.
o According to Bloomberg, the U.S. may face power outages this winter due to energy demands from data centers. A former Energy Department official called for using batteries to power data centers instead of relying on natural resources.
o ERI and ReElement Technologies have signed a commercial processing agreement aimed at recycling waste magnets and producing high-purity rare earth oxides domestically.
Europe:
o CEA-Leti has announced a multilateral program on micro LED technology for ultra-fast data transmission, with a particular focus on accelerating AI development.
o The European Semiconductor Association (SEMI Europe) has released30 recommendations regarding the “European Chips Act 2.0”.
o The European Chips Skills Academy has published the “2025 Skills Strategy Report,” warning that by2030, there will be a shortage of over75,000 technical positions in the European semiconductor industry.
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Popular Videos
Challenges in Mass Production of Advanced Packaging: Why Traditional Series Methods Fail?Modus Test Chief Technology Expert Jack Lewis will explore how to obtain data at critical nodes, how to differentiate data from other data, and how much data is needed to identify actual defects and potential defects.
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Research
Ames National Laboratory has received funding to develop new biotechnologies to capture critical materials such as semiconductors from low-concentration sources like mine tailings and wastewater.
Researchers from New York University and Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated how substrate selection affects phase formation and interface stability in superconducting vanadium silicide films, providing design guidance for improving material quality.
More Research:
o Advancing two-dimensional CMOS electronics using high-performance p type transistors (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
o Smart per watt: Measuring the intelligent efficiency of local AI (Stanford University)
o Distortion and undistortion of photonic Moiré superlattices (Cornell University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, etc.)
o Characterization of photoresists using desktop EUV light sources at30nm wavelengths (University of Texas at Austin)
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New Technologies
imec coordinated the NanoIC Pilot Line to release N2 P-PDK v1.0, which includes29 SRAM macro libraries, including front and back power routing configurations for complete SoC architectures for logic nodes below2nm, as well as actual memory and power network integration.
Brook has launched VERTEX NEO Ultra, a vacuum FT-IR spectrometer designed to extend the infrared and terahertz characterization capabilities for materials and photonics research.
Synopsys has released a cloud-based simulation digital twin framework based on GPU, integrating Ansys Fluent, Nvidia Omniverse library, and CUDA-X on Microsoft Azure for real-time digital twin modeling of production lines. This system reduces CFD simulation time from3 to4 hours to less than5 minutes.
Siemens will deploy its next-generation ALM SaaS product Polarion X on Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform Azure.
Keysight has launched a scalable online flash memory programming system for high-volume electronics manufacturing, as well as the next generation i7090, a massively parallel and scalable circuit board testing system for high-volume PCBA.
Akeana will integrate proteanTecs‘s device-side monitoring agent into Akeana‘s 5000 series 64 bit RISC-V processors.
Standards:
o CXL Alliance has released the Compute Express Link 4.0 specification, which increases bandwidth from 64GTs to 128GTs, adds support for bundled ports, and enhances memory RAS capabilities.
o OIF has released the OIF-EEI-112G-RTLR (re-timed transmitter linear receiver), which defines a high-speed, energy-efficient112 Gb/s electrical interface for chip-to-module connections to connect re-timed optical transmitters and linear optical receivers, or semi-re-timed optical links.
Data Centers and AI Processing:
o imec has launched imec.kelis, an analytical performance modeling tool for AI data centers, providing an end-to-end framework for evaluating the system performance of computing, communication, and memory subsystems. This tool is specifically designed for LLM training and inference workloads.
o NVIDIA has released the Apollo open model series to accelerate industrial and computational engineering as well as scientific simulations. Early adopters includeCadence, Lam Research, Siemens, and Synopsys.
o OKI has developed high-frequency via simulation technology for 1.6 Tbps level high-speed transmission PCB aimed at AI data centers.
o Q.ANT has released its second-generation photonic native processing unit.
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Security
Google has launched Wasefire, a new “secure design” firmware development approach that enables developers to create secure firmware without extensive security expertise, focusing only on the business logic they want to achieve.
CISA and NSA have released a cybersecurity information sheet containing recommendations aimed at mitigating potential cybercriminal activities supported by “bulletproof hosting providers” (i.e., providers that knowingly rent internet infrastructure to cybercriminals).
Think TankCEPA has released the final part of a series of reports on the implementation of the DMA interoperability directive, focusing on open access and secure design.
Broadcom’s eighth-generation 128G SAN switch product line is now available. This technology integrates 128G performance, quantum-safe security, and AI-driven autonomy to build secure networks for modern data centers.
Security Research:
o Automated hardware trojan insertion in industrial-scale designs (University of Illinois Chicago)
o Target algorithm-driven network attacks in distributed multi-agent optimization (University of Utah)
CISA has released new alerts/ recommendations.
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Automotive
A new study by the Traffic Safety Analysis Research Cooperative found that vehicles equipped with automatic emergency braking systems have reduced rear-end collision injury rates by up to60%.
Siemens has announced that SAICEC, which provides chip and system design services for the automotive industry, has begun building complex digital twins of automotive architectures based on Siemens’ PAVE360 software.
Fraunhofer IZM‘s experts have explored process optimization issues for automotive chips.
Xiaomi announced that its electric vehicle and AI division achieved a profit of700 million RMB (approximately98 million USD) in the third quarter, about19 months after launching theSU7 electric sedan. The company achieved profitability faster than Tesla.
Everspin has added a product to its high-reliability MRAM product line that meets AEC-Q100 Grade 1 certification standards, capable of operating in temperatures ranging from-40°C to +125°C.
BorgWarner and Deloitte are collaborating to advance the electric vehicle charging industry. The two companies are investing in R&D solutions, including cloud-native and software-driven chargers.
Automotive Research:
o Formal verification for secure vehicle software updates (Chalmers University of Technology, Volvo)
o Hardware-in-the-loop driving simulators: Simplifying the integration of real components in simulated environments
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Education and Training
Researchers at Iowa State University will launch a 12-month semiconductor hands-on training program in early2026. The program will recruit student scholars from three community colleges in Iowa and Iowa State University’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs.
The University of Texas at Austin has enhanced its computing capabilities with high-performance Dell PowerEdge servers and NVIDIA AI infrastructure, utilizing over5000 Blackwell GPUs in total.
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Quantum
Infleqtion is collaborating with ORNL to explore how quantum computers can integrate with the world’s most powerful high-performance computing systems.
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated the world’s largest complete quantum chip simulation using approximately7,000 NVIDIA GPUs on the Perlmutter supercomputer.
The U.S. Department of Energy has renewed funding of125 million to support the Quantum Science Center, with funding through2030. The laboratory will work with partners to develop integrated quantum high-performance computing systems through five coordinated research directions.
IBM is collaborating with Cisco to research how to connect quantum processors, laying the groundwork for distributed quantum computing.
Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and others have published a paper titled “Liquid Metal Printing for Superconducting Circuits,” opening new avenues for hardware implementation of large-scale superconducting quantum computers.
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Events and Further Reading
Upcoming webinars include:
o Debugging Like a Pro: Building VHDL Testbenches Using OSVVM, UVVM, and UVM in Questa One Sim (December 3)
o The Future of Fault Injection—Expanding Keysight Device Security Toolset (December 10)
o Expert Focus on 64G UCIe: Chip-Level Integration Scaling for AI (December 10)
o Medini Functional Safety ISO 26262 Introduction (December 10)
o From Information Silos to Systems, from Data to Insights (December 17)
Find upcoming chip industry events, including:
| Event | Date | Location |
| SC25: High Performance | November 16-21 | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis | ||
| European Semiconductor Exhibition | November 18-21 | Munich, Germany |
| MEMS and Imaging Sensors | November 19-20 | Munich, Germany |
| SIA Awards Dinner | November 20 | San Jose, California |
| Rambus European Design Workshop 2025 | November 26 | Hilton Amsterdam Schiphol |
| PDF Solutions 2025 User Conference and Analyst Day | December 3-4 | Santa Clara, California |
| 2025 GSA Awards | December 4 | Santa Clara, California |
| 2025 UCLA Chip and Information Processing Workshop | December 4 | UCLA |
| IEDM 2025: IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting | December 6-10 | San Francisco |
| Japan Semiconductor | December 17-19 | Tokyo |
| CES 2026 | January 6-9 | Las Vegas |
| Industry Strategy Workshop: ISS 2026 | January 11-14 | Half Moon Bay, California |
| SPIE Photonics West | January 17-22 | San Francisco |
| Hybrid Bonding Workshop | January 22-23 | Virtual and Physical Silicon Valley |