A Brave new world of Semiconductors and AI Chips is forming. Intel's woes, Nvidia's odd DOJ summons.

ASML and China ties falling apart. U.S. economic protectionism hurting Europe.

Hello Everyone,

This is an issue for the week up to September 5th. As the summer is over, we should be a bit more regular in our frequency.

In case you are new as well, this is one of my “new” Newsletters, and over 10+ now covering various aspects of emerging tech. Thanks for the support, I hope to learn along with you about these topics.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

• Welcome to the 16th edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow.

• With the rise of Generative AI, Nvidia and TSMC and the geopolitical importance of Taiwan, this is now a major topic of me in my watching of the emerging tech space that I do as an analyst, writer, curators and news watcher.

• The Technology category is an underdog relative to Substack’s baseline audience, this means I’m an outlier here. To survive, I’m building 10+ Newsletters in “emerging tech” coverage. A pilot never seen before on Substack for a one-person team. Full disclosure, I may not make it.

• Importe note: I am not native to the Semi space, and it might take a while to get up to speed. So we’ll be effectively learning about these things together.

Analyzing and Curating News 🔔

I’m a news fanatic always analyzing the latest in exponential and emerging tech like robotics, semiconductors & AI chips, quantum, synthetic biology and other fields - as well as BigTech in AI.

When to Expect this Newsletter ⏰

This Newsletter will typically go out on Thursday at 7am Eastern Time. I’m sometimes late. I sometimes skip weeks. Posts are partially paywalled and paid subscriptions are cheap.

What? It will attempt to summarize some of the most important news in the semiconductor industry of the last week.

• For rundowns: Semiconductor Things

• For deep dives: Semiconductor Reports (still in Research mode atm).

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OpenAI working with TSMC

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has been musing over building its own AI chips for some time now but it looks like the project is definitely going ahead, as United Daily News reports the company is paying TSMC to make the new chips. But rather than using its current N4 or N3 process nodes, OpenAI has booked production slots for the 1.6 nm, so-called A16, process node. Why A16 is so special: Read more.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

• Singapore likes it hot. Vanguard (VIS) and NXP Semiconductors have received all necessary approvals to begin construction of their US$7.8 billion 300mm joint venture fab in Singapore, which they named, VisionPower Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Pte Ltd. (VSMC). Construction will begin in the 2nd half 2024.

• Intel in Japan? Intel and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) will build a new joint R&D center for advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology in Japan, Nikkei reports, citing unnamed sources. The new facility will be built in 3-5 years with hundreds of millions of dollars, and feature EUV lithography equipment, making it the first facility in Japan where industry players can jointly use EUV. AIST will run the facility.

• Korea on the rise: SK Hynix will begin mass producing HBM3E 12-layer AI memory chips by the end of this month, Reuters reports, citing SK Hynix President Justin Kim. The memory chip giant had said it would ship HBM3E 12-layer chips in the 4th quarter this year, and HBM4 in the 2nd half-2025. (Note: HBM (high bandwidth memory) are key memory chips paired with GPUs to speed up AI work. Memory and I/O are bottlenecks in AI systems. The most advanced HBM memory chips shipping now are HBM3E 8-layer, by SK Hynix and Micron Technology.)

Intel appears to be in serious trouble. As Intel has reportedly been working out options to navigate the company through crisis, its possible moves are said to include selling off Altera, putting a halt to its investment project in Germany, and though, less unlikely, sale of its foundry business. However, if this restructuring does happen, according to South Korean media outlets The Korea Times and The Korea Herald, Samsung and TSMC are unlikely to be buyers for Intel’s foundry operations. Read more at TrendForce.

All you wanted to know in the semiconductor news cycle and AI chips arena of the past week.