Wafer-on-Wafer; ExaFlops supercomputers; Arm management change; Canadian battery plants

IDC is among the first market research firms trying to provide an initial assessment of how the Ukraine war will affect ICT spending and technology markets worldwide. Consequences are expected on many aspects of the business environment – and will arguably affect the semiconductor ecosystem, too. Hoping for peace, let’s now move to some tech news.

Incubators updates: Analog Devices (Ireland), Infineon (Hong Kong)

Analog Devices will invest €100 million over the next three years in ADI Catalyst, a 100,000 square foot custom-built facility for innovation and collaboration located at its campus in the Raheen Business Park in Limerick, Ireland. This latest phase of expansion will also see the creation of 250 new jobs in the Irish market by 2025. The Catalyst project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) has partnered with Infineon Hong Kong in a three-year co-incubation program targeted at microelectronics startups.

Advanced packaging and 3D updates: Apple’s Ultrafusion, Graphcore’s Wafer-on-Wafer

Apple has recently announced M1 Ultra, its new Arm-based SoC that will power the next Mac personal computers. The device uses Apple’s UltraFusion packaging architecture to interconnect the die of two M1 Max chips through a silicon interposer conveying more than 10,000 signals, providing 2.5TB/s of low latency bandwidth. This enables M1 Ultra to behave and be recognized by software as one chip, so developers don’t need to rewrite code. The new SoC consists of 114 billion transistors and features a 20-core CPU, a 64-core GPU, and a 32-core neural engine.

Graphcore has recently unveiled what it claims is the world’s first 3D Wafer-on-Wafer processor – the Bow IPU – built using TSMC’s Wafer-on-Wafer 3D technology. In the new device, two wafers are bonded together to generate a new 3D die: one wafer for AI processing, which is architecturally compatible with the preexisting Graphcore GC200 IPU processor, and a second wafer for power delivery die. By adding deep trench capacitors in the latter die, right next to the processing cores and memory, Graphcore claims to be able to deliver power much more efficiently – enabling a 40% increase in performance. More details have been disclosed in this EETimes article. As the company explained, the two wafers are bonded – metal sides together – without any interstitial bumps, in a sort of cold weld, achieving an extremely high density of interconnect. The device also uses ‘back-side through-silicon vias’ (BTSVs) which allow connection to layers inside the wafer sandwich. Graphcore points out that Wafer-on-Wafer is different from chip-on-wafer technologies, and that aligning two entire wafers is easier rather than two die. This – along with the use of an ion etch process for BTSVs – results in a finer connection pitch.

Graphcore has also announced it will use the next generation of its IPU technology to build an AI supercomputer that will reach over 10 ExaFlops of AI floating point compute. The system – called ‘the Good Computer’ in honor of computer science pioneer Jack Good – is expected to be available by 2024.

Facebook’s Nvidia-based 5 ExaFlops supercomputer

Despite the progress being made by new AI processors, Meta (Facebook) has reportedly chosen Nvidia’s GPUs for its next AI supercomputer. As Karl Freund points out on Forbes, the 16,000 GPUs system will reach 5 ExaFlops, thus becoming the largest known AI supercomputer in the world. According to Freund, “Facebook recognizes that Nvidia GPUs are the best platform available for AI research and development. There’s no need, at present, to invest in a home-grown ‘better’ chip, if that’s even possible. Other AI behemoths like Microsoft Azure (and OpenAI) have come to the same conclusion, at least for now.”

Arm reportedly changing four top executives

According to a report from Electronics Weekly, four out of the top seven executives of Arm have now left the company following a clear-out by new CEO Rene Haas – who replaced Simon Segars immediately after Softbank announced the failure of the Nvidia bid. The list of executives who are leaving Arm reportedly includes CTO Dipesh Patel, EVP & General Counsel Carolyn Herzog, and chief strategy officer Jason Zajac. According to Electronics Weekly, Rene Haas’ office will remain in the US, but Arm’s headquarters will stay in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

EV battery updates: Basf, General Motors/Posco

The Canadian city of Bécancour, Quebec, is set to become a hub for the production of cathode active material (CAM) for vehicle batteries, with two new plants announced by Basf and by General Motors/Posco respectively, in just a few days’ timeframe. Germany-headquartered Basf has signed an agreement to secure land for its future CAM and recycling site in Bécancour, with a capacity up to 100 kt per year and potential for fully integrated precursor cathode active materials (PCAM) supply. Basf targets project commissioning in 2025. And a joint venture between General Motors and South Korea’s Posco Chemical is working with the governments of Canada and Quebec to also build a new facility in Bécancour, estimated at $400 million. The new plant will produce CAM for GM’s Ultium batteries. Construction on the new facility will begin immediately and will create approximately 200 jobs. Besides government funding, Canada attractiveness is due to the availability of materials for EV battery production – such as lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel.

Acquisitions

Kyocera AVX is set to acquire Rohm Semiconductor’s tantalum and polymer capacitor business assets. On the terms of the agreement, Rohm Semiconductor will transfer all of its tantalum and polymer capacitor manufacturing lines and relevant intellectual property to Kyocera AVX effective August 5, 2022.

Google has signed a definitive agreement to acquire cybersecurity firm Mandiant (Reston, VA) in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion. Upon the close of the acquisition, Mandiant will join Google Cloud. According to market intelligence firm CB Insights, this is Google’s second-largest acquisition after Motorola in 2012, and its second cybersecurity acquisition of the year after Siemplify. CB Insights also points out that other big tech companies are investing in cybersecurity companies: in 2021 Microsoft acquired ReFirm labs and CloudKnox.

Upcoming events

D&R IP SoC Day Silicon Valley will take place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, on April 26^th and 27^th.

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