Intel to invest in Europe; Arm to reportedly cut workforce; SiFive gets more funding; research updates

Despite SEMI’s reassuring statement, concerns of a potential neon gas shortage due to the Ukrainian war keep surfacing. According to sources contacted by Reuters, effects on chip manufacturing could be felt if the conflicts drags on, and could mostly hit smaller chipmakers. On a wider IT scale, recent updates include concerns about data security expressed by some European governments in countries – Germany and Italy – that rely on Russia-headquartered Kaspersky’s cyber protection technologies. Moving to EDA companies, Aldec has suspended all sales and distribution transactions in Russia and is offering temporary housing to its Ukrainian personnel at a company’s facility in Poland; and Ansys, that had already suspended all sales transactions and consulting activities in Russia and Belarus, has now announced it will also make a financial contribution to ‘Doctors Without Borders’ in support of Ukrainian refugees. Let’s now move to tech news, this week including some academic research updates.

Intel investments in Europe

The European Union’s initiative to bolster local chip manufacturing (“EU Chip Act”) is starting to bear fruits: Intel has just announced the first phase of its plans to invest 80 billion euros in the European Union over the next decade along the entire semiconductor value chain. The plan includes a 17 billion euros investment for two semiconductor fabs in Magdeburg, Germany, a site that Intel has dubbed ‘Silicon Junction’. More Intel investments are planned in Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain and France. In this latter country Intel is planning to establish its new European R&D hub, its European headquarters for high performance computing and artificial intelligence design capabilities, and its main European foundry design center.

Arm reportedly planning to cut 12% of workforce

Arm reportedly plans to cut 12% to 15% of its workforce. Most of the job losses would be in the UK and the United States. According to observers, this cost-reduction move aims at making Arm more attractive for investors in view of the upcoming IPO. As widely reported by the media, the company made the decision of going public after Nvidia abandoned its attempted acquisition deal. Other recent developments at Arm include a new CEO and the change of some top managers.

SiFive raises an additional $175 million

Risc-V pioneer SiFive has just raised $175 million in a Series F financing round, valuing the company at over $2.5 billion. The Series F round was led by Coatue Management. To date, the company has raised over $350 million. Just a few days before announcing this new funding, SiFive sold its OpenFive business unit to Alphawave – see below the Acquisition paragraph – for $210 million in an all-cash deal.

New MathWorks release

MathWorks has introduced Release 2022a of the Matlab and Simulink product families. New capabilities in Matlab include new apps and App Designer functions, graphics enhancements, and the ability to customize Live Editor tasks. Simulink updates enable users to streamline masking workflows with a new mask editor and accelerate simulation using a model reference local solver. The new release also introduces new products supporting wireless and industrial communications, as well as automated driving.

Using neuromorphic systems to perform Monte Carlo methods

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have recently conducted a study showing that neuromorphic architectures could be well-suited to perform “random walk computations” such as in Monte Carlo methods, offering better energy efficiency than conventional CPUs and GPUs. The Sandia team used IBM’s TrueNorth and Intel’s Loihi neuromorphic computing platforms. The Tech Xplore article reporting about this research does not specify how neuromorphic systems compare with ‘regular’ (non-neuromorphic, non-spike-based) AI acceleration systems when executing Monte Carlo methods.

Graphite layers improve heat dissipation in RF PCBs

UK-based Teledyne Labtech has developed a solution for embedding layers of synthetic graphite within RF and microwave printed circuit boards, with the goal of improving the conduction of heat away from power devices and reducing weight. According to the company, synthetic graphite is four times lighter than copper, and transfers heat four times better in the X-Y plane. Replacing copper ground plane layers with graphite in the PCB sandwich can allow devices to run up to 20°C cooler, with no impact on reliability and minimal impact on the passage of microwave signals on grounding layers.

Cheap process for graphene on plastic film

Researchers from Swedish Chalmers University have developed a cheap process for depositing a high charge-carrier mobility graphene layer on an EVA/PET (plastic) film. The CVD graphene is grown on unpolished copper foil and then transferred to the EVA/PET lamination foil by using an ordinary office laminator and wet etching of copper. The mobility is then increased up to eight times holding the graphene-on-plastic sandwich at 60°C in a constant flow of nitrogen for a few hours. Potential applications include flexible and stretchable electronics.

Indium oxide transistors

Researchers at Purdue University have developed new transistors based on indium oxide, fabricated using atomic layer deposition. By aggressively scaling transistors introduced in previous works, the team realized channel thickness as small as 0.5 nm, channel length as short as 8 nm, EOT as small as 0.86 nm. The new transistor delivers a drain current of 3.1 mA/um at drain voltage of 0.5 V, and is compatible with existing manufacturing technologies.

Acquisitions

Alphawave has acquired the entire OpenFive business unit from SiFive for US$210 million in cash. The rationale for this acquisition, according to Alphawave, is a stronger position in terms of wider connectivity-focused IPs offering, chiplet-based solution offering, expanded customer base in North America, addition of a 300+ person team, primarily in India.

Upcoming events

The 2022 GOMACTech conference on developments in microcircuit applications for government systems will take place from March 21 to 24 in Miami, Florida. The event requires participants to be U.S. citizens or legal U.S. permanent residents.

Satellite 2022 conference and exhibition is scheduled from March 21to 24 in Washington, DC.

The 2022 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS) will be held as an in-person event with a virtual component from March 27 to 31 in Grapevine, Texas.

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