29 posts
The Hot Take: Again this is a great sign that Intel is definitely clawing back.
In a mutually beneficial deal, Intel repurchases 49% of Fab 34 from Apollo for $14.2 billion, reducing pressure on its margins, but paying a hefty $3 billion premium to the financial company.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: The Fab competition is heating up states side from the look of it.
A new report claims TSMC wants an Arizona âGigaFabâ cluster that can rival what it produces in Taiwan. DigiTimes says TSMCâs US plans have already âexceeded expectationsâ and the outfit is now eyeing a total of 12 fabs. The idea is to mirror the kind of fab network it runs in Hsinchu, Taiwan, only with more cactus and less typhoon risk. The report reckons TSMCâs and Taiwanâs combined US investment could hit half a trillion dollars, with the spending framed as groundwork for something bigger than a couple of token plants. That is a lot of concrete for a country that still argues about potholes. DigiTimes claims TSMC will add two more wafer fabs and two more advanced packaging fabs in Arizona, taking the state to 12 projects in total. The pitch is that this is not just TSMC shipping in kit and engineers, but a wider supply chain shift, so more production stays on US soil. Of course, building chips in the US is not cheap. The report flags higher costs for facilities, labour and depreciation per wafer, but says the early phases are ploughing on regardless. For some reason, the planners seem to be only interested in building data centres in the hottest places in the US, making issues like water and power really tricky. âSupply chain sources say that the plan for these 12 factories is TSMCâs largest overseas investment in history. It has transformed from an initial risk diversification base into an important extension base for advanced processes and packaging, becoming a key to the reconstruction of semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.â DigiTimes ties the fresh confidence to a recent US-Taiwan tariff agreement, with the US administration supposedly lining up incentives via economic and labour support. If that is the deal, Arizona is about to become an expensive negotiating chip. Experts quoted in the report argue the scale was inevitable because 70 per cent of TSMCâs customers are US fabless firms. They want supply security without the political choke points that come with keeping everything in Taiwan. That demand keeps dragging TSMCâs capex higher quarter after quarter, because it is stuck feeding both the front-end wafer crunch and the back-end packaging crunch. Every AI compute outfit wants a slot, and TSMC is the one holding the clipboard. Someone even floated that TSMC could surpass the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple in market value by 2030, which is the sort of prediction that always sounds clever until the next cycle bites. Â
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: So USA looks to be having 3 foundries that will be able to produce 2nm chips. This is great news.
Samsung Electronics has reportedly moved into the equipment installation and testing phase at its foundry in Taylor, Texas, transitioning from construction to operational setup for 2nm production. More than 3,000 engineers from Samsung and global equipment suppliers have begun gathering at the site, according to ET News, signaling the start of large-scale ramp-up activities.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Competition is good for all of us, I'm glad Samsung has caught up finally. Intel has to prove its self but 3 is way better than 1.
The success garnered by TSMC has turned into a double-edged sword for both the worldâs biggest foundry and its customers, as the manufacturerâs 3nm supply has become so constrained that only long-term and loyal customers like Apple are given priority. During this demand and supply disparity, Samsung emerges as the savior for those who are unable to secure orders from their âgo-toâ manufacturer, with the Korean giantâs second-generation 2nm GAA process, also known as SF2P, serving as the ideal alternative. With the 2nm GAA SF2Pâs basic design completed, Samsung is also reportedly planning a âhybridâ production system that enables multiple order [âŚ]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/samsung-2nm-process-an-alternative-for-customers-during-tsmc-supply-choke/
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: That's amazing! We need more manufacturers other than TSMC. I still hope they're looking to make a factory States side, so we don't have to rely on the one in S Korea.
Samsung Electronics has reportedly raised the yield of its 2nm wafer foundry process above 60%, a significant jump from around 20% in the second half of 2025. Industry analysts say this improvement not only cuts manufacturing costs but also boosts Samsung's chances of securing new orders.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: US domestic chip manufacturing appears to be exploding. That's an insane goal, but to bad it's just for his companies.
"Billionaire Elon Musk has announced plans to build a $20 billion chip plant in Austin, Texas" reports a local news station: Musk announced on Saturday night during a livestream on his social media platform X that the plant, called "Terafab," will be built near Tesla's campus and gigafactory in eastern Travis County. The long-anticipated project is a joint venture between Musk-owned properties Tesla, SpaceX and xAI... The Terafab plant is expected to begin production in 2027. Musk "has said the semiconductor industry is moving too slow to keep up with the supply of chips he expects to need," writes Bloomberg â quoting Musk as saying "We either build the Terafab or we don't have the chips, and we need the chips, so we build the Terafab." Musk detailed some specific plans, including producing chips that can support 100 to 200 gigawatts a year of computing power on Earth, and chips that can support a terawatt in space, but gave no timelines for the facility or its output... The facility is expected to make two types of chips, one of which will be optimized for edge and inference, primarily for his vehicle, robotaxi and Optimus humanoid robots. The other will be a high-power chip, designed for space that could be used by SpaceX and xAI... Musk said he expects xAI to use the vast majority of the chips. During the presentation, Musk also unveiled a speculative rendering of a future "mini" AI data center satellite, one piece of a much larger satellite system that he wants SpaceX to build to do complex computing in space. In January, SpaceX requested a license from the Federal Communications Commission to launch one million data center satellites into orbit around Earth. Musk said that the mini satellite he revealed would have the capacity for 100 kilowatts of power. "We expect future satellites to probably go to the megawatt range," Musk said. Raising money to build and launch AI data centers in space is one of the driving forces behind SpaceX's planned IPO later this year. SpaceX is expected to raise as much as $50 billion in a record-setting IPO this summer which could value it at more than $1.75 trillion, Bloomberg News reported earlier. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: If this proves true ASML better watch out. Their monopoly might come crashing down if they don't get something that competes.
Lace Lithography raised $40 million in Series A funding on Monday to develop a chipmaking tool that uses a helium atom beam instead of light to pattern silicon wafers.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: US domestic job market appears to be expanding in tech.
The Trump administration is targeting $4 trillion Pax Silica investment for semiconductors. Itâs not currently clear how the Trump administration arrived at the $4 trillion figure, or how it will ultimately materialize.
Read the full articleThe Hot Take: Interesting new physics? He re-writing the laws of physics?
Like his promise to get a million robocabs on the road, this doesn't add up Elon Musk has put Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI in harness to build a chip fabrication outfit called "Terafab" capable of producing a terawatt's worth of computing power each year, then send most of it into space.âŚ
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