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Whither STMicroelectronics after Annus Horibilis?

Whither STMicroelectronics after Annus Horribilis?

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:

STMicroelectronics has had an interim revenue goal of $20 billion in focus for some time. It had hoped to reach this number quickly after clocking record sales of $17.3 billion in 2023. The company concedes this objective may not be achievable until the end of the decade due to a drastic sales slump in 2024 and amidst fears this will continue at least through 2025. What will happen to manufacturing plans, capex, R&D, and the workforce as the company struggles to climb back uphill?

STMicroelectronics NV had its plans nicely laid out. It was going to become a $20 billion semiconductor behemoth by mid-decade and march aggressively towards even higher revenue, larger operating margins, and much fatter profits by 2030.

Halfway through the decade, though, ST’s management, bewildered, is headed back to the drawing board. The lofty plans are in tatters, shredded by massive disruptions in several key markets, including automotive, its largest segment, industrial and personal electronics. The disruptions have forced ST to push out the timeline for its $20 billion revenue goal to 2030, a target that even now appears doubtful.

How Europe’s second-largest semiconductor company navigates its way through the debris of its shattered ambitions over the next years will determine whether it will be anywhere close to its sales and margins objectives by the end of the decade. Manufacturing plans, R&D, capital expenditure, product development, investments, and product portfolios must be overhauled, some even pruned. Expansion goals for new markets may have to be curtailed due to reduced cash flow and some senior executives may be shown the door, their briefs merged with those of survivors’.

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Designing AI Chips is Hard – Can AI help?

Designing AI Chips is Hard – Can AI help?

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:

The chips design world ran into a new thicket with the emergence of artificial intelligence as a serious area of product interest for semiconductors companies and systems’ makers. But designing AI chips isn’t quite the same as designing chips for SoCs, says industry veteran Moshe Zalcberg. Interestingly, he notes, the problems engineers encounter designing AI chips can also be solved by AI. But is the industry at that point now?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the stuff of fables. It is here, happening all around us even if it hasn’t reached the striking magical levels of sci-fi movies. It will get there someday, though, observers note. But getting there will require copious amounts of high-end chips, memory, connectors and advanced processes.

Moshe Zalcberg as CEO of Veriest has been involved for years in chips design and chips verification. In a discussion with the Ojo-Yoshida Report, Zalcberg noted that designing and verifying AI chips will be faster if the industry can master the art of using AI to exponentially improve the processes. In essence, artificial intelligence can supply the intelligence and brute muscle required for AI to reach its full potential.

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SpaceShipOne

Mercury and SpaceShipOne: The Spacecraft

By Lee Goldberg

What’s at Stake:

In the beginning, US efforts in Space were largely driven by militaristic goals and the belief in US exceptionalism. Later, while those motivations still existed, the pioneer spirit and entrepreneurialism pushed further development.

In late 1958, the U.S. government’s fear of falling behind the Russians drove NASA to impose an ambitious schedule on the Mercury program that included the production of the capsules that would be used for the first crewed flight on May 5, 1961, and five subsequent missions, as well as several engineering prototypes.

Designed and integrated by McDonnell Aircraft, the vehicles’ compact structure provided just enough room to shoehorn in an astronaut and their space suit, along with the minimum complement of life support, communication, propulsion, and guidance systems needed to support brief forays into space.

Mercury’s aluminum and titanium structure was sheathed in panels made of Rene 41, a heat-resistant nickel-based alloy. The capsule was equipped with small hydrogen peroxide-powered thrusters that could orient the craft while in orbit and three solid-fuel retrorockets which could be fired to slow the craft down enough to fall towards Earth. The cone-shaped vehicle would reenter the atmosphere leading with its blunt circular base, protected by an ablative heat shield that used the same principles and technologies originally developed to enable ballistic nuclear warheads to survive the fiery conditions they would encounter on the way to their targets. Mercury’s nose contained three parachutes which would deploy after entering the lower atmosphere, further slowing the craft to make a relatively soft water landing where it would be plucked from the ocean by helicopters and delivered to a nearby ship.

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Tech Execs Must Act to Avoid Chip Tariff Trap;

Tech Execs Must Act to Avoid Chip Tariff Trap

By Mike Markowitz

Donald Trump’s latest proposal to impose tariffs as high as 100 percent on semiconductors imported from Taiwan may sound like a straightforward solution to boosting domestic manufacturing, but for those who understand the complexities of the industry, it’s a reckless move that could do more harm than good.

Tech executives cannot afford to stay silent. Now is the time to engage with policymakers and educate them on the severe consequences such tariffs would have on the very companies they claim to be protecting.

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DeepSeek: Stop the Panic

DeepSeek: Stop the Panic

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:

DeepSeek nearly sank Nvidia and other AI model players. Except DeepSeek itself is barely known by anyone, its true story still a mystery, and the likely impact on the artificial intelligence market undetermined. It won’t be the last enterprise to put a dent on the AI market, however, according to Market Traction’s Steve Carr who says many more such surprises are waiting in the wings, both in the West and in China.

The race for leadership of the artificial intelligence market got scrambled last week. The debut of China’s DeepSeek AI model sparked a selling frenzy on Wall Street as spooked investors dumped Nvidia and other AI-related stocks. The implications of DeepSeek’s platform are not clear, however. Not enough is known about how it was developed, meaning a full assessment of its market implications are months away.

What is clear is that DeepSeek’s AI model isn’t a result of any mega innovation in semiconductor or software processing, considering the Chinese company is leveraging resources from other models, including ChatGPT, and depended on chips from Nvidia Corp., the market’s leading vendor of AI semiconductors. This doesn’t take away from the disruptive effects DeepSeek has had on the market already, though. Other questions were raised in a webcast discussion with Steve Carr, founder of Markettraction.io and TalkingIoT.

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Mercury and SpaceShipOne: 40-years of Evolution

Mercury and SpaceShipOne: 40-years of Technical Evolution

By Lee Goldberg, Contributing Editor

What’s at Stake:

Technological evolution is about building on the foundations and lessons of the past. The heritage of the US Space Program is a testament to that evolution. There is great value in comparing and contrasting two groundbreaking “firsts.” Read the 3-part mission to learn more.

More than six decades ago, Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard a Mercury capsule which was propelled into its suborbital flight by a rocket derived from the V2, a WWII-era ballistic weapon. Roughly forty years later, Mike Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne, a privately funded, air-launched, rocket-propelled vehicle to the edge of space, becoming the world’s first licensed commercial astronaut.

Although they served very different objectives and were separated by decades of technological advances, each project laid the foundations for the more advanced missions that followed. Surprisingly, Mercury and SpaceShipOne also shared several important elements that contributed to their missions’ success. In this first of a three-part series, we’ll look at both spacecraft to see how they were different and, especially, how they were similar.

Two Very Different Spacecraft – or were they?

At first glance, the Mercury capsule and SpaceShipOne appeared to have had little in common. 

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Eloy: The Future of Automotive is being Created in China

Eloy: The Future of Automotive is being Created in China

By Bolaji Ojo

Jean-Christophe Eloy has been closely involved in the electronics and semiconductor industries for several decades, during which period the founder and CEO of the Yole Group has observed a handful of transitions in the sector.

Another one is taking place now, according to Eloy, who says the current transformation of the technology world is multifaceted and deeper than previous ones because it encompasses most segments of the global economy. To further complicate the situation, the industry is also trying to wrangle down the disruptive impacts of geopolitical disputes and the uncertainties associated with the applications, investments and access to innovations in artificial intelligence, he noted.

In a webcast interview with editors of the Ojo-Yoshida Report, Eloy explored diverse topics of interest to the industry, ranging from AI to the increasing role of China in the semiconductor supply chain and the outlook for leading players like Nvidia and TSMC. He also delved into the fractious issue of how Taiwan’s relationship with China and the West will be resolved, suggesting that he sees a peaceful, negotiated resolution that while not pleasing to everyone would still be acceptable on a longer-term basis.

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