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AI: Artificial or Alchemical Intelligence?

By David Benjamin

“Reynard affirmed that he had sent her majesty the queen a comb made of panthera bone ‘more lustrous than the rainbow, more odiferous than any perfume, a charm against every ill, a universal panacea.”

— Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, in reference to Hinreck van Alckmer, Reynard the Fox (1498)

According to Greek legend, Panacea, daughter of Aesculapius, god of medicine and healing, had powers to bestow on humanity the cure for everything that ails us. In English, a “panacea” solves everything.

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SandBox Moving AI Tools Beyond IC Design — to Manufacturing

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake: 
The chip industry’s trajectory changed forever when a wave of EDA companies sprang up in the 1980s and offered commercial tools to accelerate complex IC design. Traditionally reliant on internal expertise to improve process engineering at fabs, chipmakers might now be ready to embrace commercial tools developed for semiconductor production. 

Manufacturing is the new black in the chip industry.

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Distribution M&A

Distribution M&A: East Goes West, at Last

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Taiwan’s WT Microelectronics, in offering to purchase Canada’s Future Electronics, is breaking new grounds. The proposed East-West purchase is a rarity in the electronics component distribution world. M&As in the business have crawled to a halt since the 1990s when the biggest players led the consolidation of the market. Is another consolidation on tap in the distribution sector and will the biggest companies be on the block this time?

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When an AV Has the Wheel, Who's Driving?

When an AV Has the Wheel, Who’s Driving?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
We have heard endlessly how robotaxis are safer than human-driven vehicles. In Vienna, at the Autonomous conference, held under the auspices of TTTech Auto, we came not necessarily to debunk that myth but to pick the brains of automakers and regulators about the thorny issues of liability.  

It’s a sin to squander an opportunity to take the stage and ask direct questions to people in charge. Waffling and evasion are typical results. Nonetheless, even those non-answers live on in the public record.

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RISC-V Taking Flight on ‘Airbus’ Model

RISC-V Taking Flight on ‘Airbus’ Model

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
One boneheaded move by Nvidia to buy Arm, exacerbated by the geopolitical tension between China and the United States, forced the formation of a Europe-based RISC-V venture. 

Europe is angling to play a crucial role in the global semiconductor world,  this time with RISC-V. The formation of a new RISC-V venture – announced in August – signals the necessity of this European initiative.

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The Semiconductor Downturn Has ‘Bottomed’

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Semiconductor sales returned to a positive position in the second quarter, ending early what had been feared could be a prolonged downturn, says a veteran analyst who was heavily bearish about the direction of the market. But is this the beginning of a new upturn or is the industry heading to a false recovery with dips and upswings?

Semiconductor sales swung back into positive territory in the second quarter, defying expectations for a prolonged downturn and shaving off 12 percentage points from a dire outlook from one of the industry’s most respected forecasters.

Malcolm Penn, CEO and founder of IC consulting and research firm, Future Horizons, on Tuesday pronounced the end of the latest semiconductor sales downturn, saying the industry pushed its recovery forward by one quarter.

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Neuroscientists vs. Data Scientists

Numenta Steps into AI-Neuroscience Rift

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
The human brain is known for its efficiency, storing and processing information as sparse representations. At any moment, only a small fraction of neurons are active. Neuroscientists believe they can map brain-inspired logic into algorithms, data structures and architecture running AI models so that they offer a recipe to put “AI power hog” on a diet. Undetermined is whether data scientists are willing to alter their brute-force compute-based AI practice, which appears increasingly unsustainable.

It’s not often you meet a mostly self-funded startup, much less one that, for 18 years, has played a long game in neuroscience research, before suddenly unveiling a commercial software product.

More significantly, the startup’s new product poses a direct challenge to the red-hot Large Language Model (LLM) AI market.

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