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Yes, it is the Supply Chain, Ladies & Gents

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Modern commerce, of any kind, hangs on the strengths, durability and effectiveness of the supply chain(s) that supports it. In the electronics industry, when the supply chain is fragile, porous or insufficiently flexible, disaster is never far away, notwithstanding the type of business, the value or uniqueness of the design. Engineers, too, are negatively impacted when the supply chain crashes. Now, they are teaming up with other players to find solutions. Will this be a permanent move or will the momentum die as quickly as the next cycle?

What does the global electronics industry have in common with The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemmingway’s ageless story of one man’s struggle with fate?

Read More »Yes, it is the Supply Chain, Ladies & Gents
Renesas and Wolfspeed sign a SiC wafer supply agreement.

Renesas’ $2B Investment Will Keep on Giving

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
The $2 billion Renesas is paying to Wolfspeed will guarantee supply of the silicon carbide the Japanese chipmaker would require over the next decade, but this looks like the beginning of a deeper relationship. SiC is the future of power computing and securing supplies as well as financing for fabs is key to success for everyone. So, which direction will Renesas and Wolfspeed next take their relationship?

Wolfspeed Inc. CEO Gregg Lowe is going to have fewer sleepless nights now. Money is pouring in for the US company’s growing fabs capex splurge.

Over in Japan, Hidetoshi Shibata is celebrating scoring a coup, too. Renesas Inc.’s boss will have an easier time answering probing questions that investors, customers and reporters have been asking about his company’s silicon carbide (SiC) strategy.

Read More »Renesas’ $2B Investment Will Keep on Giving
Moving AI-Driven Data Between Tools and Fabs

Moving AI-Driven Data Between Tools and Fabs

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Using AI as a tool is an idea broadly embraced in the semiconductor industry. But putting AI into practice needs validated data easily shared within the flow of design, testing and manufacturing. Stakes are high for an industry that must now forced to handle data coming from many sources in different forms.

The semiconductor industry’s quest for consistent data is foremost in discussions at the Semicon West and Design Automation Conference this week in San Francisco.

Read More »Moving AI-Driven Data Between Tools and Fabs
The Future of Chiplets

The Future of Chiplets

By Ron Wilson

What’s at stake:
What lies in the future for chiplets? They could change the structure of the semiconductor industry, freeing it from the geriatric grip of Moore’s Law and the hegemony of three giant manufacturers. Or they could, like thin-film hybrids and multidie packages before them, withdraw into a few application niches where their challenges are manageable and their costs acceptable.

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Jim Keller at Intel (left) and Jim Keller at Tenstorrent

Jim Keller’s Journey from CPUs to CEO

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Although regarded as a “natural” in computer architecture, Jim Keller acknowledges he had to work hard to develop skills that enable him to lead thousands of engineers. How did he do it? What worked? What didn’t? Keller traces his evolution for us.

Practically everyone in the semiconductor world knows who Jim Keller is. The legendary CPU designer is revered throughout the engineering community.

Read More »Jim Keller’s Journey from CPUs to CEO
Maud Vinet

The Secret Life of a Quantum Computing CEO

By Adele Hars

What’s at stake:
Quantum computing is a hot field. All the major industry players worldwide are working on it, with hefty help from governments and investors. Expectations are running high. At stake is who will hold the key to the new technology that could touch everything from pharmaceuticals to cybersecurity, AI, finance, healthcare, logistics and more.

France is a hotbed of quantum startups. At the end of 2022, CEA-Leti, the giant French microelectronics lab in Grenoble, added to the pack by spinning off its quantum hardware division. To head up the new company, called Siquance, CEA-Leti named Maud Vinet as CEO and Co-Founder. No surprise, perhaps, as Vinet had spent the last five years heading up Leti’s quantum hardware division.

Read More »The Secret Life of a Quantum Computing CEO
Global Forecast

Chips, Politics, High Numbers

By Peter Clarke

Don’t trust the headline-grabbing numbers.

We’ve had a spate of semiconductor factory announcements in recent days from the U.S. semiconductor leaders Intel and Micron. They mentioned multibillion-dollar sums of money. Those who made timely appearances in such announcement were leaders of governments despite their busy agendas.

Read More »Chips, Politics, High Numbers
Jim Keller, CEO at Tenstorrent

Jim Keller Sketches AI Strategy to Bypass Nvidia

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
In an AI market totally dominated by Nvidia, breaking the GPU giant’s logjam is, at minimum, a challenge for anyone, even a legendary CPU architect. However, Jim Keller’s secret weapon is not his reputation. It’s his belief that open-source policies accelerate innovation.

Jim Keller is a legendary CPU architect, his name linked to a host of commercially successful processors. Over three decades in several organizations, Keller, as a hands-on engineer, worked with or led teams who have developed architecture ranging from Alpha at Digital Equipment Corporation, K8, K12 and Zen at AMD, Apple’s A4, A5 and other apps processors, to the Full Self-Driving (FSD) Computer chip at Tesla.

Keller resembles a talented actor with a nose for great scripts and starring in a string of award-winning movies. However, it remains to be seen whether Tenstorrent, an AI hardware startup where Keller graduated from early investor to CEO today, will be the winner in the evolving AI race.

Read More »Jim Keller Sketches AI Strategy to Bypass Nvidia