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TSMC Quagmire: No Holy Lands for Chip Production

TSMC Cannot Justify Taiwan-Centric Chip Production

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
TSMC’s Taiwan-centric semiconductor manufacturing strategy helped it win the foundry race. However, that system is endangering the entire industry and calls into question its claim to be a global enterprise. Even now, TSMC remains wedded to its Taiwan-first manufacturing ideal. Unless it can build elsewhere an ecosystem as efficient as what it has in Taiwan, TSMC will remain a danger to the global semiconductor industry.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has become too big to fail. And that is a problem for the entire electronics value chain.

It is the preferred foundry – and too often the only viable – partner for the world’s biggest fabless chipmakers; Intel Corp., the troubled MPU vendor that was once the global No. 1 semiconductor vendor by revenue and capitalization, found solace in TSMC’s arms while Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable chip vendor, credits the foundry with its survival.

That’s all good, justifiable and even admirable. But even TSMC has its Achilles heel. Except, unlike Hercules, TSMC has more than one major weakness. We have all just been too enamored of its ascent to realize the foundry may now represent the Weakest Link in the electronics supply chain. 

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Sameer Wasson’s Vision for MIPS/RISC-V

Sameer Wasson’s Vision for MIPS/RISC-V

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
MIPS, a storied CPU IP core company with a tortuous business/management history, is writing a new chapter under the watch of new CEO Sameer Wasson, formerly an executive at Texas Instruments. Can he lift MIPS from oblivion to relevance and solid growth? Wasson’s first order of business is to explain to the world who MIPS really is today.

Three months in, Wasson told The Ojo-Yoshida Report, “We just got started. We have a lot of work ahead of us.” The MIPS plan includes beefing up its work force from 62 when Wasson joined to “just under 100” by year’s end.

The Ojo-Yoshida Report picked up chatter this week that recent layoffs at SiFive have served as a source of talents for MIPS. We asked Wasson if some ex-SiFivers have migrated to MIPS. Wasson said, “We have hired some people who were let go. But we’re also hiring more people who are not let go.”

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Can Anyone Catch up with Nvidia?

Can Anyone Catch up with Nvidia?

By Jon Peddie

Being in the right place at the right time is one way to success (assuming you’re smart enough to recognize the opportunity). Anticipating a market developing is another way, and creating a market is yet one more way to success. Nvidia has done all that and more with AI.

Before Large Language Models (LLMs), transformers, and generative AI exploded on the scene, Nvidia was already seeding what was called then “accelerated-compute,” or GPU-compute, and used its CUDA C++ like programming language as a catalyst and gateway to exploiting the power of parallel processing with a GPU. GPUs are complex devices and getting multiple threads of data to behave properly and in sync is a tricky process. CUDA took a lot of the drudgery out of that work and the payoff was so good that hundreds of developers in large organizations took advantage of it and built up a huge library of proprietary and open programs that ran on Nvidia GPUs.

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Three 'Transparency' Questions for GM/Cruise

Three ‘Transparency’ Questions for GM/Cruise

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
When a company previously not known for being candid with regulators, the public and media about its safety practices suddenly proclaims that “Safety Is Our North Star,” a competent reporter’s response is to heighten my vigilance and keep asking questions. In short: don’t trust, but verify.

A recent article in Forbes cites a December 1st internal email sent by Cruise’s new president and CTO Mo Elshenawy. It demonstrates a newfound mastery of lip service. Cruise now says, “Our priority from day one will be to launch with communities, not at them,” by relaunching “ridehail in one city.”

Ostensibly, it’s refreshing to see this180-degree shift from the company’s previous “it’s-all-about-scaling” strategy.

Equally encouraging is a statement by Farly Ury, a GM spokesperson, quoted by Forbes: “GM remains committed to supporting the independent safety reviews and Cruise as they refocus on trust, accountability and transparency.”

But here’s the rub.

Read More »Three ‘Transparency’ Questions for GM/Cruise
How Will Nvidia Change -- and Change the Chip Industry?

How Will Nvidia Change — and Change the Chip Industry?

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake?
Nvidia’s dominance of the AI chip market is forcing massive changes throughout the technology sector. With such disruptive changes come great opportunities, great hazards and the need for the established players to adapt or die. Who will be left standing once Nvidia is done?

The exceptional nature of Nvidia Corp.’s latest quarterly financial results – and the way they have defied the tyranny of large numbers – demonstrates what many have believed for some time; that a fundamental change in technology is sweeping across society.

That change is towards the use of generative-AI, the use of AI-enabled software agents and natural language interfacing.

Read More »How Will Nvidia Change — and Change the Chip Industry?
Infineon: Europe’s Overachieving, yet ‘Undervalued’ Chip Gem

Infineon: Europe’s Overachieving, yet ‘Undervalued’ Chip Gem

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
Infineon Technologies blazed through the industry’s recent downturn unscathed, a testament to its well-placed bets on recession-proof segments of the semiconductor market. Now comes the hard part; proving this was not a fluke performance, fending off Chinese rivals and determining the right amount of fab capacity in a rapidly evolving market.

Infineon Technologies AG should be a hot stock. It is not.

Institutional equity investors and bargain hunters should be banging on the German semiconductor supplier’s doors and helping to boost its market value to several multiples of the current €47 billion ($51 billion). Infineon seems to be lacking such an appeal.

That’s a shame.

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