Semiconductors

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman meets with Samsung execs as memory chip shortage deepens

Follows comments made by Altman on a podcast about underutilization of DRAM in desktop computers

Intel says Israel fab explosion will cost company $600m in losses, as Q3 ‘26 revenue hits $16.5bn

Intel Foundry operating losses down QoQ, with chipmaker claiming 14A customer announcements are coming soon

PC chip plunge wipes out a quarter of Intel’s value

CEO predicts massive datacenter CPU boom, coming soon, but production problems mean Chipzilla may not cash in

Cerebras chips have shorter lifespans than statements suggest, short-seller report claims

Culper research claims the lifespan “undermines the entire business”

Canadian Startup Aims to Be Quantum’s ‘Picks’ and ‘Shovels’

Toronto-based Meissner Technologies uses AI and laboratory testing to discover superconducting materials that could cut cooling costs and help quantum computers scale.

IBM connects quantum chips with ‘quantum channels’ at 99% accuracy

IBM has reached a critical milestone for scaling quantum computers, the company announced.

Apple takes powerful M6 chip to the MacBook Pro, iMac

6th-gen M-series silicon promises more cores, faster memory, a fatter NPU, and better connectivity, now in more form factors

Also: TechCrunch

Pt-W Alloy Shows Potential For Thinner High-NA EUV Mask Absorbers (Chinese Academy of Sciences et al.)

Researchers at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jilin University, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Manufacturing for Optical Systems, and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences published a technical paper titled “Evaluating an alternative…

Dry-Deposited Resist Shows Different Tone Behavior Under EUV And E-Beam Exposure (KU Leuven, Kunsan, VUB, Imec)

Researchers at KU Leuven, Kunsan National University, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, imec, et al.

Silicon Photonic Modulator Reaches 200 Gb/s PAM4 With Reduced DSP (Science Tokyo, Yokohama, AIST, PETRA)

Researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo, Yokohama National University, AIST, and Photonics Electronics Technology Research Association (PETRA) published a technical paper titled “Reduced-DSP 200G/λ Low-Voltage Slow-Light Silicon…

Commonwealth Fusion Systems gets $85M to build better fusion-ready semiconductors

Top-funded fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems received an $85 million award from the federal government to advance conductors for fusion power plants.

Vertical Semiconductor awarded $73m in CHIPS Act funding to support vGaN transistor development

The agreement will see the Department of Commerce take a minority stake in the company

Aleria to deploy Nvidia Blackwell and Vera Rubin GPUs in US and UAE

Neocloud partners with DDN on deployment

US Department of Commerce commits up to $389m in R&D funding to power semiconductors for fusion and advanced computing

Google-backed CFS and Microsoft-backed Helion to receive R&D funding

US pumps $400M into semiconductor R&D

The US Commerce Department awarded $389 million in R&D funding to four companies working on semiconductor development, under the government’s CHIPS and Science Act.

Intel makes construction move on delayed US chip plant

Intel heralded a construction milestone at a long-planned semiconductor manufacturing facility in the US state of Ohio after installing the first major structural truss years after it was announced.

To help world gorge on GPUs, Nvidia brings cash bucket to fatten wafer-thin supply chain

Signs Samsung to build substrates, bolsters spend with other players

Tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs sit idle in Meta's Prometheus supercluster, just waiting for a failure

And other fun facts about how Zuckercorp aims to keep a million GPUs running long enough to train a model

A Composable Thermal Solver For Heterogeneous 2.5D/3D-IC Packages (Cadence, Notre Dame)

Researchers at Cadence Design Systems and the University of Notre Dame published “A Composable AI-Accelerated Iterative Solver for 3D-IC Thermal Modeling.” Abstract: “Accurate thermal analysis of heterogeneous 2.5D/3D-IC packages is…

Thermal Side Channels Create New Security Risks For Autonomous Vehicles (Missouri S&T)

Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology published “Can Autonomous Vehicles Keep Their Cool?

Intel and Applied Materials to collaborate on chip manufacturing advancements

Work will take place at the companies' respective R&D facilities

Musk plays down TSMC presence at AI fab facility

Elon Musk ruled out Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company taking an operational role in Terafab, the billionaire’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility in the US state of Texas.

Monolithic 3D Memristor-TFT Stack For Programmable Neuromorphic Computing (SNU, Yonsei)

Researchers at Seoul National University and Yonsei University published a technical paper titled “Monolithic three-dimensionally integrated memristor-thin-film transistor for electrically programmable multimode reservoir computing.”…

AI Power Spikes Demand Chip-to-Grid Design Changes

AI data centers’ rapid power swings threaten grid stability, requiring coordinated chip-to-grid strategies across chip makers, operators, utilities, and infrastructure providers.