Latest Semiconductor News Released on August 13 to 19, 2023

Tachyum's Prodigy universal chip now has 192 cores

Tachyum has boosted the number of cores in its Prodigy universal processor to 192 by the latest electronic design automation (EDA) tools, while increasing the chip size by only 20%. As of now, the 192-core chip does not appear to be taped out, and the company has not said when it plans to start sampling or shipping the processors to interested companies.

The semiconductor industry is expected to recover in 2024

The global semiconductor industry appears to be nearing the end of the down cycle, with a recovery expected to begin in 2024 as the sequential decline in IC sales begins to moderate.

In the Q3 of 2023, electronics sales are expected to post a healthy 10% quarter-over-quarter growth, while global memory IC sales are expected to post double-digit growth for the first time since the downturn began in the third quarter of 2022, and logic IC sales in the world are expected to remain stable and improve as demand gradually recovers.

Samsung sold more than half of its stake in ASML

Samsung Electronics has sold 3.55 million shares in Dutch chip equipment maker ASML Holding NV, worth an estimated 3 trillion won (USD 2.2 billion). Samsung's electronics business reported that it sold a 0.9% stake in the second quarter, with Samsung's stake in ASML falling to 0.7% from 1.6% in the first quarter.

Foxconn secures major chip substrate order for Nvidia's HGX AI servers

Foxconn won the first large order of NVIDIA’s HGX server AI chip substrate, with a supply ratio of more than 50%. In addition, it has previously received another order from Nvidia for DGX server AI chip substrates. So the company has obtained orders of Nvidia’s two most important AI server substrates, and the proportion of supply has gradually increased.

TSMC to install the first EUV machine in Arizona factory in the U.S.

TSMC's Arizona factory in the United States is introduced the first local extreme ultraviolet (EUV) equipment for installation. As the construction of the factory enters the critical stage of installing advanced and sophisticated equipment, suppliers continue to recruit, and it is estimated that there are still 2,000 vacancies for local related equipment installation engineers. So the company will send more workers to there to catch up. Because Arizona factory is expected to mass produce 4nm process chips in 2025.

TSMC stated that it will work with suppliers to create local employment opportunities, while providing an inclusive working environment, and strive to build a sustainable supply chain.

Intel cuts more than 140 positions in California to reduce costs

Intel is laying off 140 employees in California: 89 employees are being let go at Intel's Folsom campus and 51 jobs will be cut in San Jose. The report said 37 job categories were affected at the Folsom plant, with the main titles affected being "engineer" and "architect". Specifically, the company will lay off 10 GPU software development engineers, 8 system software development engineers, 6 cloud software engineers, 6 product marketing engineers and 6 system-on-chip (SoC) design engineers.

Nvidia makes nearly 1000% profit on H100 GPUs sold

According to a recent social media post by Barron's senior writer Tae Kim, Nvidia is currently earning a staggering 1000% profit on the sale of each H100 Hopper graphics card accelerator. In dollar terms, this means that Nvidia's market price for each high-performance computing (HPC) accelerator (the cheapest PCIe version) is about $25,000-30,000, which is far more than each chip and peripheral (in-board) components Estimated cost of $3320.

Intel announces termination of Tower Semiconductor

Intel officially announced the termination of a $5.4 billion deal with Tower Semiconductor because it failed to obtain timely regulatory approval.

In a statement on Wednesday that the company had mutually agreed to terminate the agreement with Tower Semiconductor on February 2022. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Intel will pay a termination fee of $353 million to Tower.