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LATEST NEWS |
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EENEWS POWER |
The latest results from Renesas Electronics highlight the challenge so the industrial market for chip makers, while the results from Wolfspeed gave more insight into the challenges of ramping up its silicon carbide fab in the US. CHIPS Act funding in the US was also key to the GlobalFoundries expansion and new fab, which will include gallium nitride production.
At the same time there was significant interest in how to chose a charger for lithium batteries, which includes the developing use of GaN transistors.
STMicroelectronics is continuing to drive integration in its STM32 microcontrollers, adding graphics controllers, while researchers in the US found a way to make car radar systems see things that are not there. The results of the research are a key message for the developers of radar sensors and processing algorithms.
February also saw the risk of some older Intel processors being banned in Europe. The patent case being brought by R2 Semiconductor has implications for the region.
The top stories in February covered emerging technologies. ARM launched its chiplet IP support for future devices, while Belgian research lab imec is aiming to set up a lab in Spain. This would be near to the Vodafone lab that has been working with ARM on the latest wireless chips, and also developed a second generation of its ‘basestation in a box’. Developed with Lime Microsystems in the UK, this provides 5G coverage and will support the use of the latest Raspberry Pi 5 boards.
Among the top ten articles in January were the latest radar system from Provizio and a low cost radar chip from TI, NXP launched single chip 28nm RFCMOS radar and ST moved its graphics accelerator into microcontrollers.
While AMD issues a notice that it is to discontinue its CPLDs and low end FPGAs, researchers have identified room temperature superconductivity shown in graphite. A variety of battery technologies were popular articles in January.
Schaeffler is set to show silicon solid state battery while a scalable nuclear battery developed in China uses diamond for 50 year life. Alongside these articles, Acculon in the US has started production of sodium ion battery cells and packs. This marks a key step in development of sodium battery technology where Europe is a major player.
Technology around the RISC-V open instruction set architecture was also among the top ten articles. ONiO in Norway talked to Nick Flaherty about its ultra low power RISC-V microcontroller that aims to eliminate the battery in designs for the Internet of Things, while Sameer Wasson, the CEO at MIPS. Talked to Peter Clarke about the company’s continuing RISC-V reboot. Alongside, tool developer Segger combined ARM and RISC-V support in a single integrated development environment (IDE), while the most popular articles are Innatera’s launch of its RISC-V neuromorphic edge AI microcontroller at CES 2024.
The data from 2023 has highlighted key shifts in the
electronics market through the pages of eeNews Europe.
There was significant interest in the top 25 global and
Chinese chip companies, and the Chinese ownership of Nexperia in the
Netherlands leading to the sale of the Newport fab in the UK to Vishay has been
a major theme throughout the year. The supply chain issues have died down a
little, with new plants in India of particular interest.
Of the advances in quantum technology throughout the year, the Rigetti 84 qubit quantum processor was the most read article in the year, while the early use of ChatGPT showed that design IP was leaking out at Samsung and other chip makers.
Raspberry
Pi is of regular interest to the readers of eeNews Europe, and the coming
together with Arduino was a key article in the year.
RISC-V
was a key trend through 2022, but surprisingly hasn’t made it into the top ten
for 2023, perhaps indicating its move into the mainstream, with the first
general purpose microcontrollers from Renesas emerging in December.
The sanctions against China drove much of the interest in articles through the year, with the theft of data from equipment maker ASML and the development of a source of extreme UV light for leading edge chip manufacturing.
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