Worldwide semiconductor revenue in 2023 totaled $533 billion, a decrease of 11.1% from 2022, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

"While the cyclicality in the semiconductor industry was present again in 2023, the market suffered a difficult year with memory revenue recording one of its worst declines in history," said Alan Priestley, VP Analyst at Gartner. "The underperforming market also negatively impacted several semiconductor vendors. Only 9 of the top 25 semiconductor vendors posted revenue growth in 2023, with 10 experiencing double-digit declines."

The combined semiconductor revenue of the top 25 semiconductor vendors declined 14.1% in 2023, accounting for 74.4% of the market, down from 77.2% in 2022.

According to the report coming from Bloomberg, European Union has approved as much as 8.1 billion Euros (about 8.6 billion USD) for research of advanced semiconductors. Accompanied by the 13.7 billion Euros in private funds, the total investment for boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the EU is almost 22 billion Euros. As part of the European CHIPS Act, the project aims to develop Europe as the world's semiconductor powerhouse, with as much as 20% of all semiconductors produced in the EU by 2030. This ambitious goal is backed by state subsidies, as well as investors creating private pools of funds to aid companies in creating semiconductor manufacturing facilities on European soil.

This Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on Microelectronics and Communication Technologies is an essential step for Europe's semiconductor independence. Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton noted, "In a geopolitical context of de-risking, Europe is taking its destiny into its own hands. By mastering the most advanced semiconductors, the EU will become an industrial powerhouse in markets of the future." Companies like Intel, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, GlobalFoundries, and Wolfspeed announced European investments, with TSMC considering a production facility in Germany. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has noted that Germany has 31 projects in 11 regions, adding, "We can thus increase resilience across Europe in this important field and secure value creation and jobs."

GlobalFoundries Inc., a global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, and STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, announced today the conclusion of the agreement to create a new, jointly-operated, high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in Crolles (France), which was announced on 11 July 2022.

"I would like to thank Minister Le Maire, the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, and his team for their support and the dedication for the last 12+ months that have made celebrating today's milestone possible," said Dr. Thomas Caulfield, President and CEO of GlobalFoundries. "In partnership with ST in Crolles, we are further expanding GF's presence within Europe's dynamic technology ecosystem while benefiting from economies of scale to deliver additional capacity in a highly capital efficient manner. Together we will deliver GF's market leading FDX technology and ST's comprehensive technology roadmap, in alignment with customer demand which is expected to remain high for Automotive, IoT, and Mobile applications over the next decades."

Semiconductor manufacturers worldwide are forecast to increase 300 mm fab capacity to an all-time high of 9.6 million wafers per month (wpm) in 2026, SEMI announced today in its 300 mm Fab Outlook to 2026 report. After strong growth in 2021 and 2022, the 300 mm capacity expansion is expected to slow this year due to soft demand for memory and logic devices.

"While the pace of the global 300 mm fab capacity expansion is moderating, the industry remains squarely focused on growing capacity to meet robust secular demand for semiconductors," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI President and CEO. "The foundry, memory and power sectors will be major drivers of the new record capacity increase expected in 2026."

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, has announced tool extensions that bring the advantages of Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) to STM32 microcontrollers. VS Code is a popular Integrated Development Environment (IDE), acclaimed for its ease of use and flexible features such as IntelliSense that simplifies and accelerates code editing. Access to the STM32 ecosystem, from within VS Code, now makes these features available to even more embedded developers of the wide STM32 community. It also lets developers accustomed to working on high-level and consumer applications easily create embedded solutions that are power-efficient, compact, and economical.

"Connecting VS Code with our STM32 ecosystem makes the power of the industry-leading STM32 family of microcontrollers more accessible than ever," said Daniel Colonna, Marketing Director Microcontrollers, STMicroelectronics. "Communities for whom VS Code is the preferred environment, including high-level software developers, academics, and enthusiasts and makers, can now choose to make their ideas real using STM32 MCUs without leaving their preferred development environment."

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, and GlobalFoundries Inc., a global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, today announced they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a new, jointly-operated 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing facility adjacent to ST's existing 300 mm facility in Crolles, France. This facility is targeted to ramp at full capacity by 2026, with up to 620,000 300 mm wafer per year production at full build-out (~42% ST and ~58% GF).

ST and GF are committed to building capacity for their European and global customer base. This new facility will support several technologies, in particular FD-SOI-based technologies, and will cover multiple variants. This includes GF's market leading FDX technology and ST's comprehensive technology roadmap down to 18 nm, which are expected to remain in high demand for Automotive, IoT, and Mobile applications for the next few decades. FD-SOI technology has origins in the Grenoble (France) area. It has been part of ST technology and product roadmap in its Crolles facility since the early beginnings, and it was later enabled with differentiation and commercialized for manufacturing at GF's Dresden facility. FD-SOI offers substantial benefits for designers and customers, including ultra-low power consumption as well as easier integration of additional features such as RF connectivity, mmWave and security.

According to TrendForce, market conditions in 1H22 were chaotic and there was disparate demand for chips of varying functionality. Given the global development of electronic devices and power systems, overall demand for power management ICs (PMIC) is still relatively good. PMICs are used in consumer electronics, communications, computing, industrial control, automotive and other fields. In 2H22, supply and demand gradually diverged and demand for automotive Switching Regulators, Multi Channel PMICs was strongest.

According to TrendForce, there are various specifications and types of PMICs, including Linear Regulators, etc. Even usage scenario dependent products such as Battery Charging & Management, Voltage References, and USB Power Delivery ICs all fall into this category.

Recent news suggests that TSMC isn't too interested in setting up a fab in Europe, but it appears there are other interested parties that are now courting the EU, namely a potential joint venture between GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics. The two companies are hoping to get a slice of the same cake as Intel, namely the European Chips Act, to help subsidise the cost of the proposed fab. Although GlobalFoundries are headquartered in New York and STMicroelectronics in Geneva, the latter being a French-Italian conglomerate, the planned location for the new fab will be somewhere in France.

It's highly unlikely that this will be a cutting edge or even a leading edge fab, as neither company is in the business of producing products in those market segments. ST makes a wide range of chips from MCUs and other types of microprocessors, to specialised memory products, a wide range of sensors, MEMS based devices and all kinds of electronics for electrical vehicles, as well as highly specialised components for the space industry. GloFo obviously stepped off the competitive foundry ladder some years ago and have been focusing on specialised processes and nodes since then, such as FD-SOI, a technology, something the two companies announced a joint partnership around earlier this year. As such, it's likely that this potential fab will focus on making parts needed for the automotive industry in Europe, among other things. There's still a long way to go and neither company has made any kind of official statement about the potential partnership as yet.

Intel today announced the first phase of its plans to invest as much as 80 billion euros in the European Union over the next decade along the entire semiconductor value chain - from research and development (R&D) to manufacturing to state-of-the art packaging technologies. Today's announcement includes plans to invest an initial 17 billion euros into a leading-edge semiconductor fab mega-site in Germany, to create a new R&D and design hub in France, and to invest in R&D, manufacturing and foundry services in Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. With this landmark investment, Intel plans to bring its most advanced technology to Europe, creating a next-generation European chip ecosystem and addressing the need for a more balanced and resilient supply chain.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said: "Our planned investments are a major step both for Intel and for Europe. The EU Chips Act will empower private companies and governments to work together to drastically advance Europe's position in the semiconductor sector. This broad initiative will boost Europe's R&D innovation and bring leading-edge manufacturing to the region for the benefit of our customers and partners around the world. We are committed to playing an essential role in shaping Europe's digital future for decades to come."

With Intel still not having announced where in Europe they'll set up shop next, but with Magdeburg, Germany being the hot ticket, Italy is now trying to figure out how they can win over some chip makers, least not Intel. The country is working on a €4 billion chip fund of its own to entice chip makers to set up shop in the nation. However, it seems like the fund is going to spread out over time, as it'll run until 2030, the same time frame as the EU's €15 billion chip fund is going to run. Italy will apparently divide the money in chunks of €500 million per year from 2023 to 2030.

Italy was apparently considering giving it all to Intel, according to Reuters, plus another €4 billion in other incentives, over a 10 year period. If that is still the case, isn't clear, especially as the nation is said to be in talks with STMicroelectronics, MEMC Electronic Materials, Tower Semi (now Intel) and others. Reuters claims that negotiations with Intel are very tough, as the company has a lot of demands. The Italian government is also said to be promoting "research and development of microprocessor technology and investments in new industrial applications of innovative technologies".

USound, a global developer and manufacturer of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) loudspeakers for personal devices and wearable technology, today announced that it has raised $30 million (€25 million) to move into mass production of its second generation MEMS loudspeakers for several global companies. The investment round was led by Austria's leading venture capital firm, eQventure, with participation from venture capitalists Hermann Hauser (co-founder of ARM) and Longzhong Yang (co-founder of BYD), as well as a strong participation from the European Investment Bank.

USound MEMS loudspeakers take up 50% less space, use 80% less energy, and boast a greater frequency range than rival speaker products used in TWS earphones, headphones, smartphones, VR/AR glasses, wearables, and hearing aids. Due to its reduced size, MEMS speakers impact the size and weight of any wearable, providing more in-ear comfort and style for the consumer. USound's MEMS speakers are dramatically reducing system costs due to its SMT reflow capability, enabling fully automatic assembly of audio products to achieve the highest quality and performance. In comparison to a pure monolithic MEMS solution, USound's MEMS speakers are smaller and offer higher sound pressure levels, better sound quality, and lower manufacturing costs.

Due to material shortages caused by insufficient semiconductor supply, to date, power management IC (PMIC) prices remain on an upward trend, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Average selling price (ASP) for 1H22 is forecast to increase by nearly 10%, reaching a record six year high.

In terms of the global supply chain, in addition to the production capacity of major IDM manufacturers including TI, Infineon, ADI, STMicroelectronics, NXP, ON Semiconductor, Renesas, Microchip, ROHM (Maxim has been acquired by ADI and Dialog by Renesas), IC design houses such as Qualcomm and MediaTek (MTK) have obtained a certain level of production capacity from foundries. Of these, TI is in a leadership position and the aforementioned companies possess a combined market share of over 80%.

The third-generation semiconductor industry was impaired by the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic successively from 2018 to 2020, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. During this period, the semiconductor industry on the whole saw limited upward momentum, in turn leading to muted growth for the 3rd gen semiconductor segment as well. However, this segment is likely to enter a rapid upturn owing to high demand from automotive, industrial, and telecom applications. In particular, the GaN power device market will undergo the fastest growth, with a $61 million revenue, a 90.6% YoY increase, projected for 2021.

Chiplet design of processors is getting more popular due to many improvements and opportunities it offers. Some of the benefits include lower costs as the dies are smaller compared to one monolithic design, while you are theoretically able to stitch as much of the chiplets together as possible. During the ISSCC 2020 conference, CEA-Leti, a French research institute, created a 96 core CPU made from six 3D stacked 16 core chiplets. The chip is created as a demonstration of what this modular approach offers and what are the capabilities of the chiplet-based CPU design.

The chiplets are manufactured on the 28 nm FD-SOI manufacturing process from STMicroelectronics, while the active interposer die below them that is connecting everything is made using the 65 nm process. Each one of the six dies is housing 16 cores based on MIPS Instruction Set Architecture core. Each chiplet is split into four 4-core clusters that make up for a total of 16 cores per chiplet. When it comes to the core itself, it is a scalar MIPS32v1 core equipped with 16 KiB of L1 instruction and an L1 data cache. For L2 cache, there is 256 KiB per cluster, while the L3 cache is split into four 1 MiB tiles for the whole cluster. The chiplets are stacked on top of an active interposer which connects the chiplets and provides external I/O support.

The United States tech industry has overnight dealt a potentially fatal blow to Chinese electronics giant Huawei, by boycotting the company. The companies are establishing compliance with a recent Executive Order passed by President Donald Trump designed to "stop the import, sale, and use of equipment and services by foreign companies based in countries that are potential adversaries to U.S. interests," particularly information technology security. Google has announced that it will no longer allow Huawei to license Android, and will stop updates and Google Play access to Huawei smartphones. Huawei can still equip its phones with open-source Android, but it cannot use Google's proprietary software, including Google Play Store, Chrome, and all the other Google apps. Intel decided to no longer supply processors and other hardware to Huawei, for use in its laptops and server products. Sales of AMD processors will stop, too. Qualcomm-Broadcom have decided to stop supply of mobile SoCs and network PHYs, respectively. Microsoft decided to stop licensing Huawei to use Windows and Office products.

The ban is a consequence of the U.S. Government placing Huawei on a list of banned entities, forcing all U.S. companies to abandon all trade with it, without prior approval from the Department of Commerce. Trade cuts both ways, and not only are U.S. firms banned from buying from Huawei, they're also banned from selling to it. Huawei "buys from" over 30 U.S. companies, (for example, Windows licenses from Microsoft). CNN reports that U.S. firms could lose up to $11 billion in revenues.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that the company's 22nm FD-SOI (22FDX ) technology has delivered more than two billion dollars of client design win revenue. With more than 50 total client designs, 22FDX is proving to be the industry's leading platform for power-optimized chips across a broad range of high-growth applications such as automotive, 5G connectivity and the Internet of Things (IoT).

For clients who need significant reductions in power and die size relative to a traditional bulk CMOS process, 22FDX offers the industry's lowest operating voltage, delivering up to 500MHz frequencies at only 0.4 volts. The technology also delivers efficient single-chip integration of RF, transceiver, baseband, processor, and power management components, providing an unparalleled combination of high performance RF and mmWave functionality with low-power, high density logic for devices that require long-lasting battery life, increased processing capability, and connectivity.

"At Synaptics, as we expand upon our industry-leading mobile and PC businesses to include delivering new and innovative products that address the booming IoT market, we require the best available technologies to enable us to deliver top-notch solutions including voice and multimedia processing capabilities for our customers," said Rick Bergman, President and CEO at Synaptics. "GF's 22FDX technology delivers a potent mix of low static and dynamic power along with excellent performance to give us a great platform for our world-class products."

IBM, STMicroelectronics and Shaspa today announced a collaboration to tap cloud and mobile computing for manufacturers and service providers to provide innovative ways for consumers to manage and interact with their homes' functions and entertainment systems using multiple user interfaces such as voice recognition and physical gestures for a smarter home.

A "smart home" brings networking functions together, creating a gateway that connects a television, computer or mobile device with smart meters, lights, appliances, plugs and sensors within the home as well as services from outside. Parks Associates forecasts that more than 8 billion devices will be connected on the home network by year-end 2015.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and a top player in ICs for home multimedia, today added the STDP43 series of products to its innovative DisplayPort portfolio. These Systems-on-Chips (SoCs) are the world's first high-speed active-protocol bi-directional media-routing devices that manage audio and video data from various sources and send this data to multiple displays. The devices support DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4, the latest versions of the two most common digital-display interface technologies used in computer and consumer electronics. The STDP43 SoCs are catalytic in the rapidly expanding markets for next-generation digital signage, universal docking stations and video hubs required by the new generation of notebooks and PCs based on the latest Intel and AMD CPUs that support the multi-stream features of DisplayPort 1.2.

Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, announced foundry production of STMicroelectronics' leading products using 32/28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology. Samsung Electronics' foundry business has been selected by STMicroelectronics to provide it with products at the 32/28nm process node. The relationship has already resulted in taping-out of a dozen ST advanced system-on-chip (SoC) devices for mobile, consumer and network applications.

"We have successfully started production of STMicroelectronics' new-generation 32/28nm SoC products," said Kwang-Hyun Kim, executive vice president of Foundry business, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. "A foundry relationship with ST demonstrates our commitment to advanced process technology and our 32/28nm HKMG process-technology leadership. We have aggressively ramped 32/28nm capacity and will continue to deliver the most advanced process solutions to our customers."

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the release of the Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP) Standard. MyDP is an extension of the DisplayPort connectivity standard that enables mobile devices to share high-definition video, audio, and 3D content with the broad universe of larger external displays through common, widely adopted connectors. Offering the industry's highest mobile-to-display image resolution, MyDP allows consumers to experience their mobile content in full, uncompressed 1080p (HDTV).

"Today's mobile devices with powerful processors and mass storage capacities have become the new hub of media content," said Soumendra Mohanty, senior director of marketing for Analogix. "However, consumers wish to experience their mobile content in a more diverse manner, beyond what a four-inch screen can offer. MyDP gives the industry a standard interface to break down screen size limitations, and Analogix is ready today with its compatible SlimPort products."

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies, today announced it has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) requesting the commencement of an investigation pertaining to products from Broadcom Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., LSI Corporation, MediaTek Inc., NVIDIA Corporation and STMicroelectronics N. V. The complaint seeks an exclusion order barring the importation, sale for importation, or sale after importation of products from Broadcom, Freescale, LSI, NVIDIA and STMicroelectronics that infringe certain patents from the Dally1 family of patents, and of products from Broadcom, Freescale, LSI, MediaTek and STMicroelectronics that infringe certain patents from the Barth family of patents. In an earlier investigation requested by Rambus, the ITC found that these same Barth patents were valid and infringed by NVIDIA products, and issued an exclusion order in July of this year.

"We have been attempting to license these companies for some time to no avail. One of the respondents frankly told us that the only way they would get serious is if we sued them. Others pursued a strategy of delay rather than negotiate a reasonable resolution," said Harold Hughes, president and chief executive officer at Rambus. "Rambus has invested hundreds of millions of dollars developing a portfolio of technologies that are foundational for many digital electronics. There is widespread knowledge within the industry about our patents including their use in standards-compatible products accused in these actions. In fairness to our shareholders and to our paying licensees, we take these steps to protect our patented innovations and pursue fair compensation for their use."

The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced it is developing a CUDA C compiler targeting systems based on the industry-standard general-purpose 64- and 32-bit x86 architectures. The new PGI CUDA C compiler for x86 platforms will be demonstrated at the SC10 Supercomputing conference taking place in New Orleans, LA, November 13-15, 2010.

The NVIDIA CUDA architecture was developed to enable offloading computationally intensive kernels to massively parallel GPUs. Through function calls and language extensions, CUDA gives developers explicit control over the mapping of general-purpose computational kernels to GPUs, as well as the placement and movement of data between an x86 processor and the GPU.

During keynote presentations today at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel Corporation executives outlined several software- and hardware-related efforts as the company intensifies its System-on-a-Chip (SoC) product plans based on the Intel Atom processor family.

Amid predictions of billions of additional Internet-connected devices going online, Renée James, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Software and Services Group, and Doug Davis, vice president and general manager, Embedded and Communications Group, discussed the expansion of these processors into high-growth areas including netbooks, tablets, CE, embedded, and smart phones.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced a strategic customer relationship with STMicroelectronics. One of the world's leading suppliers of semiconductor solutions, ST will partner with GLOBALFOUNDRIES to produce products based on 40nm Low Power (LP) bulk silicon technology. The 40nm LP process is ideal for the next generation of wireless applications, handheld devices, and consumer electronics, which require excellent performance and long battery life. First tape out and production of ST products by GLOBALFOUNDRIES is planned to start in 2010.

"When we launched GLOBALFOUNDRIES, our long-term vision was to bring a new business model to the foundry market and to become the partner of choice for the largest and most innovative semiconductor design and manufacturing companies," said Doug Grose, Chief Executive Officer, GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "With the addition of an industry-leader in low-power technology like STMicroelectronics we now begin to deliver on this vision. We look forward to harnessing our full capabilities for ST to provide best-in-class service in bringing their 40nm design innovation to life in high volumes and at mature yields."

In a move that signals a firm and ongoing commitment to advanced semiconductor technology leadership, IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Infineon Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., and STMicroelectronics have defined and are jointly developing a 28-nanometer, high-k metal gate (HKMG), low-power bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology.

The low-power, 28nm technology platform can provide power-performance and time-to-market advantages for producers of a broad range of power-sensitive mobile and consumer electronics applications, including the fast-growing mobile Internet device market segment. The favorable leakage characteristics of the HKMG technology result in optimized battery life for the next generation of mobile products.