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Texas is slated to capture a massive chunk of a $60 billion semiconductor investment by Texas Instruments, and plants in Sherman and Richardson are poised to get the lion's share of the spending. Dallas-based TI (Nasdaq: TXN) revealed June 18 it has committed more than $60 billion across three semiconductor complexes in Richardson and Sherman, Texas, and Levi, Utah. The funding appears to be the largest semiconductor investment in the U.S. and would support more than 60,000 jobs across the country. The company has dedicated about $40 billion of the investment to its Sherman campus, $6 billion to its Richardson...

Breakthrough research has shown that twisting light into spiral patterns like those found in nature dramatically improved the efficiency of OLED screens. The researchers behind the novel approach believe their method for twisting light could revolutionize the efficiency of electronics, including display technologies like OLEDs and night vision. In the nearly 150 years since the invention of the light bulb, the science of light has continued to advance. As the use of electronic devices involving display technologies has rapidly spread in recent decades, scientists have been searching for new and innovative ways to control the chaotic behavior of light or...

Washington -- The United States will impose tariffs on the countries that "harm" America, President Donald Trump has said, as he named China, India and Brazil as high-tariff countries. “We're going to put tariffs on outside countries and outside people that really mean harm to us. Well, they mean us harm, but they basically want to make their country good,” Trump told House Republicans at a Florida retreat on Monday, the first after he became the president for the second term last week. “Look at what others do. China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India and Brazil and so...

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a company integral to modern chipmaking, is being awarded up to $6.6 billion in CHIPS Act funding, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday. Besides the direct funding, Taiwan Semi also will be eligible for up to $5 billion of loans. The award will support the company’s planned investment of more than $65 billion in three greenfield leading-edge fabs in Phoenix, Ariz., and be disbursed based on the completion of project milestones.

Key TakeawaysTSMC’s Arizona plant has exceeded its Taiwanese facilities in yield.The first of three plants in Arizona is on track to reach full volume production in 2025.TSMC aims to start other facilities by 2028 and manufacture 2nm chips in the US by 2030.TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, has achieved better yield in its new Arizona factory than its Taiwan facilities. Taiwanese giant TSMC’s new chipset manufacturing unit in the US has overtaken its domestic plants in terms of yield—a key metric in semiconductor production. The update from TSMC’s newly commenced plant in Phoenix, Arizona is good news for the...

Why it matters: Ultra-high-purity quartz is an essential component to semiconductor chips, and the only places in the world that can meet this need are two mines in a small North Carolina town. The mines' owner, Sibelco, is investing $700 million to expand capacity, but is that enough to keep up with AI-fueled chip demand? Spruce Pine is a small town about two hours drive northwest of Charlotte, NC. You can get to the general area via a number of ways, depending on your point of origin, but for the last stretch of the trip, you need to travel down...

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is seeking up to $15 billion in tax credits and grants from the federal government to support its Arizona semiconductor plants amid concerns about subsidy criteria, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. TSMC expects to receive $7 billion to $8 billion in tax credits under the CHIPS Act, in addition to $6 billion to $7 billion in grants for its Arizona plants, according to the WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter. TSMC is investing more than $40 billion in building two fabs in north Phoenix, marking one of the largest foreign direct investments in the...

Gordon Moore, the tech pioneer and co-founder of Intel, has died at age 94, Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced Friday. Moore died peacefully in his home, surrounded by family. Moore was best-known for his famous observation known as Moore's Law. In 1965, Moore made the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every year. Moore's prediction proved to be correct, and the idea of faster, smaller, and cheaper chip technology is still the driving force behind Silicon Valley's mission to this day. “Gordon Moore defined the technology industry through his...

The semiconductor gold rush is all but over, and we've had our fill. Or so the past month of dismal earnings might have you believe. Electronics giant Samsung saw its profits contract 69 percent during the fourth quarter, while revenues slumped 8 percent overall. South Korean memory manufacturer SK Hynix, meanwhile, followed a few days later with an equally bleak report. Both companies told a story of macroeconomic forces that were suppressing consumer spending and driving DRAM and NAND flash inventories to unprecedented levels. Put simply, where there was once a chip shortage there is now a glut. Well, of...

Not seeing any 'real news' on this yet: Jordan Schneider @jordanschnyc Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight. One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump. Although American semiconductor exporters had to apply for licenses during the Trump years, licenses were approved within a month. With the new Biden sanctions, all American suppliers of IP blocks, components, and services departed overnight —— thus cutting off all service [to China]. Jordan Schneider @jordanschnyc · 13h THREAD: The US government's new export...

In January 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping promised "win-win outcomes" via a "dynamic, innovation-driven growth model." Yet only several months prior, Xi had struck a different tone in a speech to an audience that included Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, high-profile People’s Liberation Army researchers, and most of China’s political elite.

Micron Technology Inc. executives warned about a semiconductor downturn in late June, but now say that a “sharp and sudden” drop in demand exceeded even those expectations, suggesting the current chip glut could get a lot worse. Micron MU, 0.74% reported a worse-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter Thursday, with revenue plunging 23% from last year, but that wasn’t the big miss. Executives guided for $4 billion to $4.5 billion in revenue in the current quarter, more than $1 billion lower than analysts’ expectations, and suggested they could post a loss in the quarter even on an adjusted basis. “As we look...

There are at least two big missing pieces in the CHIPS Act of 2022, the US$52 billion subsidy for US-based semiconductor manufacturers that has just been sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. The first missing piece is definitional. There is no statement in the Act of what constitutes an “advanced” semiconductor. Second, not only is there no priority on military capability, but there is also no requirement or guidance for protecting newly developed technology funded under the Act. To begin with the question of what constitutes an “advanced” semiconductor, Intel is investing $20 billion in a new manufacturing...

In what could be the biggest economic investment in Central Texas history, technology giant Samsung is considering building 11 new chipmaking facilities in the Austin area over the next two decades, a stunning move that could lead to nearly $200 billion in new investment and create more than 10,000 jobs, according to documents filed with the state. Fresh off announcing plans to build a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Taylor, Samsung could increase its investment in the region by more than 10 times that amount if the proposed facilities were to be built.

Nancy Pelosi's office responded to her husband's controversial computer chip stock trades ahead of Congress' vote on the semiconductor industry. FOX Business reached out to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office for comment about her husband’s recent stock trades, particularly inquiring about Paul Pelosi's million-dollar purchase of stock in a semiconductor company as Congress is slated to vote on a $52 billion subsidy to the industry as part of a bill to increase U.S. manufacturing of computer chips to make the country less reliant and more competitive with China. "The Speaker does not own any stocks. As you can see from...

The company which is Apple’s most important chip supplier, said it expects revenue to be between $19.8 billion and $20.6 billion in the third quarter, surging from $14.8 billion in the same period last year. However, TSMC CEO CC Wei said that some of the company’s capital expenditure would be “pushed out into 2023.” He cited “greater challenges in the supply chains” which is extending delivery times for some chipmaking equipment. The strong results and outlook but caution on spending highlights the careful path chipmakers are walking at a time of concern about rising prices and the impact on consumer...

Like some of you, I love to check out car models and drive salesmen crazy with the classic "just looking" line. I look at the sticker and check out all the options. It's an old habit and a wonderful way to kill time when my wife is at the mall. It beats drinking another cup of coffee at the mall café.Last week, I made another trip to the local dealership. Everything looked normal except for the prices. Check this out:With interest rates rising, it's also becoming harder to spread the pain of higher pricing with long-term financing. The average monthly...

To solve the semiconductor shortage, companies now have to deal with a labor shortage… We have extensively covered how major semiconductor companies have been responding to the global chip shortage over the last couple of years. One of the most notable companies to take action has been TSMC, who is in the process of building a $12 billion chip fab in Arizona, not far from where Intel is expanding their campus. TSMC’s project is racing to come online by 2024, but there remains a major obstacle for both companies: securing labor. “Simply finding enough workers to build the facilities has...

Engineers have long dreamed of creating a wonderful material that can revolutionize construction. In 2004, their dream came true. British scientists first created Graphene—one of the forms of nanocarbon that is only 0.3 nanometers thick—a million times thinner than a human hair, but it can withstand colossal loads! Many immediately predicted a great future for it, and a little later, scientists were given the Nobel Prize. However, mass adoption did not happen. And only now, after 15 years, the first real opportunities have appeared to use the material of the future in commercial projects. Super-substance is made from ordinary graphite,...

The biggest hurdle is an electron microscope for examining the features of his transistors. A good friend found a broken one and with $1000, a fair amount of know how and a lot of time they were able to repair it to working condition. As for the photolithography device? The light from a conference room projector is beamed through a microscope to trigger the light sensitive coating on his wafers Zeloof’s chip was his second. He made the first, much smaller one as a high school senior in 2018; he started making individual transistors a year before that. His chips...