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March 3
- This Time, It's Jensen Huang's Turn to Manage Expectations
硅基研究室
➀ Nvidia reported its latest financial results, with revenue reaching $39.33 billion and net profit reaching $22.09 billion, both up by 78% and 80% respectively.
➁ The total revenue for the 2025 fiscal year was $130.5 billion, with net profit reaching $72.9 billion both with triple-digit growth.
➂ Huang emphasized the importance of DeepSeek, saying it sparked global enthusiasm and opened up world-class AI models and reinforcement learning technologies.
- 25年国产GPU市场必将迎来“大洗牌”
微信公众号
➀ The domestic AI chip industry has largely relied on 'funding burning' to survive, with few companies achieving annual sales of over 10,000 units.
➁ The market demand for inference GPU cards is expected to surge as various industries are deploying large models locally.
➂ The domestic market is large, but not all AI chip manufacturers can benefit, with only the top three ranking domestic AI chip manufacturers expected to have a share of the market.
- Zeng Yuyun Invests in Shanghai Chip!
Unknown
➀ Silead Technology completed its D round of financing led by Pulei Capital under CATL, followed by SMIC Investment.
➁ The funds will be used for talent introduction, product research and development, and commercialization.
➂ Silead Technology, founded in 2016, originates from the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has MaPU architecture with independent intellectual property rights.
March 2
- An Overview of IC Failure Analysis
微信公众号
➀ IC failure analysis is a crucial step in the semiconductor industry after design;
➁ Failure analysis can be categorized into non-destructive and destructive analysis;
➂ Non-destructive analysis includes visual inspection, electrical testing, X-ray detection, and ultrasonic testing;
➃ Destructive analysis includes decapsulation, probe, hot spot/spot analysis, layer removal, FIB analysis, cross-section analysis, and SEM analysis.
- Microchip Announces Layoffs Amidst 91% Profit Decline
芯榜
➀ Microchip Technology, a semiconductor manufacturer, is planning to lay off employees at its factories in Oregon and Colorado to cope with a decline in sales.
➁ The company's CEO, Steve Sanghi, stated that the company needs to take decisive measures to adjust its business due to the decline in revenue and inventory levels reaching 266 days.
➂ Microchip has already announced the closure of its Fab 2 factory in Arizona and is expected to save about $90 million in cash annually by the end of 2025.
- A 'Bloodbath' Triggered by DeepSeek's Profit Margin Disclosure
Unknown
➀ DeepSeek disclosed its profit margin for the first time, revealing a theoretical daily income of $562,027 and a cost profit margin of 545%;
➁ The disclosure sparked a debate between You Yang and Yuan Jinhui, founders of Luochen Technology and Silicon-Based Flow, respectively;
➂ The debate revolves around the profitability of AI infrastructure companies and the efficiency of DeepSeek's model architecture.
- eFabless Announces Shutdown!
芯榜
➀ eFabless, a well-known open-source chip platform, has announced its shutdown due to financial difficulties.
➁ Founded in 2014, eFabless aimed to bridge the gap between large and small companies in chip manufacturing, connecting startups, universities, and manufacturers.
➂ Despite its achievements, eFabless faced financial challenges and has now ceased operations, leaving behind an unfinished dream and a cautionary tale for the semiconductor industry.
- ST's 12-inch Silicon Photonics Platform
Unknown
➀ STMicroelectronics has recently released new developments in its300mm silicon photonics platform, detailing its development history for reference.
➁ ST began collaborating with Luxtera in 2012 to develop a 12-inch silicon photonics platform under Luxtera's existing silicon photonics IP technology.
➂ ST showcased its silicon photonics platform progress at OFC 2015, using a 90nm process node and specific characteristics of its silicon waveguides and optical devices.
➃ Luxtera developed PSM4 and PSM8 products on ST's silicon photonics platform, but later partnered with TSMC, leading to better performance for Luxtera's devices.
➄ ST recently announced a new silicon photonics solution, PIC100, with improved device performance to meet 200G single-channel application needs.
➅ ST is also developing TSV and heterogeneous integration processes for 400G/lane applications.
➆ ST is targeting the 800G and 1.6T optical module market with its new BiCMOS platform B55X, and has announced a partnership with AWS.
➇ ST's silicon photonics platform has had a complex development, from its partnership with Luxtera to its current collaboration with AWS.
- The Impenetrable Technological Moat of ASML
Oliver I MMMT Wealth (CPA)
➀ ASML's EUV lithography technology achieves extremely high precision, requiring massive resources and a total cost of $2.5 billion. The key technology includes emitting a laser to a tin droplet to produce a plasma light source, which is executed 50,000 times per second, with heat reaching 40 times that of the sun's surface. The EUV machine also relies on ultra-smooth mirrors with extremely high precision.
➁ ASML's technological progress supports Moore's Law, making semiconductors more advanced and helping companies like NVIDIA manufacture complex chips. ASML leads in the lithography field with a deep technological moat that is difficult for other companies to surpass.
➂ The precision (EUV) required costs $2.5 billion, involving 40 shipping containers, 20 trucks, and 3 large jet planes to transport one EUV machine.
➃ The EUV machine's light source involves emitting a laser to a tin droplet about the size of a pollen grain. This process must be executed 50,000 times per second, meaning it occurs every 0.00002 seconds.
➄ ASML's mirrors are incredibly smooth, with the largest flaw being less than one millimeter if the mirrors were as large as Germany.
➅ Moore's Law largely depends on ASML, and continued technological advancement will lead to more advanced semiconductors, enabling chips to execute more complex algorithms.
➆ No one is close to ASML in the lithography field, with their moat on another level.
March 1
- Chinese EDA Giant's Top Management Team Overhauled: Official Response Issued
Xinzhixun
➀ The management team of Chinese EDA company Xinhua Zhang has undergone a major shakeup recently.
➁ Wang Libin, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Xinhua Zhang, has resigned from his position as CEO, and Xie Zhonghui and Qi Zhenghua have taken over as joint CEOs.
➂ Fu Yong, the CTO, and Fu Qiang, the COO, have also reportedly left the company.
- Domestic GPU Giant Muxi Responds to 20% Layoff Rumors
芯智讯
➀ Muxi Integrated Circuit, a domestic GPU giant, has been rumored to be implementing a layoff plan involving about 20% of its employees (about 200 people) before its IPO to reduce costs and improve the chances of listing success.
➁ Muxi responded to the media, stating that the company regularly conducts personnel adjustment work to optimize personnel allocation, which includes the addition and reduction of personnel and is within the normal scope, not to increase the chances of listing as rumored in the market, and the rumored optimization ratio is also seriously inaccurate.
➂ Muxi, as a star domestic GPU company, has quickly completed four rounds of financing from angel round to A round within one year of its establishment, with a financing amount of tens of billions. Tianyancha shows that Muxi's last round of financing was on August 23, 2024, with investors including Pudong Capital, Shanghai Sci-Tech Fund, Hunan National Innovation Industry Investment, Jiajia Information, and Qixia Capital.
- NAND: Embracing the HBM Moment?
半导体行业观察
➀ NAND manufacturers are often overlooked in the AI boom despite their role in storage.
➁ The demand for DRAM, especially HBM, in AI computing far outstrips that for NAND, which is primarily used for secondary storage.
➂ The NAND market has experienced ups and downs, with a surge in demand for enterprise SSDs driven by AI servers and a decline in consumer demand.
➃ SanDisk's HBF technology offers a potential new direction for NAND, providing high bandwidth and capacity for AI inference applications.
➄ NAND manufacturers are exploring other avenues, such as increasing storage density and optimizing production capacity, to adapt to the AI market.
- RISC-V高性能时代已来，玄铁再亮剑
半导体行业观察
➀ RISC-V has transformed from an emerging force to a mainstream one after more than a decade of development;
➁ More and more companies are entering the RISC-V field and achieving remarkable results, with Qualcomm shipping 650 million RISC-V cores by the end of 2023 and ARM producing about 3 billion chips based on RISC-V cores;
➂ Alibaba's DAMO Academy Xuan Tie team is fully committed to RISC-V, revealing breakthroughs in server-grade CPU and showcasing the full picture of the high-performance ecosystem.
- US to Impose Comprehensive Ban on AI Chip Sales to China!
XinZhiXun
➀ Mizuho Securities reports that the Trump administration may impose new export control measures on AI chips to China.
➁ The appointment of key officials in the US Department of Commerce and Bureau of Industry and Security may lead to a complete ban on all AI chips entering China, affecting NVIDIA's H20/B20 and some traditional chips (28nm+).
➂ The ban could impact NVIDIA's revenue by $4-6 billion and earnings per share by $0.13-0.18.
February 28
- Xiaomi's SU7 Ultra Sets New Sales Record with Near 172 SiC Chips
Xiaomi Auto
➀ Xiaomi's SU7 Ultra was launched at 52.99 million yuan, with explosive growth in orders reaching 6,900 units in 10 minutes and over 10,000 units in 2 hours.
<>➁ The car, targeted at million-level supercars, has a groundbreaking 1.98-second zero-to-100 acceleration and utilizes full-stack SiC technology.➂ The SU7 Ultra uses 172 SiC chips, with each motor controller requiring 48 SiC MOSFET chips, and the total number of chips used in the entire vehicle reaching 172.
- Nanjing EDA Company's Top Management Change: CEO Resignation
芯东西
➀ Nanjing EDA company, Xinhua Zhang, has completed a strategic upgrade in early 2025, appointing Xie Zhonghui and Qi Zhenghua as Co-CEOs, and Wang Libin as Chairman, focusing on strategic resource integration and financing.
➁ Xinhua Zhang was established in Nanjing in March 2020, focusing on digital verification, offering verification solutions from chips to systems, and has released over a dozen digital verification products with over 200 independently developed patent applications.
➂ The management change is a key step for Xinhua Zhang's scaling-up development, aiming to strengthen strategic execution, accelerate product and market collaboration, and respond to the increasingly intense semiconductor EDA market competition.
- Murata Considers Large-Scale Mergers!
Unknown
➀ Murata Manufacturing, the world's largest capacitor manufacturer, is considering a merger worth over 100 billion yen (about $6.65 billion) to drive growth, aiming to complete it within the midterm plan period ending in fiscal 2027.
➁ The company's past mergers have focused on technology, but over the next three years, it will seek to expand scale through business acquisitions.
➂ Murata will consider partnerships or mergers with companies with solid businesses in information systems and services to increase its influence and market share in new markets. Potential targets include inductors, high-frequency components, and sensors, and may also consider overseas enterprises.
- The Triumph of Open Source: RISC-V and AI Join Forces Today
Machine Intelligence
➀ RISC-V is emerging as the native computing architecture for AI.
➁ DeepSeek's success has sparked innovation in computing architecture.
➂ RISC-V, with its open-source nature, is well-suited AI applications.
➃ The flexibility and scalability of RISC-V make it ideal for AI computing.
➄ The first server-grade CPU based on RISC-V, C930, is set for delivery.
➅ Alibaba's XuanTie leads the international open-source community in RISC-V development.
➆ RISC-V is poised to become the dominant architecture in AI accelerators by 2030.
- AMD CEO苏姿丰·最新斯坦福深度对话：芯片巨头的转型之路与未来野心 (附视频）
Web3天空之城
➀ Su Zifeng's background and leadership style, shaped by a multicultural upbringing and a curiosity for engineering.
➁ AMD's transformation and rise under Su's leadership, focusing on high-performance computing and strategic adjustments.
➂ The opportunities and challenges of AI in the era, AMD's strategy for AI applications, and the importance of open-source software and collaboration.
- AI-MemoryX Memory Expansion Technology by YEESTOR Facilitates DeepSeek Training and Inference Machines
半导体行业观察
➀ YEESTOR releases the AI-MemoryX memory expansion solution, enhancing the memory capacity significantly;
➁ The solution supports the micro-adjustment training of large models such as 32B, 70B, 110B, 671B on a single machine;
➂ It reduces the hardware expansion cost to tens of thousands of yuan, lowering the threshold for large-scale model training.
- From Huawei's 'Disowned Child' to Building a 100Billion Giant, the First Rich Man in Yueyang Is About to Harvest a Second IPO
ChuangyeBang (Startup Nation)
➀ The joint venture between Huawei and Xiaomi has developed the V6s and V8s super motors;
➁ Hunan Huaxiang United Power System Co., Ltd., a hidden champion in the industry with annual revenue exceeding 9 billion yuan, is preparing for an IPO;
➂ Founder Zhu Xingming, the former richest man in Yueyang, has a personal fortune of 13 billion yuan and is listed at 388th in the 2024 Hurun Rich List.
February 27
- Chinese Server CPU Manufacturer Hits the Rocks: Chairman's Consumption Limited
芯智讯
➀ The Suzhou Intermediate People's Court issued a consumption restriction order against the legal representative and chairman of Chinese server CPU startup Heyin Technology, Yao Kejian, prohibiting him from engaging in high-consumption and non-essential consumption for life and work.
➁ Heyin Technology was previously exposed for delaying employee salaries for half a year, nearly shutting down, and over 500 employees seeking labor arbitration rights.
➂ Yao Kejian has been reported to be missing.
- Analog Devices to Lay Off 2,400 Employees Globally!
Unknown
➀ Analog Devices plans to lay off 9% of its workforce, approximately 2,400 people, due to decreased demand and revenue.
➁ The company had 26,400 formal employees as of mid-February, and the layoffs are expected to save $105 million to $115 million annually.
➂ CEO Hassane El-Khoury is working to optimize financial scale while pushing for innovation to maintain competitiveness in the AI boom.
- Shanghai GPU Unicorn Layoffs Reach 200 Employees
芯东西
➀ Shanghai GPU unicorn MUXi is implementing a pre-IPO layoff plan, affecting around 200 employees, or about 20% of its workforce.
➁ The company has completed a financing round of 2 billion RMB and has started the A-share listing process.
➂ MUXi has secured several large orders, including an 850 million RMB order for its AI large model training and general-purpose computing GPU.
February 26
- IEEE Joins Bilibili! A Tech Enthusiast's狂欢!
IEEE电气电子工程师学会
➀ IEEE has officially joined Bilibili, opening an official account to bring a 'hardcore' feast for Chinese tech enthusiasts;
➁ IEEE will regularly post full-English videos of tech events, cutting-edge technology news, member welfare lectures, and celebrity lectures on Bilibili, covering hot areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and communication technology;
➂ The videos also support AI-generated Chinese subtitles, making it easy to keep up with global technology trends;
➃ IEEE, as the world's largest professional technical organization, has been committed to promoting technological innovation;
➄ This move to Bilibili not only brings IEEE closer to young Chinese tech enthusiasts but also provides a new learning and communication platform for tech-loving content creators and viewers;
➅ IEEE's top online events, such as IEEE Tech Frontiers, also be broadcasted live on Bilibili.
- Avicena: Chip-to-Chip Short-Distance Optical Interconnect Based on GaN MicroLED Arrays
Unknown
➀ Chip-to-chip communication needs are increasing with the rapid development of information technology, and traditional electronic interconnect technologies are facing limitations in meeting high bandwidth, low latency, and low power consumption requirements.
➁ Avicena proposes that short-distance chip-to-chip communication is more like walking, focusing on simplicity and efficiency, rather than using long-distance laser communication technology which is considered as overkill.
➂ μLED technology offers advantages such as high brightness, efficiency, low power consumption, high density parallel communication, low power consumption, high reliability, and low cost.
➃ The research team designed an optical transmitter using μLED arrays and optimized the drive current and modulation rate of μLEDs for high-speed data transmission.
➄ The optical receiver design includes the use of blue light photodetectors, optimized transimpedance amplifiers, and digital offset cancellation techniques.
➅ The team achieved a 2Gbps transmission rate with a total power consumption of 0.5pJ/bit in a 130nm CMOS SOI process, and a 1.2Tbps total rate with energy efficiency less than 1pJ/bit in a 16nm process.
➆ The application of μLED technology in chip-to-chip communication shows great potential for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence.
- Vietnam Aims to Break Through the US-China 'Silicon Curtain' with Huawei's Introduction
mp.weixin.qq.com
➀ Vietnam's General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, emphasized the need to remove at least 30% of business restrictions and reduce administrative procedures by at least 30% to lower costs.
➁ Vietnam's legal system is lagging behind in digital economy, innovation, and international integration, particularly in fintech, AI, platform economy, e-commerce, and special economic zones.
➂ North Ninh province, a hub of Vietnam's electronics manufacturing, has visited Huawei and other companies to explore investment opportunities in technology and digital infrastructure.
- Foreign Media: Huawei's AI Chip Achieves Breakthrough!
Unknown
➀ Huawei's AI chip, Ascend 910C, achieves a significant breakthrough with a yield rate of 40%, marking a major progress from 20% last year;
➁ Huawei plans to produce 100,000 Ascend 910C and 300,000 910B chips this year, although sales are behind NVIDIA, still leading the Chinese AI chip market;
➂ Huawei aims to further increase the yield rate to 60% to further solidify its position in the AI chip market, currently occupying more than 75% of the total AI chip production in mainland China.
- Three New GaN Projects Launched: Accelerating Domestic Full Industry Chain Layout
Unknown
➀ Three new GaN projects have been launched in China, covering the four major links of 'substrate-epitaxy-chip-module';
➁ Gaao Technology's GaN project has been settled in Zhejiang Province, focusing on GaN power devices and modules;
➂ Gaao Technology has developed a new national standard electric bicycle intelligent charging pile using GaN technology;
➃ Quanlei Optoelectronics has started a GaN epitaxy wafer/芯片 research and development and industrialization project;
➄ Guogan Xinkeshi has completed the environmental protection acceptance of its GaN substrate production base project.
- Taiwan Treats Semiconductor Industry as 'Souvenir' for the U.S.
Unknown
➀ The Mainland Affairs Office of the State Council held a regular press conference on February 26th.
➁ A journalist asked about U.S. President Trump's recent statement on Taiwan taking away the U.S. chip business and his warning to Taiwan.
➂ The spokesperson, Zhu Fenglian, commented on the concerns and doubts in Taiwan regarding TSMC becoming 'U.S. TSMC'.
➃ Zhu emphasized that the Taiwan region's semiconductor industry and leading enterprises are treated as a 'door-opener for seeking independence through external forces' and even as 'a gift' handed over to the U.S., leading to growing opposition among Taiwanese citizens and enterprises.