George Leopold is a Washington-based editor at EE Times.
A technology partnership between the semiconductor materials arm of German multinational Merck and Palantir Technologies, the data analytics specialist, will tackle chip shortages via a collaboration platform aimed at chipmakers and their suppliers. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Denver-based Palantir said this week the partnership would leverage data analytics and AI to advance semiconductor manufacturing…
Expansion of U.S. manufacturing growth that began trending upward last summer is expected to continue through 2021, along with growing capital spending and rising capacity utilization, according to the Institute for Supply Management. ISM’s semiannual economic forecast predicts U.S. manufacturers will record a healthy net increase in revenues totaling 6.9 percent this year, reversing a…
A new front has opened in efforts to revive U.S. chip manufacturing as lawmakers propose billions of dollars in spending and tax incentives to promote technology innovation across the entire semiconductor ecosystem — from post-Moore’s Law basic research to advanced chip packaging. While the Trump Administration seeks to block China’s access to U.S. chip making…
The latest in a series of Pentagon semiconductor initiatives seeks to embed security features into chip designs that would allow silicon architects to probe economics-versus-security tradeoffs while baking in security throughout device lifecycles. The chip design effort represents continuing U.S. efforts to secure its electronics supply chain as semiconductors emerge as a choke point in…
Grim global semiconductor forecasts agree on a pandemic-driven market contraction, with the only variable being how steep and for how long chip demand and revenues will decline. As the unrelenting spread of the novel coronavirus and the resulting lockdown slow consumption and hobble global supply chains, forecasters continue to slash their growth forecasts across market sectors and applications. Demand…
Government initiatives aimed at reviving U.S. manufacturing were already underway when the coronavirus effectively knocked out distribution channels linking Chinese manufacturers and U.S. consumers. For example, the Defense Department’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Office has aggressively sought to secure the electronics supply chain for critical infrastructure. Meanwhile, several industrial base proposals have been floated…
Elon Musk has proven to be one of the investment community’s most controversial CEOs. But since the days of Lee Iacocca, no automaker has garnered as much adulation as Tesla, not only from car owners and car buyers, but also from engineers in the automotive industry. Unequivocally, rival carmakers envy Tesla’s foresight in bringing over-the-air…