The week was marked by a broad acceleration in manufacturing investment, packaging activity, and test development. GlobalFoundries said it will operate two new fabs in Malta, New York, under a U.S.-Japan initiative with up to $21 billion in investment, with the first facility expected to start in 2029. Applied Materials also unveiled a $5 billion EPIC1. Equipment and Process Innovation and CommercializationApplied Materials uses this name for its new collaborative R&D center.2. Electronics, Photonics and Integrated CircuitsEPIC names the collaboration center unveiled by Applied Materials. Center in Silicon Valley for semiconductor process and equipment R&D.
In materials and process supply, Infineon and Wolfspeed signed a new multi-year agreement for 200mm SiCsilicon carbideSiC is one of the power semiconductor materials being assigned a distinct role in the power delivery chain. wafers. Nikon introduced a lithography system for advanced packaging with 1.5 µm line-and-space resolution and 40% higher throughput than its predecessor, reaching 72 panels per hour. The maskless tool supports large substrates and RDLRedistribution LayerRDL patterning is a key step in advanced packaging for rerouting chip I/O. patterning, and availability is planned for April 2027.
Packaging and test were also active. FormFactor and Teradyne will co-develop test technologies for HBM1. human body modelESD test model that simulates a person discharging static electricity into a component.2. High Bandwidth MemoryHBM is a stacked DRAM architecture designed to provide very high memory bandwidth., advanced packaging, silicon photonics, and HPC1. High Performance ComputingCompute applications with particularly high performance demands, cited here as a driver for packaging and testing.2. high-performance computingHPC denotes compute-intensive chips that require advanced testing support., while Teradyne agreed to invest $300 million in FormFactor. Teradyne additionally introduced a semiconductor test platform for edge-AIartificial intelligence chips. ASEAdvanced Semiconductor EngineeringASE is a semiconductor assembly and packaging company involved in the joint research program. expanded its PowerSiP platform with a vertically integrated 3D packaging approach that moves voltage regulation closer to AIartificial intelligence processors and cuts parasitic routing losses by 50% or more.
China’s memory and lithography push remained a focal point. CXMT is reportedly preparing a DDR5double data rate 5DDR5 is a current mainstream DRAM interface generation used in server memory. server RDIMMregistered dual in-line memory moduleRDIMMs are server memory modules that use a register to improve signal integrity. using 4F² DRAM1. dynamic random access memoryMemory technology or system for temporarily or permanently storing digital information.2. dynamic random-access memoryDRAM is a volatile memory technology cells by year-end, a move aimed at improving density and manufacturing cost. Separately, Langdao Silex unveiled a prototype EUVextreme ultravioletExtremely short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation; EUV lithography uses about 13.5 nm light. light source with 90% localized components and output above 15W, still far below commercial EUVextreme ultravioletExtremely short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation; EUV lithography uses about 13.5 nm light. power levels.
Major industry reporting also pointed to strong demand and capital intensity at the leading edge. TSMCTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing CompanyTSMC is named as a founding partner of the EPIC Center. reported about $46.7 billion in Q3 revenue, up 41.2% year over year in U.S. dollar terms, with 2nm accounting for 8% of wafer revenue. ASMLAdvanced Semiconductor Materials LithographyASML is the lithography equipment maker named in the report. posted record Q3 sales of €11.7 billion, up about 55% from a year earlier, and said planned supply for the next two years will not fully satisfy customer demand.
AIartificial intelligence-linked infrastructure investment continued to attract capital. More than $8.5 billion in Q3 startup funding was tracked across 80 companies, with photonics, networking, memory alternatives, and other data-movement technologies among the larger rounds. Salience Labs raised $125 million for optical circuit switching, and Mueon raised $65 million for a stackable 3D platform integrating compute, memory, interconnect, power delivery, and thermal management.
At SEMICONSemiconductor ConventionSEMICON is the name of an international trade show for the semiconductor industry organized by SEMI. West, vendors highlighted new design and manufacturing software integrations. Nvidia expanded its manufacturing AIartificial intelligence tools with a CUDA-X1. CUDA-X librariesNVIDIA’s CUDA-X libraries are accelerated software components used to speed up compute-intensive semiconductor workflows.2. CUDA ExtendedCUDA-X is NVIDIA's extended family of libraries and software for accelerated computing tasks. library for atomic-scale simulation, Lam Research plans to integrate NanoVDBNVIDIA Accelerated NanoVDBNanoVDB is an open-source library for working with 3D data and accelerating simulation workflows. into SEMulator3D for faster wafer-etch modeling, and Siemens and Nvidia said cuLitho with Calibre can accelerate full-chip OPC1. optical particle counterMeasurement or inspection concept for tracking defects and process variations in manufacturing.2. optical proximity correctionOPC is a lithography correction flow used to improve pattern fidelity on silicon. workloads by up to 12x while supporting High-NAnumerical apertureOptical measure of the light-gathering angle of a lens, related to resolution. EUVextreme ultravioletExtremely short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation; EUV lithography uses about 13.5 nm light. and curvilinear inverse lithography. In parallel, quantum hardware teams reported progress on silicon spin qubits, superconducting circuits, and larger-scale annealing systems.
Further announcements touched on silicon photonics, security, and power management, including a CPOco-packaged opticsOptical devices and CPUs are integrated into a single package compute system demo from Wiwynn, Ayar Labs, and GUC, a new 400Gb/s-per-lane optical module plan from Nvidia and Cisco, and a high-voltage hot-swap controller from Infineon. IBMInternational Business MachinesIBM is a US technology company active in computer hardware, software and semiconductor research. also outlined an early research PDKprocess design kitA PDK provides the technology files and design rules needed to design chips for a specific process. for its 7-angstrom nanostack technology in Q1 2027, aimed at helping designers and EDA1. electronic design automationSoftware tools for designing, simulating, verifying and laying out electronic circuits.2. equipment data acquisitionSystem or method for collecting, storing, exchanging or analyzing data. vendors explore vertically stacked transistor architectures.