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Bruce the young American engineer had been eager for a stable, high-paying job in the semiconductor industry. Then, in late 2020, he received a LinkedIn message from a recruiter for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The job sounded like he’d be “pushing the boundaries of human technology,” he recalled to Rest of World. Over the next two years, Bruce came to realize the reality of working at TSMC wasn’t what he had envisioned. While working on nanometer-level processes to make state-of-the-art chips, he struggled with language barriers, long hours, and a strict hierarchy. Bruce soon began second-guessing what he had signed...

On Wednesday, while campaigning in Arizona, Joe Biden revealed that the government reached an $8.5 billion deal with U.S. chipmaker Intel to build four plants in the U.S. that will build advanced computer chips. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the deal would enable the U.S. to manufacture 20% of the world's most advanced computer chips by 2030 and create 30,000 jobs. “Failure is not an option — leading-edge chips are the core of our innovation system, especially when it comes to advances in artificial intelligence and our military systems,” Raimondo told reporters. “We can’t just design chips. We have to...

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) will not vote for his own party’s nominee for president, he said Tuesday. The establishment politician’s statement that he will not vote for Donald Trump comes days after the former president locked up the party’s nomination. Young had indicated earlier he would not endorse Trump, but Tuesday is the first time he admitted publicly he will not even vote for his party’s standard bearer. “At some point, principled conservatives need to incentivize our party, the Republican Party, to nominate somebody that principled conservatives can actually believe in,” Young told a local Indiana outlet. “Stated differently, I’m...

The Pentagon’s surprise decision to withdraw $2.5 billion in funding for Intel’s semiconductor manufacturing plans has created a significant shortfall in the company’s expected incentives under the CHIPS Act. Bloomberg reports that the semiconductor industry’s path to revitalization has hit a snag as the Pentagon abruptly scrapped its plan to contribute $2.5 billion toward Intel’s chip manufacturing grant under the CHIPS Act. This move has disrupted the distribution of funds from the legislation, leaving the Commerce Department scrambling to fill the substantial funding gap. According to people familiar with the matter, the Pentagon’s withdrawal occurred in the days leading up...

Top microchip makers are postponing their expansion into the U.S. and setting up shop in Israel and Russia due to equity caveats that are required for them to receive grants from the U.S. government. The Biden administration promised earlier this year that they would be handing out $39 billion in grants to encourage semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. Shortly after the announcement however, Intel announced they would be holding off on their Columbus factory, while Samsung also delayed their facility in Texas. Despite the billions in subsidies, two experts believe the tech companies' decision to back out of building manufacturing...

SNIP ASML declined to comment on Wednesday. However, Wennink spoke at an event in The Hague and said he was concerned the business climate in the Netherlands was worsening. "Some of these elements that made us a great company, those elements are under pressure," he said, citing increasing regulation and a plan to scrap a tax break given to highly skilled immigrants. POTENTIAL CURBS ON FOREIGN STUDENTS Around 40% of ASML's 23,000 employees in the Netherlands are not Dutch. Europe's largest tech company sources parts from around the globe but currently assembles its machines in Veldhoven, Netherlands before shipping them...

The new processor stores data in modified DNA molecules and uses microfluidic channels to perform basic computations. Scientists have created a new biocomputing chip that makes calculations using a DNA substrate, including mathematical operations essential to artificial intelligence (AI) training and big data processing. Researchers described the new biocomputing platform Oct. 19,2023, in the journal PLOS One. DNA is known as the blueprint for life and encodes genetic information, like data can be encoded onto electronic-based storage devices. DNA-based devices have previously been used to encode data on a small scale, but this prototype chip uses DNA to process data...

...The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS Act grants to encourage semiconductor fabrication in the U.S. But less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab. This is not the way companies typically respond to multi-billion-dollar subsidies. So what explains chipmakers’ apparent ingratitude? In large part, frustration with DEI requirements embedded in the CHIPS Act...

* India has ambitions to become a major chip hub on the lines of the U.S., Taiwan and South Korea, and has been courting foreign firms to set up operations in the country. * "Within a very short time, India Semiconductor Mission has achieved four big successes. With these units, the semiconductor ecosystem will get established in India," the government of India said in a press statement. * India in June 2023 had approved Micron for setting up a semiconductor unit in Sanand, Gujarat. India has approved building three semiconductor plants with investments of more than $15 billion as the...

The Biden administration laid out an ambitious new goal for the US: produce 20% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips by the end of the decade. It currently makes 0% of the so-called leading edge logic chips that are considerably more powerful than older-generation semiconductors, making them crucial for everything from mobile phones to AI to quantum computing. The legislation allows the White House to spend $50 billion in taxpayer dollars — $39 billion specifically earmarked for manufacturing — to try and help reignite American manufacturing in the years ahead.

The U.S. government on Monday said it will give GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion as part of the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act to boost domestic chip manufacturing. That comes amid reports that the Biden administration could provide more than $10 billion in funding to Intel. Intel and especially GlobalFoundries rose Tuesday on the news. Please watch the video at Investors.com - Market Rally Faces Nvidia Test; Super Micro, Lennar, Weatherford In Focus GlobalFoundries will use the funds to expand and improve its existing fabrication plant in Malta, New York, as well as build a new fab on that Malta campus. It'll...

South Korea's customs office has busted a chip smuggling operation that involved 53,000 chips worth $11.6 million, making it by value the biggest chip smuggling bust yet (via BusinessKorea). They found strategic chips using US tech were being routed through Korea to China. This smuggling operation was so massive that an entire company, known only as 'Company A,' rather than a single individual was behind it. All executives at the company have been charged by prosecutors for the crime which was perpetrated over three years. From August 2020 to August 2023, 'Company A' legally bought U.S.-made chips and imported them,...

The Alt operating system developed by Moscow, Russia-based Basalt SPO has been recompiled to support Chinese Loongson processors based on the LoongArch architecture. Blacklisted Loongson has actively supported the porting process. The OS is available as a distro with a basic set of programs (Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice) that can be installed on desktops, workstations, and servers. Alt is now the first Russian operating system capable of running on Loongson's processors based on the 64-bit LoongArch architecture, such as LS5000 and LS6000 series, which some in Russia consider alternatives to x86 CPUs from AMD and Intel. Recently, China lifted the export...

Qualcomm, one of the largest microchip manufacturers globally, is scaling back its workforce. The San Diego, California-based company will be laying off about 1258 roles in California, according to a filing with the California Employment Development Department. Impacted employees include those based out of San Diego and Santa Clara in multiple roles, from engineers to legal counsel to human resources, with job reductions coming around December 13th. The layoff news comes about a month after the company announced a deal with Apple to provide 5G chips through at least 2026. Qualcomm is also the chip supplier for the newly announced...

China’s exports of two rare minerals essential for manufacturing semiconductors fell to zero in August, a month after Beijing imposed curbs on sales overseas, citing national security. China produces about 80% of the world’s gallium and about 60% of germanium, according to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, but it didn’t sell any of the elements on international markets last month, Chinese customs data released on Wednesday showed. In July, the country exported 5.15 metric tons of forged gallium products and 8.1 metric tons of forged germanium products. When asked about the lack of exports last month, He Yadong, a spokesperson...

... The DoD may need a decade to build a reliable domestic supply chain, according to Mike Burns, managing partner of tech investment firm Murray Hill Group. The issue is how fast U.S.-based Intel can catch up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), which makes Altera and Xilinx field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and other chips that the DoD uses in weapons systems like the F-35 fighter jet, missiles and command-and-control gear, he said. “Maybe that’s a three-year effort,” he told EE Times. “I’m just saying that it’s many years.” To be sure, TSMC more than tripled its overall investment...

The death of a 14-year-old teenager is being investigated by Massachusetts authorities after he died while participating in the viral 'One Chip Challenge'. Harris Wolobah died on September 1 in Worcester after eating the spiciest chip in the world. The cause of Harris' death is yet to be determined and an autopsy report is pending, but the teenager's family have blamed the challenge for his death. Since his death, the spicy snack's manufacturer, Paqui, has now asked retailers across the US to stop selling the individually wrapped chips - a step 7-Eleven has already taken. The One Chip Challenge chip...

The Phoenix TSMC plant – the centerpiece of Biden’s $52.7bn US hi-tech manufacturing agenda – is struggling to get online. TSMC has pushed back plans to start manufacturing to 2025, blaming a lack of skilled labor. It is trying to fast-track visas for 500 Taiwanese workers. Construction of the plant has been hampered by accidents and misunderstandings. A former supervisor at the site blamed delays on disorganization from management and a lack of knowledge by bosses from Taiwan on adhering to safety codes and regulations in the US. When they started working at the site, all workers went through a...

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said China could invade Taiwan without major consequences from the U.S. once he has hypothetically attained the nation’s “semiconductor independence” in 2028. Semiconductor independence: In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Ramaswamy stressed the importance of semiconductors and why the U.S. should take aggressive action until the nation is able to produce its own. Ramaswamy noted that China would hypothetically not take the risk of aggressing towards Taiwan for his term “if we show we’re serious about [semiconductor independence].”

Experts estimate that the "fountain of youth" pill may be on the horizon, thanks to a jellyfish-like marine creature called Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus, which regenerates its entire body from cells located in its mouth. Hydractinia are tiny tube-shaped creatures that live on the shells of rare crustaceans. Their remarkable regenerative abilities are expected to have implications for healthcare and anti-aging treatments. These abilities were discovered after researchers sequenced pieces of RNA, which are related to the biological process of gene aging. A study published in the journal Cell Reports found that basic biological processes are interconnected, and understanding these processes is...