Building a Faster Path from Semiconductor Idea to Commercial Silicon

Building a Faster Path from Semiconductor Idea to Commercial Silicon
by Daniel Nenni on 09-02-2026 at 8:00 am

Accelerating Semiconductor Innovation

SEMI and Silicon Catalyst’s new strategic partnership addresses one of the semiconductor industry’s most persistent technical problems: transforming a promising hardware concept into a manufacturable, commercially viable product. Announced through a memorandum of understanding signed at SEMICON Taiwan 2026, the collaboration… Read More


How Agentic AI Turns IC Engineers into Architects

How Agentic AI Turns IC Engineers into Architects
by Daniel Nenni on 09-01-2026 at 2:00 pm

How Agentic AI Turns IC Engineers into Architects

There is an interesting article by Kexun ZHang of ChipAgents on their blogsite. This is a company to watch, absolutely.  Here is my take on it:

Software engineering has already demonstrated the trajectory of agentic AI. Coding tools progressed from autocomplete to systems that interpret requests, inspect repositories, modify… Read More


Keysight ADS Enables First-Pass Silicon at 3 THz for AttoTude

Keysight ADS Enables First-Pass Silicon at 3 THz for AttoTude
by Daniel Nenni on 09-01-2026 at 10:00 am

Keysight ADS Enables First Pass Silicon at 3 THz for AttoTude

AttoTude has expanded its use of Keysight Technologies’ Advanced Design System (ADS) to support an integrated-circuit design flow spanning signaling frequencies from 100 GHz to 3 THz. The company reports that the resulting workflow has reduced IC development cycles by more than 50%, enabling projects to move from concept to… Read More


Intel’s 14A Is Winning the Race Against Defects

Intel’s 14A Is Winning the Race Against Defects
by Daniel Nenni on 08-31-2026 at 2:00 pm

Intel’s 14A Is Winning the Race Against Defects

Intel’s next-generation 14A manufacturing process is showing unusually strong early progress, with defect density falling faster than the company expected. The improvement gives Intel a technical boost as it attempts to restore confidence in its manufacturing operation, win foundry customers and demonstrate that years… Read More


CEO Interview with Phillip Stanley-Marbell of Signaloid

CEO Interview with Phillip Stanley-Marbell of Signaloid
by Daniel Nenni on 08-28-2026 at 2:00 pm

IMG 5575

Phillip Stanley-Marbell is the founder and CEO of Signaloid. Up until September 2025, he was a full Professor (Chair of Physical Computation) in the Electrical Engineering Division of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where he led the Physical Computation Laboratory. He completed his PhD at Carnegie… Read More


CEO Interview with Stephen Strausser of VON ARDENNE North America, Inc.

CEO Interview with Stephen Strausser of VON ARDENNE North America, Inc.
by Daniel Nenni on 08-28-2026 at 10:00 am

Stephen Strausser Portrait Original

Stephen Strausser was recently appointed CEO of VON ARDENNE North America, Inc. where he will lead the company’s regional strategy, operations, customer engagement and growth initiatives across the US, Canada, Mexico and South America.

Stephen has a powerful blend of business acumen, operations, service/support and engineering… Read More


Will Agentic AI Help the Open-Source EDA Market?

Will Agentic AI Help the Open-Source EDA Market?
by Daniel Nenni on 08-28-2026 at 8:00 am

Will Agentic AI Help the Open Source EDA Market

Agentic artificial intelligence is likely to give the open-source electronic design automation market a meaningful boost. Its biggest contribution will not be the immediate replacement of established commercial platforms from Cadence, Synopsys, or Siemens. Instead, agentic AI can make open-source tools easier to use, … Read More


TSMC’s Overseas Fabs Are Paying Off

TSMC’s Overseas Fabs Are Paying Off
by Daniel Nenni on 08-28-2026 at 6:00 am

TSMC's Overseas Fabs Are Paying Off

TSMC’s overseas fabrication strategy is beginning to deliver its intended return: not immediate cost parity with Taiwan, but manufacturable geographic redundancy, closer integration with major customers and access to subsidized capacity in strategically important markets. Arizona and Kumamoto are already producing … Read More


AI-designed Chip Points Toward a Faster Future for Custom Silicon

AI-designed Chip Points Toward a Faster Future for Custom Silicon
by Daniel Nenni on 08-27-2026 at 10:00 am

AI Designed Chip Why Redwood Matters

Architect Labs says it has created Redwood, an AI accelerator designed and verified almost entirely by artificial intelligence in less than two weeks. If independently validated and successfully translated from a programmable prototype into manufactured silicon, the project could represent a major change in how computer… Read More


Huawei Can’t Shrink Its Chips, So It’s Folding Them

Huawei Can’t Shrink Its Chips, So It’s Folding Them
by Daniel Nenni on 08-27-2026 at 8:00 am

Huawei Can’t Shrink Its Chips, So It’s Folding Them

On May 25, Huawei semiconductor chief He Tingbo unveiled LogicFolding, an architecture intended to advance chip performance without relying on ever-smaller transistors. Presented alongside Huawei’s “Tau Scaling Law,” the approach prioritizes signal speed over transistor dimensions. It is a genuine engineering response… Read More