The Wafer Is the New Battleground: Soitec CPO René Jonker on Building AI from the Substrate Up

The Wafer Is the New Battleground: Soitec CPO René Jonker on Building AI from the Substrate Up
by Lauro Rizzatti on 10-28-2026 at 8:00 am

Electric blue Soitec wafer cover

Most of the AI conversation stops at the chip. At SEMICON West 2026 I sat down with René Jonker, Chief Product Officer of Soitec, to talk about what sits underneath it.

Ask an engineer where AI performance comes from and you will hear about process nodes, dataflow, HBM stacks and interconnect fabrics. Rarely about the wafer. Yet a … Read More


See Autonomous Chip Design in Action with ChipAgents at DAC 2026

See Autonomous Chip Design in Action with ChipAgents at DAC 2026
by Daniel Nenni on 07-07-2026 at 2:00 pm

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Making the AI wave at DAC 2026 in Long Beach

DAC comes to Long Beach for the first time in 2026, with artificial intelligence expected to be one of the central topics across the conference program and exhibition floor.

For semiconductor design and verification teams, the discussion has moved beyond whether AI can assist engineers.… Read More


AI Drives Strong Semiconductor Market in 2025-2026

AI Drives Strong Semiconductor Market in 2025-2026
by Bill Jewell on 02-26-2026 at 1:00 pm

2026 Market Forecast

The global semiconductor market in 2025 was $792 billion, according to WSTS. 2025 was up 25.6% from 2024, the strongest growth since 26.2% in the COVID recovery year 2021. The increase was driven by AI, with Nvidia revenues up 65%. The major memory companies (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Technology, Kioxia and Sandisk) all cited AI… Read More


Podcast EP331: Soitec’s Broad Impact on Quantum Computing and More with Dr. Christophe Maleville

Podcast EP331: Soitec’s Broad Impact on Quantum Computing and More with Dr. Christophe Maleville
by Daniel Nenni on 02-13-2026 at 10:00 am

Daniel is joined by Dr. Christophe Maleville, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Executive Vice-President of Soitec’s Innovation. He joined Soitec in 1993 and was a driving force behind the company’s joint research activities with CEA-Leti. For several years, he led new SOI process development, oversaw SOI technology transfer… Read More


A Brief History of TSMC Through 2025

A Brief History of TSMC Through 2025
by Daniel Nenni on 12-22-2025 at 10:00 am

About TSMC 2025

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, has transformed from a modest startup into a global technology powerhouse. Founded on February 21, 1987, by Morris Chang, a veteran of Texas Instruments, TSMC pioneered the “pure-play” foundry model. … Read More


Memory Matters: The State of Embedded NVM (eNVM) 2025

Memory Matters: The State of Embedded NVM (eNVM) 2025
by Daniel Nenni on 11-06-2025 at 6:00 am

NVM Survey 25 Square Banner for SemiWiki 400x400 px

Make a difference and take this short survey. It asks about your experience with embedded non-volatile memory technologies. The survey is anonymous, and the results will be shared in aggregate to help the industry better understand trends: 2025 Embedded Non-Volatile Memory Survey.

We are now in the AI era where data is the lifeblood… Read More


Automotive Semiconductor Market Slowing

Automotive Semiconductor Market Slowing
by Bill Jewell on 06-24-2024 at 6:00 pm

Semiconductor Market Growth 2024

We at Semiconductor Intelligence estimate the automotive semiconductor market was $67 billion in 2023, up 12% from 2022. The top twelve suppliers accounted for over three-quarters of the market. Infineon Technologies was the largest automotive semiconductor supplier, at $9.2 billion or 13.7% of the market. NXP Semiconductors… Read More


Analog Circuit Migration and Optimization

Analog Circuit Migration and Optimization
by Daniel Payne on 07-18-2023 at 6:00 am

WiCkeD Flow, analog circuit optimization

The MunEDA User Group Meeting (MUGM)  has been an annual event since 2006, and this year there were some 80 participants from many customers that attended to share their experiences and learn how to get the best EDA tool results. I’ve been able to view the presentations and archived videos, so will share some of the interesting… Read More


Bleak Year for Semiconductors

Bleak Year for Semiconductors
by Bill Jewell on 02-22-2023 at 6:00 am

Top Semiconductor Revenue 2022

The global semiconductor market in 2022 was $573.5 billion, according to WSTS. 2022 was up 3.2% from 2021, a significant slowdown from 26.2% growth in 2021. We at Semiconductor Intelligence track semiconductor market forecasts and award a virtual prize for the most accurate forecast for the year. The criteria are a forecast publicly… Read More


An Update on HLS and HLV

An Update on HLS and HLV
by Daniel Payne on 12-19-2022 at 10:00 am

NCJ29D5 BD2 min

I first heard about High Level Synthesis (HLS) while working in EDA at Viewlogic back in the 1990s, and have kept watch on the trends over the past decades. Earlier this year Siemens EDA hosted a two day event, having speakers from well-known companies share their experiences about using HLS and High Level Verification (HLV) in their… Read More