Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Epic Games today announced the deployment of Unreal Engine pre-integrated and optimized for the Snapdragon Cockpit Platform, a key platform of Qualcomm Technologies' Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions, to create an out-of-box solution that empowers global automakers to deliver immersive user experiences. With the cohesive human machine interface (HMI) solution, automakers will be equipped to develop high-quality digital cockpit systems that are customizable and scalable across all vehicle types, and tiers.

The collaboration marks the first time Unreal Engine is being directly integrated into Snapdragon automotive platforms. Through the technology collaboration, global automakers who utilize Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions will have exclusive access to Unreal Engine tools with optimized features, providing powerful, never-before-seen, in-cabin visualization capabilities, which includes fully customizable 2D and 3D visuals to set new industry standards for in-cabin environments.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced it has successfully developed the industry's first PCIe 4.0 automotive SSD based on eighth-generation vertical NAND (V-NAND). With industry-leading speeds and enhanced reliability, the new auto SSD, AM9C1 is an optimal solution for on-device AI capabilities in automotive applications. With about 50% improved power efficiency compared to its predecessor, the AM991, the new 256 GB auto SSD will deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 4400 MB/s and 400 MB/s, respectively.

"We are collaborating with global autonomous vehicle makers and providing high-performance, high-capacity automotive products," said Hyunduk Cho, Vice President and Head of Automotive Group at Samsung Electronics' Memory Business. "Samsung will continue to lead the Physical AI1 memory market that encompasses applications from autonomous driving to robotics technologies."

In a strategic move to empower automakers with groundbreaking opportunities, Intel unveiled its first discrete graphics processing unit (dGPU), the Intel Arc Graphics for Automotive, at its AI Cockpit Innovation Experience event. To advance automotive AI, the product will be commercially deployed in vehicles as soon as 2025, accelerating automobile technology and unlocking a new era of AI-driven cockpit experiences and enhanced personalization for manufacturers and drivers alike.

Intel's entry into automotive discrete GPUs addresses growing demand for compute power in increasingly sophisticated vehicle cockpits. By adding the Intel Arc graphics for Automotive to its existing portfolio of AI-enhanced software-defined vehicle (SDV) system-on-chips (SoCs), Intel offers automakers an open, flexible and scalable platform solution that brings next-level, high-fidelity experiences to the vehicle.

The open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture is shaping up for explosive growth over the next several years, primarily fueled by the increasing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) across industries. A new forecast from tech research firm Omdia predicts that shipments of RISC-V-based chips will skyrocket at an astonishing 50% annual growth rate between 2024 and 2030, sitting at a staggering 17 billion RISC-V units in 2030. The automotive sector is expected to see the most significant growth in RISC-V adoption, with a forecasted annual increase of 66%. This growth is largely attributed to the unique benefits RISC-V offers in this industry, including its flexibility and customizability.

The rise of AI in the automotive sector, particularly in applications such as autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), is also expected to contribute to RISC-V's success. Industrial applications will continue to be the largest domain for RISC-V, accounting for approximately 46% of sales. However, the growth in the automotive sector is expected to outpace other industries, driven by the increasing demand for AI-enabled technologies in this sector. The forecast from Omdia is based on current trends and the growing adoption of RISC-V by major players in the tech industry, including Google and Meta, which are investing in RISC-V to power their custom solutions. Additionally, chip producers like Qualcomm are creating their RISC-V chips for consumer use, further solidifying the technology's future position in the market.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it is sampling the automotive-grade Micron 4150AT SSD, the world's first quad-port SSD, capable of interfacing with up to four systems on chips (SoCs) to centralize storage for software-defined intelligent vehicles. The Micron 4150AT SSD combines market-leading features such as single-root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV), a PCIe Generation 4 interface and ruggedized automotive design. With these features, the automotive-grade SSD provides the ecosystem with data center-level flexibility and power.

"As storage requirements race to keep up with rich in-vehicle experiences featuring AI and advanced algorithms for higher levels of autonomous safety, this era demands a new paradigm for automotive storage to match," said Michael Basca, Micron vice president of embedded products and systems. "Building on our collaboration with the innovators redefining next-generation automotive architectures, Micron has reimagined storage from the ground up to deliver the world's first quad-port SSD - the Micron 4150AT - which provides the industry flexibility and horsepower to roll out the transformative technologies on the horizon."

While we are all used to having a system with a CPU, GPU, and, recently, NPU—X-Silicon Inc. (XSi), a startup founded by former Silicon Valley veterans—has unveiled an interesting RISC-V processor that can simultaneously handle CPU, GPU, and NPU workloads in a chip. This innovative chip architecture, which will be open-source, aims to provide a flexible and efficient solution for a wide range of applications, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, automotive systems, and IoT devices. The new microprocessor combines a RISC-V CPU core with vector capabilities and GPU acceleration into a single chip, creating a versatile all-in-one processor. By integrating the functionality of a CPU and GPU into a single core, X-Silicon's design offers several advantages over traditional architectures. The chip utilizes the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) for both CPU and GPU operations, running a single instruction stream. This approach promises lower memory footprint execution and improved efficiency, as there is no need to copy data between separate CPU and GPU memory spaces.

Called the C-GPU architecture, X-Silicon uses RISC-V Vector Core, which has 16 32-bit FPUs and a Scaler ALU for processing regular integers as well as floating point instructions. A unified instruction decoder feeds the cores, which are connected to a thread scheduler, texture unit, rasterizer, clipping engine, neural engine, and pixel processors. All is fed into a frame buffer, which feeds the video engine for video output. The setup of the cores allows the users to program each core individually for HPC, AI, video, or graphics workloads. Without software, there is no usable chip, which prompts X-Silicon to work on OpenGL ES, Vulkan, Mesa, and OpenCL APIs. Additionally, the company plans to release a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for direct chip programming. According to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry has been seeking an open-standard GPU that is flexible and scalable enough to support various markets. X-Silicon's CPU/GPU hybrid chip aims to address this need by providing manufacturers with a single, open-chip design that can handle any desired workload. The XSi gave no timeline, but it has plans to distribute the IP to OEMs and hyperscalers, so the first silicon is still away.

Yesterday, AMD announced that its cutting-edge adaptive computing technology was selected by Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS) for its newest automotive LiDAR reference design. SSS, a global leader in image sensor technology, and AMD joined forces to deliver a powerful and efficient LiDAR solution for use in autonomous vehicles. Using adaptive computing technology from AMD significantly extends the SSS LiDAR system capabilities, offering extraordinary accuracy, fast data processing, and high reliability for next-generation autonomous driving solutions.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of autonomous driving, the demand for precise and reliable sensor technology has never been greater. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology plays a pivotal role in enabling depth perception and environmental mapping for various industries. LiDAR delivers image classification, segmentation, and object detection data that is essential for 3D vision perception enhanced by AI, which cannot be provided by cameras alone, especially in low-light or inclement weather. The dedicated LiDAR reference design addresses the complexities of autonomous vehicle development with a standardized platform to enhance safety in navigating diverse driving scenarios.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation ("Silicon Motion"), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today introduced its UFS (Universal Flash Storage) 4.0 controller, the SM2756, as the flagship of the industry's broadest merchant portfolio of UFS controller solutions for the growing requirements of AI-powered smartphones as well as other high-performance applications including automotive and edge computing. The company also added a new, second generation SM2753 UFS 3.1 controller to broaden its portfolio of controllers now supporting UFS 4.0 to UFS 2.2 standards. Silicon Motion's UFS portfolio delivers high-performance and low power embedded storage for flagship to mainstream and value mobile and computing devices, supporting the broadest range of NAND flash, including next-generation high speed 3D TLC and QLC NAND.

The new SM2756 UFS 4.0 controller solution is the world's most advanced controller, built on leading 6 nm EUV technology and using MIPI M-PHY low-power architecture, providing the right balance of high performance and power efficiency to enable the all day computing needs of today's premium and AI mobile devices. The SM2756 achieves sequential read performance exceeding 4,300 MB/s and sequential write speeds of over 4,000 MB/s and supports the broadest range of 3D TLC and QLC NAND flash with densities of up to 2 TB.

NVIDIA today announced it will host its flagship GTC 2024 conference at the San Jose Convention Center from March 18-21. More than 300,000 people are expected to register to attend in person or virtually. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang will deliver the keynote from the SAP Center on Monday, March 18, at 1 p.m. Pacific time. It will be livestreamed and available on demand. Registration is not required to view the keynote online. Since Huang first highlighted machine learning in his 2014 GTC keynote, NVIDIA has been at the forefront of the AI revolution. The company's platforms have played a crucial role in enabling AI across numerous domains including large language models, biology, cybersecurity, data center and cloud computing, conversational AI, networking, physics, robotics, and quantum, scientific and edge computing.

The event's 900 sessions and over 300 exhibitors will showcase how organizations are deploying NVIDIA platforms to achieve remarkable breakthroughs across industries, including aerospace, agriculture, automotive and transportation, cloud services, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, retail and telecommunications. "Generative AI has moved to center stage as governments, industries and organizations everywhere look to harness its transformative capabilities," Huang said. "GTC has become the world's most important AI conference because the entire ecosystem is there to share knowledge and advance the state of the art. Come join us."

More than mere modes of transportation, today's software-defined vehicles are a result of the ongoing transformation of the automobile from a product that is mainly hardware-based to a software-centric device on wheels. Premium vehicles today can have up to 150 million lines of software code, distributed among hundreds of electronic control units (ECUs), sensors, cameras, Lidar and more.

It is critical for automotive OEMs to ensure the quality and reliability of these software-intensive systems. Automotive SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination) is an industry-standard guideline for evaluating the automotive embedded software development process. This ISO/IEC 15504 standard proves the software and development capabilities of automotive suppliers and manufacturers meet OEM requirements and incorporate best practices throughout the automotive software development cycle.

The Crew Motorfest Season 2 kicked off on December 6, marking the start of the game's partnership with Hoonigan, a brand focused on building custom cars capable of performing difficult and precise driving - and looking cool while doing it. Hoonigan is known for their series of Gymkhana films, which feature rally driver and Hoonigan co-founder Ken Block performing incredible stunts in major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and more. They also created a YouTube series called This vs. That, which pits two customized cars against one another in a best-of-three drag race, and will frequently post new videos highlighting new and upcoming car builds. According to Hoonigan co-founder Brian Scotto, the company's mission statement (other than not to have a mission statement) is to be nimble and have fun, all in service of entertaining their audience (and themselves).

For Season 2, Hoonigan has completely taken over The Crew Motorfest, bringing a new Playlist, Gymkhaha Grid Masters, as well as curated weekly events on the Main Stage, monthly challenges, a car playground just offshore of the main island, and, of course, bespoke Hoonigan cars that can be earned by completing challenges or purchased from the in-game store. Some of the vehicles include Scotto's 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo TWB, Scotto's 1990 Audi Coupé Quattro, the 1965 Ford Hoonicorn Mustang, the 1988 Chevrolet Big Block ZZ632 Camaro, and the Audi S1 E-Tron Quattro Hoonitron 2021, among many others.

Today, AMD announced it will showcase automotive innovation at CES 2024 and expand its portfolio with the introduction of two new devices, the Versal AI Edge XA adaptive SoC and Ryzen Embedded V2000A Series processor. The devices underscore AMD automotive technology leadership and are designed to serve key automotive focus segments including infotainment, advanced driver safety and autonomous driving. Working alongside a growing automotive partner ecosystem, AMD will demonstrate at CES 2024 the broad range of capabilities and applications for these new devices in automotive solutions available today and in the future.

Versal AI Edge XA adaptive SoCs add an advanced AI Engine, enabling the devices to be further optimized for numerous next-generation advanced automotive systems and applications including: forward cameras, in-cabin monitoring, LiDAR, 4D radar, surround-view, automated parking and autonomous driving. Versal AI Edge XA adaptive SoCs are also the first AMD 7 nm device to be auto-qualified, bringing hardened IP and added security to automotive applications where safety is paramount.

Semiconductor industry players Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor ASA, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., have formally established Quintauris GmbH. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the company aims to advance the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development.

The formation of Quintauris was formally announced in August, with the aim to be a single source to enable compatible RISC-V-based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish solutions to be widely used across various industries. The initial application focus will be automotive, but with an eventual expansion to include mobile and IoT.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has initiated mass production of its new automotive Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 3.1 memory solution optimized for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. The new solution offers the industry's lowest energy consumption, enabling car manufacturers to provide the best mobility experience for consumers.

The UFS 3.1 lineup will come in 128, 256 and 512-gigabyte (GB) variants to meet different needs of customers. The enhanced lineup allows more efficient battery life management to future automotive applications such as electric or autonomous vehicles. The 256 GB model, for instance, has reduced its energy consumption by about 33% compared to the previous generation product. The 256 GB model also provides a sequential write speed of 700-megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and a sequential read speed of 2,000 MB/s.

Metalenz, the world leader in metasurface optics, today announced it has partnered with leading semiconductor foundry United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC") to release its direct supply chain to mass production and bring the unrivaled scale and precision of semiconductor manufacturing to the optics industry. The announcement marks the launch of metasurface optics on the open market for the first time and follows multiple design wins for Metalenz with leading OEMs in Asia.

"After initially designing meta-optics in partnership with one of the leading suppliers of 3D sensing solutions, we are now engaged with OEMs directly to bring the benefits of metasurface optics to their 3D sensing applications. By partnering with a world-class foundry like UMC, we gain the manufacturing capabilities, expertise, and global reach to serve customers interested in adopting our meta-optics technology," said Rob Devlin, Co-founder and CEO of Metalenz. "This will further accelerate our growth as we are becoming the leading provider of precision optics for 3D sensing solutions."

TrendForce reports that inventory reduction in Q1 fell short of expectations and coincided with the industry's traditional off-season, leading to overall subdued demand. However, due to new product release and a surge in urgent orders for specialized specifications, Q1 revenue of the global top ten IC design houses remained on par with 4Q22, with a modest QoQ increase of 0.1% for a total revenue of US$33.86 billion. Changes in ranking included Cirrus Logic slipping from the top ten as well as the ninth and tenth positions being replaced by WillSemi and MPS, respectively. The rest of the rankings remained unchanged.

The smartphone supply continues to grapple with overstock, but AI applications are entering a period of rapid growth
Qualcomm witnessed an uptick in its revenue, largely attributed to the launch and subsequent shipments of its latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8Gen2. The company saw 6.1% in QoQ growth in its smartphone business, which effectively offset the downturn from its automotive and IoT sectors. As a result, Qualcomm's Q1 revenue increased marginally by 0.6%, cementing its position at the top of the pack with a market share of 23.5%.

Ethernovia, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based startup, today announced that it has completed its A-round financing of $64 million. The funding round consists of multiple investors, including Porsche Automobile Holding SE (Porsche SE), Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, AMD Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Fall Line Capital, Taiwania Capital, ENEA Capital and others.

As vehicle architectures evolve from domain-centric controllers, networking solutions must concurrently evolve to support higher data rates of advanced vehicle applications while meeting demand for improved reliability and security. Such advanced applications include Advanced Driver-Assisted Systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD) and a rich ecosystem of customer software delivered Over the Air (OTA).

TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor giant, is reportedly talking to its partners to develop an $11 billion (€10 billion) factory in Germany with the help of a few European partners. Currently assessing the plant location for Saxony in Germany, the fab wouldn't only be exclusively made by TSMC but will bring in NXP, Bosch, and Infineon that, will create a budget of around 7 billion Euros, including state subsidies, while the total budget is leaning closer to 10 billion Euros in total. However, it is essential to note that TSMC is still assessing the possibility of a Europe-based plant altogether.

Asking for as much as 40% of the total investment to be European-backed subsidies, TSMC wants to create a European facility that will be focused on a growing sector--automotive. If approved in August, the TSMC plant will become the company's first European facility and will first focus on manufacturing 28 nm chips. As one of the first significant EU Chips Act €43 billion investment, it will heavily boost European semiconductor manufacturing.

MIT researchers have developed a groundbreaking technology that allows for the growth of 2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials directly on fully fabricated silicon chips, enabling denser integrations. Conventional methods require temperatures of about 600°C, which can damage silicon transistors and circuits as they break down above 400°C. The MIT team overcame this challenge by creating a low-temperature growth process that preserves the chip's integrity, allowing 2D semiconductor transistors to be directly integrated on top of standard silicon circuits. The new approach grows a smooth, highly uniform layer across an entire 8-inch wafer, unlike previous methods that involved growing 2D materials elsewhere before transferring them to a chip or wafer. This process often led to imperfections that negatively impacted device and chip performance.

Additionally, the novel technology can grow a uniform layer of TMD material in less than an hour over 8-inch wafers, a significant improvement from previous methods that required over a day for a single layer. The enhanced speed and uniformity of this technology make it suitable for commercial applications, where 8-inch or larger wafers are essential. The researchers focused on molybdenum disulfide, a flexible, transparent 2D material with powerful electronic and photonic properties ideal for semiconductor transistors. They designed a new furnace for the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition process, which has separate low and high-temperature regions. The silicon wafer is placed in the low-temperature region while vaporized molybdenum and sulfur precursors flow into the furnace. Molybdenum remains in the low-temperature region, while the sulfur precursor decomposes in the high-temperature region before flowing back into the low-temperature region to grow molybdenum disulfide on the wafer surface.

Bosch is expanding its semiconductor business with silicon carbide chips. The technology company plans to acquire assets of the U.S. chipmaker TSI Semiconductors, based in Roseville, California. With a workforce of 250, the company is a foundry for application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs. Currently, it mainly develops and produces large volumes of chips on 200-millimeter silicon wafers for applications in the mobility, telecommunications, energy, and life sciences industries. Over the next years, Bosch intends to invest more than 1.5 billion USD in the Roseville site and convert the TSI Semiconductors manufacturing facilities to state-of-the-art processes. Starting in 2026, the first chips will be produced on 200-millimeter wafers based on the innovative material silicon carbide (SiC).

In this way, Bosch is systematically reinforcing its semiconductor business, and will have significantly extended its global portfolio of SiC chips by the end of 2030. Above all, the global boom and ramp-up of electromobility are resulting in huge demand for such special semiconductors. The full scope of the planned investment will be heavily dependent on federal funding opportunities available via the CHIPS and Science Act as well as economic development opportunities within the State of California. Bosch and TSI Semiconductors have reached an agreement to not to disclose any financial details of the transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Arm today announced a multigeneration agreement to enable chip designers to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on the Intel 18A process. The collaboration will focus on mobile SoC designs first, but allow for potential design expansion into automotive, Internet of Things (IoT), data center, aerospace and government applications. Arm customers designing their next-generation mobile SoCs will benefit from leading-edge Intel 18A process technology, which delivers new breakthrough transistor technologies for improved power and performance, and from IFS's robust manufacturing footprint that includes U.S.- and EU-based capacity.

"There is growing demand for computing power driven by the digitization of everything, but until now fabless customers have had limited options for designing around the most advanced mobile technology," said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation. "Intel's collaboration with Arm will expand the market opportunity for IFS and open up new options and approaches for any fabless company that wants to access best-in-class CPU IP and the power of an open system foundry with leading-edge process technology."

DFI, the global leader in embedded motherboards and industrial computers, has stepped into the electric vehicle (EV) market in recent years. Alongside VicOne, the automotive cybersecurity expert and the subsidiary of Trend Micro, they will demonstrate technologies related to vehicle software security application that enable more comprehensive network security protection for smart cities.

This year, to demonstrate the AI computing and vehicle-to-everything technology used in Connected Vehicles and Smart Poles, DFI has built an actual smart traffic intersection at the venue with road side units (RSU), digital signage, intelligent edge computers, onboard units (OBU), in-vehicle AI computers, and driver HMIs.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2022. The Company posted KRW 70.46 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 4.31 trillion in operating profit in the quarter ended December 31, 2022. For the full year, it reported 302.23 trillion in annual revenue, a record high and KRW 43.38 trillion in operating profit.

The business environment deteriorated significantly in the fourth quarter due to weak demand amid a global economic slowdown. Earnings at the Memory Business decreased sharply as prices fell and customers continued to adjust inventory. The System LSI Business also saw a decline in earnings as sales of key products were weighed down by inventory adjustments in the industry. The Foundry Business posted a new record for quarterly revenue while profit increased year-on-year on the back of advanced node capacity expansion as well as customer base and application area diversification.

TrendForce's recent analysis of the foundry market reveals that demand continues to slide for all types of mature and advanced nodes. The major IC design houses have cut wafer input for 1Q23 and will likely scale back further for 2Q23. Currently, foundries are expected to maintain a lower-than-ideal level of capacity utilization rate in the first two quarters of this year. Some nodes could experience a steeper demand drop in 2Q23 as there are still no signs of a significant rebound in wafer orders. Looking ahead to the second half of this year, orders will likely pick up for some components that underwent an inventory correction at an earlier time. However, the state of the global economy will remain the largest variable that affect demand, and the recovery of individual foundries' capacity utilization rates will not occur as quickly as expected. Taking these factors into account, TrendForce currently forecasts that global foundry revenue will drop by around 4% YoY for 2023. The projected decline for 2023 is more severe when compared with the one that was recorded for 2019.

United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC" or "The Company"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced its consolidated operating results for the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter consolidated revenue was NT$67.84 billion, decreasing 10.0% QoQ from NT$75.39 billion in 3Q22. Compared to a year ago, 4Q22 revenue grew 14.8% YoY from NT$59.10 billion in 4Q21. Consolidated gross margin for 4Q22 was 42.9%. Net income attributable to the shareholders of the parent was NT$19.1 billion, with earnings per ordinary share of NT$1.54.

Jason Wang, co-president of UMC, said, "In the fourth quarter, due to a significant slowdown across most of our end markets and inventory correction in the semiconductor industry, our wafer shipments fell 14.8% QoQ while overall fab utilization rate dropped to 90%. Average selling price increased slightly during the quarter as a result of our ongoing product mix optimization efforts, moderating the decline in revenue."