The U.S. Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital has issued Wolfspeed Inc. a conditional 30-year loan commitment letter worth $1.5 billion. Wolfspeed, which makes silicon carbide and gallium nitride materials, plans to use the funds to upgrade GaN epitaxy capabilities and develop radiation hardening for its products. The loan requires Wolfspeed to issue warrants for up to 7.5% of its fully diluted equity, and remains subject to due diligence, government approvals and existing lender consent.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-08
Samsung projected its operating profit will top $80 billion for the first time, driven by strong sales of memory chips. The company pointed to continued global demand for advanced chips as businesses expand investment in AI infrastructure and applications.
wsj.com
· 2026-10-08
Jim Cramer explained that increasing borrowing costs are creating a divide in the stock market, with traditional sectors facing constraints while AI-related companies remain largely unaffected. The recent Treasury bond auction, which saw strong demand and a brief yield spike, underscored the importance of borrowing costs for equities. AI firms like data centers, semiconductors, and cybersecurity companies continue to access financing easily, contributing to their market outperformance.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-07
Advantest Corporation has notified affected individuals that a ransomware attack on February 15 resulted in theft of personally identifiable information, including Social Security numbers, national ID numbers, driver's licenses, passports, medical and financial data. The semiconductor test equipment maker had initially disclosed the breach without confirming data theft, but an October 6, 2026 notification confirms data was extracted from its servers. It remains unclear whether the stolen data belongs to customers, employees, or partners.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-07
Researchers from Cornell University and collaborating institutions have fabricated a silicon-doped alpha-phase aluminum gallium oxide semiconductor with a bandgap of approximately 7 electron volts. The work, supported by multiple US funding agencies including AFOSR, AFRL and NSF, demonstrates controlled doping of this ultra-wide-bandgap material system.
nature.com
· 2026-10-07
A research paper published via Nature describes a technique for controlling where semiconductor crystals begin forming during growth, rather than letting nucleation occur randomly. The underlying article content was not accessible, limiting details on the specific materials, methods or experimental results involved.
nature.com
· 2026-10-07
Researchers utilizing AI agents identified two materials that could serve as next-generation magnetic semiconductors operating at room temperature. One is a newly designed compound, while the other is a known material from 1999, both predicted to manipulate electron spins without exhibiting net magnetism. The team shared their calculations, code, and known limitations of these findings.
vals.ai
· 2026-10-05
Lola Vision Systems, a Washington, D.C.-based AI infrastructure startup founded in 2024 by Tayo Adesanya, has built a 'compiler toolchain' that translates AI models into instructions specific chips can execute. The company says manually configuring an AI model on new hardware can take around 200 hours, and it is also developing its own semiconductor chips to automate more of that process. Clients supply their code and AI model, and Lola's software converts both for their target chip.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-05
A multi-institution research team reports achieving wafer-scale epitaxial growth of p-type boron carbon nitride (BCN) that exhibits high carrier mobility. The work involved collaborators from Japanese and Taiwanese institutions, including support from JSPS, JST, Academia Sinica and Taiwan's NSTC, with computational resources provided by Taiwan's National Center for High-performance Computing.
nature.com
· 2026-09-30
EDA vendors including Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens EDA, along with simulation software maker Ansys, began rolling out AI-enhanced design tools in the early 2020s using machine learning and reinforcement learning to optimize floorplans, placement, routing, and verification. Architect Labs recently said it produced a chip design developed almost entirely by AI, which the report calls an industry first, while generative AI increasingly assists engineers writing RTL code and emerging agentic systems can run EDA tools with less human oversight.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-29
Cadence Design Systems is promoting a free webinar detailing IC-STAR, an autonomous AI system aimed at automating the silicon development lifecycle from digital design through analog. The session will cover four underlying technologies and include a case study from chipmaker Ambiq's use of the system in production.
event.on24.com
· 2026-09-29
Nvidia's board approved an additional $150 billion in share repurchases, bringing its total remaining buyback authorization to $235 billion, the company said Monday. Nvidia called it the largest buyback increase in its history and said it expects to complete the program by fiscal 2028. Shares rose nearly 3% on the news, extending a roughly 24% year-to-date gain.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-28
GoKawiil