President Lee Jae Myung presented South Korea's largest-ever budget to the National Assembly, with total spending rising 12.8% to 820.9 trillion won ($610.14 billion) for 2027. The plan includes 21.3 trillion won for semiconductors, physical AI and data centers, and a separate 4.7 trillion won earmarked for building what Lee called a sovereign AI model with the world's highest performance. The budget also funds training 2,000 semiconductor specialists and raises defense spending 8.2% to 73.3 trillion won.
cnbc.com
· 2026-11-02
China's largest DRAM manufacturer, CXMT, is reportedly set to begin limited production of advanced high-bandwidth memory chips within the next two months, despite yields suffering from a failure rate as high as 70%. The push comes amid China's broader effort to build domestic capacity for AI-critical memory chips.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-10-28
A new class of transformers that combine magnetic components with high-power semiconductors is under development as an alternative to conventional steel-and-copper transformers used to step electricity voltage up and down across the grid. These solid-state devices are more compact and offer finer control over electricity flow, though they cannot yet replace the largest traditional transformers used for high-voltage, long-distance transmission.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-10-27
The U.S. Energy Department on Friday added helium to its list of critical materials, citing its essential role in semiconductor manufacturing and energy generation amid risk of global supply disruption. The designation opens up additional federal financing for helium producers and subjects the supply chain to closer government monitoring. Helium is produced mainly as a byproduct of natural gas processing, with the U.S., Qatar and Russia as the top global producers.
news.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-27
Fusion startup Helion announced it received $175 million in Department of Commerce CHIPS Act funding to research, develop and manufacture advanced semiconductors and power electronics for its fusion power plants. The company also disclosed a separate $50 million private investment. The funds will build an automated semiconductor production line in Washington State to supply Helion's Orion power plant, currently under construction.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-22
Writing in Nature, Steele and colleagues describe a semiconductor material whose electronic bandgap exceeds 7 electronvolts, the largest reported for any semiconductor. This value places the material in a range of electronic properties previously associated only with insulators.
nature.com
· 2026-10-07
The Centre for Technology & Statecraft estimates Chinese chipmakers imported 343 immersion DUV lithography scanners from ASML between 2012 and early 2026, not counting equipment sent to multinational fabs operating in China. CTS says about 270 of these are Twinscan NXT:1980i machines, which offer resolution and overlay precision that could support 7nm-class chip production through multipatterning techniques.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-05
Zelenograd Nanotechnology Center has finished the third R&D phase of a lithography tool capable of processing 200mm wafers at a 130nm process node, according to CNews. The prototype is still undergoing internal testing and remains years from deployment in a production fab, with development work shared across ZNTC, Belarus-based Planar, and laser maker Lassard, under a roughly $70 million program funded by Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-05
OKI Circuit Technology announced it has developed 124-layer printed circuit board technology for wafer inspection equipment used with next-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM) found in AI semiconductors, a roughly 15% increase over its previous 108-layer design. The company says it achieved this within the existing 7.6mm thickness limit by creating ultra-thin materials, handling tools, and a proprietary automated transport system. OTC aims to establish mass production of the technology by October 2025 at its Joetsu Plant in Niigata Prefecture.
oki.com
· 2026-10-01
Researchers led by Tseng and colleagues, publishing in Nature, describe a boron carbon nitride (BCN) material that efficiently transports positive charge carriers, or holes. This addresses a long-standing gap in atomically thin semiconductor research, where efficient electron-transporting 2D materials existed but comparable hole-transporting counterparts were lacking.
nature.com
· 2026-09-30
A commentary argues that artificial general intelligence has effectively arrived, describing it as a threshold where machines can reason across domains and act with meaningful autonomy rather than a state of perfection or superintelligence. The author points to a recently released model, called Astra, as an example that has crossed this threshold, while noting that even more capable systems are already in development.
avidfayaz.com
· 2026-09-25
The Trump administration is pursuing policies aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor production, including memory chips where the US lags foreign producers. However, proposed tariffs on imported components and materials could raise costs for American chipmakers trying to expand production.
wsj.com
· 2026-09-24
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