Daily: Trump revising CHIPS grants; Korea's new president and chips agenda; Huawei capped at 200k chips
5 min read.
No commentary today as I am a bit busy.
1. Policy and Geopolitics
1.1
Reuters (06/05): Trump renegotiating Biden-era Chips Act grants, Lutnick says
President Donald Trump's administration is renegotiating some of former President Joe Biden's grants to semiconductor firms, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at a hearing on Wednesday, suggesting some awards may be axed.
Some of the Biden-era grants "just seemed overly generous, and we've been able to renegotiate them," Lutnick told lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Committee, adding the goal was to benefit American taxpayers.
1.2
TrendForce (06/04): South Korea’s New President Lee Jae-myung Promotes AI Chip Drive, But Industry Doubts Remain
President Lee pledged 100 trillion won in investments and the procurement of 50,000 GPUs during his campaign—signaling a strong commitment to fostering domestic AI semiconductors, according to Chosun Biz.
Among President Lee’s key pledges is strengthening the presidentially-led National AI Committee and appointing an AI policy chief within the presidential office. The administration also plans to designate AI data centers as next-generation social overhead capital (SOC) and purchase domestic chips in bulk—moves aimed at fostering a “K-NVIDIA,” as Lee has repeatedly emphasized, according to Chosun Biz.
The initiative will be financed through a 100 trillion won national fund, with a significant portion expected to be directed toward building a “K-cloud” powered by domestically developed AI semiconductors, as the report notes.
Meanwhile, President Lee has also proposed a “semiconductor special law” that would offer a production tax credit of up to 10% for semiconductors produced and sold domestically, according to Yonhap News.
1.3
TrendForce (06/05): China’s EDA Self-Sufficiency Tops 10% in 2024 — Will U.S. Crackdown Boost or Block Its Chip Push?
It is worth noting that according to a previous EE Times China report, Huawei’s chip design team joined forces with local EDA firms to build tools for 14nm and above—effectively localizing key EDA software. By 2023, the company confirmed full validation was complete, marking a major milestone in China’s push for chip design independence, the reports adds.
According to TrendForce’s projection, by 2024, China’s self-sufficiency rate in EDA software is estimated to have exceeded 10%—a marked improvement from previous years. In the meantime, domestic EDA players like Empyrean and Primarius have shown explosive growth.
EDA development depends on tight collaboration with chip designers and fabs. Thus, as China expands in mature-node production, U.S. curbs may actually speed up the rise of local EDA tools—especially those built for mature processes—driving faster import substitution.
1.4
SCMP (06/05): Tech war: China’s top three EDA firms under spotlight after US ban on chip design tools
Chinese semiconductor design software vendors Empyrean Technology, Primarius Technologies and Semitronix are in the spotlight after Washington directed the world’s leading electronic design automation (EDA) suppliers to halt sales on the mainland under new US export restrictions.
2. Economy, Finance, and Business
2.1
TrendForce (06/05): Huawei Advances, but U.S. Reportedly States China’s Advanced Chip Output Limited to 200K
As the U.S. moves to restrict NVIDIA’s H20 chip in China, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said China still can’t mass-produce advanced semiconductors, adding that the country can make only around 200,000 high-end chips, according to Bloomberg.
Bloomberg, citing Lutnick, sees this as clear evidence that export curbs are slowing China’s tech progress. Lutnick estimates China can produce only about 200,000 advanced chips, such as those used in AI training or smartphones—far below its actual demand.
China’s ability to produce such chips has been hotly debated, especially since Huawei launched a 7nm chip-powered smartphone in 2023, as noted by Bloomberg. Wall Street Journal indicates that Huawei now prepares to test its most advanced AI chip, the Ascend 910D, with samples expected as early as late May.
2.2
Bloomberg (06/05): GlobalFoundries Plans to Spend $16 Billion to Boost US Chip Production
GlobalFoundries Inc., the biggest US-based provider of made-to-order chips, announced a plan to spend $16 billion to bolster domestic production.
The company is budgeting $13 billion to expand existing plants in New York and Vermont and making a further $3 billion commitment to research into advanced packaging and other technologies in the US, it said in a statement Wednesday.
2.3
TechCrunch (06/04): AMD takes aim at Nvidia’s AI hardware dominance with Brium acquisition
Semiconductor giant AMD on Wednesday announced it acquired AI software optimization startup Brium. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Brium is a startup that appears to be in stealth mode. The startup builds machine learning applications to enable AI inference, the process a trained AI model uses to draw conclusions from new data, across a variety of different hardware options, according to a blog post on Brium’s bare-bones website.
Cutting through that jargon a bit, Brium can help retrofit AI software to work with different AI hardware than it might have been designed for originally.
2.4
Bloomberg (06/05): Italy to Strengthen STMicro, Not Tear It Apart, Minister Says
Italy intends to strengthen embattled semiconductor company STMicroelectronics NV, a joint venture with France, Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said.
“Our intention is to strengthen STMicro on an international level and certainly not to tear it apart,” Urso told reporters in Rome on Wednesday.
3. Technology
3.1
Reuters (06/05): Nvidia chips make gains in training largest AI systems, new data shows
Nvidia's newest chips have made gains in training large artificial intelligence systems, new data released on Wednesday showed, with the number of chips required to train large language models dropping dramatically.
MLCommons, a nonprofit group that publishes benchmark performance results for AI systems, released new data about chips from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, among others, for training, in which AI systems are fed large amounts of data to learn from. While much of the stock market's attention has shifted to a larger market for AI inference, in which AI systems handle questions from users, the number of chips needed to train the systems is still a key competitive concern. China's DeepSeek claims to create a competitive chatbot using far fewer chips than U.S. rivals.
3.2
TrendForce (06/05): Samsung, Micron Rumored to Exit MLC, Driving Price Hikes and Order Surge for Taiwanese Suppliers
Samsung is reportedly pulling out of the MLC NAND flash market—and Micron might be next. According to Liberty Times, both memory giants are shifting away from low-capacity MLC products, sparking price hikes and a surge in orders for Taiwanese suppliers.
While neither company has confirmed its exit, TrendForce observes shrinking profitability is pushing the industry toward more lucrative TLC and QLC options.
TrendForce notes that MLC demand remains steady, but shrinking supply is triggering a market scramble. Attention is now on Chinese and Taiwanese vendors to see who can step in and fill the gap.
3.3
TrendForce (06/05): Samsung to Co-Develop Next-Gen In-Vehicle Semiconductor Technology with Automotive Chipmaker
Samsung Electronics has recently partnered with industry leaders such as Infineon and NXP to jointly develop next-generation automotive semiconductor technology solutions, aiming to meet the increasing demand for high-performance computing chips in future smart vehicles.
As autonomous driving technology rapidly evolves, the demand for computing power in automotive chips is also surging. Leveraging its strengths in memory and processor technologies, Samsung is gradually phasing in advanced process technologies, originally used in mobile devices, into the automotive manufacturing sector.
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