Reports
AI-generated structured vendor updates
Intel 18A Yield Hits 85%, Secures Orders from NVIDIA, OpenAI, Reshaping Foundry Landscape
Intel reports 18A process yield improvement to 85%, from 65% last quarter, nearing TSMC N2's 90%. Secured foundry deals with NVIDIA, AMD, OpenAI, etc. EMIB advanced packaging yield reaches 98%, used in NVIDIA Feynman, Google TPU. This marks a strategic inflection in AI chip manufacturing.
TSMC CoWoS Capacity to Reach 200k Wafers by 2027, Diversifying from GPU to CPU and ASIC
TSMC targets 200k wpm CoWoS capacity by 2027, narrowing supply-demand gap from 20% to 10%. Customer base diversifies from NVIDIA GPU to include AI server CPUs (MediaTek, AMD) and ASICs (Broadcom). CoPoS panel-level packaging enters pilot production in 2027.
NVIDIA Rigel Core: Single-Threaded CPU as the New Control Plane for Agentic AI
NVIDIA unveils Rosa CPU architecture with custom Rigel core (Arm v9.2), targeting single-threaded performance for Agentic AI workloads, paired with Feynman GPU (1.6nm, 50 PFLOPS) in 2028. This shifts CPU design from core-count scaling to serial-latency optimization, directly challenging AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon dominance.
NVIDIA Kyber NVL144 Delayed to 2028: Midplane PCB Manufacturing Becomes AI Scaling Bottleneck
SemiAnalysis reveals NVIDIA's Kyber NVL144 delayed beyond 12 months to 2028 due to 78-layer Orthogonal Backplane manufacturing challenges. The interim NVL72x2 solution is cancelled due to operational burdens, and the 4-die Rubin Ultra is also scrapped, leaving a product gap in NVIDIA's scaling roadmap.
Google Awards 3M+ TPU Packaging Orders to Intel Foundry, Breaking TSMC's CoWoS Monopoly
Google has awarded Intel Foundry over 3 million units of next-gen TPU advanced packaging orders, leveraging Intel's EMIB technology with production starting in 2028. This marks Intel Foundry's largest external customer win and a pivotal shift in AI chip packaging away from TSMC's CoWoS monopoly.
NVIDIA RTX Spark: SoC Seizes PC Control, AI Compute Revolution with Ecosystem Lock-in
NVIDIA launches RTX Spark SoC, integrating Blackwell GPU with 20-core Grace CPU (MediaTek co-designed), NVLink-C2C at 600GB/s, up to 128GB unified memory, 1 petaflop FP4 AI, and local 120B-parameter LLM support. This marks a shift from GPU vendor to platform provider, directly challenging Apple M, Qualcomm, and x86 incumbents.
NVIDIA Acquires Groq LPU: Inference Architecture Shift from HBM to On-Chip SRAM
NVIDIA signs ~$20B licensing deal with Groq for LPU tech, featuring 230MB on-chip SRAM at 80TB/s bandwidth. This targets Transformer inference decode, replacing HBM bottlenecks with ultra-low latency on-chip storage, potentially reshaping the AI inference chip landscape.
NVIDIA Absorbs Groq LPU: Feynman GPU to Integrate SRAM Inference Tile, Hybrid Architecture by 2028
NVIDIA secures Groq's LPU inference technology via a non-exclusive license and key hires, planning to integrate large SRAM tiles into its 2028 Feynman GPU using TSMC SoIC hybrid bonding. This enables deterministic scheduling and 80TB/s on-chip bandwidth, shifting NVIDIA from a pure GPU vendor to a hybrid inference/training platform.