chip

The US chip industry is being forged in Silicon Valley. Curiously, the hammer is held by South Korea

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The United States has embarked on a journey of technological sovereignty. It has some of the largest and most cutting-edge technology companiesbut they depend on foreign companies. That’s why, Appield Materials has put 5 billion dollars on the table seeking US technological hegemony. And, in this ambitious project, it is not an American who has slipped in as founding partner of the EPIC Center. It’s Samsung. EPIC. It’s a “modest” name for a $5 billion facility that will be in the heart of Silicon Valley. The name comes from Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization and is the spearhead of American investment in research and development of advanced semiconductor equipment. Its objective is to accelerate the development of equipment and processes to create advanced memory chips, shortening traditional cycles when developing cutting-edge chips. The installation is imposingwith more than 16,700 m² of clean room and is expected to come into operation this spring. Samsung. And, in that ambitious objective, is the South Korean company. The alliance is to address one of the semiconductor industry’s most important challenges: the long time required to bring new chip technologies to market. from research to production. The EPIC Center is not a competition for the European ASMLbut something complementary to shorten those processes that can take between 10 and 15 years. And Samsung will be there as one of the founding partners. Samsung Electronics CEO Young Hyun Jun commented that the collaboration will allow “advance in cutting-edge semiconductor equipment technologies.” The EPIC Center Expansion. Samsung is one of the most important foundries in the world and, in the era of artificial intelligence, it is consolidating itself as a pillar by being the first that will supply NVIDIA of the new HBM4 memories. Its presence at the EPIC Center seems like a key strategic move, but it is not the only advance that the company has recently made on American soil. In that pursuit of creating high-bandwidth memory and advanced systems, Samsung has a facility in TaylorTexas, to advance the production of 2 nanometer chips. Foreign industrial fabric. One of Donald Trump’s goals was to recover the American industrial fabric with American companies and American labor. That’s why he ‘rescued’ Intel a few months ago with the aim that the company was his great foundry. And it is having its fruits: Intel has risen from the ashes with new advanced processors and is positioning itself to supply both NVIDIA and Apple. However, what is also arriving is foreign muscle like Samsung and something more serious: TSMC. The Taiwanese giant is the company on which the entire semiconductor and device industry pivots, and it is increasingly becoming making more land in the United States to manufacture in the country and continue with a diversification project which includes Europe. That is to say, the United States is reindustrializing and is taking steps to have an authoritative voice in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, but much of that muscle belongs to the same old foreign companies… that will simply now also produce in the United States. HBM4. Meanwhile, Samsung continues to do its thing. Not only are they at full production HBM4 memoriesbut also investigating the possible replacement for that technology: DRAM memories in which Intel and SoftBank are also taking steps. And in addition to their own Exynos for their mobiles, there are sources who claim that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is developing its own chip for artificial intelligence and is in talks with Samsung for it to be manufactured. Images | Applied Materials (edited) In Xataka | China’s future in the chip industry is in the hands of a single, almost unknown company: SiCarrier

In the midst of the RAM crisis, Intel counterattacks with ZAM. It is the chip to break South Korean hegemony

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Few would have guessed not so many years ago the Intel transformation. The company that will dominate consumer processors and servers for generations has been through a real ordeal through the desert under the rule of AMD. However, they have returned for their rights and not only –rescue through– have positioned themselves to be the great American foundry, but are looking to take a bite out of the gigantic South Korean RAM memory industry thanks to its new memory: ZAM memory. And its weapon is three-dimensionality. Z for ‘zolution’. Do you remember when, in math class, you drew the first cube? The X axis is east-west. The Y axis is north-south. What the square needed to become a cube is the Z axis, the one up and down. That’s what engineers SAIMEMORYthe company resulting from the collaboration between the Japanese SoftBank and Intel, have applied traditional DRAM memory with a single objective: to assault the enormous market for high-bandwidth memory, or HBMwhich dominates data centers. Puff pastry. A few months ago we told you that the two companies They had embarked on a joint path to stand up to the dominance of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron in the creation of high-performance memory. lHBM memory is preferred for data centers because it has a beastly bandwidth that allows a greater number of simultaneous operations. It’s like a huge highway. However, it has limitations: it is expensive to produce, requires a lot of energy, and gets hot enough to require expensive dissipation systems. Conventional DRAM memory was not an alternative, but Intel and SoftBank began to ‘play around’ with stacked DRAM memory. It is like a puff of RAM memory (simplifying things a lot), whose main limitation came when connecting each of those thin layers of memory so that the final product had the same capabilities as that highway that is HBM memory. ZAM. After a few months of research, a few days ago at the Intel Connection in Japan, SAIMEMORY and Intel presented the ZAM prototype. According to the companiesa ZAM module can have a capacity of up to 512 GB, it is easy to produce because it consists of designing vertically stacked chips and most importantly: it can reduce energy consumption by 40% to 50% compared to conventional HBMs. If HBMs are expensive and take time to produce, ZAMs are cheaper, can be the solution to alleviate restrictions in the supply chain and, in addition, would lower the energy consumption of data centers (which is one of the problems they have), and are also easier to cool. At the moment, the company’s research points to a theoretical limit of 20 layers, but current designs move around 16 layers, so performance may be better if this current limitation can be overcome. Real alternative. Intel’s ambition is total, since they point out that their DRAM module joining technology allows them to offer two to three times the capacity of HBM modules while being up to 60% cheaper to produce. It all seems like a plus and doesn’t seem like bad technology when established giants in HBM memory creation like Samsung are also researching how to overcome the limitations of connections in stacked DRAM memory. The prototype | Photo by PCWatch Ambition. And, almost as important as the presentation of the ZAM prototype, is the alliance itself. Intel has been away from the memory market for many years. He tried it in the 80s and, again, years later with his Optane technology -that died miserably without making the slightest gap in the market. On the other hand, SoftBank represents a Japan that had the lead in this sector in the 1980s, but was overshadowed by emerging South Korean companies. In fact, Intel’s memories were eaten by the Japanese… and the Japanese by the South Koreans. SAIMEMORY has behind it not only those sharks, but other Japanese companies such as Fujitsu, Shinko Electric Industries, PowerChip Semiconductor Manufacturing or the University of Tokyo. And if ZAM memory works on a commercial level, it will not only be good news to alleviate the memory production chains (perhaps this will also alleviate the domestic market totally destroyed for the data center needs), but will mark the birth of a new and ambitious player who seeks to break the hegemony of the trident he currently leads. We will see it, of course, in a few years, since SAIMEMORY plans complete prototypes in fiscal year 2027 and begin commercialization in 2029. Image | Samsung, Maxence Pira In Xataka | The CEO of Nothing is clear that we do not need a high-end mobile phone every year. A mix of RAM crisis and common sense

one that leads you to create your own AI chip

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ByteDance is developing its own artificial intelligence chip and is already negotiating with Samsung Electronics to manufacture it. It is at least what they point out two sources close to the project, which would make the Chinese company an even fiercer competitor in the segment that wants to revolutionize our world. TikTok doesn’t matter anymore (that much). TikTok has turned ByteDance into an empire within the social media segment, but the Chinese company has not stopped there. In fact, it has completely immersed itself in the world of generative AI and already has truly exceptional models like Doubao (GPT-5 or Gemini competitor) or Seedream. The only thing it was missing is its own AI chip, but pay attention, because that may have a solution in the short term. what has happened. Sources close to the company’s plans have indicated that ByteDance is working on the design and development of its own new AI chip, which they have named Seedchip, in line with its Seedream generative image and video AI models. Said chip could be manufactured by Samsung Electronics, with which the Chinese company is holding talks. A spokesperson for ByteDance assures that these plans for its own chip are imprecise, but it does not detail why. They go at full speed. The project appears to be moving forward at high speed and ByteDance aims to receive the first samples of that chip by the end of March. The company intends to manufacture at least 100,000 units of the chip, which would also be especially focused on the inference of its AI models and not on training. One of the sources consulted indicates that ByteDance hopes to later increase production to 350,000 units, but the time frame for that objective is not specified. Inference is increasingly important. Focusing on inference chips makes a lot of economic sense. Training models like Doubao requires the brute force of NVIDIA chips and that part is well covered. However, making its AI work for millions of simultaneous users is one area where ByteDance can save billions by having its own chip optimized for its code. Why partner with Samsung. Taking into account that China tries to avoid dependencies on foreign companies, this alliance with Samsung is striking. However, there may be a compelling reason for making that decision: negotiations with Samsung apparently include access to the supply of memory chips that are currently practically out of stock. And above all, to some very special chips: the HBM. A delicate alliance. The clear alternative to this association with Samsung would be to manufacture, for example with SMIC or even opt for Huawei, which is becoming the “Chinese NVIDIA” and it already has truly remarkable AI chips. Choosing Samsung seems to send a compromising message: that Chinese-made technology continues to lag behind that of manufacturers like Samsung. ByteDance already tried it. In June 2024, data already appeared suggesting that ByteDance had allied with Broadcom to develop an advanced AI chip. At that time, the partner chosen to manufacture these chips was TSMC, but it seems that this project has ended up fading. Everyone wants to have their own chip. ByteDance’s ambition follows the general market trend: almost all major technology companies have decided to create their own advanced AI chips. Google has your TPUsMicrosoft their Maiaand Amazon their Trainium to reduce your dependence on NVIDIA. And of course ByteDance’s main Chinese rivals, Alibaba (with his Zhenwu) and Baidu —which has its Kunlunxin division working on it—they have their own designs. But they continue to bet on NVIDIA. This effort aims to transform its short video businesses and cloud infrastructure services, but even if confirmed and successful, it will take time to make it a true reference. ByteDance plans to invest $22 billion in the AI ​​space, with the majority of that budget going toward purchasing NVIDA chips including the H200. Image | Xataka with FreePik

There is an invisible chip in every USB-C cable that decides whether your phone charges fast or slow: almost no one knows it exists

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There is a small and notable chip in our USB-C cables. This is the so-called “e-Marker”, which is especially important. The reason is simple: when we connect a cable to a device, it is responsible for indicating to those devices whether the cable supports more or less transmission or charging speed, for example. USB-C chaos is a little less chaos. USB-C connectors completely dominate the market, especially after European regulations that require them to be used to charge mobile phones and other devices. Although they have become the Swiss army knife for connecting all types of devices and peripherals, it is not easy to know what we can do with a cable when we connect it to our mobile phone or laptop, for example. And that’s where the e-Marker chip (Electronically Marked ID chip) comes in, a fundamental yet invisible component of the connectivity of our devices. In Xataka We criticize the EU a lot with its obsession with regulating Big Tech. There are at least two examples that justify this obsession A chip to identify everything. The official specification of the USB-C standard clearly indicates the mission of this chip, which is responsible for showing what capabilities the cable in question has. The document that talks about this chip is the one dedicated to USB Power Delivery, the power delivery function through these cables. Specifically, the identification data includes: Manufacturer and model of the cable. Signaling protocol: that indicates the maximum transmission speedthat is, if it is a cable with USB 2.0 support, or USB 3.2 of one generation or another (Gen 1, Gen 2, etc.). Active construction (in long cables there may be chips that regenerate data signal to act as a kind of repeater) or passive construction (they do not alter the data signal). How much power does the VCONN pin (intended to power accessories) consume? Whether the cable can support 3A (standard) or 5A (required for powers from 100 W to 240 W). Latency (signal delay over the cable). RX/TX directionality (how the high-speed cable pairs are configured). SOP Controller Mode: Whether the cable controller can communicate independently with the charger or device Hardware/firmware version. One of the sections of the USB Power Delivery specification that talks about this chip. Source: USB.org An active safety mechanism. The e-Marker is not only official, but is a mandatory part of the USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) specification dictated by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). This chip acts as an active safety mechanism, and during the power negotiation phase, the chip tells the charger “I am a cable certified to support up to 100W” (for example). If the charger does not receive that digital confirmation, it will assume that the cable is basic and cheap, restricting the flow of power or data transmission. Does your phone charge slowly or is the transfer using pedals? In fact, if a USB-C cable does not have an e-Marker chip, most device drivers will automatically treat it as a USB 2.0 cable. That means that even if the cable is physically capable of more, the speed will be limited to 480 Mbps maximum, and charging will also be slower. With 3A you can reach 60 W at 20 V, so even so this section is not so affected and it also depends on the charging capacity of the charger. {“videoId”:”x8dmqaj”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”One USB-C TO RULE THEM ALL- the European Union approves a single charger for mobile phones”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”54″} The rails. High-speed cables (USB 3.2, USB4, Thunderbolt) have multiple pairs of copper wires designed to transmit data in parallel. The e-Marker tells the device “I have all the threads necessary to activate dual lane mode.” If this confirmation does not arrive, the transfer speed is again limited. The e-Marker on long cables. Another function of the e-Marker, as we said, is to identify the length of the cable. At high transmission speeds the signal degrades very quickly, and the e-Marker is responsible for notifying you, allowing the device (mobile phone, computer) to adjust the signal strength to compensate for potential data loss. Support for alternative video modes. Another option that this chip enables is to indicate what video connection standards the USB-C cable in question supports, and if, for example, it has the necessary bandwidth for 4K or 8K resolutions. There are “readers” of the information provided by the e-Marker chip, although they are not cheap: this one from ChargerLAB costs about 140 euros. Two key pins. The “brains” of a USB-C connector are located on two specific pins known as the configuration channel (CC). These pins (CC1 and CC2) allow, for example, the orientation or reversibility to be detected. Since the connector is reversible, the device needs to know which side you inserted the cable to activate the appropriate data pins (TX/RX). When connecting it, the side will be identified, and based on that the rest of the pins are switched for transmission. The other pin of the configuration channel becomes Vconn to power the e-Marker chip. In Xataka | Mobile phone manufacturers first stopped including the charger with every purchase. Your next threat is clear: the USB cable (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news There is an invisible chip in every USB-C cable that decides whether your phone charges fast or slow: almost no one knows it exists was originally published in Xataka by Javier Pastor .

The new Qualcomm chip for PC is a declaration of intent: more intelligence than power

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Qualcomm has taken advantage of the CES 2026 to present the Snapdragon NPU reaches 80 TOPS and it proclaims itself as the world’s fastest for laptops. Why is it important. This launch does not specifically confront anything that Intel or AMD have, but rather it is a positioning play: Qualcomm is betting on energy efficiency and integrated AI as its differential weapons, not on dethroning anyone in benchmarks. This is the chip that wants to colonize the mid-high range of Windows laptops, not the 17-inch clunkers for gamers. Between the lines. The figures are curiously contradictory: Qualcomm talks about a 35% jump in CPU but a 78% improvement in the NPU. There is the implicit message: Qualcomm knows that part of the future does not involve winning in traditional processing, but rather mastering computing. Local AI. In other words, Qualcomm has decided that one of the next PC battles will not be fought in Photoshop, but in applications that run LLMs or generate images offline. The 3nm node and memory LPDDR5X up to 152 GB reinforce this narrative: Qualcomm is building machines to work all day without a plug, not sedentary workstations, so to speak. It is an explicit commitment to the user profile that values ​​autonomy and instant response over sustained power. Yes, but. The problem continues to be the ecosystem: Windows on ARM It has improved, but it still has incompatibilities with professional software. Adobe works, yes, but the market goes further. Qualcomm can have the best chip on the market for efficiency… and still be irrelevant if developers don’t optimize for its architecture. Apple managed to overcome the latter in 2020 because it controls the silicon, the operating system and the hardware: without transition there was no business with the new Macs. Qualcomm has to convince third parties. The context. This release arrives while Intel tries to recover lost ground and AMD consolidates its dominance in high-performance laptops. But neither has the mobile DNA that Qualcomm does. It is a company that comes from the world of the smartphone, where efficiency is not optional but existential. That background is their advantage: they have been making powerful chips that don’t fry eggs in your pocket for decades, not to mention modifying the phrase slightly and making it sound worse. The threat. For Intel and AMD, the danger is not that Qualcomm will take market share from them tomorrow, but that it will normalize ARM on Windows. If the average user begins to associate “laptop with a good battery” with “it has a Qualcomm chip”, the x86 architecture is at risk of losing its last stronghold of absolute dominion. And that is a structural change, not a temporary one. In Xataka | The amazing history of ARM, the architecture that triumphs in mobile phones and that was born more than 30 years ago at Acorn Computer Featured image | Qualcomm

chip factories will have to use 50% national technology

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Since the US allowed NVIDIA to sell its H200 chip to China, there have been two reactions. On the one hand there are the Chinese companies, such as Alibaba or Bytedancewho want to get hold of them as soon as possible. On the other hand, the reluctance of the Chinese government whose main objective is to stop depending on the US. Now they have taken another step in that direction. what has happened. According to one Reuters exclusivethe Chinese government has imposed a new rule on semiconductor manufacturers that want to expand their production capacity: they must do so using at least 50% equipment manufactured in China. It is not a public standard that is included in an official document, but they say from Reuters that manufacturers that have recently expanded their factories have found themselves required to demonstrate that half of their equipment was ‘made in China’. If they do not comply, it is normal that they will be denied. Why is it important. It is further proof of Beijing’s determination to prioritize national chips, but it goes even further by requiring that the necessary machinery also be national. In this way it impacts the entire supply chain, not just the chips. The striking thing is by making the minimum 50% it is causing manufacturers to have to prioritize Chinese technology even in areas where they could be done with foreign technology. The goal is clear: total self-sufficiency. The winners. Before the ban, Chinese chipmakers like SMIC typically used American equipment and Chinese manufacturers were their last option. Now they have no choice but to turn to companies like Naura Technology and AMEC, whose demand for lithography machinery has increased exponentially and with it its income. Furthermore, this demand has caused them to improve their technology more quickly, something that is reflected in the registration of patents. In 2025 Naura registered 779 patents, more than double that of several previous years. Self-sufficiency. The biggest challenge is in semiconductors; Without access to the most advanced lithography machines, Chinese chips are several years behind the most advanced ones made by companies like ASML or TSMC. In parallel to all these policies to prioritize national chips, China is promoting projects to ‘hack’ that technology and be able to place themselves at the same level. At the level of AI chips, they are also promoting companies that They seek to be ‘the Chinese NVIDIA’ like MetaX or Moore Threads. They still have a long way to go, but it is no longer a question of if, but when. Image | Nick Woodedited In Xataka | Huawei and SMIC find the key to creating 7nm chips: do an ‘Ikea ​​hack’ to the oldest ASML machines

We believed that the NVIDIA-killer would be some other chip manufacturer. We were very wrong

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Yesterday NVIDIA had a stumble in the stock market. The shares lost 7% and then recovered part of the fall. Meanwhile, Google grew by about 4%. Both movements had the same origin: the rumor that Meta is considering using Google’s TPU chips in its data centers in 2027. Why is it important. During the last few years NVIDIA has managed to dominate imperially the AI ​​chip segment. Its accelerator GPUs made the difference, but although other traditional manufacturers such as AMD tried to follow in its wake, the dominance of the company led by Jensen Huang was spectacular. That could change, and the surprise is that the one who threatens that position is Google. Google prefers to throw balls out. A Google spokesperson explained on CNBC that “Google Cloud is experiencing accelerated demand for both our custom TPUs and NVIDIA GPUs; we are committed to supporting both, as we have for years.” But they have been preparing the move for a decade. Sundar Pichai’s company has been working on the development of the Tensor Processing Unit since 2015. They launched the first version in 2018 to take advantage of it in its cloud computing business, but little by little these TPUs have been gaining performance and are now promising alternatives for AI loads, both for training and especially inference, as Ironwood demonstrates. Anthropic already uses them, Meta could do it. Google has already reached a circular financing agreement with Anthropicto which it will supply its TPUs for data centers that work with its model, Claude. The rumors pointed out by The Information make it feasible that Meta reach a similar agreement with Google and use those chips in its data centers. The difference, of course, is the size of Meta versus Anthropic. NVIDIA shows off its chest. In a post on It is a message with two faces: on the one hand, congratulations. On the other hand, the declaration of intent. But you already know what’s coming. The CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang, already warned at the investor conference when presenting results of the current situation: the rivalry with Google’s TPUs is increasing. However, he also insisted that Google remains his client and Gemini – which has just been renewed with a spectacular Gemini 3— can run on NVIDIA technology. Competition is good. All major technology companies try to avoid dependence on NVIDIA, and almost all of them have their own bets. It’s AMDbut also Intel, Microsoft, amazon and of course the aforementioned Google. But apart from them there are proposals such as those from OpenAI, Broadcom or TSMC that with their XPUs they want to end the reign of NVIDIA. But CUDA is still a lot of CUDA. The development of own chips is promising, but as AMD knows wellNVIDIA continues to have a spectacular wild card with CUDA, the industry standard development platform for AI solutions. The network effect that this technology has generated it’s going to be hard to beatbut Google certainly has resources to try. Image | World Economic Forum | Hilel Steinberg In Xataka | That Qualcomm prepares its own AI chips is good news. Whether it has an opportunity in the market is a very different thing.

The geopolitical irony that we are experiencing in the chip war has an unexpected beneficiary: Russia

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The technological and trade war between the United States and China continues to open new fronts of debate. The last one, derived from the singular Nexperia situationis beginning to point to a future in which European decoupling from the Chinese chip industry may end up having an effect that is especially disturbing. Or dad, or mom. The strategic semiconductor sector has become the absolute focus of this trade war, and here Europe has traditionally been a security ally of Washington, but at the same time a key economic partner of Beijing. The problem is that the old continent has been forced to choose sides. US pressure for technological “decoupling”, coupled with concerns about national security, has forced the European Union to harden its stance towards Chinese investments and companies. Risk for Europe. This European effort to decouple its chip industry from China, far from shielding the continent’s security, could end up being counterproductive and self-destructive. With this decision, Europe would be assuming enormous economic and supply chain costs to align with Washington, putting at risk the future of its own industries, such as automotive or electronics, which are highly dependent on the Chinese market and production. The Nexperia case. The recent epicenter of this conflict is the aforementioned Nexperia case. In late September, the Dutch government invoked an old national security law to take effective control of Nexperia, a Dutch automotive chip company. That company is actually owned by the Chinese firm Wingtech, and the intervention marked a dangerous turning point, transforming China’s acquisition of technology from an economic issue to one of geopolitical security. Beijing’s revenge. The Chinese government did not sit idly by. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce banned the export of certain finished Nexperia components from China to Europe. Those reprisals They stopped the delivery of key partsthreatening to provoke a new chip crisis in Europe, and especially affecting to automakers in Germany and other countries that depend on that supply. Russia rubs its hands. If China’s chip industry is forced to operate under strict separation from European markets (decoupling), and Europe ceases to be a viable destination or supplier, China could find it easier to supply those chips to Russia, which desperately needs them for its weapons programs, especially in the wake of severe Western sanctions. Strategic irony. The situation is paradoxical. European “security” actions aimed at containing Chinese influence may end up resulting in a transfer of technological supply capacity to Russia. Thus they would inadvertently strengthen the war machine of what is Europe’s most immediate adversary in the Ukrainian conflict. History repeats itself. In reality, the curious thing is that it is suspected that all these events are part of a historical pattern. Europe is dragged into a conflict by the US (first Iraq, then Afghanistan, now this decoupling) only for Washington to withdraw or change focus later, leaving Europe alone to bear the impact of broken supply chains. It does not appear that there was much strategic thinking on the part of the EU and the Netherlands when making that controversial decision with Nexperia. USA also wins. This dynamic seems to further strengthen the leading role of Washington, which if it pushes Europe towards decoupling, not only restricts a rival (China) but also causes European countries to massively increase their defense spending. An expense that would obviously fall on the US military industry. a crossroads. Europe faces a colossal strategic problem. Its security depends on the US, its economy is closely linked to China, and at the same time it seeks its own autonomy. Restrictions on semiconductors put Europe at risk of sacrificing its own long-term economic prosperity in favor of a strategy that could be abandoned by its main ally. Long term consequences. If this trend that began with the Nexperia case is consolidated, European value chains dependent on Asia will be destroyed, in addition to an increase in inflation due to the cost of decoupling and a possible strengthening of relations between China and Russia. What is happening with Nexperia is no longer just a corporate dispute, but the symbol of an EU that is being governed without a clear vision of its own long-term interests. Image | Nexperia | Kremlin In Xataka | China is taking a giant step in its quest for technological self-sufficiency: its own EDA software

Spain steps on the accelerator in its particular chip race. And it does so with a total commitment to integrated photonics

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The Council of Ministers has approved the award of 4.4 million euros to the IMDEA Networks institute within the european program of Integrated Photonics. It may not seem like a lot of money compared to the fortunes invested by the technology giants, but be careful: it is the last element of an eye-catching strategy. Fifth successful bidder. The IMDEA Networks institute thus joins four other entities that were awarded last July in the same call. The aid granted by the Government is then matched by the European Union, which causes the budget to double in all cases. Thus, we have: Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO): 23.1 million euros were awarded, it will receive 46.2 million in total Polytechnic University of Valencia: 16.5 million awarded, will receive 33 million in total National Microelectronics Center (CNM): 15 million awarded, total investment of 30 million University of Vigo: 7.5 million euros awarded, 15 million total investment IMDEA Networks Institute: 4.4 million euros awarded, 8.8 million in total 133 million for integrated photonics. With this new award, the Government and the EU will invest a total of 133 million euros to “promote research and development of faster chips with lower energy consumption, thanks to the use of light (photons) instead of electrons.” Integrated photonics? This technology focuses on using photons (light) instead of electrons to transmit and process information within chips. With this it is possible to obtain higher data transmission speeds and lower consumption and heat dissipation. What integrated photonics seeks is to take advantage of optical components (such as lasers, modulators and detectors) with traditional electronic circuits to combine the advantages of both components. Technological sovereignty. Although the figure may seem modest in the context of global mega-investments, it is part of an ambitious strategy focused on the research and development of disruptive technologies. The ultimate objective is to promote a key sector for Spanish economic and digital sovereignty, and here the commitment is total to integrated photonics, which is seen as the future of data processing. The PERTE is still there. The importance of this investment goes beyond research. It is a fundamental pillar for the PERTE of Microelectronics and Semiconductors (PERTE Chip), the strategic plan endowed with more than 12,000 million euros to try to position Spain as a relevant actor in this value chain. This investment is framed not in chip manufacturing, but in scientific capacity and design strategy. The idea is to ensure that Spain has its own talent and technology to develop new generations of components. Competence centers. To those 4.4 million awarded to IMDEA Networks another 3.9 million euros are added to create two competition centers co-financed by Europe through the JU Chips (Joint Undertaking). The ‘PIXSpain Competence Centre’ will receive one million euros and the MicroNanoSpain Competence Center will receive three million. Both will provide Spanish companies in the sector – especially SMEs – with access to technical knowledge and experimentation spaces. To compete with TSMC or NVIDIA, nothing. This is not about Spain going to start creating chip factories that can compete with TSMC, far from it. The idea is not to try to create a Spanish-style NVIDIA either. In both cases the resources needed would be astronomical. What is sought is a leadership position in a niche with high added value, which is photonic interconnection technologies. Goodbye to copper cable. By focusing on integrated photonics, Spain aligns with the work of giants like Intel, TSMC or Ciscowhich have been investing heavily in this technology for some time to solve the challenge of interconnections in data centers. Everything indicates that integrated photonics could end up replacing copper cables in high-speed communications in the next decade. In Xataka | “They lead and AI follows”: seven Spanish universities tell us how they are implementing AI in class

The new iPad Pro and MacBook Pro with M5 chip are now on sale and you can buy them in these stores

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Last week Apple presented two new MacBook Pro and iPad modelswhose main novelty, compared to previous generations, is the integration of M5 chip. Although they could already be reserved, both devices officially go on sale today. We tell you the stores where you can get them and the prices at which they are available. Apple Macbook Pro 14” M5 Cpu 10, Gpu 10, 16gb Ram, 512gb SSD Silver The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple iPad Pro 11″ (M5) 256 GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links MacBook Pro M5 He MacBook Pro M5 is available at an official price of 1,829 euros in its 14-inch version and with 512 GB and from 2,829 euros in its 16-inch version, although it is only for sale in the official Apple store. At MediaMarkt, you can get it even 100 euros cheaper, if you take advantage of the “-€100 buyback” promotion with which they give you that amount for your old MacBook. This new high-end laptop from Apple, the MacBook Pro M5 It has a 14-inch Liquid Retina macOS 26 operating system and its battery offers up to 16 hours of navigation. Comes with WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 3.5mm jack, MagSafe 3 charging port, HDMI, card slot and three ports Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C). Apple Macbook Pro 14” M5 Cpu 10, Gpu 10, 16gb Ram, 512gb SSD Silver The price could vary. We earn commission from these links iPad Pro The other Apple device that can be purchased from today is the iPad Pro M5. It is available from 1,039 euros at PcComponentes, in its 11-inch and 256 GB version or from 1,449 euros (on MediaMarkt), in its 13-inch version with 256 GB. In both versions (11 and 13 inches), this iPad Pro M5 has a Super Retina XDR OLED display with resolution of 2,420 x 1,668 pixels. Both its rear and front cameras are 12 MP and its battery offers up to 10 hours of navigation. It works under the iPadOS 26 operating system. In the connectivity section, it comes with WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6USB-C 4 Thunderbolt and also integrates four studio-quality speakers. Apple iPad Pro 11″ (M5) 256 GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Apple iPad Pro 13″ (M5) 256 GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some accessories that may interest you for these two devices tomtoc 360° Briefcase Case for New 14″ MacBook Pro M5 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links ESR iPad Pro 11 Inch Case (M5/M4) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Fran León and Apple In Xataka | MacBook Air Vs MacBook Pro: we explain which one to choose In Xataka | Which iPad to buy. Analysis of Apple’s tablet catalog with recommendations based on use and budget

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