Amos Ben-Meir

I have finally delved into this year's "100 Silicon Startups Worth Watching in 2024," recently published by EE Times | Electronic Engineering Times. One insight from Peter Clarke in his preface is the interesting shift in the geographical distribution of these top 100 companies. While there's a slight decline in California and North American representation (is it real?), the most striking changes are the sharp decrease in Chinese companies and the meaningful rise in European entries. Peter attributes the Chinese decline to trade tensions: "#China continues to have high levels of startup activity, but its reduced presence on the Silicon 100 reflects the trade tensions between the U.S. and China. That friction has intensified in recent years and has hit a number of Chinese startups that may have had international aspirations but have been denied access to leading-edge silicon out of foundry TSMC." #Europe, on the other hand, has seen an increase from 23 to 29 startups, with the U.K. leading the charge: "The U.K. has 12 startups on the current list, up from nine startups in version 23. The U.K., with longstanding entrepreneurial bases in Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, and Edinburgh, has enjoyed strong representation for many years." In my view, this growth is a testament to #Europe's robust academic system, coupled with government support, investments, and incubators like Silicon Catalyst.UK. Israel continues to excel: "Israel has always punched way above its weight by population and continues to do so," with its representation growing slightly from 7 to 8 this year, including NeuReality*, POLYN Technology, NeoLogic*, Speedata.io, Pliops, Chain Reaction Ltd.*, Hailo, .Quantum Machines . (*=new additions to the 2024 list). This list provides a good overview of this dynamic and evolving industry, blending both emerging and more established technologies. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the future of #semiconductor #innovation. For the full list: https://lnkd.in/dgfrNUWX

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Last week’s DAC showcased exciting announcements from startups that are revolutionizing semiconductor design however these rising stars overshadowed a major update from an industry stalwart - Alphawave Semi - whose news is poised to accelerate the proliferation of chiplets and give rise to a “chiplet marketplace”. Alphawave Semi announced a breakthrough with the tapeout of the industry's first off-the-shelf, multi-protocol I/O connectivity chiplet. This technology can seamlessly integrate into larger SoCs or multi-chip modules, giving designers increased flexibility and more connectivity options for different applications. Reflecting on the Chiplet Summit this past spring, I remember listening to Tony Chan Carusone, Alphawave’s CTO, as he passionately described the significance of chiplets and how Alphawave will foster a more open and democratic design ecosystem. Now, just one quarter later, his team has launched a technology that brings this vision much closer to becoming a reality. Adding to their momentum, Alphawave also announced an expanded partnership with Samsung Foundry to advance the industry's progression toward cutting-edge semiconductor nodes, crucial for the evolution of advanced compute. Samsung’s roadmap in sub-4nm technologies includes FinFET and Gate-All-Around, which are designed to maximize performance in the post-Moore era. Initially targeted for data centers and HPC, these innovations may trickle down to low-cost, AI-enabled edge devices, putting the transformative power of AI into the hands of billions of people worldwide. This news follows Alphawave’s early June announcement of their new partnership with Arm, aimed at unlocking the potential of processors. Alphawave will give Arm access to their robust portfolio of connectivity solutions and silicon IP, which Arm will integrate into their proven portfolio of compute cores. At a time when AI technology is accelerating at breakneck speed, many companies are searching for ways to boost compute performance and address the challenge of moving data between compute and memory more efficiently. While multiple startups offer unique solutions, many customers want battle-tested technology to avoid the risk of investing in solutions that may become obsolete by the time they reach tapeout. Alphawave has developed vital solutions and in doing so, has increased design flexibility, built bridges to new process technologies, and shortened the path to market. “Connectors” are often the catalysts of innovation and Alphwave’s is a testament to that word. I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen from Alphawave and strongly believe they stand at the forefront of an emerging chiplet marketplace. More broadly, I believe their technology serves to democratize design technology and will give emerging companies more options to bring their brilliant ideas to life. #semiconductorindustry #ai #chiplets

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Jim Keller, former Intel, AMD, and Tesla engineer, aims to challenge Nvidia's dominance in AI with Tenstorrent's energy-efficient chip design. Tenstorrent's upcoming second-generation AI chip promises superior energy and cost efficiency, presenting a viable alternative to Nvidia's offerings. The innovative design of Tenstorrent's chip features independent decision-making cores, potentially reshaping AI chip technology across diverse applications. #AI #Nvidia #semiconductor #semiconductors #chip #technology #innovation #research #computing Tenstorrent NVIDIA https://lnkd.in/g6a3vAu4

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yieldHUB has semiconductor customers from 13 countries. Customers have, on average, been with us for 5 years. 33% have been with us for at least 5 years and 20% have been with us for more than 10 years. With few exceptions, customers are well funded private companies or well known and publicly quoted companies. Some dropped off over the years, but we grow net customers every year, this year being the second fastest of net customer growth after 2021 (move to cloud tech for big data accelerated during and just after Covid). 50% of payments by all customers are either on time or ahead of time. The payment average is 4 days over payment terms this year so far, 3 days over being the median. But every one of them has paid what they are supposed to, and that's going back 19 years. Semiconductors is a very honourable industry and it's great to be part of it. #customersuccess #payments #customerretention #semiconductors

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I think that there is one stark similarity between Nvidia and Sun Microsystems - that dotcoms had a pipeline from VC funding to them buying SPARC servers, and the collapse of that market, plus the rise of Linux created a storm that took down the company almost immediately. Nvidia has increased their sale price and profits, but they are capped by TSMC manufacturing output so they are not selling more. Right now their customers are building capacity hoping to generate revenues on AI later, and in the meantime they burn VC funding - but what if the market collapses? Still, there is no Linux - yet - but I think Jensen is smart enough that when it will arrive he will co-opt it and not make the mistake of the Unix vendors who fought against each other on a sinking ship until the end. Also there are markets that are big for others where Nvidia barely scratched the surface. Not naming names, but if you only serve telco/automotive etc simply you can't outspend and outspeed Nvidia in R&D because the hardware refresh cycle of your customers is too slow. Lots of room for growth for Nvidia. And not even touched the "AI Factories" they are building with Foxconn. I feel pity for those that think they can go against Nvidia and survive to tell the tale 😅 - and it's not even because they are big. When Jensen was young and Nvidia minuscule, he took over and destroyed SGI which were multiple times their size.

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【Industry news】 #NVIDIA’s Q3 revenue was US$35.08 billion, a year-on-year increase of 94%, exceeding analysts’ expectations of US$33.1 billion; under GAAP rules, net profit was US$19.309 billion, a year-on-year increase of 109%, and higher than market expectations of US$17.4 billion. Adjusted earnings per share (non-GAAP) was $0.81, higher than market expectations of $0.74. In terms of specific business, Nvidia’s Q3 data center business revenue was US$30.8 billion, exceeding market expectations of US$28.82 billion. This part of the business contributes the vast majority of NVIDIA's revenue and includes the #AI ​​#chips that the #market is most concerned about. Game business Q3 revenue was US$3.28 billion, analysts expected US$3.03 billion; graphics workstation chip and automotive chip Q3 revenue were US$486 million and US$449 million respectively. Compared with revenue and net profit data, the market pays more attention to Nvidia's #Blackwell #chips. According to the latest reports from foreign media, Blackwell chips have encountered #overheating vproblems in servers. The chip already faced production issues earlier this year. Nvidia's CEO said in a statement that the Blackwell chip is now in #full #production and #customers are looking forward to it, while #demand for the previous generation chip #Hopper remains strong. NVIDIA CEO said: "The era of artificial intelligence is in full swing, driving the global shift to NVIDIA computing. As basic model creators expand pre-training, post-training and inference scale, the demand for NVIDIA's new generation GPU architecture Hopper and the need for comprehensive Blackwell’s expectations for production.” In addition, Nvidia's CFO said that the company sent 13,000 Blackwell samples to customers in the third fiscal quarter. Each customer is racing to be the first to deploy Blackwell, on track to beat previous estimates of billions of dollars in Blackwell revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter.

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This discussion takes a dive deep into the innovations behind #Snapdragon 8 Elite, including its new naming system and significant upgrades to the Oryon CPU, Adreno GPU, and Hexagon NPU. #SnapdragonSummit

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Qualcomm has approached Intel Corporation for a potential acquisition, which could lead to one of the largest M&A deals in history, though it is still uncertain if an agreement will be reached due to possible antitrust scrutiny. Intel's shares rose following the report of Qualcomm's interest, despite the company facing significant challenges, including a 37% decline in stock value over the past year and ongoing restructuring efforts led by CEO Pat Gelsinger. Qualcomm is engaging with U.S. regulators in hopes that an all-American merger could alleviate regulatory concerns, while Intel is also exploring various options and has received a boost from recent announcements, including a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS). #semiconductor #technology #Intel #Qualcomm #Amazon #chipmaker

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POLYN’s analog chips are thinking outside the box—literally. With 100X less power and 1000X lower data latency, they’re making us question who’s really in charge here. Invest now. https://lnkd.in/dyvbMAK3

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Tackling Data Retention in SSDs (by Anil Burra from Intelligent Memory) 🤩 "SSDs have conquered the market due to their speed, durability, energy efficiency, and small form factor. However, write endurance and data retention are concerns in #embedded and #industrial applications, especially as the technology moves to ever smaller nodes." (Anil Burra) With the scaling of #NAND #flash #technology to higher densities (e.g., Triple-Level-Cell or Quad Level-Cell) and smaller process nodes, data retention becomes more challenging due to increased cell-to-cell interference and reduced margins for charge storage. Therefore, newer #technologies may have shorter specified data retention periods compared to older, more robust #SLC (Single-Level-Cell) or #MLC (Mul ti-Level-Cell) #NAND products. Two key factors affect data retention, the period over which #flashmemory can store #data without loss or corruption, in #NANDflash cells: program/erase (P/E) cycling and operating temperature. A very big thank you to Anil Burra from Intelligent Memory for this insightful article via Electronic Specifier Ltd with more background and insights via the link below 💡🙏👇 - A very good read to an important TOPIC 🤩 https://lnkd.in/eqdH7-N2 #semiconductorindustry #semiconductormanufacturing #innovation #it #ai #ssd #datastorage #automotiveindustry #embeddedsystems #ic #computer #computing #iot #memory #chip #chips #technology #tech

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Check out my conversation with Chris Saad on The Startup Podcast, talking about Positron AI's *now shipping* hardware with greater performance per dollar and performance per watt versus NVIDIA. https://lnkd.in/ghVUHgXm

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In the fiercely competitive semiconductor industry, companies are in a constant battle to retain top talent because in the heart of every good engineer is a passionate problem solver, looking for their next challenge. For them, innovation is the currency of success. Yet companies like Qualcomm, Intel, and Broadcom attract tens of thousands every year by dangling lucrative compensation packages to lure them from competitors. Startup leaders don’t have those resources, so they have to work harder to attract the best talent and then fight like hell to retain them. But some of the most successful startup leaders I know take a different approach. Rather than viewing attraction and retention as a fight, they leverage the inherent qualities of their companies as their advantage. They use their nimbleness, bias toward innovation, and their collaborative cultures like superpowers to attract the right people and those usually end up being the reasons why people stay. Take Richard Fung, CEO of The Six Semiconductor, for example. I had a conversation with Richard and asked him to share his approach to motivating his team. His response was like a mini-masterclass on the topic of talent attraction and retention. Richard emphasized that a culture that encourages engineers to dive deep into the intricacies of their craft, understand the systems they’re building, and connect with the end customer is a successful culture. Richard has been using this approach and it's been paying dividends for The Six Semiconductor so in his honor, here are his six key concepts for creating this type of organization: 1. Foster a Learning Culture: Support ongoing learning and skill development beyond employees' core responsibilities. 2. Prioritize Customer Focus: Embed a customer-centric mindset, and encourage employees to enhance user experiences through their work. 3. Champion Problem-Solving: Empower employees to creatively solve challenges with a focus on customer needs. 4. Promote System-Level Understanding: Encourage employees to grasp the bigger picture of the company's offerings and their role within it. 5. Break Down Silos: Promote collaboration to ensure a comprehensive understanding of projects across teams. 6. Offer Meaningful Challenges: Provide intellectually stimulating projects that make a tangible impact on the company's success. What Richard highlighted is that success goes much deeper than getting great people to join. It's about unleashing the full potential of every individual on your team to drive innovation and help shape the company, and ensuring your team heads in the right direction together. I’m thrilled I got to learn Richard’s perspective and believe other leaders can benefit from hearing it, so I shared the video below. My "challenge question" to other startup leaders is this: what are you doing to foster this type of culture in your organization? Either share below or, feel free to DM me. #semiconductorindustry #startup #leadership

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We’re one day into DAC, and there have already been announcements that will shape the future of semiconductor design. One startup that I've followed closely for two years shared groundbreaking news that promises to revolutionize chip development and democratize accessibility to chiplets. Baya Systems emerged from stealth mode last week, and CEO and co-founder Sailesh Kumar has done a remarkable job of staying under the radar since founding the company, choosing the perfect moment to unveil updates. Baya revealed not only WHAT they’re working on but also HOW they plan to tackle some of the most pressing challenges faced by SoC architects and designers, and it’s inspiring. The complexity of system design, high costs, and long time-to-market for advanced SoCs often means that a chip can be nearly obsolete by the time it reaches customers. The rapid pace of innovation, especially in AI chips, creates an unforgiving environment where promising startups might only have one shot at success. Baya’s solutions, WeaverPro and WeaveIP, aim to accelerate the design and performance of complex single-die and multi-die SoCs and chiplets. By leveraging a software-centric architecture, Baya simplifies development and accelerates data movement between chiplets and dies. This approach reduces the overall costs associated with advanced AI and CPU acceleration and speeds up time-to-market. WeaverPro and WeaveIP have already received the best kind of acclaim, customer adoption, and Baya announced this week that chiplet technology advocate Tenstorrent will license their WeaveIP fabric to scale their AI and RISC-V chiplet solutions. Chip design icon Jim Keller, who sits on Baya’s Advisory Board, praised the company, saying: “Baya makes great, comprehensive fabric tools that start with top-level architecture and allow us to plan at a detailed level… this, coupled with their visualization tools, enables designers to build next-generation chips, chiplets, and IP.” Adding to their momentum, Baya announced a partnership with Blue Cheetah Analog Design, Inc. yesterday at DAC and introduced a combined chiplet-optimized Network on Chip and PHY interconnect IP solution that simplifies the design and architecture of chiplet-based systems. Sailesh said, “In partnership, we provide system architects with a state-of-the-art platform and powerful tools to create the most innovative and cost-effective chiplet-based products.”   I've mentioned before that enabling development is key to unlocking the door to innovation. For founders without deep pockets or connections to investors, gaining access to better tools and proven intellectual property allows them to move faster and at a lower cost, ultimately helping to bring new designs to life. I’m impressed that Baya, a small yet mighty startup, has created this accessibility and fostered partnerships to help proliferate it. My encouragement to the community - watch them closely. #semiconductorindustry #ai #chiplets

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Cerebras files for IPO as it challenges Nvidia in AI chips https://lnkd.in/gCqZmNrJ Most people aren't familiar with Cerebras Cerebras Systems builds and sells the largest #AI "chip" in the world, each is the size of a full wafer - about 200 times larger than the largest NVIDIA chips

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Building a semiconductor startup is extremely difficult and most technical founders are incredible engineers, but horrible at running businesses. This is why, according to Srini Ananth, Managing Director at Intel Capital, one of the key predictors of success for a semiconductor startup is who its founders choose to surround themselves with. Srini has evaluated hundreds if not thousands of potential investment opportunities. This has given him a bird’s-eye view of our ecosystem and enabled him to spot and invest in amazing semiconductor startups like Ayar Labs, Eliyan Corporation, and Astera Labs. In a recent conversation with Srini, we discussed how he evaluates founders for their potential to succeed. It’s his belief (and I agree) that in addition to being experienced and having a firm grip on the reality of the difficulties, founders should also be open to bringing on others—even if that means stepping back as the founding CEO and letting someone else take the reins. It comes down to having the right composition of team and talent to break through barriers, find commercial success, and generate that all-important momentum that ultimately transitions the company from raising funds to generating revenue and profitability. I’m grateful Srini shared this insight with me and would love to hear YOUR thoughts. Do you think there’s a different key predictor of success for startup founders? Share your perspective below and bonus points for contrarian views that cause us to reexamine “standard thinking”. #semiconductorindustry #startups #investing

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【Industy news】 According to reports, #Qorvo's revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 was US$887 million, with a #gross #profit margin of 37.5%, net profit of US$400,000, operating income of US$4.6 million, and diluted earnings per share of US$0.00. Quarterly revenue increased 36% year-over-year and exceeded the midpoint of revenue guidance by $37 million, transitioning operations in Beijing and Texas, mainland China, to #Luxshare and integrating #AnokiWave into #Qorvo. "During the June quarter, we fully integrated AnokiWave into Qorvo, adding #silicon #beamforming #ICs and #IF-RF conversion products," said Bob Bruggeworth, president and CEO of Qorvo. "We are investing in leading technologies to Expanding our #market exposure and driving growth, we are executing on cost and #productivity initiatives to structurally improve our gross margin." Qorvo Chief Financial Officer Grant Brown said: "Qorvo's revenue, gross margin and EPS all exceeded the midpoint of our June quarter guidance. For the September quarter, we expect revenue, gross margin and EPS to increase sequentially. We are leveraging internal fabs, which are key differentiators for each of our operating segments, while outsourcing operations to our strong network of foundries and OSAT partners, whose scale and R&D investments we will benefit from." For financial results for the September 2024 quarter, Qorvo expects quarterly revenue of approximately $1.025 billion, plus or minus $25 million.

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NVIDIA expected to produce 450,000 #Blackwell #AI #GPUs in Q4 — potential $10B in revenue for the #chipmaker 🤩🤯💡 Analysts from Morgan Stanley believe that despite low yields caused by a significant yet easy-to-fix design issue, #Nvidia will produce around 450,000 AI #GPUs based on the #Blackwell architecture. If the information is accurate and the company manages to sell these units this calendar year, this could translate into a revenue opportunity of over $10 billion. "Blackwell #chips are expected to see 450,000 units produced in the fourth quarter of 2024, translating into a potential revenue opportunity exceeding $10 billion for Nvidia," analysts from investment bank Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to clients, reports The_AI_Investor, a blogger that tends to have access to this kind of notes. While the $10 billion and 450,000 numbers look significant, Nvidia will sell its high-demand Blackwell GPUs in short supply for around $22,000 per unit, down significantly from the rumored $70,000 per Blackwell GPU module. Although the actual pricing of #datacenter #hardware depends on factors like volumes and demand, selling the very first batches of ultra-high-end GPUs at lower prices compared to #Nvidia's current-generation #H100 is a bit odd. Thanks again to Anton Shilov and Tom's Hardware for the full article with more background and insights via the link below 🙏💡👇 https://lnkd.in/eeyDJd3D #semiconductorindustry #semiconductors #semiconductor #tech #it #technology #it #ai #geopolitics #foundry #tsmc #computing #server

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Another great article by Timothy Morgan at #NextPlatform "Because of the memory-compute imbalance, customers are spending a fortune on a device that cannot come close to its peak performance because of bandwidth and capacity bottlenecks in the HBM memory. We either need HBM4E memory early, or as we wrote about back in March this year when covering the simultaneous bi-directional NuLink PHYs from #Eliyan, we need a way to hook a lot more HBM3E memory to the current devices."

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