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“Power and RF should be priorities for European collaboration in chips”

The Chip Integration Technology Center started with lead customers Ampleon, Nexperia and NXP, and is now courting material suppliers for packaging applications. In the next phase, CITC aims to commit manufacturers of back-end assembly equipment.

“Concerning China, we shouldn’t blindly follow America’s agenda”

A recent German report states that competitive pressure from China is increasing. Europe is struggling to formulate a proper response. Bits&Chips asked China expert Sanne van der Lugt to put things in order.

Quick simulations help Effect Photonics avoid cracks

When it received the first prototypes of its optical communication chips, Effect Photonics suffered from many unusable modules due to surface cracks. To avoid failures and improve the yield, the company from Eindhoven used simulation tools from Comsol Multiphysics, quickly resulting in an impeccable design.

Model-based testing in safety-critical Scaled Agile

Prorail is working hard to implement the new European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). Together with Axini and Intraffic, it has set up a Scaled Agile project, applying a model-based testing approach in a safety-critical environment.

Scaling up to dozens of systems a year, Nearfield eyes IPO

Nearfield Instruments is determined to build the supply chain that enables the scale-up to ship a total of 50-60 metrology systems in a few years’ time. As if this wasn’t enough, founder and CEO Hamed Sadeghian also wants his company to go public in the near future.

In other news

Samsung passes Intel to become world’s largest semi supplier in Q2 (IC Insights)
Can AI design a better chip than a human? (EE Times)
Arm China has gone completely rogue (Semianalysis)
Tesla, Amazon oppose Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm (Korea Times)
Toyota restarts driverless vehicles after accident at Paralympics (BBC)

Bits&Chips podcasts: Hamed Sadeghian (part 2)

René Raaijmakers talks to the innovators driving the high-tech industry. Listen (in Dutch) to researchers, developers and decision-makers speak about trends, technology, business and their motivations. In this week’s edition of the Bits&Chips podcast, Nearfield founder and CEO Hamed Sadeghian on the opportunities in the semiconductor market, his plans to scale and the IPO he envisions.

Outdated belief #8: A/B testing is only for online systems

A/B testing is relevant in any context where a mathematical optimum can’t be established easily. As such, it’s relevant for virtually any company and system.

The deeper the mud, the more beautiful AI shines

With the introduction of deep learning, a powerful technology is now available to develop advanced agritech applications.