Semi Doped

Why Marvell Wants Lumentum: Vertical Integration in AI Optics With Cignal AI

Marvell's potential acquisition of Lumentum is a strategic vertical integration play to capture the massive value optical components now unlock in the AI era. Andrew

How Intel Took EMIB From Science Fiction to High Volume: Intel Foundry's Ravi Mahajan

Intel's EMIB technology represents a scalable, cost-effective advanced packaging solution that now serves as a core strategic differentiator for its foundry services

RF Over Plastic Is a Third Option Between Copper and Optics: Point2's Sean Park

A novel third option is emerging for data center interconnects between short-reach copper and power-hungry optics. Point2 CEO Sean Park joins Vik Sekar to explain his com

MicroVCSELs vs MicroLEDs, a MicroExplainer

Austin Lyons and Vik Sekar host a micro-explainer on the two competing micro-emitter technologies for AI interconnects: microLEDs and microVCSELs. They break down Credo&a

AI Inference Is a Data Movement Problem: Microsoft's Saurabh Dighe on Maia 300

Microsoft's Maia 300 is a fully co-designed system, optimized to solve the memory-bound "data movement problem" of emerging agentic AI workloads.  Saurabh Dighe, Co

Synopsys’s Amazon Deal and GPT-Synopsys: Ravi Subramanian

The demand for workload-specific hardware is forcing a strategic shift in the semiconductor IP business. Synopsys's Ravi Subramanian joins Austin to discuss why the

Every Muse User Gets 2 CPUs and 8GB in Meta's Cloud. Your Phone Already Has That

The push to run AI agents on edge devices will not be driven by model labs or hardware vendors, but by service providers like Meta whose ad-based business models create a

Flash Hit Its Physical Limit. ReRAM Is the Replacement: WeeBit Nano's Ilan Sever

As embedded flash hits a physical and economic scaling wall below 22nm, a new on-chip memory is needed. Ilan Sever of WeeBit Nano joins to explain how Resistive RAM (ReRA

Qualcomm's Durga Malladi: HBC vs HBM, Dragonfly AI 250, and Winning on TCO

Qualcomm re-entered the data center inference market late — competitive GPUs, XPUs, and custom accelerators are already out there. Durga Malladi (EVP/GM, Technology Plann

Pacing AI Means More Compute, Not Less

The debate over "pacing" AI for safety is a red herring, as the practical outcome of more safety work is not a slowdown but a net increase in demand for compute hardware.

TSMC Will Buy High NA After All: ASML's New 6x12-Inch Mask

The emergence of user-friendly AI agents is creating massive new hardware demand, which in turn is forcing the semiconductor industry into a complex, multi-year transitio

OpenAI’s Jalapeño! Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

Austin and Vik react to OpenAI's Jalapeño announcement at Hot Chips. Plus extra spicy questions like should OpenAI sell it, how much of this was AI-written RTL, and

Grok Bots and How CPUs are used in Agentic AI

The rise of user-friendly agentic AI platforms will create a massive new demand category for dedicated, high-core-count "agentic CPUs" to execute tasks in parallel, funda

Tensordyne's R K Anand: HPE Juniper Fabric, Logarithmic Math, MoE Inference, Air Cooling, 3nm

Tensordyne co-founder and CPO R K Anand joins Austin to discuss the company's strategy for disrupting AI inference. RK explains how Tensordyne combines power-efficie

NEWS TAKE: China's Optical Ban, Volta's $10B Anthropic Deal, AMD's Earnings

Austin Lyons and Vik Sekar break down three stories that hit semis last week. They analyze a proposed US ban on Chinese optical transceivers that threatens to cut off 50%

GlobalFoundries Thomas Barber: CPO, Silicon Photonics, 300mm, SiGe, OCI, NRZ

The physical limits of copper are forcing a shift to optical interconnects in AI data centers. Austin sits down with GlobalFoundries' Thomas Barber to unpack why GF

How Retimers Built an $80B Company: The Story of Astera Labs

A retimer is a small, unglamorous chip. Astera turned it into a high-margin franchise. Austin and Vik cover why copper gives up at PCIe speeds, what a retimer does that a

News Take: Hyperscaler CDS, SK Hynix Earnings, China's DUV

Austin Lyons and Vik Sekar break down the market's recent volatility. They discuss the rising fear around hyperscaler debt, visible in credit default swap (CDS) prem

Datacenter Interconnects: Copper vs. Optics, Nvidia's 78-Layer PCB, Co-Packaged Optics (CPO)

Vik Sekar and Austin Lyons tackle the biggest bottleneck in inference: moving data. They break down the three tiers of datacenter networking — scale up, scale out, scale

PicoJool's Al Yuen: The Case for GaAs VCSELs in Scale-Up Interconnects

Al Yuen, CEO of PicoJool, talks with Austin about using VCSELs for scale-up optical interconnects in AI data centers. Al explains why gallium arsenide (GaAs) supply is un