May 19, 2025

New cash, new links, new fabs

Round-up

Highlights

  1. EU fires a €70 billion shot in the subsidy race. The European Investment Bank unveiled a decade-long “Tech EU” facility aimed at AI and semiconductor projects, bolstering Brussels’ Chips Act with cheap loans that can close funding gaps for 300-mm expansions and advanced-packaging lines. 1
  2. Nvidia opens NVLink Fusion to everyone. From Computex, Jensen Huang said the interconnect that ties Blackwell GPUs together will be licensed to rivals—Marvell and MediaTek are already on board—signalling a shift from vertical stacks to ecosystem play. 2
  3. Qualcomm swings back into the data-centre. The company confirmed development of Arm-based CPUs optimised to plug directly into Nvidia-powered AI racks, reviving a market it abandoned in 2018 and throwing fresh competition at Intel and AMD. 3

Other developments

  • Xiaomi commits ¥50 bn to its own mobile SoCs 4
  • Nvidia weighs a strategic stake in quantum-computing start-up PsiQuantum 5
  • Thales, Radiall and Foxconn start due-diligence for a €250 m OSAT plant in France 6
  • GlobalWafers cuts the ribbon on a $3.5 bn Texas wafer fab and hints at another $4 bn if CHIPS grants flow 7
  • The US launches a national-security probe that could slap new duties on imported semiconductors 8
  • Tom’s Hardware leaks show the RTX 5060 beating its predecessor by up to 25 % 9.

Did you know? The EIB’s new €70 bn pot is larger than the combined public incentives that have gone to TSMC’s two Arizona fabs so far (about $11 bn), underscoring how far Europe is willing to go to stay in the game. 1


In-depth

1. Government & Corporate Policy

  • EIB “Tech EU” programme launches.

    • €35 bn in guarantees plus €35 bn in co-financing targets AI accelerators, advanced packaging and power-device capacity. 1
    • Priority goes to projects that shorten critical supply chains inside the bloc.
    • The scheme answers complaints that Europe’s Chips Act lacked scale versus U.S. CHIPS or Korean incentives.
  • Washington’s Section 232 probe widens tariff risk for chips.

    • After suspending some reciprocal levies on Chinese goods, the White House opened a national-security investigation into semiconductor imports. 8
    • Analysts fear the carve-out that spared PCs and phones last month could be rolled back, complicating board-level sourcing decisions.
  • France courts an OSAT champion.

    • Defence giant Thales, connector maker Radiall and Foxconn began talks on a French assembly-and-test hub capable of 100 m SiP units annually by 2031. 6
    • The consortium would tap EU funds and broaden Europe’s back-end footprint beyond Amkor’s Portuguese site.
  • CHIPS Act money meets Taiwanese wafers in Texas.

    • GlobalWafers’ 300-mm Sherman plant—the first in the U.S. in 20 years—starts phase-1 output; $406 m of promised grants are still pending as the Trump administration reviews award terms. 7

2. Economics, Finance & Business Outlook

  • Qualcomm pivots to AI server silicon.

    • New Arm cores will pair with Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion fabric to chase cloud inference sockets. 3
    • Move revives the Centriq lineage and positions Qualcomm against Ampere and Intel’s Sierra Forest.
  • Xiaomi’s ¥50 bn silicon moon-shot.

    • The smartphone maker set a decade-long budget (~$7 bn) to design in-house application processors and RF parts, aiming to trim Qualcomm royalties and insulate against export curbs. 410
    • Hiring has begun for a 500-engineer design centre in Beijing.
  • Nvidia eyes quantum hedge.

    • Talks to invest in PsiQuantum could pair Blackwell-class GPU clusters with photonic qubits for error-corrected AI/quantum hybrid workloads. 5
    • The strategic stake would diversify beyond silicon and secure early-access IP.
  • Nvidia doubles down on Taiwan despite tariff clouds.

    • Huang announced a Taipei HQ and a Foxconn-built AI supercomputer using 10 000 Blackwell GPUs, reinforcing ties with TSMC even as 32 % U.S. tariffs threaten Taiwanese exports. 11

3. Technology & R&D

  • NVLink Fusion goes open-architecture.

    • Customers can buy the controller IP, letting custom ASICs share memory coherently with Nvidia GPUs at 1.6 TB/s per link—double the prior spec. 2
    • MediaTek will use Fusion in an Arm-based “N1” PC processor slated for 2026.
  • Tin-halide perovskite TFT breakthrough.

    • Korean researchers vapor-deposited CsSnI₃ films with 33.8 cm²/V·s mobility and 10⁸ on/off ratios, edging past IGZO for OLED drivers. 12
    • The method aligns with G8 evaporators already in volume display lines.
  • Three decades of LED progress mapped.

    • A Nature Energy meta-study finds R&D, not cap-ex, drove most gains in white-LED efficacy, while cost drops came from scale and process learning. 13
    • Authors say spill-overs from PV and battery tech sped LED innovation—a clue for future GaN and SiC road-maps.
  • RTX 5060 preview hints at mid-range uplift.

    • Controlled benchmarks show up-to-25 % gains over RTX 4060 at 1080p with frame-gen on; full reviews land at launch tonight. 9
    • Nvidia’s staggered embargo suggests a push to shape early sentiment before partner cards hit shelves.

Footnotes


  1. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-bank-launches-70-billion-technology-fund-2025-05-17/ ([Reuters][1]) ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nvidias-huang-set-showcase-latest-ai-tech-taiwans-computex-2025-05-18/ ([Reuters][5]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. https://www.reuters.com/technology/qualcomm-make-data-center-processors-that-connect-nvidia-chips-2025-05-19/ ([Reuters][6]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. https://www.reuters.com/technology/xiaomi-to-spend-50-billion-yuan-on-own-chip-design-2025-05-19/ ([Reuters][7]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. https://www.reuters.com/technology/nvidia-talks-invest-psiquantum-quantum-computing-start-up-2025-05-18/ ([Reuters][8]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. https://www.reuters.com/technology/thales-radiall-foxconn-explore-semiconductor-assembly-plant-france-2025-05-19/ ([Reuters][4]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  7. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/globalwafers-opens-new-us-factory-plans-additional-4-bln-investment-2025-05-16/ ([Reuters][3]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  8. https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/post-truce-state-us-china-trade-looks-dire-2025-05-19/ ([Reuters][2]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  9. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidia-rtx-5060-is-up-to-25-percent-faster-than-rtx-4060-with-frame-generation-in-new-gpu-preview ([Tom’s Hardware][10]) ↩︎ ↩︎

  10. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-19/xiaomi-aims-to-spend-7-billion-on-building-own-chip-this-decade ([bloomberg.com][14]) ↩︎

  11. https://www.ft.com/content/89d0a1c4-01c8-41fa-9666-5e864a805ea8 ([Financial Times][9]) ↩︎

  12. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-strategy-fabricate-highly-thin-tin.html ([Tech Xplore][11]) ↩︎

  13. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-decades-white-key-drivers.html ([Tech Xplore][12]) ↩︎