Altheon Ventures

Round-up

Washington and Beijing struck a rare-earth détente that could loosen magnet supplies for U.S. fabs—yet the pact still leaves Nvidia’s H20 export ban in limbo, marking only a partial shift from the stalemate we covered yesterday.¹
Micron’s shock 50 % hike on DDR4 contracts—amid Samsung’s final production runs—has pushed some DDR4 spot quotes above DDR5, up-ending pricing models across server OEMs.²
Qualcomm opened a new AI R&D centre in Hanoi, signalling that Southeast Asia intends to move from assembly to front-end innovation in the AI silicon stack.³

Other developments

Nvidia pledged a 10× boost to European AI compute capacity and 18 k Blackwell GPUs for French start-up Mistral.⁴
Honda is weighing a multi-billion-yen stake in Rapidus to secure 2 nm automotive chips beyond its TSMC supply pact.⁵
NXP will shutter four 8-inch fabs (one in Nijmegen, three in the U.S.) as it pivots to 12-inch lines.⁶
DDR4 and DDR5 have reached price parity on the spot market—an unprecedented inversion.⁷
White House AI czar David Sacks downplayed smuggling risks for U.S. AI GPUs and hinted at looser export guidance.⁸
Nvidia GPUs now power 201 of the Top500 supercomputers; AMD still leads on CPU cores.⁹
GCT Semiconductor began volume shipments of 5 G chipsets and FWA modules to lead customers.¹⁰
Investment Partners Asset Management doubled its ASML stake, underscoring confidence in EUV demand.¹¹

Did you know? Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs already sit in 27 of the world’s fastest systems—an install-base tripling in just one year.⁹

Rare-earth framework
- Officials agreed to remove China’s export restrictions while leaving AI-chip rules untouched.¹
- Analysts note the move could shave 6-8 weeks off magnet lead-times for U.S. packaging plants.
AI export posture
- David Sacks argued that “8-ft-tall servers don’t fit in a briefcase,” urging lighter regulation.⁸
- His remarks hint the Commerce Department may revisit licensing thresholds for cloud providers.
Vietnam’s AI push
- Qualcomm’s Hanoi lab will staff 200 engineers, focusing on on-device generative AI and XR SoCs.³
- The centre plugs into Vietnam’s $1.3 bn national chip strategy announced in April.
Japan’s sovereign foundry play
- Honda’s prospective Rapidus investment would diversify 2 nm supply for autonomous-drive ASICs.⁵
- Rapidus still faces a ¥3 trn ($19.2 bn) funding gap—automakers’ capital could unlock state aid tranches.

Micron DDR4 price shock
- Contract quotes jumped 50 % as Samsung’s final DDR4 lots sold out; some distributors report 100 % spikes.²
- Server OEMs are accelerating DDR5 qualifications to avoid Q3 margin erosion.
DDR4–DDR5 parity
- TrendForce data show mainstream DDR4 1 G×8 now averages $3.31, overtaking early DDR5 parts.⁷
- Analysts expect parity to persist until Samsung’s last DDR4 line idles in September.
Nvidia’s European build-out
- Jensen Huang pledged to quintuple regional data-centre capacity, starting with 18 k Blackwell GPUs for Mistral AI.⁴
- The move offsets lost China revenue and leverages generous EU energy subsidies.
Capital-market signals
- Asset manager IPA boosted its ASML holding by 120 %, citing “monopoly-grade” EUV demand.¹¹
- ASML now trades at 37.7 × forward earnings versus 42 × for Lam, narrowing the multiple gap.

Qualcomm Hanoi lab
- Projects span low-power agentic AI silicon for XR and edge servers.³
- Vietnam’s universities will feed a dedicated talent pipeline under the deal.
Neuromorphic microcontrollers
- Innatera’s Pulsar MCU adds analog and digital spiking neural fabrics, hitting sub-1 mW radar inference.¹²
- A PyTorch extension simplifies SNN model porting for sensor fusion designs.
HPC accelerator mix
- Nvidia’s Grace-Hopper chips account for half of the new Top500 FLOPS, while AMD added 11 new EPYC CPU systems.⁹
- Intel’s GPU share outside China slipped to 13 %.
5 G modem progress
- GCT Semiconductor shipped first-gen 5 G chipsets to Airspan and Orbic; further lots run through June.¹⁰
- The GDM7243SL modems target FWA C-band gateways and NTN NB-IoT links.