June 16, 2025

Nvidia's EU Push, Taiwan's Clampdown, and Analog AI Hits PCs

Round-up

Highlights

  1. Taiwan blacklists Huawei & SMIC for advanced-node gear. Taipei quietly added the two mainland giants to its export-control list, further choking their access to EUV repair parts and EDA updates.1
  2. Nvidia courts Europe with “sovereign-AI” gigafactories. A €18 billion ($20 billion) plan anchored by 18 000 H200 GPUs aims to keep EU workloads off U.S. clouds and on local silicon.2
  3. EnCharge’s EN100 puts 200 TOPS of analog in an M.2 card. The compute-in-memory startup says its 40 TOPS/W chip will sample to PC OEMs this year, undercutting discrete GPUs on efficiency.3

Other developments

  • U.S.–China rare-earth truce leaves military-grade magnets unresolved.4
  • South Korea forms a cross-ministry team to blunt incoming U.S. chip tariffs.5
  • Intel warns Oregon fab floor cuts start in July.6

Did You Know? A new Xinhua-reported probe array can test micro-LED wafers with just 0.9 MPa of pressure—one-ten-thousandth that of conventional probes—slashing yield-loss risk for display fabs.7


In-depth

1. Government & Corporate Policy

  • Taiwan hardens export list.

    • Huawei and SMIC now require individual licenses for any semiconductor equipment at 14 nm and below.1
    • Firms caught shipping without approval face fines up to NT$10 million (~$308 000).
  • Seoul’s tariff task force.

    • New liberal administration names trade-law veteran Yeo Han-koo to lead talks on steel, autos and semiconductors with Washington.5
    • Industry groups urged an immediate waiver to preserve DRAM and foundry margins.
  • Rare-earth flashpoint in London.

    • Beijing links samarium-cobalt magnet approvals to U.S. AI-chip export curbs, stalling a broader pact.4
    • Treasury officials hint at extending 55 % China tariffs past the 10 Aug deadline.
  • EXIM’s Greenland gamble.

    • A $120 million letter of interest for the Tanbreez mine would be the first U.S. overseas mining loan since 2019.8
    • Project targets 85 000 t/yr concentrate by 2026, enough neodymium for ~8 million EV motors.

2. Economics, Finance & Business Outlook

  • Intel trims U.S. fabs.

    • Internal memo says factory layoffs start mid-July as Phoenix and Hillsboro lines shift to 14A pilot runs.6
    • Cost-cut comes weeks after CFO’s “$10 billion efficiency” pledge.
  • Nvidia’s European courting.

    • First French site will deploy 18 000 H200s, expand to 60 000 across four EU “AI gigafactories” by 2026.2
    • EU funds cover up to 35 % of cap-ex under its €43 billion Chips Act.
  • Tariff ‘stacking’ squeezes importers.

    • U.S. companies in tooling and PCB laminate now pay effective rates above 70 % when new China levies pile on old Section-301 duties.9
  • Lam Research attracts quiet smart-money.

    • QRG Capital lifted its LRCX stake 4.5 % to 449 k shares (~$32.7 million), citing hybrid-bonding tailwinds.10

3. Technology & R&D

  • Passive evaporative cooling for AI racks.

    • UC San Diego fiber membrane removes >800 W/cm² without pumps—potential 40 % data-center energy cut.11
    • Team spinning out a startup to build cold-plates for GPUs.
  • Damage-free micro-LED wafer testing.

    • Tianjin University’s flexible 3-D probe maintains integrity after 1 million cycles; key to scaling 8-inch MicroLED lines.7
  • Analog AI slips into client PCs.

    • EnCharge EN100 packs 200 INT8 TOPS on an M.2 stick, bundles 32 GB LPDDR, and draws 8.25 W—good for on-device Gen-AI.3
    • 40 TOPS/W matches mobile-GPU class efficiency without HBM cost.
  • Nvidia’s ‘AI-SSD’ target—100 M IOPS.

    • Silicon Motion CEO says Nvidia wants 33× faster flash to un-bottleneck HBM3E GPUs; Kioxia prototyping XL-Flash drives for 2026.12

Footnotes