June 23, 2025

U.S. Crackdown, Wolfspeed Collapse, and Intel’s EUV Doubts Shake Chip Sector

Round-up

Highlights

  1. Washington tightens the screws again. A State Department official says Hangzhou-based DeepSeek secretly tapped banned Nvidia H100 GPUs for military AI work, underscoring a coming wave of enforcement actions1 (reuters.com).
  2. Silicon-carbide pioneer Wolfspeed files for Chapter 11. The $6.5 billion debt-for-equity deal nearly wipes out shareholders and puts EV power-device supply at risk2 (ft.com).
  3. Intel questions ASML’s High-NA EUV payoff. An internal memo suggests the marquee tool will serve fewer layers than once thought, complicating foundry cap-ex plans3 (trendforce.com).

Other developments: Snowcap Compute’s $23 million superconducting-AI round4; TSMC margin worries as U.S. waiver revocation looms5; Bloomberg tip that U.S. may yank allies’ China fab exemptions6; Continental spins up its own chip design unit with GlobalFoundries7; SEALSQ rolls out quantum yield-boost scheme for sub-7 nm wafers8; STMicro widens buybacks9; Montage Technology preps $1 billion Hong Kong IPO10; Nvidia books all of Wistron’s new AI-server capacity through 202611.

Did You Know? Snowcap claims its niobium-titanium-nitride superconducting logic can deliver 25 × better performance-per-watt—even after factoring in cryo-cooling overhead4 (reuters.com).


In-depth

1 | Government & Corporate Policy

  • DeepSeek export-control probe1 (reuters.com)

    • U.S. officials allege shell-company work-arounds to acquire H100s banned in China.
    • Case fuels bipartisan pressure for automatic entity-listing of violators.
  • Tool-waiver cliff for China fabs512 (trendforce.com, trendforce.com)

    • TrendForce says Commerce could revoke the 2022 “sustain-and-maintain” permits as early as July, threatening 30-35 % of Samsung’s NAND output in Xi’an.
    • TSMC warns investors of 2-pt gross-margin hit if revocation proceeds.
  • Allied fabs in Beijing under review6 (bloomberg.com)

    • A Wall Street Journal leak—amplified by Bloomberg—suggests Washington is pressuring Seoul and Taipei to curtail legacy-node expansions in China.
    • Korean officials seek carve-outs for automotive MCUs.
  • Continental’s fabless pivot to cut geopolitical risk7 (continental.com)

    • New Advanced Electronics & Semiconductor Solutions (AESS) group will co-develop auto-grade SoCs with GlobalFoundries.
    • Company cites software-defined-vehicle road-map and reliability of Western fabs as prime drivers.

2 | Economics, Finance & Business Outlook

  • Wolfspeed restructuring2 (ft.com)

    • Renesas converts a $2 billion loan to equity; unsecured noteholders take 95 % haircut.
    • CHIPS-Act grant of $750 million remains frozen, clouding U.S. SiC capacity plans.
  • Montage Technology IPO10 (bloomberg.com)

    • Shanghai-born DDR-controller designer hires JPMorgan and CICC for a $1 billion Hong Kong float.
    • Proceeds earmarked for 3 nm high-bandwidth cache chips targeting AI servers.
  • STMicro buybacks accelerate9 (globenewswire.com)

    • €92 million (≈$99 million) repurchased last week; CFO says move offsets dilution ahead of 300 mm Catania power-device ramp.
  • Snowcap Compute seed round4 (reuters.com)

    • Playground Global leads; ex-Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins the board.
    • First superconducting inference chip slated for late 2026 tape-out, eyeing hyperscale data-center pilots.

3 | Technology & R & D

  • ASML High-NA rethink3 (trendforce.com)

    • Intel process engineers now project <20 % of sub-2 nm layers will need 0.55 NA exposure, reducing the expected 30 % productivity gain to ~12 %.
    • Rival foundries eye aggressive multi-patterning instead.
  • Quantum-assisted yield optimization8 (globenewswire.com)

    • SEALSQ, ColibriTD and Xdigit propose using hybrid quantum annealing to predict fatal hotspots pre-tape-out, claiming +3 % yield at 5 nm and below.
    • Initial pilot with a European logic fab expected Q4 2025.
  • Nvidia tensor-core evolution analysis13 (semianalysis.com)

    • SemiAnalysis breakdown shows Blackwell’s asynchronous MMA engines doubling sparsity utilization, cutting LLM inference latency by ~1.8 ×.
    • Design leans on 5 Tb/s NVLink-C2C tiles, hinting at chiplet reuse in 2027 “Rubin.”
  • Automotive OEMs go fabless (Continental AESS) 7 (continental.com)

    • Internal DSS-grade MCU family will start on GF’s 22 FDX+ for body control, moving to 12 LP+ FinFET for ADAS by 2027.
    • Continental targets 30 % BOM cost savings and tighter supply-chain control.

Footnotes (raw Markdown)


  1. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/deepseek-aids-chinas-military-evaded-export-controls-us-official-says-2025-06-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. https://www.ft.com/content/6a7f6d02-cead-422f-babc-436f524c423c ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. https://www.trendforce.com/news/2025/06/23/news-asmls-high-na-euv-may-play-a-smaller-role-in-future-chipmaking-intel-director-reportedly-claims/ ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. https://www.reuters.com/business/snowcap-compute-raises-23-million-superconducting-ai-chips-2025-06-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. https://www.trendforce.com/news/2025/06/23/news-tsmc-q2-margins-reportedly-under-pressure-as-u-s-eyes-waiver-revocation-ntd-surge/ ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-06-20/us-could-target-allies-chip-plants-in-china-wsj-video ↩︎ ↩︎

  7. https://www.continental.com/en/press/press-releases/20250623-aess/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  8. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/23/3103377/0/en/SEALSQ-ColibriTD-and-Xdigit-Announce-Plan-to-Develop-a-Breakthrough-Quantum-Computing-Based-Solution-Set-to-Revolutionize-Semiconductor-Wafer-Yields-for-Sub-7nm-Nodes.html ↩︎ ↩︎

  9. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/23/3103304/0/en/STMicroelectronics-Announces-Status-of-Common-Share-Repurchase-Program.html ↩︎ ↩︎

  10. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-23/montage-is-said-to-hire-banks-for-1-billion-hong-kong-listing ↩︎ ↩︎

  11. https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/nvidia-books-entire-server-plant-capacity-through-2026-pushing-out-other-potential-customers-to-build-blackwell-and-rubin-ai-servers ↩︎

  12. https://www.trendforce.com/news/2025/06/23/news-if-us-revokes-chip-tool-exemptions-unpacking-tsmc-samsung-and-sk-hynixs-china-operations/ ↩︎

  13. https://semianalysis.com/2025/06/23/nvidia-tensor-core-evolution-from-volta-to-blackwell/ ↩︎