Top articles in June on eeNews Europe

Business news | June 30, 2021

Nick Flaherty looks back at the top stories on eeNews Europe in June, from the continuing chip shortage challenges and new fabs to the latest RISC-V chips and modules and who is supplying Apple

By Nick Flaherty

The chip shortage is of course one of the major issues facing the industry. Initial analysis suggested that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic would be wearing off by now, but the semiconductor business is also facing a cyclic capacity crunch, as Malcom Penn of Future Horizons explained.

Those shortages are also a risk for payment cards, warns the German industry association

Chip shortage hits payment cards

Those shortages are also driving a boom quarter for chip makers

Boom quarter for top 10 semiconductor companies

Adding more capacity in Europe is of course a key area of focus, even if its takes several years to bring that capacity on-line. Intel is reported to be discussing sites in Bavaria that would support the local automotive industry, while ST and Tower has signed a deal to share ST’s latest fab in Agrate. And a senior executive from ST has taken over as CEO of Ferrari, highlighting the increasingly important role of chips in automotive.

In the midst of all this, Micron has been sued for patent infringement by a company that has acquired a number of AMD patents. Distributor Mouser is also included in the court case.

Micron, Mouser sued in Germany

A new system-on-module from a German board maker using a RISC-V processor on an FPGA has gained significant interest. The interest in RISC-V is reflected in a new project for a European supercomputer chip, while another ARM-based project is taping out a test chip

Apple also published its supplier list for 2020 after a year’s gap, which made for intersting reading.