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Etched in Silicon
Semiconductor Weekly - Business | Investing | Technology
Hello Weekend, It was a big week for chip startups, with two raising over $180 million combined. Nvidia challengers are revving up for a heated battle. Let's dive in
💸Transformer specialized chip startup Etched.ai secured $120 million
🦾Dutch startup Axelera raises $68 million Series B
Etched.ai raises $120 million to develop a transformer-only ASIC called Sohu
(image credit: Etched.ai)
9-digit Series A funding of a chip startup! Etched.ai has secured $120 million in Series A funding following its seed funding of $5.4 million in May 2023.
Returning backer Primary Venture Partners led the round along with a newly joined investor Positive Sum
Other notable investors like Peter Thiel, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt and Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever also participated.
Etched.ai was founded by a pair of Harvard dropouts, Gavin Uberti and Chris Zhu, along with Robert Wachen and former Cypress Semiconductor CTO Mark Ross.
Chris Zhu joined the Thiel Fellowship in 2024 with the idea of developing hardware for superintelligence.
Mark Ross joined Etched.ai as a Chief Architect this January. He is a seasoned veteran with experiences working for companies like Xerox PARC, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems and Cypress Semiconductor.
Etched.ai is developing the Sohu chip, the first ASIC specifically designed for transformer models, which are crucial for advanced AI tasks such as natural language processing.
This chip is claimed to be 20 times faster and more energy-efficient than current leading GPUs from NVIDIA.
Unlike traditional GPUs, the Sohu chip is designed specifically for transformer efficiency, promising significant performance gains and energy savings.
Mixed: Too early to tell whether this will be a game-changer
Skeptics question the narrow focus on transformer models and whether this specialization can achieve broad market adoption in a field dominated by versatile GPUs.
“If transformers go away, we’ll die. But if they stick around, we’re the biggest company of all time.” by CEO and Co-founder Uberti
What’s Next: With the $120 million funding, Etched.ai plans to scale production of the Sohu chip and enhance its technological capabilities.
“Video generation, audio-to-audio modalities, robotics, and other future AI use cases will only be possible with a faster chip like Sohu. The entire future of AI technology will be shaped by whether the infrastructure can scale.” by CEO and Co-founder Uberti
Axelera AI Secures $68M in Series B Funding
(image credit: Axelera AI)
Founded in 2021, Axelera AI is the leading provider of purpose-built AI hardware acceleration technology for AI inference
The company was founded by Fabrizio Del Maffeo and a team from Imec, collaborating with former IBM researchers led by Evangelos Eleftheriou
Axelera's core technology was initially incubated within Bitfury Group, leveraging expertise in high-performance hardware design.
Series B closed: Axelera AI secures $68M in Series B funding bringing its total funding to $120 million.
The round was led by Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund and included participation from the European Innovation Council Fund, Innovation Industries Strategic Partners Fund, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.
Unique Approach: Axlera AI is tackling the "Memory Wall" challenge
ITs Digital In-Memory Computing minimizes data movement between memory and compute elements.
The technology aims to significantly reduce power consumption while delivering high performance.
What’s Next: Market expansion is on the way
The company aims to grow in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, targeting key vertical markets.
“By expanding our product lines beyond the edge computing market, we are able to address industry challenges in AI inference and support current and future AI processing needs.”
🚀 Funding & Deal
Diraq, based in Australia and developing CMOS quantum dot technology, secured an additional $10 million in Series A funding, bringing the total to $22 million. (Link)
Innatera, based in the Netherlands and specializing in ultra-low-power AI chips, raised $21 million in funding. (Link)
Cerebras Systems, a startup aiming to compete with Nvidia in the AI chip market, is planning to go public by the end of 2024. (Link)
Baya Systems emerged from stealth mode to announce its software-driven IP technology portfolio designed to accelerate complex single-die and multi-die SoC designs. (Link)
Orca Semiconductor exits stealth with customized analog solutions for smart health and smart factory. (Link)
🧿 Industry on the Move
DRAM prices are expected to rise by 8% to 13% due to a recovery in demand for general servers and a higher production share of HBM. (Link)
The SIA launched a new resource to track the $13 billion in CHIPS R&D Programs, including NSTC, NAPMP, CHIPS Metrology, Manufacturing USA Institute, and DoD Microelectronics Commons. (Link)
Intel announced a 64-channel optical compute interconnect chiplet with 32Gbps bi-directional speeds over fiber at distances up to 100 meters, targeted at CPU/GPU clusters and distributed memories. (Link)
Lam Research released its 2023 ESG report, highlighting strides made in renewable electricity, water reclamation, emission reductions, and other sustainability breakthroughs. (Link)
Cadence unveiled network-on-chip (NoC) IP that manages simultaneous high-speed communications efficiently with minimal latency, featuring built-in power management, clock domain crossing, and width matching. (Link)
TSMC is exploring a radical new chip packaging approach to feed the AI boom. (Link)
Digital twins are gaining traction in complex designs, enabling more efficient and effective modeling and testing. (Link)
✈️ Across the Globe
🌎 North America
Intel plans to use federal funding to boost talent for semiconductor manufacturing. (Link)
The Biden administration agreed to give Entegris $75 million to build an advanced materials and manufacturing center in Colorado. (Link)
ASE, a leading chip packaging company, is expanding with new factories in the U.S. and Mexico. (Link)
🌏 Asia
Taiwan's industrial production hit its highest level in 34 months due to a semiconductor boom. (Link)
South Korea will start distributing $19 billion next month to support its semiconductor ecosystem with loans and tax benefits. (Link)
Officials from the U.S., Japan, and Korea met to plan how to strengthen supply chains for semiconductors, critical materials, and batteries. (Link)
Japan's auto industry is struggling with a shortage of AI chips, according to a self-driving startup. (Link)
Acer cofounder believes Japan's chip industry can recover and thrive again. (Link)
🌏 Europe
🗼 In-Depth & Insights
“Sometimes it’s easier to get $40 million than to get $2 million when you are serving a large market opportunity - you need to signal as such to investors. We pivoted our plans, became bold and decided to swing for the fences.”
“Next-gen automotive E/E architectures require sophisticated centralized compute units to cope with increasing feature needs. Fusion chips and chiplet-based designs are potential enablers.”
“The semiconductor supply chain is one of the most complex and globally integrated systems in modern manufacturing. Due to its concentration in specific geographical regions, it is fragile. Because of its importance for virtually all aspects of our lives, it is also high on government agendas worldwide.”
“The semiconductor industry has substantial environmental impacts throughout its lifecycle, from manufacturing to disposal. Research highlights high energy consumption, water usage, and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly with nanoscale integrated circuits that escalate resource usage.”
“The challenges in the implementation of software-defined vehicles are really on the software side and the DNA of the companies trying to do it. These OEMs are mechanical-centric, and they’re also vehicle-centric.”
📈 Chart of the Week
CHIPS Act funding is comparable to TSMC's 2023 Capex, which is just under $30B. (Link)
