Let’s take them in reverse order, according to Google Analytics…

5. UK government allocates more funding to semiconductor talent pipeline
The UK government has confirmed plans to allocate a further £35 million for the semiconductor talent expansion programme. The new semiconductor-focused funding is part of a wider Digital and Technologies Sector Plan. The £35m will be used to scale up and continue the recently announced Semiconductor Talent Expansion Programme (STEP). It includes new chip design courses for students, bursaries, schools outreach, and a proposed master’s conversion course.

4. MEMS bounces back
The 2024 MEMS market grew 5% y-o-y to reach $15.4 billion, says Yole, and has a 3.7% CAGR 2024-30 to reach $19.2 billion after a difficult 2023 marked by excessive inventories. “After a challenging correction cycle, MEMS companies have emerged more resilient and strategically aligned,” says Yole’s Clyde Midelet, “MEMS leaders are leveraging diversified portfolios, smart sensing technologies, and targeted market focus to secure their positions.”

3. Continental establishes fabless chip unit
Continental, the German automotive parts company, has set up a fabless unit within its Aumovio subsidiary to design and verify semiconductor devices. The fabless operation is called Advanced Electronics & Semiconductor Solutions (AESS). Aumovio is currently in the process of being spun off from Continental as a separate company. Globalfoundries has been taken on board as the foundry for the products developed by AESS.

2. Jensen Huang to sell Nvidia shares worth $865m
Jensen Huang has started on a share selling plan to sell six million Nvidia shares worth $865 million by the end of the year. The sales are part of a 10b5-1 plan entered into in March which is designed to allow company execs to sell shares in their company without it alarming investors. Huang sold 100,000 Nvidia shares in two transactions last Friday and yesterday worth $14.4 million. A filing shows that the sale of another 50,000 shares is planned soon. Before last week, Huang is reported to have sold about $1.9 billion worth of Nvidia shares.

1. Intel No.2 for Foundry 2.0
If the foundry industry is defined as including packaging and mask making as well as front end, then TSMC is No,1 with 35% market share and Intel No.2 with 6.5%, says CounterPoint Research. The extended definition is referred to as Foundry 2.0 and was, allegedly adopted by TSMC because it puts the company on safer ground if anyone starts monopoly investigations into it because of its near 70% share of the market for fabbing wafers. Under the Foundry 2.0 definition, Samsung doesn’t even come third…