Intel
Canvas Category OEM : Semiconductor
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Xavveo raises €8M in Seed funding to make autonomous driving safe
Berlin-based Xavveo, a startup focused on advancing autonomous vehicle sensor technology, announced that it has secured $8.6M (approximately €8M) in a seed funding round. The round was co-led by Vsquared Ventures and imec.xpand, two funds specialised in deep tech.
The German startup will use the funds to develop its distributed Photonic Radar system, expand the engineering team, and support key partnerships with automakers and technology integrators. The company’s Photonic Radar uses advanced Silicon Photonics technology to place RADAR sensors around the vehicle. This setup delivers a very accurate angular resolution <0.1°.
Led by the founders of Sicoya –Dr. Sven Otte, Dr. Stefan Meister, and a key industry veteran from Intel, Dr. Ulrich Keil, Xavveo focuses on revolutionising the autonomous vehicle and other industries through its proprietary distributed photonic radar system.
Geek+ and Intel launch Vision Only Robot Solution for smart logistics
Geekplus Technology Co. launched its Vision Only Robot Solution. The system includes Intel Visual Navigation Modules, which Geek+ said will drive the digital transformation of the logistics industry.
Geek+ claimed that its new system is the world’s first vison-only autonomous mobile robot (AMR) using Intel Corp.‘s Visual Navigation Modules. It also features algorithmic innovations in V-SLAM (visual simultaneous localization and mapping) positioning, composite detection networks, and robot following, the partners said. This allows for highly accurate navigation and obstacle avoidance, helping enterprises cope with diverse and complex logistics scenarios while enhancing both efficiency and accuracy, said Geek+.
The vision-only robots equipped with the Intel Visual Navigation Modules debuted at CeMAT 2024 in Shanghai. Geek+ said it plans to strengthen its partnership with Intel to develop more smart logistics systems.
Apollo to pay $11 bln for 49% of Intel Ireland factory joint venture
Buyout firm Apollo Global Management will acquire a 49% equity interest in a joint venture related to Intel’s new manufacturing facility in Ireland for $11 billion. Apollo will acquire the stake in the Fab 34 joint venture in Leixlip, Ireland, the U.S. chipmaker’s first high-volume location for its Intel 4 manufacturing process using extreme ultraviolet lithography machines.
Intel builds world’s largest neuromorphic system
The system, code-named Hala Point, has initially been deployed at Sandia National Laboratories, and uses Intel’s Loihi 2 processor. It is intended to support research into future brain-inspired artificial intelligence (AI), as well as tackling challenges that are related to the efficiency and sustainability of today’s AI.
Hala Point is the first large-scale neuromorphic system to demonstrate state-of-the-art computational efficiencies on mainstream AI workloads. Characterization shows it can support up to 20 petaops, with an efficiency exceeding 15 trillion 8-bit operations per second per watt (TOPS/W) when executing conventional deep neural networks.
🏴 Figure Raises $675M for Its Humanoid Robot Development
Figure is announcing an astonishing US $675 million Series B raise, which values the company at an even more astonishing $2.6 billion. Figure is one of the companies working toward a multipurpose or general-purpose (depending on whom you ask) bipedal or humanoid (depending on whom you ask) robot. The astonishing thing about this valuation is that Figure’s robot is still very much in the development phase—although they’re making rapid progress, which they demonstrate in a new video posted this week.
This round of funding comes from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest. Figure says that they’re going to use this new capital “for scaling up AI training, robot manufacturing, expanding engineering head count, and advancing commercial deployment efforts.” In addition, Figure and OpenAI will be collaborating on the development of “next-generation AI models for humanoid robots” which will “help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language.
Ansys, Intel Foundry Collaborate on Multiphysics Analysis Solution for EMIB 2.5D Assembly Technology
Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) and Intel Foundry collaborated to provide multiphysics signoff solutions for Intel’s innovative 2.5D chip assembly technology, which uses EMIB technology to connect the die flexibly and without the need for through-silicon vias (TSVs). Ansys’ accurate simulation engines deliver higher speeds, lower power consumption, and greater reliability in advanced silicon systems for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing, autonomous driving, and graphic processing.
A Peek at Intel’s Future Foundry Tech
Intel broke Clearwater Forest’s system down into its core functions, chose the best-fit technology to build each, and stitched them back together using a suite of new technical tricks. The result is a CPU architecture capable of scaling to as many as 300 billion transistors.
n Clearwater Forest, billions of transistors are divided among three different types of silicon ICs, called dies or chiplets, interconnected and packaged together. The heart of the system is as many as 12 processor-core chiplets built using the Intel 18A process. These chiplets are 3D-stacked atop three “base dies” built using Intel 3, the process that makes compute cores for the Sierra Forest CPU, due out this year. Housed on the base die will be the CPU’s main cache memory, voltage regulators, and internal network. “The stacking improves the latency between compute and memory by shortening the hops, while at the same time enabling a larger cache,” says senior principal engineer Pushkar Ranade.
Skylo Technologies Raises $37 Million From Intel Capital, Innovation Endeavors, BMW i Ventures, Samsung Catalyst, Next47 & Seraphim Space
Skylo Technologies, the leading direct-to-device satellite connectivity service provider, today announces that it has secured $37 million in funding co-led by Intel Capital and Innovation Endeavors. New investors include BMW i Ventures, Next47, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and Seraphim Space. David Johnson of Intel Capital joins the board, bringing a wealth of experience and insight to fortify Skylo’s leadership team.
This new investment expands Skylo’s scale and business operations to better support smartphones, wearables, IoT devices, and mobile network operator customers. This is a major step in Skylo’s commitment to making standards based non-terrestrial networks (NTN) more accessible and efficient for numerous sectors, including consumer, automotive, agriculture, energy, transportation, and beyond.
Cambridge Mechatronics secures over $40m investment to further develop its revolutionary smartphone imaging technology
Cambridge Mechatronics Limited (CML), the world leader in the design and control of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators, announces the closing of a funding round totalling over $40m to enable rapid expansion of its actuator and controller IC product portfolios. The oversubscribed funding round was led by Atlantic Bridge. Intel Capital and Supernova acted as co-leads with further participation from Sony Innovation Fund.
Smartphone innovation is dominated by camera technology, fuelled by the growth of social media and video sharing platforms. CML is primarily focused on developing disruptive solutions for improving smartphone imaging, including SMA actuators and controller ICs. SMA actuators generate a high force-to-mass ratio, performing precision movements of camera components to achieve autofocus (AF) and optical image stabilisation (OIS), in a more compact and lightweight design. Compared to incumbent voice coil motor technology, SMA is free of electromagnetic interference. CML’s new SMA Variable Aperture provides continuous aperture control in a form-factor significantly smaller than the industry standard. The patented Zero Hold Power technology holds components such as the aperture in place during image capture whilst consuming no power.
Intel’s Humbling
This is where being a semiconductor CEO is very difficult. Over the last few years Gelsinger has done exactly what needed to be done a decade earlier: he is transforming Intel into a foundry that serves external customers, and he is working to at least make Intel competitive again on the leading edge, and maybe even take the lead in a few years, if you believe Intel’s claims about its 18A process. 18A is the fifth of the fabled “five nodes in four years” that Gelsinger promised shortly after he took over, and it appears that he is pulling it off.
🇯🇵 Japan's NTT, Intel to collaborate on cutting-edge chips using optical tech
Japanese telecom carrier NTT will develop technologies to mass-produce next-generation semiconductors that drastically reduce power consumption by utilizing optical technology, in partnership with U.S. chipmaker Intel and other semiconductor companies. SK Hynix of South Korea is also expected to participate in the initiative, which eyes countering China by cooperating in research and development of cutting-edge strategic technologies. The Japanese government will provide about 45 billion yen ($305 million) in support.
Intel and UMC Announce New Foundry Collaboration
Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303) (“UMC”), a leading global semiconductor foundry, announced that they will collaborate on the development of a 12-nanometer semiconductor process platform to address high-growth markets such as mobile, communication infrastructure and networking. The long-term agreement brings together Intel’s at-scale U.S. manufacturing capacity and UMC’s extensive foundry experience on mature nodes to enable an expanded process portfolio. It also offers global customers greater choice in their sourcing decisions with access to a more geographically diversified and resilient supply chain.
Intel Opens Fab 9 in New Mexico
Intel celebrated the opening of Fab 9, its cutting-edge factory in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The milestone is part of Intel’s previously announced $3.5 billion investment to equip its New Mexico operations for the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor packaging technologies, including Intel’s breakthrough 3D packaging technology, Foveros, which offers flexible options for combining multiple chips that are optimized for power, performance and cost.
JF35-ADN1 industrial robotics motherboards by Jetway
Jetway has recently introduced a new motherboard, the JF35-ADN1, which is set to significantly impact the field of industrial robotics, including the technology used in Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV). This advanced motherboard is designed to support complex machine vision systems and secure payment solutions, powered by the robust Intel Processor N97 CPU. It stands out with its exceptional connectivity and display options, making it a key player in the realm of industrial automation.
Intel® AFS and Digital Twins: Optimizing Factory Performance
Today, the ever-increasing technological capabilities of computers equipped with high performance processors mean we can digitize the concept of modeling, raising it to new, dynamic levels. Now, instead of simple physical replicas, we can build Digital Twins (DTs)—data sets that simulate not only the physical attributes of entities (such as shape, color, and size) but also more abstract characteristics (such as strength, elasticity, conductivity, and many more). Plus, once created, Digital Twins of different objectives can be combined into Digital Twin systems, their behavior mimicking that of their real-world counterparts. That behavior can be recorded, analyzed, tested, and revised cyclically. Intel® Automated Factory Solutions is a suite of products that embody the experience Intel has gained implementing Digital Twins. Designed specifically for high-end technical manufacturers, these products are custom-fit to meet each customer’s unique operational challenges.
Intel GenAI For Yield
Diffusion networks are much better suited to the task. Real samples with added noise are used to train the model, which learns to denoise them. Crucially, diffusion networks in this application were able to replicate the long tails of the sample data distribution, thus providing accurate predictions of process yield.
In Intel’s research, SPICE parameters, used in the design phase as part of device simulation, are used as input for the deep learning model. Its output is the predicted electrical characteristics of the device as manufactured, or ETEST metrics. And the results show the model is capable of correctly predicting the distribution of ETEST metrics. Circuit yield is defined by the tails of this distribution. So, by correctly predicting the distribution of ETEST metrics, the model is correctly predicting yield.
The potential here is clear: better optimization of chip yields at the design stage means lower costs. Fewer mask respins, shorter development times, and ultimately higher yield would all be strong differentiators for foundries and design teams that can implement models into their PDK/design flows.
Intel spins out AI software firm with backing from DigitalBridge
Intel is forming a new independent company around its artificial intelligence software efforts with backing from digital-focused asset manager DigitalBridge Group (DBRG.N) and other investors. The new entity, which will not be publicly traded and will be called Articul8 AI (pronounced “Articulate AI”), is an outgrowth of work on corporate AI technology that Intel initially carried out with Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
TuMeke Raises $10M in Series A Funding led by Intel Capital
TuMeke, a computer vision platform that automatically assesses injury risk in manufacturing facilities, raised $10M in a Series A funding round led by Intel Capital to expand and scale the TuMeke team of engineers, ergonomists, and academics.
TuMeke has become a key partner in manufacturing, empowering industry powerhouses such as AF Group, Chemtrade Logistics, Sentry Insurance, and more to prioritize ergonomic safety and establish a resilient workforce. With employee health at the center of company decisions and technology designs, the product offers swift and accurate ergonomic risk assessments without the need for wearables or extra equipment, emphasizing efficiency and user comfort.
Siemens and Intel to collaborate on advanced semiconductor manufacturing
Siemens AG, a leading technology company, and Intel Corporation, one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on driving digitalization and sustainability of microelectronics manufacturing. The companies will focus on advancing future manufacturing efforts, evolving factory operations and cybersecurity, and supporting a resilient global industry ecosystem.
The MoU identifies key areas of collaboration to explore a variety of initiatives, including optimizing energy management and addressing carbon footprints across the value chain. For instance, the collaboration will explore use of “digital twins” of complex, highly capital-intensive manufacturing facilities to standardize solutions where every percentage of efficiency gained is meaningful.
The collaboration will also explore minimizing energy use through advanced modeling of natural resources and environmental footprints across the value chain. To gain more information on product-related emissions, Intel will explore product and supply chain related modeling solutions with Siemens that drive data-based insights and help the industry accelerate progress in reducing its collective footprint.
URLLC Enables 5G to be Embedded into Industrial Production Processes
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and advanced industrial robotics have been broadly deployed in today’s flexible manufacturing systems, often requiring very low communication latency and high reliability, such as 5 milliseconds (ms) end-to-end latency and 99.99% reliability for the operation of AGVs. The “augmented worker” is emerging in modern industrial processes, which entails a remote task expert providing guidance and support for field workers through augmented reality (AR) devices. The use case usually requires 10ms end-to-end latency and 99.99% reliability. However, wireline solutions will not be applicable for these use cases because mobility is also a critical requirement of each scenario.
The first mobile communications system natively designed with URLLC features is 5G. A flexible frame structure was specified in 3GPP Release 15 to enable low-latency communications. The transmission time interval (TTI) can scale from 1ms down to ~140 microseconds (a microsecond is equal to one millionth of a second) for URLLC cases. The maximum number of retransmissions can be adjusted from four to two to meet the latency requirement. The 5G standard also allows the creation of a “mini-slot” with the minimum set to only two symbols (against 14 symbols for a full slot in the usual case), which can provide fine scheduling granularity to reduce transmission latency.
Powering Up the Industrial Metaverse
TXOne Networks Secures Semiconductor Manufacturing OT With CASwell Network Security Appliances
Protecting against OT cyber-attacks can be costly and challenging, especially for industries like semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Traditional IT tools come up short due to the heterogenous compute nature of an OT environment. Complex environments such as semiconductor fabs have a much larger attack surfaces making it even more difficult to provide effective cybersecurity protection.
TXOne Networks has tackled this challenge with a network-based defense system that features IPS, antivirus, virtual patching and other security and management functionality designed to protect the OT environment and to allow security managers to have visibility into the system. Powered by CASwell network security appliances based on Intel processors with network security performance and features, the systems offer the features and throughput to ensure proper security screening at wire speeds.
Formant to Use Latest Funding to Hire Experts for Secure Cloud Robotics Platform
Formant today announced the completion of a $21 million funding round. The San Francisco-based company said it plans to use the proceeds to expand hiring across all departments, introduce new products and features, and accelerate growth. BMW i Ventures led Formant’s investment, with participation from new investors Intel Capital, GS Futures. Previous investors, including SignalFire, Hillsven, Pelion Ventures, Holman, Ericsson, Goodyear Ventures, PICUS Capital, and Thursday Ventures, also participated.
Earlier this year, Formant launched Theopolis, an artificial intelligence language interface to enable non-technical users to interact directly with robot data and build visualizations inside its software. Formant claimed that it supports easy integrations with tools such as ROS 2, NVIDIA’s Isaac simulator, and Clearpath’s Outdoor Navigation.
It’s arrived: Commoditization for industrial process control
With the advent of industrial process-control commoditization has come technological advancements that have expanded the boundaries of modern manufacturing–right to the computing edge. Traditionally, administrators had to walk out to a control system–USB stick in hand–and apply an update manually. Today, thanks to the combined work of Intel Corporation, Schneider Electric, and Red Hat, manufacturers can enjoy an edge-ready, software-defined, industrial control system that relieves the burden of manual effort and runs on commodity hardware and a commodity operating system and uses commodity automation techniques.
Intel's Open Source Strategy
Well, I mean, Pat always says, “Software defined, hardware enabled.” So, you can build the finest piece of hardware, but if the software is not going to run on it it’s not going to be very helpful, right? And that’s honestly the reasons that we contribute to open source all along, and we have been contributing for over two decades. Because our customers they consume our product, which is a silicon using these open-source projects. So, you pick a project OpenJDK, PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, Kafka, Cassandra, Kubernetes, Linux kernel, GCC. And our customers who want to consume our silicon they want to make sure that these open-source projects are consumed well on the Intel silicon, they behave well, and they are able to leverage all the features that are in the instruction set of the latest edition of the chip.
Intel Foundry Services and Tower Semiconductor Announce New US Foundry Agreement
Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Tower Semiconductor (Nasdaq: TSEM), a leading foundry for analog semiconductor solutions, today announced an agreement where Intel will provide foundry services and 300mm manufacturing capacity to help Tower serve its customers globally. Under the agreement, Tower will utilize Intel’s advanced manufacturing facility in New Mexico. Tower will invest up to $300 million to acquire and own equipment and other fixed assets to be installed in the New Mexico facility, providing a new capacity corridor of over 600,000 photo layers per month for Tower’s future growth, enabling capacity to support forecasted customer demand for 300mm advanced analog processing.
Intel embraces SDN to modernize its chip factories
The US chip giant has implemented software-defined networking in its semiconductor manufacturing plants, moving the tech beyond the data center and into a vertical seeking to benefit from zero-downtime machine connectivity. But as part of Intel’s expansive plans to upgrade and build a new generation of chip factories in line with its Integrated Device Manufacturing (IDM) 2.0 blueprint, unveiled in 2021, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor giant opted to implement SDN within its chip-making facilities for the scalability, availability, and security benefits it delivers.
Aside from zero downtime, moving to Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) enabled Intel to solve the increasingly complex security challenges associated with new forms of connectivity, ongoing threats, and software vulnerabilities. The two companies met for more than a year to plan and implement for Intel’s manufacturing process security and automation technology that had been used only in data centers. The collaboration with Cisco enables ACI to be deployed for factory floor process tools, embedded controllers, and new technologies such as IoT devices being introduced into the factory environment, according to Intel.
Intel has deployed SDN in roughly 15% of its factories to date and will continue to migrate existing Ethernet-based factories to SDN. For new implementations, Intel has chosen to use open source Ansible playbooks and scripts from GitHub to accelerate its move to SDN.
Intel and Synopsys Expand Partnership to Enable Leading IP on Intel Advanced Process Nodes
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Synopsys (Nasdaq: SNPS) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to expand the companies’ long-standing IP (intellectual property) and EDA (electronic design automation) strategic partnership with the development of a portfolio of IP on Intel 3 and Intel 18A for Intel’s foundry customers. The availability of key IP on Intel advanced process nodes will create a more robust offering for new and existing Intel Foundry Services (IFS) customers.
As part of the transaction, Synopsys will enable a range of its standardized interface IP portfolio on Intel’s leading-edge process technologies. As a result, Intel’s foundry customers will gain access to industry-leading IPs built on Intel advanced process technologies and be able to accelerate design execution and project schedules for system-on-chips (SoCs).
Tenerife-based Wooptix closes €10 million Series B to automate its semiconductor metrology business
Wooptix, a company based in Tenerife, Madrid and San Francisco, has announced a €10 million Series B financing round. The round is participated by Bullnet Capital, CDTI (Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation), Danobatgroup, European Innovation Council Fund (EIC), Fagor Automation, Intel Capital, and Mondragón Promotion. The grant and investment support Wooptix´s product introduction and future technological innovation including the manufacture, delivery, and installation of three semiconductor metrology tools in Japan, the USA, and the Netherlands this year.
Wooptix’s patented technology enables blank and patterned wafer-shape measurement in less time and with higher resolution than current systems being used in the industry.
Schneider Electric Partners with Intel and Applied Materials to Help Decarbonize the Semiconductor Value Chain with New Catalyze Program
Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, today launched Catalyze, a new partnership program aimed at accelerating access to renewable energy across the global semiconductor value chain.
Unveiled during SEMICON West 2023, Catalyze is a first-of-its kind program of collaboration among key semiconductor and technology industry leaders to address the supply chain emissions within their industry. The program joins other Schneider Electric supply chain partnership initiatives that seek to leverage the power of supply chain cohorts, including the Energize program for the pharmaceutical industry, and Walmart’s Gigaton PPA program.
MatrixSpace Secures $10M Series A Funding
MatrixSpace, a leader in AI collaborative sensing solutions, announces $10M raised in Series A funding. This brings the company’s total funding to $20M since its first year of operation in 2020 and will enable it to accelerate technology advancements, customer adoption and revenue growth. The round was led by the Raptor Group, a highly successful venture and private investment fund with a strong track record in technology, enterprise, and sports companies. Intel Capital also participated, as well as a prominent set of technology executives.
With PowerVia, Intel Achieves a Chipmaking Breakthrough
Intel’s backside power solution is called PowerVia, and two new papers to be published at the 2023 VLSI Symposium show that Intel devised a process to manufacture it, test it and demonstrate positive performance results. The “test it” part is most important, but the manufacturing part is what’s most surprising. Throw out pizza-making. For the first time, chipmaking is going two-sided.
Here’s how it works: Transistors are built first, as before, with the interconnect layers added next. Now the fun part: flip over the wafer and “polish everything off,” Sell notes, to expose the bottom layer to which the wires (well, metal layers … all these “wires” are microscopic) for power will be connected. “We call it silicon technology,” he adds, “but the amount of silicon that’s left on these wafers is really tiny.”
After the polish, “now you only have very few metal layers and they’re all very thick,” Sell explains — remember he lives in the land of nanometers, so “thick” means mere micrometers. That leaves “a very direct path for the power delivery to your transistor.”
Impact Nano, chip materials startup, wins funding from Intel, Goldman Sachs
Impact Nano, a Massachusetts-based startup that makes specialty chemicals for the semiconductor industry and others, said on Thursday it raised $32 million in funding from investors including Intel Capital and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Stephens said Impact Nano is inventing new ways to produce chemicals that chip makers use. Among the company’s focus areas, he said, are increasing the purity of the chemicals, finding raw materials that are more abundant and comply with ethical guidelines, and making the process more environmentally friendly.
Minimize Manufacturing Data Management Costs
As Intel manufactures hundreds of millions of complex products every year, Intel IT collects and stores terabytes of manufacturing data to support continual engineering data analysis. As the volume, velocity and complexity of the data increases, it is imperative that we maintain this decision support system at the lowest possible cost. Additionally, we need to be able to assess the cost for future scaling needs. Therefore, we decided to evaluate the scalability, performance and cost of several Intel® architecture-based massively parallel processing (MPP) relational database management systems (RDBMS). We found that industry standard benchmarks did not closely resemble our manufacturing data and did not measure the metrics that were important to us. Therefore, we created a custom MPP RDBMS benchmark that helped us choose a cost-optimized solution.
We used this custom benchmark to complete a comprehensive technical proof of concept (PoC) with several industry-leading MPP RDBMS vendors whose products run on Intel® architecture. We are confident that this benchmark enabled us to choose the best Intel® Xeon® processor-based MPP RDBMS solution while keeping manufacturing data management costs under control. Also, based on the evaluation results, the vendors we worked with have improved their products, strengthening the entire industry ecosystem. And, with the release of the 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and associated accelerators, we’re expecting that RDBMS vendors will make their products even more cost competitive. By sharing our benchmark methodology, we hope to help other companies to understand their data better and select a data management system that meets their needs.
3D Glass Solutions Closes $30 Million Series C Funding Round
3D Glass Solutions Inc. (3DGS), a leading innovator of glass-based three-dimensional integrated passive solutions for radio frequency (RF), photonic and datacenters today announced the closing of a $30 million Series C financing. The round was led by Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including Intel Capital and Lockheed Martin Ventures, as well as new investments from Applied Ventures, LLC, Cambium Capital, and Mesh Cooperative Ventures.
3DGS will use this funding to increase its US based manufacturing capacity for high-volume production of superior performance 3D integrated passives and substrate products. Lip-Bu Tan, chair of Walden International and founding managing partner of Walden Catalyst Ventures, will join 3DGS’ Board of Directors.
Zurich-based UNISERS bags €13M to help semiconductor fabrication plants eliminate contaminations
UNISERS, a developer of wafer inspection and particle detection solutions for semiconductor materials, announced on Thursday that it has secured $14M (approximately €13M) in a Seed round of funding led by Intel Capital. The capital will enable UNISERS to accelerate the delivery of its commercial products to customers by 2023.
🖨️ Fabric8Labs Closes $50M Series B Financing for Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing Technology
Fabric8Labs, pioneer of electrochemical additive manufacturing, today announced the close of a $50M Series B investment round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing investors, including Intel Capital, imec.XPAND, SE Ventures, TDK Ventures, and Lam Capital. The new infusion of capital will be used to scale the company’s proprietary Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing (ECAM) technology and establish a pilot production facility.
How Chip Giant AMD Finally Caught Intel
AMFG Receives $8.5 Million in Funding Led by Intel Capital to Drive the Future of Fully Autonomous Manufacturing
AMFG Corp., a rapidly growing Manufacturing Execution System (MES) & workflow automation software for 3D printing, has secured $8.5M in funding led by Intel Capital to further catapult their spot in the new age of industrial transformation. As part of the most recent fundraise, Intel Capital investor Jennifer Ard is joining AMFG’s board of directors. With this new funding, AMFG will continue to help companies scale their additive manufacturing processes, further solidifying AMFG’s position at the forefront of the autonomous manufacturing revolution.
This financing round comes on the heels of a year of accomplishments for AMFG. These include expanding into the U.S by establishing a global headquarters in Austin, Texas, which places the company in direct contact with the region’s dramatically shifting manufacturing scene, and making strategic hires to the growing AMFG team. With this funding, AMFG will advance its vision to pioneer a path into the future of autonomous manufacturing.
Geek+ announces $100 million series E1 financing round
Geek+, a global provider of autonomous mobile robot technologies, announced today it has closed a new, $100 million series E1 funding series. Investors in the round include Intel Capital, Vertex Growth, and Qingyue Capital Investment. The company will use this funding to accelerate its global market expansion and invest in its AMR technology research and development for key product innovation.
Intel quietly acquires private 5G software provider Ananki
Intel has acquired private 5G network provider Ananki, several months after the startup spun out of the non-profit Open Networking Foundation (ONF) to commercialize open-source network technologies. The acquisition was confirmed Monday on LinkedIn by Guru Parulkar, PhD, who was co-founder and CEO of Ananki and executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. Intel declined to comment on the Ananki acquisition and instead only confirmed a development that Parulkar said was related, that the ONF’s development team has joined Intel’s Networking and Edge Group.
Intel to spend €17bn on chip mega-factory in Germany
“Today 80 percent of chips are produced in Asia. Our landmark pan-European investment addresses the global need for a more balanced and resilient supply chain,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said during a webcast to announce the European investment. Gelsinger said the factories will make chips using Intel’s most advanced transistor technology, though no further details or specifics were provided. The company plans to break ground on the site in the first half of 2023, and produce products by 2027.
Landing AI Secures Funding to Unlock Power of Small Datasets, Unleashing Next Era of AI
Landing AI, led by artificial intelligence visionary, Andrew Ng, developed LandingLens™, a fast, easy to use enterprise MLOps platform. It applies AI and deep learning to help manufacturers solve visual inspection problems, find product defects more reliably, and generate business value.
“You don’t always need big data to win with AI. You need good data that teaches the AI what you want it to learn,” said Ng, Founder & CEO of Landing AI. “AI built for 50 million data points doesn’t work when you only have 50 data points. By bringing machine learning to everyone regardless of the size of their data set, the next era of AI will have a real-world impact on all industries.”
The data-centric approach of Landing AI is also key to making LandingLens fast and easy-to-use. The process of engineering the data, instead of the AI software, gives an efficient way for manufacturers to teach an AI model what to do. Domain experts, not just AI experts, can now build an AI system, and take it to production. For example, rather than needing to write pages of code to train a neural network, a domain expert can do it with a few mouse clicks. This no code/low code data-centric platform enables new users to build advanced AI models in less than a day. Vision inspection projects that used to take over a year can be executed in just weeks using LandingLens.
Inside Intel’s Bold $26 Billion U.S. Plan To Regain Chip Dominance
What’s Harder to Find Than Microchips? The Equipment That Makes Them
We typically associate microchips with the latest and greatest technology, but it turns out that most of the chips that go into the products we use are made with older manufacturing techniques. No one knows precisely what proportion of the world’s microchips is made on used equipment, but Mr. Howe, owner of SDI Fabsurplus, estimates it might be as much as a third.
TSMC is expanding its capacity to make older chips by building a new plant for that purpose in Japan. Intel has no plans to build new capacity for manufacturing older kinds of chips, and continues to concentrate on making bleeding-edge chips, says Lisa Spelman, a vice president in Intel’s data-center group.
Secure device onboarding for manufacturing supply chain
FDO 1.0 can offer many benefits for manufacturers that have industrial and enterprise devices. It’s also useful with multi-ecosystem applications and services and helps streamline distributor sales. Other benefits for manufacturers include:
- Zero-touch onboarding: It can integrate with existing zero-touch solutions.
- Speed and security: It is designed to onboard with IoT devices in less than a minute, which is up to 20 times faster than it would have been for a manual installer.
- Hardware flexibility: It is designed to be hardware-agnostic and work with any microcontroller or computer processor.
- Cloud flexibility: As with hardware, it is flexible and can work with the internet and on-premise.
- Late binding: This reduces costs and complexity in the supply chain by providing a single SKU for all customers.
Late binding, in particular, is a key aspect of the process, Kerslake said. “Late binding reduces costs and complexity in supply chain, providing a single device SKU for all customers instead of making unique SKUs and creating a mess of things.”
Tools Move up the Value Chain to Take the Mystery Out of Vision AI
Intel DevCloud for the Edge and Edge Impulse offer cloud-based platforms that take most of the pain points away with easy access to the latest tools and software. While Xilinx and others have started offering complete systems-on-module with production-ready applications that can be deployed with tools at a higher level of abstraction, removing the need for some of the more specialist skills.
John Deere and Audi Apply Intel’s AI Technology
Identifying defects in welds is a common quality control process in manufacturing. To make these inspections more accurate, John Deere is applying computer vision, coupled with Intel’s AI technology, to automatically spot common defects in the automated welding process used in its manufacturing facilities.
At Audi, automated welding applications range from spot welding to riveting. The widespread automation in Audi factories is part of the company’s goal of creating Industrie 4.0-level smart factories. A key aspect of this goal involves Audi’s recognition that creating customized hardware and software to handle individual use cases is not preferrable. Instead, the company focuses on developing scalable and flexible platforms that allow them to more broadly apply advanced digital capabilities such as data analytics, machine learning, and edge computing.
Intel Accelerates AI for Industrial Applications
The human eye can correct for different lighting conditions easily. However, images collected by camera can naturally vary in intensity and contrast if background lighting varies as well. We’ve seen scale challenges observed by factories trying to deploy AI for defect detection based on the exact same hardware, software and algorithm deployed on different machines on the factory floor. Sometimes it took months for factory managers and data scientists to find out why they were getting great results on one machine with high accuracy, low false positive and false negative rates, while on the next machine over the AI application would crash.
Tractor Maker John Deere Using AI on Assembly Lines to Discover and Fix Hidden Defective Welds
John Deere performs gas metal arc welding at 52 factories where its machines are built around the world, and it has proven difficult to find defects in automated welds using manual inspections, according to the company.
That’s where the successful pilot program between Intel and John Deere has been making a difference, using AI and computer vision from Intel to “see” welding issues and get things back on track to keep John Deere’s pilot assembly line humming along.
Intel Problems
The misplaced optimism is twofold: first there is the fact that eight years later Intel has again appointed a new CEO (Pat Gelsinger), not to replace the one I was writing about (Brian Krzanich), but rather his successor (Bob Swan). Clearly the opportunity was not seized. What is more concerning is that the question is no longer about seizing an opportunity but about survival, and it is the United States that has the most to lose.
Imaging Specialist Wooptix Secures US$3.3 Million in Series-A Funding, Led By Bullnet Capital and Intel Capital
Wooptix, the first spin-off company from Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain, has today announced a Series A funding of US$3.3 million. The funding will be used to develop Wooptix’s Natural3D software to provide advanced imaging capabilities for smartphones and other devices at full resolution.