Israel’s Two-Engines Model

The nonprofit organization Startup Nation Central, has released Israel’s Semiconductor Landscape 2025, a report and interactive map revealing the “Two-Engine Paradox” powering Israel’s chip sector. Combining multinational R&D centers and agile startups, Israel has become a global hub for semiconductor R&D and design, developing core technologies that fuel the world’s AI and computing infrastructure.

Based on data from the Startup Nation Finder business engagement platform, the report outlines Israel’s “two-engine” model combining high-impact startups with multinational R&D hubs to drive core chip innovation for the world’s leading technology companies. Israeli teams design central technologies such as Intel’s Gaudi AI processors, Amazon’s Graviton CPUs and Nitro networking systems, and Nvidia’s data center interconnects.

“Israel’s semiconductor ecosystem has evolved into a global R&D powerhouse,” said Avi Hasson, CEO of Startup Nation Central. “Our engineers design the chips that power AI, cloud infrastructure, and defense systems. The next step is to grow companies that scale independently rather than sell early.”

Ratio of 1:5 compared with the US

Over the past decade, for every $5 invested in US semiconductor startups, $1 was invested in Israeli companies, a ratio of 1:5, compared to the overall 1:15 ratio between Israeli and U.S. VC investment volumes. This remarkable figure highlights the strategic weight of Israel’s chip sector and its strong alignment with global capital trends.

The report identifies more than 250 active semiconductor companies, representing about 3.5% of Israel’s technology ecosystem. While the number of firms has grown 16% over the past decade, the sector is entering a phase of consolidation, with activity shifting from rapid expansion to stable, capital-intensive growth.

Funding remains resilient. Following a record $1.2 billion raised in 2021, annual private investment has stabilized at $0.4–0.5 billion. Median round sizes are two to four times higher than the national tech average, reaching $35 million in 2025, supported by major financings such as Quantum Machines ($170M) and Retym ($75M).

No more “Fast Exits”

M&A continues to define the sector’s global integration. Key deals include Intel’s $15.3B purchase of Mobileye, Nvidia’s $6.9B acquisition of Mellanox, and KLA’s $3.4B acquisition of Orbotech, embedding Israeli innovation into the global supply chain. The industry is estimated to employ about 45,000 people (9% of Israel’s tech workforce). The biggest employers are Intel with 9,300 employees and Nvidia with 5,500 employees.

Unlike Israel’s software sector, semiconductor facilities are spread nationwide, supporting both regional growth and workforce diversity.  “The ecosystem’s reliance on exits, combined with high operational costs, has slowed new startup formation,” said Yariv Lotan, VP of Product and Data at Startup Nation Central. “Its central challenge now is to evolve from a ‘build to exit’ mindset toward a ‘build to last’ model.”

More information: 2025 Semiconductor Landscape Map and full report on Startup Nation Finder

RAAAM aims to extend Moore’s Law to memory: moving toward 2nm qualification at TSMC

[In the photo above: RAAAM management team (left to right): Adam Teman, Eli Lizerovitz, Robert Gitterman, Alex Fish, and Eran Rotem. Photo: Omer Cohen]

RAAAM Memory Technologies, an Israeli–Swiss semiconductor startup, is entering a critical stage in the commercialization of its on-chip memory technology, GCRAM, following the completion of a $17.5 million Series A round led by NXP Semiconductors. CEO and co-founder Dr. Robert Gitterman says the new funding will support the qualification of a 256-MB test chip in TSMC’s 2-nanometer process — the final step before mass production.

“Our technology has already been proven on silicon,” Gitterman told Techtime. “We’re now fabricating the 2 nm qualification chip, which will undergo a series of stringent tests. Once we pass qualification, any company designing chips in this process — including Apple, NVIDIA, and others — will be able to integrate our memory as a drop-in SRAM replacement.”

The memory bottleneck

According to Gitterman, roughly 50 percent of every digital chip’s area is devoted to memory, mostly SRAM. While processors continue to scale with each generation, SRAM has reached the physical limits of miniaturization in advanced CMOS nodes below 5 nm. “Moore’s Law has stopped at memory,” he says. “SRAM has become the bottleneck of the AI era. Once it runs out of space, designers have to move to external memories like HBM — which are slower and far more power-hungry.”

The surge in memory demand for AI accelerators, autonomous vehicles, and edge devices has created a pressing need for denser, more efficient on-chip memory. RAAAM’s GCRAM targets exactly that: a seamless SRAM replacement suitable for CPUs, GPUs, and low-power SoCs alike.

Three transistors and a smart refresh

RAAAM’s innovation lies not in exotic materials or transistor geometry, but in circuit-level architecture. Each GCRAM cell uses three transistors instead of six, relying on charge-retention capacitive storage with a background refresh mechanism.
“The real breakthrough is in the refresh logic we developed,” Gitterman explains. “It operates in the background without interfering with system performance. This lets us maintain high speed while solving the yield problems that plague advanced SRAM.”

The company has demonstrated GCRAM across multiple foundry nodes — from 180 nm down to 5 nm FinFET — achieving 2× density and 10× lower power than conventional SRAM, all while remaining fully compatible with standard CMOS flows.

From academic research to commercialization

Founded in 2021 by four researchers — Dr. Robert Gitterman, Prof. Andreas Burg, Prof. Alexander Fish, and Prof. Adam Teman — RAAAM grew out of nearly a decade of collaborative research between Bar-Ilan University and EPFL Switzerland.
“None of us had prior startup experience,” Gitterman recalls. “We had to learn how to build a company from scratch. But the timing was perfect — the industry was hungry for new memory solutions, and our technology was ready.”

He admits the shift from academia to semiconductors was a reality check. “In academia you have time. In this industry, you have to move at the pace of process generations — sometimes every year. If you don’t keep up, you’re out of the game.”

Strategic backing from NXP

NXP, which led the Series A, has been working with RAAAM for several years and views GCRAM as a strategic technology. “RAAAM’s solution directly addresses one of the most critical challenges in advanced chip design,” said Victor Wang, VP of Front-End Innovation at NXP. “We’ve seen its potential firsthand.”

Alongside NXP, RAAAM is also collaborating with a major networking-chip manufacturer and with GlobalFoundries on additional process integrations.

The company currently employs 22 people, operating from Petah Tikva and Lausanne. Gitterman describes the new funding as “the first major step toward full commercialization” and a sign that the semiconductor industry is again open to genuine innovation.
If RAAAM’s qualification succeeds, its memory could soon find its way into the processors powering the next generation of artificial intelligence.

China Discovered a Breach in US Tech Sanctions

At the recent RISC-V Summit held in China two weeks ago, a surprising fact came to light: China has rapidly emerged as a global RISC-V powerhouse, playing a decisive role in the future of this open computing architecture. Over 4,000 participants from around the world attended the summit, most of them living in mainland China.

A review of the professional committees within the RISC-V International Foundation revealed that Chinese representatives now hold key positions. They are chairing major technical groups such as the AI/ML SIG, Android SIG, Datacenter SIG, and Platform Management Interface, and serving as vice-chairs in numerous others.

This is no coincidence: The Chinese government has been quietly orchestrating a broad strategic initiative aimed to steer its domestic semiconductor industry toward global leadership in open RISC-V architectures, and positioning it as a viable alternative to proprietary CPU platforms such as Intel’s x86 and Arm’s architecture.

Technology Cold War

For nearly two decades, China has been engaged in what can be called a Technology Cold War with the U.S. and its allies over the dominance of the Global semiconductor’s market. That conflict has hampered China’s national goal first drafted in 2010 –  to become a fully self-reliant chip superpower by 2025.

Now, a new opportunity is emerging. According to a Reuters, China plans to issue guidance to encourage the use of open-source RISC-V chips nationwide, to curb the country’s dependence on Western-owned technology. Beijing’s new directive will accelerate domestic adoption of the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) and make in a corner stone in its policy of technology independence.

These new ideas, including substantial financial incentives, were crafted by a cross-ministerial task force comprising eight government bodies, including the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the China National Intellectual Property Administration.

The Rise of Open Source Silicon

RISC-V was born 15 years ago at the University of California, Berkeley, as an open-source ISA capable of supporting high-performance computing with word lengths of up to 128 bits. It was intended to be an efficient and cost-effective alternative to proprietary, commercial ISAs. Since then, RISC-V has matured into a fast-growing global ecosystem.

The SHD Group: Total RISC-V SoC Regional Revenues 2021-2030

According to The SHD Group, global revenues from RISC-V-based chips reached $123 million in 2023. By 2030, that number is projected to grow at a CAGR of 39%, reaching $92 billion with over 16.5 billion SoC units that will be shipped. By that year, the largest application segment for RISC-V is expected to be AI acceleration, with consumer electronics as the biggest end market, and automotive—a key strategic sector for China—as the leading industrial growth engine.

Will China Flip the sanctions narrative on its head

If current projections hold, China is poised to become the world’s leading supplier of RISC-V solutions by 2030. But the figures from SHD Group predate the new policy initiative and likely underestimate its long-term significance.

China’s strategy isn’t just about dominating RISC-V chips; it’s about building an elite semiconductor ecosystem based on RISC-V, complete with native support for NPU, CPU, and GPU designs, and a vertically integrated software development stack. This echoes a past attempt to revive PowerPC, which ultimately failed, but the momentum behind RISC-V appears far more formidable.

The outcome could reshape Global supply dynamics. While Western nations have poured massive investments into cutting-edge sub-10nm process nodes, no electronic system is complete without supporting chips fabricated on mature process nodes like 28nm, 65nm, or even 130nm, and this is an area where China remains a manufacturing powerhouse.

In other words, if China’s RISC-V push brings advanced design capabilities in-house, it may gain leverage not just as a consumer of technology—but as a strategic supplier. Ironically, China could eventually restrict exports of legacy-node components critical to Western tech ecosystems, flipping the sanctions narrative on its head.


Valens: Three Automotive Design Wins

by: Roni Lifshitz, Editor

Valens Semiconductor (NYSE: VLN) has achieved three automotive design wins from leading European OEMs for its VA7000 MIPI A-PHY chipsets. The OEMs, which belong to a group of automotive brands, plan to embed Valens’ MIPI A-PHY chipsets in certain vehicle models with Start of Production (SoP) in 2026. The expected production volume may reach approximately 500,000 vehicles per year. Valens estimates that upon commercialization ramp up, the design wins will generate over $10 million dollars in annual revenue, for a period of 5-7 years.

Valens achieved these design wins in collaboration with leading Automotive Tier-1s on the camera side and on the System on Chip (SoC) side, both of which now offer native A-PHY support in their platforms. The selection of Valens chipsets follows intensive testing of a variety of connectivity solutions. Valens is a key contributor to the MIPI A-PHY standard, and offers the automotive industry a solution for sensor connectivity with immunity to electromagnetic noise.

The VA7000 chipsets was the first in the industry to implement the MIPI A-PHY standard for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving systems (ADS). MIPI A-PHY specifies in-vehicle high-speed data transmission over lightweight wiring harnesses for up to 15 meters, with adaptive noise cancellation and retransmission mechanisms to guarantee superior EMC/EMI performance. The VA7000 family has been designed to support the current and future gears of MIPI A-PHY – from 2Gbpps to 16Gbps as defined in version 1.0, and with a roadmap to 48Gbps and beyond as expected in future versions.

Valens’ second quarter 2024 revenues reached $13.6 million, compared to $24.2 million in the second quarter of 2023. Automotive revenues accounted for approximately 40% of total revenues at $5.5 million, compared to $8.7 million in the second quarter of 2023, due to lower demand from Mercedes-Benz. The company expects third quarter revenues to be between $14.7 million to $15.4 million.

 

Intel to upgrade Fab38 with $15b Investment

Photo above: Simulation of the future Fab38 in Kiryat Gat, Israel

Israel’s Government and Intel have reached an agreement to expand Intel’s Fab38 in Kiryat Gat, approximately 40 Km from Gaza, where it has an existing chip plant (Fab28). Intel Israel announced an expantion plan of $15 billion in Fab38 planned to be completed within 4-5 years. It will bring the total investment in this fab to $25 billion and enable it to produce advanced semiconductors based on Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography process.

The government of Israel will grant Intel with $3.2 billion worth of incentives. The new fab is expected to create thousands new jobs and to have a major role Intel’s global IDM 2.0 strategy. Intel Israel was founded in 1974 in Haifa, as Intel’s first development center outside the USA, and in 1981 the first factory outside the USA was established in Jerusalem. Today, Intel Israel is the largest private employer in the Israeli hi-tech sector with 11,700 direct employees plus additional 42,000 in indirect employment.

Along with its leading manufacturing facility In Kiryat Gat, Intel operates  three development centers in Haifa, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, focused mainly on the development of new Processors, Connectivity and Networking technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security solutions. During 2022 Intel Israel’s export totalled $8.7 billion representing 5.5% of the hi-tech exports from Israel.

In an interview with Fox Business last week,  Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger, talked about Intel’s employees during the current Israel-Hamas war. He said: “Many Intel employees in Israel died on October 7, some are being held hostage still in Gaza, and a great many are on reserve duty. But Israelis are the most resilient people on earth. They have not missed a single commitment despite the conflict. That’s why we believe so deeply in them.”

 

The Financial Reality behind Intel’s IDM 2.0

Photo above: Intel’s Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland. $200 million for each EUV Lithography machine

In March 2021, Intel embraced the IDM 2.0 strategy and established Intel Foundry Services as the strategic wing that leads multi-billion dollar in investments throughout Europe and the USA. When this move was first announced, it was seen as a direct threat to TSMC – the world’s largest semiconductor contract manufacturing services provider. This was mainly due to Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s CEO and the shaper of IDM 2.0 strategy, stating multiple times that Intel’s goal is to become the world’s most prominent manufacturing services provider.

The idea seemed unreasonable: why would a genuine semiconductor manufacturer who sells their own processors for high-profit margins shift to another business model – a manufacturing services provider with much lower profit margins? The investors also did not find the idea exciting. In March 2021, Intel’s shares were traded at $64 on NASDAQ. Currently, the shares are worth $35.5 with a market cap of $149 billion.

However, Techtime’s visit to Intel’s new factory in Ireland, Fab 34, reveals that the reason behind the new move is technological rather than merely business. To be more precise, the enormous cost of shifting to advanced manufacturing processes.

€17 billion and five years to set up

Last week, Intel inaugurated Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland, which brings Intel 4 technology (equivalent to 7nm) to Europe. It is also the first use of EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) technology in high-volume manufacturing (HVM) in Europe. The construction of the new fab had began in 2019 and had required €17 billion investments. To provide a point of comparison, Intel operates 3 more fabs in its Leixlip campus that use older technologies, and these factories cost a combined total of €13 billion.

It means that building a fab with the latest technology, such as EUV lithography machines, would be a significant financial undertaking. Industry experts suggest that a factory like this would require 10-20 EUV lithography machines, which are only produced by the Dutch company ASML. Each EUV lithography system costs approximately $200 million.

Inside Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland. Credit: Intel
Inside Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland. Credit: Intel

The construction of the new factory demands using novell chemical materials for the production of RibbonFET transistors, acquiring new and spcialized equipment and process control and measurements, and a significantly larger clean room that meets higher standards. It is improbable that a single company that bears these expenses and only sells its own products would be able to market them at a profitable price. This is why there are only three companies toady active in advanced processes chips: Samsung, TSMC, and Intel. GlobalFoundries was the last independent firm to be involved in this competition, but it withdrew in 2018.

Intel follows Samsung’s model

Samsung, who acknowledged this challenge earlier, developed a business model for producing self-designed chips together with providing manufacturing services to its competitors, such as Apple and Qualcomm. There are also other companies that embraced this approach, although they are not taking part in the advanced technology race. French STMicroelectronics, for instance, has also adopted this approach by balancing production costs by providing manufacturing services to clients like Mobileye.

Intel’s recent move leaves TSMC as the only company solely focused on providing manufacturing services. Currently, TSMC is the primary supplier of advanced chips to Intel’s largest competitors, including AMD and Nvidia. The conclusion is that Intel’s business model does not pose a threat to TSMC, and there is no indication that Intel intends to compete with TSMC. In fact, Intel has taken significant measures to mitigate the risks associated with transitioning to advanced manufacturing processes.

This is crucial if Intel wants to maintain its position as a market leader. During the recent inauguration ceremony in Ireland, Dr. Ann Kelleher, Intel’s VP and general manager of Technology Development, announced that the company is currently developing four new processes: Intel 3, Intel A20, Intel A18, and the cutting-edge Intel Next. Kelleher stated that the company’s goal is to achieve one trillion transistors in a chip by 2030.

Chiplets require an Open Production Floor

The financial revolution is being accelerated by the move towards hybrid components that consist of several Chiplets; each produced using a different process. This shift creates a new business model where modern processors no longer rely on a single CPU chip but instead integrate multiple peripheral chips from other manufacturers onto an advanced substrate that connects numerous tiles.

Intel's Meteor Lake chips. 25% made by Intel, %75 by TSMC
Intel’s Meteor Lake chips. 25% made by Intel, %75 by TSMC

This concept is similar to the IP Model prevalent in the Chip Design industry, where any SoC contains the manufacturer’s own proprietary module, along with multiple intellectual property (IP) modules designed by specialized firms. Adopting multi-tile components expands the IP model to the Hardware Level. But it requires to adjust the nature of production lines. Intel, for instance, utilizes this approach in its new chip, Meteor Lake, where 75% of the surface area of the silicon tiles is manufactured by TSMC, and only 25% by Intel.

This shift necessitates the management of an open production floor that can accommodate tiles produced by other manufacturers while producing their own. It also requires the integration of foreign silicon into Intel’s components and the transfer of Intel’s silicon into other vendors’ components, even if they are direct competitors. To achieve this, Intel appears to have chosen a production model that combines self-development and production, side by side with providing manufacturing services.

The Chinese model travels West

Fab 34 project also reveals the importance role of national governments in the semiconductor industry. The cost of transitioning to advanced processes is so high that even major companies like Intel require government incentives. Similar to the Chinese approach, public funding is used to support production firms and boost local industries that rely on advanced technology to create more jobs.

This is why countries like Ireland and Israel are appealing, and why the CHIPS Act and Science Act drive the build-up of new fabs in the US. Intel is also awaiting now to receive approvals from the EU before it will move to the construction phase of its next European fabs: A wafer fabrication facility in Magdeburg, Germany, and an assembly and test facility in Wrocław, Poland.

Translated by P. Ofer

Intel and Tower Announce Foundry Agreement

Photo above: Intel’s Fab 11X in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Credit: Intel Inc.

Less than a month after the termination of a planned merger between Intel and Tower Seniconductor, the two companies announced a largescale production agreement: Intel will provide foundry services and 300mm manufacturing capacity to help Tower serve its customers globally. Tower will utilize Intel’s manufacturing facility in Rio Rancho, New Mexico (Fab 11X), and will invest up to $300 million to acquire and own equipment and other fixed assets to be installed in the facility.

The rearranement of the fab will provide production capacity of over 600,000 photo layers per month. Intel will manufacture Tower’s 65-nanometer power management BCD (bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) and radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF SOI) solutions flows. Stuart Pann, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Services (IFS) explained during Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference this week, that intel had unused capacity in Fab 11X, because it is an older factory for older technologies.

Initial Production in 2025

Pann: “We found a way to do contract manufacturing to take advantage of that extra space. Those older tools that we aren’t using, taking some investment from Tower to finish out the line.” The parties plan to achieve full process flow qualification in 2024, and to begin with full mass production in 2025. Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger said: “We see this collaboration as a first step towards multiple unique synergistic solutions with Intel.”

Tower provides foundry services for Analog semicinductor devices. It offers a broad range of customizable process platforms such as SiGe, BiCMOS, mixed-signal/CMOS, RF CMOS, CMOS image sensor, non-imaging sensors, integrated power management (BCD and 700V), and MEMS. Tower owns two manufacturing facilities in Israel (150mm and 200mm), two in the U.S. (200mm), two facilities in Japan (200mm and 300mm) which it owns through its 51% holdings in TPSCo and is sharing with ST a 300mm manufacturing facility in Italy .