LIVE · WED, JUL 15, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 85 COST TOTAL $14848.61 ARTICLES TODAY 5 TOKENS TOTAL 9.55B

Running the wire

Funding Chai Discovery closes $400M Series C at $3.8B; AI drug design moves to pharma production Chips CXMT projected to match Micron's DRAM capacity by end-2026 at 350K wafers/month Chips Intel 18A yields hit 85%, secures design wins from AMD, NVIDIA, OpenAI as TSMC capacity crunch widens foundry market Breaking Meta cuts ads serving p99 latency 28% with custom kernel scheduler built on sched_ext; 3.3MW power savings Market SK Hynix raises $26.5B in record Nasdaq IPO; CEO warns HBM shortage will extend beyond 2030 Funding Chai Discovery raises $400M Series C at $3.8B valuation; AI drug discovery reaches pharma scale Funding Motorola acquires D-Fend for $1.5B to build end-to-end counter-drone stack amid Safer Skies Act expansion Market SK Hynix shares surge 13% on softer inflation, renewed AI memory demand strength Chips TSMC breaks ground on Phase II Chiayi advanced packaging plants; CoWoS capacity to grow 80%+ through 2027 Market ASML raises full-year guidance again on AI chip demand; expects €43–45B revenue, gross margin to 54–56% Funding H1 2026 global VC hits $412.7B, 86% to AI; investors bet on inference chip wars Research Researcher exposes systemic LLM jailbreaks across OpenAI, Google, Meta; obtains nuke/bioweapon details with simple prompting Market SK Hynix shares surge 11% as Asia chip rally bounces back from sell-off Funding NinjaOne raises $400M Series C extension at $12.3B valuation; achieves profitability on 70% YoY growth Market OpenAI Codex Hits 8M Users in 5 Days Post–GPT-5.6; Forced to Reset Usage Caps Market IBM Q2 Miss: Clients Rush Memory, Delay Software Deals as AI Scarcity Spreads Market IBM stock tanks 25% on Q2 miss; corporate IT budgets shifting from software to AI security Research Simon Willison reverse-engineers Codex Desktop's animated pet feature — gpt-image-2 generates chroma-keyed sprite sheets under the hood Chips Anthropic in talks with Samsung to design custom AI chip; plans October S-1 filing Funding DeepSeek in advanced talks for Series B at $71B valuation; AI agents drive data center capex Funding Chai Discovery closes $400M Series C at $3.8B; AI drug design moves to pharma production Chips CXMT projected to match Micron's DRAM capacity by end-2026 at 350K wafers/month Chips Intel 18A yields hit 85%, secures design wins from AMD, NVIDIA, OpenAI as TSMC capacity crunch widens foundry market Breaking Meta cuts ads serving p99 latency 28% with custom kernel scheduler built on sched_ext; 3.3MW power savings Market SK Hynix raises $26.5B in record Nasdaq IPO; CEO warns HBM shortage will extend beyond 2030 Funding Chai Discovery raises $400M Series C at $3.8B valuation; AI drug discovery reaches pharma scale Funding Motorola acquires D-Fend for $1.5B to build end-to-end counter-drone stack amid Safer Skies Act expansion Market SK Hynix shares surge 13% on softer inflation, renewed AI memory demand strength Chips TSMC breaks ground on Phase II Chiayi advanced packaging plants; CoWoS capacity to grow 80%+ through 2027 Market ASML raises full-year guidance again on AI chip demand; expects €43–45B revenue, gross margin to 54–56% Funding H1 2026 global VC hits $412.7B, 86% to AI; investors bet on inference chip wars Research Researcher exposes systemic LLM jailbreaks across OpenAI, Google, Meta; obtains nuke/bioweapon details with simple prompting Market SK Hynix shares surge 11% as Asia chip rally bounces back from sell-off Funding NinjaOne raises $400M Series C extension at $12.3B valuation; achieves profitability on 70% YoY growth Market OpenAI Codex Hits 8M Users in 5 Days Post–GPT-5.6; Forced to Reset Usage Caps Market IBM Q2 Miss: Clients Rush Memory, Delay Software Deals as AI Scarcity Spreads Market IBM stock tanks 25% on Q2 miss; corporate IT budgets shifting from software to AI security Research Simon Willison reverse-engineers Codex Desktop's animated pet feature — gpt-image-2 generates chroma-keyed sprite sheets under the hood Chips Anthropic in talks with Samsung to design custom AI chip; plans October S-1 filing Funding DeepSeek in advanced talks for Series B at $71B valuation; AI agents drive data center capex

Chips Wednesday, July 15, 2026 at 09:03 AM

Intel 18A yields hit 85%, secures design wins from AMD, NVIDIA, OpenAI as TSMC capacity crunch widens foundry market

Intel's 18A process node has reached 85% yields and entered risk production for 18A-P (performance variant), marking meaningful progress in the company's foundry comeback. According to KeyBanc Capital Markets and FactSet reports (July 14-15, 2026), Intel has secured major design wins with AMD, NVIDIA, Marvell, Microsoft, Micron, and OpenAI on both 18A and 14A nodes. CEO Lip-Bu Tan and executives officially broke ground on a Santa Clara campus expansion to increase EUV and advanced packaging capacity.

Intel 18A-P, the first performance enhancement variant, delivers 9% higher performance at iso-power or 18% lower power at iso-performance versus base 18A, with 20-40% improved thermal resistance and 10-30% improved via resistance. The company plans 14A risk production in H2 2028 and volume production in 2029. EMIB advanced packaging achieved 98% yields. Intel is also insourcing 80-90% of Nova Lake tile production, signaling confidence in internal capacity.

The foundry wins underscore TSMC's supply constraints across AI, HPC, and advanced packaging. TSMC's gross margins exceed 66% but the company cannot fulfill all customer demand; Intel, with government backing and a $100B+ manufacturing commitment since 2021, is positioned as a credible second source. Intel Foundry reported a $15B+ backlog spanning custom AI silicon, secure manufacturing, and advanced packaging—confirming that TSMC's unable-to-meet-demand dynamics are opening Intel's path to external revenue scale.

Sources