Infineon's 300mm SiC breakthrough could slash costs for EVs and data centers.

This week's chip industry news was dominated by manufacturing and packaging advancements. Infineon achieved a key milestone by producing functional silicon carbide (SiC) power devices on 300mm wafers at its Austrian fab, using existing silicon manufacturing tools. The larger 300mm wafers can fit over twice as many chips as the current 200mm standard, promising significant cost reductions for the power electronics used in electric vehicles, industrial systems, and AI data centers.

Meanwhile, research hub Imec finalized its process flows for a silicon-interposer platform designed for advanced chiplet and 3D integration, with a design kit expected in 2027. Google announced new TPU systems, AMD launched its 6th-gen EPYC server processors, and Arm introduced a tiny ML-capable Cortex-M42 core for low-cost endpoints. The collective push for bigger wafers, smarter packaging, and more efficient specialized silicon underscores the industry's relentless drive to boost performance while cutting costs for the next generation of computing.