Headlines
Analysis
Bad news for Besi: ASML is getting into hybrid bonding
Semianalysis identifies ASML as the biggest threat to Besi’s largest growth market, hybrid bonding. Most strikingly, the Duiven-based company felt compelled to respond to the analysis with a statement about its alleged competitor.
Opinion
Machines that think: the design loop
This is the tenth part in a series on how AI is crossing out of software and into the physical world. This time, Jan Bosch looks at AI designing the hardware that AI runs on, and what happens to engineering when iteration becomes almost free.
Background
Beyond tin: Three challengers take aim at EUV’s light source
Three US companies are developing accelerator-based alternatives to the tin-plasma source at the heart of ASML’s EUV scanners. They promise more usable power, cleaner and more controllable light and ultimately the freedom to move beyond today’s 13.5-nanometer wavelength.
Background
45 years after the I²C patent: the story behind the two wires
On 22 October 1981, Philips filed a European patent application for a communication system between integrated circuits that would later become known worldwide as the I²C bus. Forty-five years later, the basic principle is still going strong. Two lines, one for data and one for the clock, continue to connect countless chips in embedded systems, consumer electronics, cars and industrial applications.
News
Besi sees increasing momentum for hybrid bonding
CEO Richard Blickman seeks to allay fears of a slowdown in his firm’s primary growth market.
Background
Here’s why systems architects love product managers with no blah blah
What do you need a product manager for? Can’t AI do that? Xaviera Reynhout from Koers&Koffie tells you why at the Bits&Chips Event 2026.
Interview
“I’ll be honest: We’re in the death zone”
3D chip systems create formidable opportunities for Europe and the Netherlands, believes Hamed Sadeghian, CEO of Nearfield Instruments. He sees new business models emerging in the production of silicon systems and equipment. Seizing those opportunities will require courage, however, as well as a willingness to collaborate.
Top job
Events
Courses
Editorial
Dutch semicon ecosystem needs focus, not fragmentation
It’s time to throw the ballast overboard and set a clear course in the Netherlands.
Background
From research tool to software modernization service
What started as TNO-ESI research into analyzing and transforming sprawling software codebases has grown into a commercial software modernization offering from Capgemini. Generative AI is now opening up new opportunities.
Background
Integrated photonics is moving into mainstream supply chains, creating opportunities for Dutch high-tech
The growing maturity of integrated photonics creates opportunities for the wider Dutch high-tech industry. Not only in manufacturing capabilities like specialized equipment, manufacturing, packaging and testing, but also in system integration and the next generation of products in AI infrastructure, autonomous machines and smaller optical instruments for healthcare, agrifood and defense.
Background
Lace takes lithography beyond light
The Norwegian-Dutch startup Lace Lithography is betting that neutral helium atoms will take center stage in the next major leap in semiconductor patterning.
Background
Quantamap hunts the defects holding back quantum computing
Most quantum computing chips don’t work as well as they should, but nobody understands why. Leiden-based startup Quantamap is developing tools to hunt down critical defects, paving the way toward scalable chip-based quantum computing.
Background
Simulating the path to the next generation of smart glasses
Smart glasses may need a new kind of display before they can become an everyday device. Swave Photonics is working on that challenge with holographic display technology on chip. Using Comsol simulation software, the Imec spinoff models how heat, materials and optical behavior interact before committing to expensive chip prototypes.
Interview
Advantest’s breeding ground for new test technology is in Zwolle
Salland Engineering, part of Japan’s Advantest since 2024, is quadrupling its test capacity. CEO Paul van Ulsen discusses the rapid changes sweeping through semiconductor testing. “We now operate as Advantest’s engineering and photonics test house.”