https://finance.yahoo.com/news/allegro-drawing-takeover-interest-semiconductor-154617062.html

Sensor integrated circuits provider Allegro Microsystems is drawing takeover interest from larger competitor ON Semiconductor, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Onsemi has been working with advisers in recent months to pursue Allegro, the Bloomberg report said, adding that it's possible other suitors could emerge for Allegro and the company hasn't indicated whether it would be open to a potential sale.

 

https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-...0-in-oregon-colorado-and-the-philippines.html
Microchip will lay off 2,000 in Oregon, Colorado and the Philippines
Microchip didn’t specify Monday how many jobs it will cut at each site. It has historically employed about 900 in Gresham.

Microchip said Monday that the Gresham layoffs will be “slightly smaller” than at other sites because it will furlough workers intermittently over the next several months so it can rapidly scale up if demand increases for its products. The company told employees last week that it will lay off fewer than a third of its Oregon employees.
...
Microchip makes embedded chips for industrial equipment, aerospace, data centers, consumer technology and autos. Its sales have fallen amid a historic inventory backlog as customer demand collapsed over the past several months.

On Monday, Microchip said it’s developing technologies to expand its markets. It said bookings were up in January and February.

 

Microchip Colorado Springs layoffs. Lot's of techs and engineers.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fy5AnReM53oapLBMv9qeV5MQ1O299WB3/view
Re: Notice of Mass Layoff

 

Microchip I expect to be having a hard time, as much as I like their products. They seem disconnected from engineering customers. Very tough to design-in their MCU's to products.

During the uC shortages, even the '328 was out of stock for a while. No SAMD for you. I couldn't design-in with those lead-times and it was a shocker because other companies had enough crumbs available to keep production limping along.

The Microchip website is brutal, I tried looking for the AVR differences between EB, EA, DA, DD I've never found them. If anyone knows please let me know. It seems to be all marketing-centric.
MPLABX is a 1GB download and full of social media icons, comes with no compiler so I had to abandon ship. It should be an easy to use engineering tool where you simply code and make progress on your project.
I really like their products but feel they are off course. MCHP stock is down almost 50% past year and I'm not sure how they could make the right changes. Hard for them to know how customers feel and competition for MCU's is at a high level.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said but this is BS: "MPLABX is ... and full of social media icons, comes with no compiler so I had to abandon ship"

https://www.microchip.com/en-us/tools-resources/develop/mplab-xc-compilers
https://www.microchip.com/en-us/tools-resources/develop/mplab-x-ide

There are valid reasons to abandon ship but a lack of compilers is not one of them. It asks if you want to install compilers at the end of the MPLABX install.

 

Sorry I wasn't clear, but for 1GB what are you really getting - I expected something far less disjointed. I couldn't stop laughing about it.
For me it was not the lack of compilers, but the way Microchip has split them up, when they don't have to be. They want to push a recurring revenue model with monthly fees under the guise of "free".
I had to support both PIC and AVR, the free compilers appear to be for one family only. That led to purchasing a subscription license $30/mo. for PRO XC Unified, which is actually a hassle for corporate IT and the approvals, open P.O. etc. I found out.
I did not try their cloud-based tool MPLAB Xpress IDE which is "free" but uses the (paid) compiler licenses. Why split it up into 8/16/32 bit and different MCU compilers when most of us are dealing with multiple sizes anyway.

 

Still not clear at all.

Why would you include possibly outdated compilers with the IDE download? That seems backwards and not very smart.

You don't need to pay for level 2 compiler optimization on any of the free releases, ever. It's pretty good for free and that level is used on most of my production code. 8/16/32 bit are different compilers because they are completely different machine architectures that need completely different types of compilers for the best code generation. The 32-bit compiler is pretty generic but 8 and 16-bit C compilers live in a separate world of very machine dependent optimizations that include things like a functional safety compiler for applications that require it.

They split them up because it would be, IMO bad engineering, to keep them unified as one release.

 

https://gazette.com/business/econom...cle_4d093ee8-f91f-11ef-9a87-fb78da9af48d.html

More than 200 Microchip Technology employees in Colorado Springs will receive pink slips this month, part of the chipmaker's plans to lay off about 2,000 of its workers amid declining demand from automakers.

Microchip's Colorado Springs chip manufacturing facility will have 238 employees permanently laid off, the company notified the state Tuesday in a written letter under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. The law requires employers, in most cases, to provide employees with 60 days' notice of job eliminations.

The layoffs are expected to begin May 3, but Microchip is placing affected employees on paid leave immediately, the company said in the letter.
...
Most of the planned job cuts in Colorado Springs — 125 — are for production specialists, according to the WARN letter. Microchip plans to eliminate 44 process enhancement specialist positions and between one to eight employees each in various other jobs, to include product and design engineers, materials handlers, engineers, department managers and technical staff, among others.


Other cuts
Microchip's latest job cuts come shortly after the company's December announcement it is closing its water fabrication plant in Tempe, Ariz. That closure, originally estimated to be complete by September, is now on track to be completed in May, Thorsen said.

Microchip is transferring product manufacturing and technologies from the Tempe factory and other outside foundry partners to the Colorado Springs and Oregon chip production facilities, he added.

Microchip expects its layoff-related costs will total between $30 million and $40 million, Reuters reported. However, the layoffs are projected to save Microchip between $90 million and $100 million in annual operations costs and $25 million in employment-related costs, the presentation shows.

 

https://www.sltrib.com/news/business/2025/03/28/utah-texas-instruments-is-laying/
Utahns lose jobs at Texas Instruments after it snagged up to $1.6B in federal CHIPS Act funding
The layoffs are among the changes needed to support long-term operations, a company spokesperson said.

 

I also hadn’t followed this thread in a while and thus would like want to thank NSAspook for all his valuable insights, depressing and frightening as they are. Some of his posts are pure gold.

I am soooooo glaaaaad that I am already retired and that I waited until my full retirement age, although the current economic environment means that my 401k and other investments are in the dumps.

 

https://www.trendforce.com/news/new...tmicroelectronics-undergo-leadership-changes/

Chip Industry Shakeup: Wolfspeed, Intel, and STMicroelectronics Undergo Leadership Changes

The report suggests that the Italian government is seeking closer examination of STMicroelectronics’ workforce reduction plans, which are part of a $300 million cost-cutting initiative. Italian labor unions have warned that more than 2,000 jobs could be at risk in the country.

 

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...cal-data-necessary-to-build-28nm-capable-fabs
Russian spy infiltrates ASML and NXP to steal technical data necessary to build 28nm-capable fabs

Wow, those guys are stealing lagging edge technology.

 

Both the EUV and 28 nm need more than “information”, but stealing the information would save the Russians a lot of money and heartache.

 

Both the EUV and 28 nm need more than “information”, but stealing the information would save the Russians a lot of money and heartache.

Much of what's important in chip production is knowing the secret sauce. Everything is taught is theory classes in school but you soon learn there is an art of knowing which knobs to turn and in what direction that can only be learned by experience. That experience information is damn valuable because it saves the time and effort of many years to get good at. 28nm is 20 years old and a few years ago, before China was deep in the mix , that equipment was sold for surplus prices to the lagging technology boys.

 

This is similar to the A-bombs. The essential theory behind a nuclear chain reaction was a known subject.
How to achieve that in an instantaneous mode without all the nuclear “fuel” fizzling away a few milliseconds prior to the core achieving critical mass, was crucial knowledge.

In my very humble opinion, the development of the explosive lens required for an implosion type weapon, was the most significant piece of information that the Soviets acquired.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-cut-over-20-workforce-004251026.html
Intel to cut over 20% of workforce, Bloomberg News reports

(Reuters) -Intel (INTC) is set to unveil plans this week to slash more than 20% of its workforce, in a move to streamline operations and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The layoffs are part of a broader strategy to refocus on an engineering-driven culture, the report said.

Intel did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The layoffs mark the first major move under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took over last month to revive the struggling Silicon Valley chipmaker after years of challenges.
...
The planned layoffs follow a significant reduction in workforce last August, when Intel said it planned to cut 15% of its jobs, or approximately 15,000 positions.

 

Make or Break, yield is king.

 

Additional sobering news about Onsemi;

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...jobs-this-year-restructuring-push-2025-02-25/