Breaking the Bottleneck | Issue 29
[10/24/2023] NVIDIA, 3D Printed Rocket Nozzle, Semi Value Chain, Taiwan's Invincibility Glitch
Breaking the Bottleneck is a weekly manufacturing technology newsletter with perspectives, interviews, news, funding announcements, and a startup database. For an older version of a discrete and continuous manufacturing market map click the link here!
Content I Enjoyed This Week 🏭🗞️🔬
News:
NVIDIA Expands Robotics Platform for Generative AI [NVIDIA]
NVIDIA has announced significant expansions to its AI offerings for edge and robotics applications. The company is bringing powerful generative AI models and cloud-native APIs to the edge, aiming to accelerate AI application development and deployment in various industries. Key highlights include:
NVIDIA Isaac ROS Robotics Framework: NVIDIA's Isaac ROS robotics framework provides tools and capabilities for robotics applications, such as defect detection, real-time asset tracking, autonomous planning, and human-robot interactions.
NVIDIA Metropolis Expansion: NVIDIA Metropolis, a platform for vision-based AI solutions, is expanding on the NVIDIA Jetson platform. It offers application programming interfaces (APIs) and microservices for developers to create complex vision-based applications.
Jetson Generative AI Lab: NVIDIA has created the Jetson Generative AI Lab, where developers can access optimized tools and tutorials for deploying open-source generative AI models.
AI Reference Workflows: NVIDIA has introduced a collection of AI reference workflows for tasks such as Network Video Recording, Automatic Optical Inspection, and Autonomous Mobile Robots.
NASA’s 3D Printed Rocket Nozzle [NASA]
Can the US Lead the Clean Aluminium Revolution [Canary Media]
A group of 14 companies, including Ford, General Motors, Rivian, and SunPower, has sent a letter to the U.S. DOE, urging the Biden administration to invest in domestic production of clean aluminum via funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Clean aluminum is a critical component in various industries, including electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, wind turbines, and grid infrastructure. The demand for clean aluminum in wind turbines and solar panels, driven by the IRA, is expected to surpass the total U.S. aluminum production due to the limited number of smelting operations. The aluminum industry is also facing the challenge of increasing production while reducing carbon emissions. Most of the emissions in the industry come from the electricity used to produce primary aluminum whereas clean aluminum would use anode technology that doesn't release greenhouse gases. Currently, only one U.S. plant relies on renewable hydropower, while others use fossil fuels, including coal.
Report on Manufacturing Investment Decisions [Manufacturing Institute]
When asked about their top priorities for current dollars, nearly 74% of manufacturers reported building a robust and trained workforce as a key area for investment, which fits in with the larger macroeconomic conditions of the tight labor market and shortage of available workers. When asked on how they would spend a marginal $1 million, 61.5% would invest in new equipment. This points toward a desire to make smart investments that will transform operations and the production process, while also ensuring that the workforce can adapt to such changes. Additional areas of focus for marginal dollar investment included investing in improved processes and operations (60.2%), optimizing existing equipment (53.4%), investing in new equipment (51.7%), investing in new technologies (46.6%), and research and development (44.9%). When considering their future growth strategies, manufacturers identified a stronger domestic economy for growing sales (69.5%), increased efficiencies in the production process (67.8%), and maintaining a robust and trained workforce (67.0%) as the most significant factors contributing to expansion.
Construction Tumbles as Manufacturing Projects Falter [Construction Dive]
Total construction starts tumbled 6% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.2 trillion, according to Dodge Construction Network, due to a widespread drop in activity particularly around megaprojects. The drop pushed overall year-to-date construction starts through September to trail last year’s pace by 3%, according to the report. The decline follows two consecutive months of gains, suggesting a return to the “up one month and down the next” trend that has lingered for much of 2023. “Risks continue to mount for the construction sector,” said Richard Branch, chief economist for Dodge Construction Network. “The industry needs further adjusting as rates are expected to stay higher for longer, along with the potential for higher energy costs and continued political uncertainty. A return to broad-based growth in construction starts is still some time away.”
China Tightens Export Controls on Battery-Making Graphite [Bloomberg]
China has announced strengthened export controls on certain categories of graphite, a critical material used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, citing the need to "safeguard national security and interests." Starting from December 1, some types of highly sensitive graphite will be subject to "dual-use item" export controls, which also encompass military applications. Graphite is an essential component in the production of EV battery anodes, which are crucial for the performance of rechargeable cells. Battery manufacturers can use either natural graphite extracted from mines or synthetic materials, with the latter being more expensive but offering advantages like longer lifespan, faster charging, and improved safety. China is a major source of raw graphite material, accounting for a significant portion of both natural and synthetic graphite production. This move follows China's earlier restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium, metals critical to the semiconductor, telecommunications, and electric vehicle industries, which were later resumed.
Research:
Using Large Language Models for Hardware Test Stimuli Generation
Abstract: Test stimuli generation has been a crucial but labor-intensive task in hardware design verification. In this paper, we revolutionize this process by harnessing the power of large language models (LLMs) and present a novel benchmarking framework, LLM4DV. This framework introduces a prompt template for interactively eliciting test stimuli from the LLM, along with four innovative prompting improvements to support the pipeline execution and further enhance its performance. We compare LLM4DV to traditional constrained-random testing (CRT), using three self-designed design-under-test (DUT) modules. Experiments demonstrate that LLM4DV excels in efficiently handling straightforward DUT scenarios, leveraging its ability to employ basic mathematical reasoning and pre-trained knowledge. While it exhibits reduced efficiency in complex task settings, it still outperforms CRT in relative terms. The proposed framework and the DUT modules used in our experiments will be open-sourced upon publication.
Industrial Software Market Update [Houlihan Lokey]
Podcasts:
Making the Most of Manufacturing Three D’s
Abraham Ingersoll on the Capacity Podcast
Chart of the Week:
Key Companies in the Semiconductor Value Chain
Track the Clean Manufacturing Factories Being Built Across the US
Manufacturing Deals
Thermal Harvest - A manufacturer of thermal batteries for heat pumps
$4 million [Venture Round] - Led by Earth Foundry and joined by MUUS Climate Partners, Starshot Capital, and Portfolia
Neura Robotics - A company building robots that are able to see, hear and perceive touch, combined with reflexive sensory processing
$16 million [Financing] - From PE firm InterAlpen Partners
Leucine - A company using AI to digitize pharmaceutical manufacturing processes
$7 million [Series A] - Led by EcoLab and joined by Pravega Ventures, Axilor Ventures, and Techstars
Zetwerk - A global manufacturing network that provides manufacturing services including CNC machining, die casting, forging, injection molding, sheet metal stamping, and many others
$120 million [Series F] - Led by Avenir Growth and joined by Lightspeed, Greenoaks Capital and Steadview Capital
Weekly Planned Downtime
How Taiwan Will Stop China’s Invasion