DRAM and NAND Flash supplies are tightening as global AI data centers continue to expand. Apple is actively lobbying the Trump administration to allow it to buy DRAM from Chinese memory maker CXMT, underscoring the cost, supply, and geopolitical pressures bearing down on the global technology supply chain.
China has imposed new export control measures on 40 Japanese entities, placing 20 organizations on its export control list and another 20 on a separate watchlist, citing national security concerns and the need to strengthen oversight of exports of dual-use items.
Generative AI is driving a sharp rise in electricity demand from data centers and AI computing infrastructure, prompting China to release its 15th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of a New Energy System (2026–2030). The plan incorporates AI power demand into China's national energy strategy for the first time, calling for closer coordination between electricity supply and computing capacity to support AI, advanced manufacturing, and other strategic industries.
Samsung Electronics is slowing its investment schedule for 1d DRAM, the seventh-generation 10nm-class DRAM node, as a sharp surge in memory prices makes it more profitable to squeeze output from existing production lines than to rush costly next-generation processes to market, The Bell reported on June 23.
LG Chem is discussing whether to expand production of copper-clad laminate, or CCL, a core material used in semiconductor packaging, as demand tied to artificial intelligence chips accelerates, Herald Business reported.
China's AI chip race is pushing the semiconductor bottleneck into advanced packaging and testing, where HPC, HBM, Chiplets and domestic substitution are driving a new capacity cycle.
Hanmi Semiconductor has launched FC Bonder 3.5, a new flip-chip bonding tool for AI system semiconductor packaging, as the South Korean equipment maker looks to broaden its advanced packaging business beyond TC bonders for high-bandwidth memory and supply global foundry and OSAT customers, ETNews and Yonhap reported.
