China's largest contract chipmaker has spent most of the past two years increasing volume without much to show for it in terms of margins. The June quarter broke that pattern. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) reported revenue of US$3.01 billion for the three months ended June 30, 2026, up 20.0% sequentially and 36.1% from a year earlier, and gross margin of 25.3% against 20.1% in the March quarter. The margin, not the revenue line, is the news: it is the first quarter in this cycle in which SMIC has been able to convert a full order book into price.

The AI wave is sweeping through the chip industry, but hallucinations, loss of control, and cybersecurity risks remain unresolved even as efficiency leaps. Youngsik Kim, head of the Design Technology (DT) team at Samsung Electronics' System LSI division, has pointed out that software has already leveraged AI to cut headcount and generate significant gains, but hardware has yet to see clear benefits.

SK hynix has pushed construction of its semiconductor campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, to 87% completion as it targets February 2027 for the start of operations at its first cleanroom. Power and water supplies have already been secured, according to Maeil Business Newspaper.

Rapidus expects interposers for high-performance chips to reach eight-reticle scale by around 2030, as larger chiplets and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) push advanced packages toward sizes that are increasingly inefficient to manufacture on conventional 300mm wafers.

As the world enters an AI-powered era where the persistent need for more complex architectures is driven by rising demands for higher computing performance, one bottleneck confronting the semiconductor industry lies not only in technological advancement itself, but also in the capacity to deploy standardized manufacturing processes at greater scale and speed.

Gem Terminal Industry said its net profit in the second quarter of 2026 reached a 16-quarter high as niche products and improved production efficiency in Taiwan and Vietnam lifted results. The terminal and copper materials supplier also reported strong revenue growth in July and for the first seven months of 2026.

ATEN International said its second-quarter 2026 revenue rose 19% year-over-year, while gross margin improved to 62% from 59% and pretax profit jumped 235%. The Taiwan-based keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) and enterprise connectivity vendor said stronger sales, higher capacity utilization, and narrower foreign exchange losses drove the gains.

Taiwan Microloops reported stronger second-quarter and first-half 2026 results, supported by rising shipments of cooling modules for AI server customers. The Taiwan-based supplier said the improvement came as new-model products began shipping to a major cloud service provider customer in the second quarter, helping margins recover after a temporary slowdown during the first-quarter product transition.

Kaori Heat Treatment has approved a major capacity expansion in Taiwan and Thailand as demand rises for AI cooling components and fuel cells. The heat-treatment maker said its board agreed to buy land and buildings in Taoyuan's Zhongli District for NT$2.38 billion and to build a new plant in Thailand with an investment cap of 700 million baht, bringing the two projects to about NT$3 billion.

As South Korea's major memory manufacturers race to secure next-generation lithography technologies for increasingly advanced process nodes, the approaching High-NA EUV era is adding urgency to the development of pellicles capable of handling higher optical and thermal requirements.

Pegatron Corp. said in its second-quarter 2026 results that its server business posted strong gains and that it had already begun preparing for demand in the second half of 2026 while building inventory for the first half of 2027. The Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer said AI server momentum remained strong, but shortages across the upstream supply chain were still creating uncertainty.

Pegatron reported its second-quarter 2026 results on the 12th, saying net profit attributable to the parent company rose more than 14-fold year-on-year as shipments of information products and consumer electronics strengthened. The Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer said AI server demand is expected to remain a key growth driver in the second half of 2026.

Samsung Electronics plans to introduce high-numerical-aperture extreme ultraviolet (High-NA EUV) lithography into mass production at its 1nm node around 2030, according to South Korean media reports. The move signals that the foundry giant is continuing work to deploy the next-generation chipmaking technology at advanced nodes.