DIGITIMES: News and Insight of the Global Supply Chain

Apple Pay arrives in India with a limited card rollout

DIGITIMES — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:55:00 GMT

Apple's entry into India's payments market gives its device users a new way to pay by card, but its initial reach will depend on bank and merchant integrations in a country where a domestic real-time system already dominates digital transactions. The service launched on September 30 for eligible Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard credit cardholders, placing Apple's wallet alongside, rather than replacing, India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Jabil targets 24% growth in FY27 as AI hardware ramp reshapes business

DIGITIMES — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:43:45 GMT

Jabil's fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 marked the point at which AI data-center hardware became the clear center of gravity for the US contract manufacturer. Revenue for the three months ended August 31 rose 29% from a year earlier to US$10.6 billion. The GAAP operating margin widened to 5.7% from 4.1% as new capacity came online faster than planned and more hyperscale customers moved into volume production.

Synopsys and OpenAI to share revenue from AI model built to run chip design tools

DIGITIMES — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:38:27 GMT

Synopsys is betting that the surest way to keep generative AI from eroding its electronic design automation (EDA) franchise is to build the model together with the AI developer and share the proceeds. The chip design software maker said on September 30, 2026, that it has signed a multi-year agreement with OpenAI to jointly develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialized model optimized to operate Synopsys' EDA tools, under an arrangement that Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi told Reuters was structured so that "it will not be cannibalizing our business."

Micron's record quarter rests on pricing power as customers lock in 2027 supply

DIGITIMES — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:37:21 GMT

Micron Technology's fiscal fourth quarter showed a memory maker whose growth now comes mainly from price rather than volume, with customers committing cash years in advance to secure supply. Revenue for the three months ended September 3, 2026, reached US$54.2 billion, up 31% from the previous quarter, and GAAP gross margin widened to 86.8%.

Samsung Foundry gets boost from HBM4 as 2nm push continues

DIGITIMES — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:17:57 GMT

Samsung Electronics' HBM4 ramp is giving its foundry business a timely boost, as rising demand for the memory product translates into more work for the company's 4nm logic lines.

Jensen Huang wins Van Fleet Award as Nvidia, South Korea trio reunites

Charlene Chen — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:16:53 GMT

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended the Korea Society's annual dinner in New York on September 28 local time and received the 2026 Van Fleet Award, with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won on hand to congratulate him. The appearance underscored how Nvidia's ties with South Korea's semiconductor makers have expanded from memory supply into AI manufacturing, creating a two-way relationship in products and technology.

Qualcomm says PC chip shortages are manageable; price swings hit harder

Lily Hess — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:16:25 GMT

Qualcomm's senior vice president and general manager of the compute and gaming business, Kedar Kondap, said the biggest challenge facing the PC industry is not component shortages, but the unusually large price swings in memory and other parts. Speaking to the media during Snapdragon Summit 2026, he said that volatility is affecting the PC market.

AI boom drives Southern Taiwan Science Park revenue past NT$1.7 trillion in 1H26

Eifeh Strom — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:13:03 GMT

The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) posted revenue of NT$1.77 trillion (approx. US$55.66 billion) in the first half of 2026, up 28.57% from the same period in 2025. Growth was mainly driven by the rapid development of the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, coupled with Taiwan's leading role in the semiconductor industry, enabling the science park to maintain steady expansion momentum and further consolidate its position at the core of the global high-tech supply chain.

Lip-Bu Tan calls TSMC a partner rather than a rival

Yunnie Cheng — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:11:53 GMT

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan stated that Intel's relationship with TSMC is built on partnership rather than rivalry. He noted that a collaborative mindset guides key industry leaders, including TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as they navigate the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) transformation.

How a TSMC veteran is steering Singapore's lab-to-fab chip strategy

Charlene Chen — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:11:28 GMT

Yee-Chia Yeo, vice president for innovation and enterprise at A*STAR, returned to Singapore in 2022 and has since turned years of industry experience into a strategy for advancing the city-state's semiconductor R&D and industry development. He is helping build a semiconductor model that differs from Taiwan's, with a focus on linking research more closely to manufacturing needs.

DIGITIMES Insight: Agentic AI shifts inference bottleneck to token control and task quality

Levi Li — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:07:28 GMT

DIGITIMES Intelligence observes that AI applications are moving through a clear progression: from early classification AI focused on feature recognition, to generative AI capable of creating content, and toward a broader shift into the agentic AI era in 2027. Agentic AI is expected to multiply compute demand, while multi-step reasoning introduces new risks to task quality. Efficient control of total token consumption and reliable task-quality management will therefore become critical to commercial deployment.

ASIC shipments top GPUs in 2027 as ABF substrate bottlenecks shift

Charlene Chen — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:07:06 GMT

The high-end cloud AI accelerator market will see a structural shift in 2027, with total ASIC shipments surpassing GPU shipments for the first time, driven by rising output from Google, Amazon, and Huawei. The market will move into a landscape of "dual competition between Nvidia and Google, with multiple players racing to catch up."

Trump-Xi talks leave chip policies unchanged; US guards AI advantage while China pursues self-reliance

Yunnie Cheng — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:06:23 GMT

Following the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, market observers broadly agreed that the talks yielded few surprises. The meeting produced limited substantive progress on economic, trade, or diplomatic fronts, making significant shifts in high-stakes technology policy even less likely.

ChainSea targets fourth-quarter OTC listing as AI transformation business takes shape

Jingyue Hsiao — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:06:01 GMT

Digital transformation integrator ChainSea Information Integration plans to list on Taiwan's over-the-counter (OTC) market in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the process expected to take about a month. The listing would make ChainSea Taiwan's first OTC-listed company focused primarily on business process outsourcing (BPO).

Nvidia pushes full-stack AI agent security as OpenAI sits out partner roster

Jingyue Hsiao — Thu, 1 Oct 2026 00:05:26 GMT

Amid growing concerns over increasingly autonomous AI systems, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly argued that AI agent jailbreaks are fundamentally an "engineering problem" that can be addressed without slowing AI development.

'I tell myself every day it'll ease': Phison CEO sees years of memory shortage

Joseph Chen — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 10:09:51 GMT

Phison Electronics CEO Pua Khein-Seng says he tells himself every day that the memory shortage will ease tomorrow. In reality, he says, AI-driven demand has opened a gap between memory supply and demand that could take many years to close.

Gold Circuit turns Amazon into a shareholder for Trainium servers

Lily Hess — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 10:06:28 GMT

Gold Circuit Electronics (GCE) plans to bring in Amazon as a strategic investor through a private placement expected to raise NT$1.59 billion (US$49.88 million), lifting the two companies from a simple supply-chain relationship to a strategic partnership backed by equity. The deal would also turn a GCE customer into a shareholder of the printed circuit board (PCB) maker, while Amazon invests again in Taiwan's server supply chain after joining Alchip Technologies' private placement in 2024.

Apple A20 Pro ditches PoP memory packaging for WMCM

Lily Hess — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:13:40 GMT

Apple's A20 Pro chip has dropped traditional package-on-package (PoP) packaging in favor of Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM), with memory and processor dies laid out side by side to potentially improve packaging yield and thermal performance, according to a teardown analysis by TechInsights. The findings come as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Apple's A20 Pro draw comparisons around 2-nanometer chip manufacturing and memory packaging.

Taiwan backs TSMC's US push but insists core R&D stays home

Yunnie Cheng — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:04:47 GMT

Taiwan's semiconductor industry, which originated in the Hsinchu Science Park and later expanded to the Central and Southern Taiwan Science Parks, now encompasses manufacturing bases across three continents, Premier Jung-Tai Cho said in a policy report to Taiwan's legislature, the Legislative Yuan, as its 11th term convened for its sixth session. Beyond high-tech giants, hidden champions within Taiwan's traditional industries are also taking center stage internationally.

ASE Technology buys Singapore factory for AI chip testing expansion

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:03:17 GMT

ASE Technology Holding's Singapore unit has approved the purchase of a factory in Yishun Industrial Park from Dutch LED maker Lumileds Singapore for about US$68.44 million, or about NT$2.152 billion. The site is intended to support future capacity expansion.

Netlist challenges Micron, Nvidia, Broadcom, Google over alleged HBM patent use

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:42:54 GMT

Netlist has begun legal proceedings against Micron and downstream customers Nvidia, Broadcom, and Google to stop them from allegedly using the company's patented high-bandwidth memory (HBM) technology without authorization. The case arrives as AI applications are driving soaring demand for next-generation memory chips, and it is brought forward by a company with a track record of winning patent verdicts against memory makers.

Taiwan identifies electricity supply as national strength, with plans to expand gas and green energy

Rodney Chan — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:35:00 GMT

As power infrastructure is now widely regarded as the foundation of a nation's strength, Taiwan is accelerating investment in gas-fired generation, green energy and energy storage. Premier Cho Jung-tai has outlined a medium- to long-term electricity plan, which will extend Taiwan's offshore wind expansion timetable to 2039.

DIGITIMES Insight: AI is emerging as the new growth anchor in the mobile communications industry

Yunnie Cheng — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:20:00 GMT

South Korea's leading telecommunications operator, SK Telecom (SKT), recently established SK Hyper and SK Horizon in quick succession. The moves mark a pivotal shift for telecommunications AI, signaling a transition from internal operational optimization toward full-scale infrastructure monetization.

Leisure vehicles become Eurocharm's largest segment with capacity expanding in Vietnam, North America

Willis Ke — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:20:00 GMT

Taiwan's Eurocharm Holdings, an OEM automotive and motorcycle parts maker, said at an earnings call on September 29 that leisure vehicles had become its largest product segment, as it expands production capacity in Vietnam and North America to meet rising customer demand. The company reported strong year-over-year growth in revenue and profit for the first half of 2026.

China auto market cools as Taiwan suppliers brace for 2H26 inventory cuts

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:00:06 GMT

China's auto market is under pressure from high oil prices and shrinking subsidies, weakening domestic sales even as exports keep growing. Taiwanese supply-chain companies are responding by adjusting their product mix.

EOI lays out three growth engines, eyes AI optical communications

Charlene Chen — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:55:00 GMT

Excellence Optoelectronics (EOI) is banking on stronger orders from its top five customers and new-car launches to drive a recovery in 2026, as the automotive optics and Mini LED module maker expands in Mexico, adds non-headlamp automotive electronics, and pushes into AI optical communications with a sample target in early 2027.

Chief Telecom, Google Cloud launch backup services to bolster cable resilience

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:34:48 GMT

Chief Telecom said on September 30 that it is working with Google Cloud to combine international submarine cable resources and deploy Cross-Site Interconnect (CSI) technology. The partnership is aimed at launching diversified cross-border submarine cable services to strengthen digital resilience as cable disruptions have increased worldwide and drawn attention to Taiwan's critical infrastructure.

SK Hynix resumes DDR4, DDR5 packaging orders with Winpac

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:33:30 GMT

SK Hynix has resumed outsourcing DRAM packaging to South Korean outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) provider Winpac, reviving a supplier relationship that ended in 2023 as the memory maker increases the volume of flip-chip packaging handled by external partners.

China's battery race enters post-scale era: Beijing shifts focus to solid-state and quality

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:24:24 GMT

One of the most pronounced factors behind China's ferocious rise in the global technology landscape has been its unparalleled strength in the EV sector, where fierce competition over power batteries and high-end battery materials has cemented the country's longstanding dominance in battery manufacturing.

Interview: iFLYTEK Medical sees clinical integration as key to healthcare AI expansion in South Korea

Levi Li — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:20:00 GMT

Xunfei Healthcare (iFLYTEK Medical), the healthcare AI arm of China's iFlytek, is using its Spark Medical Large Model to support diagnosis and medical record generation while tackling challenges including clinical workflow integration, differences in care settings, and model hallucinations. It also hopes to bring its experience from China to South Korea through local partnerships.

AI boom draws display makers into semiconductors with glass core substrates and Micro LED

Scarlett Yu — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:20:00 GMT

AI is driving the semiconductor industry into a new growth cycle while creating opportunities for display companies traditionally centered on panels to move into semiconductors. These companies are extending their reach into emerging areas such as advanced packaging and optical communications, seeking to leverage core technologies such as glass substrates and Micro LED.

Samsung SDI targets AI data centers with cylindrical LFP batteries and fire-propagation safeguards

Scarlett Yu — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:18:36 GMT

Samsung SDI is accelerating its push into the artificial intelligence (AI) data center battery market, unveiling, for the first time, a cylindrical lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery featuring its proprietary structural design at Data Centre World Asia (DCWA) 2026 in Singapore on September 29.

Murata begins mass production of world's smallest three-terminal MLCCs

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:17:28 GMT

Murata Manufacturing has started mass production of its LLD series, a new class of ultra-compact capacitors that could help device makers worldwide fit more power management into smaller electronics. The move underscores how component miniaturization is shaping smartphones, wearables, and other connected devices used by consumers across global markets.

Acer targets new niches in mature device markets with education tablets, e-paper displays

Levi Li — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:15:50 GMT

Acer's recent launches of tablets and e-paper displays have raised a broader question: how can the company carve out growth in mature markets already dominated by established brands? Acer sees education as a key opening for tablets, arguing that younger users are increasingly part of a "touch generation."

ByteDance makes up a fifth of China's AI data center capacity amid growing buildout

DIGITIMES — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:14:54 GMT

ByteDance occupies around a fifth of data center capacity in China, according to a recent report. This makes the company the largest customer for rented compute in the country at a time when its major AI developers are racing to accelerate infrastructure buildouts and pushing against capacity limits.