DIGITIMES: News and Insight of the Global Supply Chain

India's Eastern state clears SiCSem's SiC unit in SEZ

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:55:00 GMT

The Falta Special Economic Zone unit approval committee has cleared a proposal from SiCSem Private Limited to build an integrated silicon carbide (SiC) device plant near Bhubaneswar, a project with an investment of INR34.06 billion (US$355 million) and expected to employ about 1,270 people directly.

DIGITIMES Insight: Google outlines AI compute expansion, speeds TPU cycle to 6 months

Charlene Chen — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:55:00 GMT

DIGITIMES Intelligence said Google used SEMICON Taiwan 2026 to outline the direction of its AI infrastructure strategy, focusing not only on next-generation TPU products but also on how rising AI compute demand is accelerating TPU iteration and deployment.

LEOTEK completes real-world test of AI traffic system at US smart city lab

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:31:00 GMT

Leotek Electronics has completed a real-world deployment of its Interlux AI Traffic Signal System in Georgia, highlighting how cities worldwide can adopt smarter traffic management, connected-vehicle tools, and AI-based road safety systems. The test could inform future urban transport upgrades in the US and beyond.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang expected to attend Trump-Xi Summit as tech and trade take center stage

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:15:00 GMT

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet on September 24 in Washington for a state dinner now dubbed the "G2 Summit". The meeting follows a turbulent economic period marked by an April 2025 tariff surge where both nations raised levies above 100% before reaching a temporary stalemate. Alongside traditional trade discussions and potential climate change or pandemic prevention talks, technology leadership, export controls, and regulatory frameworks are set to dominate the agenda.

Why Wiwynn chose El Paso for its first US plant

Lily Hess — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:05:30 GMT

Wiwynn held the grand opening for its first US factory on September 14 local time, choosing El Paso, Texas, over larger cities such as Dallas and Houston. Chief manufacturing officer Robin Wang said the site gives the company the best support from its Ciudad Juarez, Mexico plant, which is less than an hour away.

Samsung and Qualcomm jointly developing organic bridges for 2.1D packaging

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:02:41 GMT

Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Qualcomm are working together to develop an organic bridge for 2.1D packaging architectures. The partnership takes place as AI chips grow larger, denser, and higher-performing, bolstering the value of the advanced packaging end of the chip process.

BizLink's CPO breakthrough hits the hard part: scaling

Levi Li — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:57:00 GMT

BizLink has begun small-volume shipments of co-packaged optics (CPO), but chairman Roger Liang said mass deployment remains constrained by fiber array unit (FAU) assembly, thermal management and system reliability rather than production capacity.

AI slowdown calls expose the financial strain of the frontier race

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:45:00 GMT

Calls to moderate frontier AI development are exposing a financial dilemma alongside the safety debate: AI labs must fund successive research cycles while securing infrastructure to serve rapidly growing demand. A coordinated slowdown could offer financial breathing room, although public evidence does not establish that cost pressure motivated the latest appeals.

EV batteries cannot simply power humanoid robots, with energy density and costs posing key hurdles

Scarlett Yu — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:43:00 GMT

Power battery technology has reached maturity in the new energy vehicle (NEV) market, but transferring it to humanoid robots presents two major barriers: the need for significant technological upgrades and the difficulty of spreading costs across a market characterized by low-volume, highly customized demand.

Soaring memory costs threaten Netronix's e-reader growth, even as new display markets stay on track

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:35:00 GMT

Netronix said rapidly rising memory prices are squeezing the consumer electronics supply chain, raising e-book reader costs and slowing some e-paper display projects. Even so, the company still expects growth from color readers and advertising displays in 2027, helped by resilient supply-chain execution and demand for higher-value products.

SK Hynix union approves revised pay deal after 25-vote rejection

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:26:24 GMT

SK Hynix's production workers' union has approved a revised pay agreement that raises the cash share of employee profit-sharing bonuses, ending weeks of uncertainty after members rejected the previous proposal by just 25 votes.

TSMC's overseas expansion faces talent management gap, says co-COO Y.J. Mii

Eifeh Strom — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:15:00 GMT

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) chairman C.C. Wei and co-chief operating officer (co-COO) Y.J. Mii participated in the "Cross-Generational Dialogue: Questions and Answers for the AI Era" forum on September 15.

SK Hynix, Intel in talks on US production to ease memory crunch

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:07:24 GMT

SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about a potential deal that could give the South Korean company its first memory chip manufacturing operation in the US, as tight supply pushes customers and governments to secure more domestic capacity.

Taiwan CCL makers ride Nvidia's M9 shift as AI servers move to 52-layer PCBs

Levi Li — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 06:30:00 GMT

Global cloud service providers are continuing to expand AI infrastructure, driving a surge in demand for high-frequency, high-speed PCBs and making copper-clad laminate (CCL) upgrades increasingly critical to system performance. With both PCB layer counts and material specifications rising, Taiwan suppliers including Elite Material (EMC), Taiwan Union Technology (TUC), Iteq, Nan Ya Plastics, and Ventec are expected to sustain strong shipments through the second half of 2026.

CPO ramp pushes silicon photonics testing upstream to catch defects early

Sherri Wang — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 06:30:00 GMT

As AI servers drive demand for higher-speed optical interconnects and co-packaged optics (CPO) moves toward volume production, silicon photonics testing is shifting from component-performance verification toward wafer-yield protection and earlier risk screening.

Geckos sees copper paste as a lower-cost answer to shrinking glass via challenges

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 06:00:00 GMT

AI, high-performance computing, and advanced packaging are accelerating demand for glass substrates, but smaller through-glass vias are making conventional filling methods harder to use. Geckos is promoting a copper paste process with vacuum printing as an alternative that could improve yield, lower costs, and support denser interconnects.

Samsung Exynos regains share as Galaxy phones test 2nm

Lily Hess — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:30:00 GMT

Samsung Electronics' in-house Exynos application processors (APs) are steadily regaining lost ground in the global smartphone market. Samsung's share of the global smartphone AP market rose to 9% in the second quarter of 2026, up 2 percentage points from the previous quarter and 3 percentage points from a year earlier, marking a second straight quarterly increase.

Geopolitical shocks add business pressure as CBAM free carbon quotas extend to 2038

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:05:00 GMT

International conflicts, shifting trade rules, and rising carbon costs are forcing companies worldwide to rethink investment plans and supply chains. The EU has proposed extending free carbon allowances for sectors covered by its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), while tightening decarbonization expectations, underscoring how climate policy and geopolitics are becoming increasingly linked for global industry.

Meta globally rolls out Meta One subscription, tops 15 million sign-ups

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:37:04 GMT

Meta on Sept. 15 announced the global rollout of Meta One, a new subscription service combining premium features across its social media platforms with expanded access to AI tools, as the company seeks to broaden monetization of its growing AI ecosystem.

Physical AI could reshape industrial computing as Ennoconn sees a long growth cycle

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:35:00 GMT

Artificial intelligence is moving beyond software and into physical systems, and Ennoconn Technology says that shift could create a multi-year expansion for industrial computing vendors. Ennoconn president Nelson Tsay said the next phase of AI is expected to open broad opportunities across robots, factories, and transport applications.

Samsung reportedly weighs Micron's newest memory for Galaxy S27

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:28:01 GMT

Samsung Electronics is reportedly testing Micron's most advanced 1γ LPDDR5X memory for possible use in the Galaxy S27 series, as rising costs around next-generation mobile DRAM complicate supply decisions. South Korean media say higher prices for advanced-process chips, plus the prospect of further mobile DRAM increases in the fourth quarter of 2026, are weighing on Samsung's plans.

Apple reportedly accepts Samsung's 1Q27 memory hike, raising the 2027 smartphone cost floor

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:19:29 GMT

Apple's acceptance of sharply higher Samsung Electronics memory prices for early 2027 is putting a number on the cost of the AI boom for smartphones. The reported agreement comes just days after Apple limited the iPhone 18 Pro price increase to US$100, highlighting its willingness to absorb part of a historic rise in memory costs to defend shipments and market position.

Micron unveils 512GB DDR5 RDIMM for next-gen servers

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:18:09 GMT

Micron has demonstrated what it calls the world's first 512GB DDR5 registered dual in-line memory module (RDIMM) across multiple server platforms, doubling the capacity of the 256GB RDIMM it began sampling in May as next-generation systems demand greater memory capacity and bandwidth.

Samsung backs Dutch AI chip startup Euclyd in US$230M funding round

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:15:19 GMT

Samsung Electronics is investing in Dutch AI chip startup Euclyd as part of a more than EUR200 million (about US$230.9 million) Series A funding round, highlighting growing efforts to develop alternatives to Nvidia's dominant AI accelerator platform.

Samsung reportedly pushes conventional memory modules to partners in Vietnam and India as HBM crowds its back end

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:06:45 GMT

Samsung Electronics is reportedly handing the growth in its commodity memory module business to outside assemblers in Vietnam, India, and the Philippines, a sign of how completely high-bandwidth memory (HBM) has taken over its own packaging space. The shift keeps Samsung's scarce back-end capacity focused on its most profitable products and pushes the geography of its conventional memory supply increasingly outside South Korea.

Glass substrates, TGV set to reshape 2027 advanced packaging race

Lily Hess — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:02:27 GMT

As AI chip package sizes continue to expand, advanced packaging is moving up the technology ladder. Glass substrate and through-glass via (TGV) technologies have become a new competitive focus for supply chains in the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. Players are now positioning themselves around four key steps — glass materials, via drilling, via metallization, and multilayer substrate lamination — to capture opportunities for 2027 and 2028.

Hanmi Semiconductor reportedly lands first back-end foothold at Terafab

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:49:52 GMT

Hanmi Semiconductor has reportedly secured an order to supply advanced packaging equipment to Elon Musk's Terafab, marking the first known entry by a South Korean back-end equipment supplier into the planned US semiconductor megaproject.

Exclusive: Wiwynn expands US, Mexico plants, aiming to double capacity by 2027

Yunnie Cheng — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:46:17 GMT

Wiwynn has officially kicked off mass production at its first US manufacturing facility. Departing from its previous strategy of leasing facilities in North America, the company is making a major investment to purchase land and build its own plants.

Aleees locks in Tainan plant for 20-year North America order

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:32:33 GMT

Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials maker Aleees said its new precursor plant will be built in Tainan, with trial production set for January 2027 and commercial shipments in July 2027, as it prepares to fulfill a 20-year long-term agreement with a North American customer. The move marks a major turning point for the company as it meets surging demand for localized supply chains in North American energy storage and EV markets.

Kepler bets HBM can scale without EUV — chip giants are buying in

Levi Li — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:16:53 GMT

US memory chip startup Kepler Computing has emerged from stealth after seven years, disclosing US$468 million in total funding and a plan to rethink how high-density memory is manufactured.

Astera says customers are rethinking HBM needs for AI accelerators

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:14:10 GMT

AI infrastructure customers are starting to reconsider how much high-bandwidth memory (HBM) needs to be placed alongside accelerators as external memory tiers create new options for storing key-value (KV) cache, according to Astera Labs.

AI efficiency fuels Jevons Paradox debate over HBM demand

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:10:53 GMT

As artificial intelligence (AI) models move from answering questions to autonomously completing multi-step tasks, OpenAI's new model GPT-6 Astra, or Astra, is drawing fresh market attention to hardware demand amid the spread of AI agents. For the memory industry, even if the cost of a single AI task falls, rising usage and broader applications could still lift overall computing and data-access demand, leaving room for growth in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DRAM.

Altera confidentially files for US IPO as AI chip demand fuels listing boom

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:01:14 GMT

Altera, the programmable-chip maker backed by Silver Lake and Intel, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, positioning the company to tap renewed investor demand for semiconductor and AI-related businesses.

Global top-3 memory maker status, 3Q 2026: AI servers drive record memory revenue; SSD, LPDDR upgrades ahead

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:55:07 GMT

DIGITIMES observes that major memory suppliers posted record-high revenue in the second quarter of 2026, with yearover-year growth remaining in the triple digits. Driven by AI demand, SSDs and LPDDR are emerging as key competitive
battlegrounds.

Sharp opens orders for Foxconn-built Nvidia AI servers, targeting JPY250 billion by fiscal 2030

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:48:47 GMT

Sharp Corporation began taking orders in Japan on September 15 for AI servers procured from its Taiwanese parent, Foxconn, and equipped with Nvidia processors, giving the display and consumer electronics maker a route into domestic AI infrastructure at a moment when GPU supply remains tight. The company said commercial sales are planned for fiscal 2027, and it is targeting revenue of around JPY250 billion (about US$1.6 billion) in fiscal 2030, according to Kyodo News.

Huawei reportedly scales back AITO role as Seres takes greater control

Scarlett Yu — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:25:31 GMT

Huawei and Seres, a Chongqing-based premium manufacturer of high-end electric NEVs, are reportedly adjusting their smart vehicle partnership in the AITO brand. Huawei would shift toward a more asset-light role, and Seres would take greater control over AITO's product, marketing, sales, and service operations.

Apple, Intel links sharpen focus on Lens Technology's next glass growth markets

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:22:51 GMT

Lens Technology is pushing its precision-glass expertise into two higher-value markets that could reshape its growth profile: Apple-linked foldable devices and Intel-linked through-glass-via (TGV) substrates.

US-based Teradyne opens Bengaluru office to support India's semiconductor push

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:18:23 GMT

Teradyne has opened a new office in Bengaluru as India expands its chipmaking ambitions, which could affect supply chains, pricing, and manufacturing capacity worldwide. The move gives the US test-equipment maker a local base in one of Asia's fastest-growing technology hubs, where demand is rising across the semiconductor industry.

Advanced processes have no ready-made answers, says TSMC's COO

Eifeh Strom — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:09:41 GMT

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) chairman C.C. Wei and co-chief operating officer Y.J. Mii participated in the "Cross-Generational Dialogue: Questions and Answers for the AI Era" forum on September 15. Students asked how TSMC determines whether a technology is worth long-term investment when information is incomplete and the technological direction remains unclear, as well as how people can develop the ability to judge whether answers generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are true or false in the AI era.

Interview: Forget transistors — speed is what's choking the chip supply chain, says Qnity exec

Sherri Wang — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:09:10 GMT

The global surge in AI demand is accelerating change across the semiconductor industry, and as Moore's Law scaling faces physical limits, chipmaking is no longer only about shrinking transistors. The industry is moving toward a "shrink and stack" model that combines continued scaling with increasingly complex 3D integration.

Commentary: China's US$4.5 trillion electronics target confronts the limits of manufacturing scale

Levi Li — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:58:32 GMT

Where will China's electronics manufacturing industry find growth over the next five years? The answer is taking shape in the 15th Five-Year Plan for the sector, released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC): industry revenue is targeted to exceed CNY30 trillion (US$4.47 trillion) by 2030.

Beyond 2nm: Dimensity 9600 Pro gives MediaTek a bigger role in mobile AI

Levi Li — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:53:16 GMT

MediaTek has officially launched the Dimensity 9600 Pro, introducing a major architectural overhaul for its 2026 flagship mobile chip. Beyond the shift to a 2nm process, the new platform adopts a 2+3+3 all-big-core CPU configuration, upgrades its cache architecture, and doubles its NPU resources with a dual-NPU design to support increasingly demanding AI workloads.

Samsung reportedly taps TSMC for custom HBM base dies as new foundry dynamics emerge

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:51:58 GMT

The logic die at the bottom of a high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stack has become the semiconductor industry's newest contested territory. Within weeks, SK Hynix has been reported to be weighing Intel alongside TSMC, Samsung Electronics has been reported to be pairing its own foundry with TSMC, and Micron has confirmed that TSMC will manufacture its next-generation base die. What began as a single-vendor arrangement is turning into a multi-front sourcing contest — and the assumption that a second source automatically means a cheaper one is already being challenged.

FSC teams with South Korean maker on TGV equipment for glass substrates

Lily Hess — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:43:58 GMT

Fu Chun Shin Machinery Manufacture (FSC), a major plastic injection molding machine maker, is expanding further into semiconductors by teaming up with Korean-Chinese joint venture Zhongke Xianfeng on through-glass via (TGV) equipment for glass substrates, used in next-generation advanced packaging. The two sides signed a cooperation agreement on September 14, initially targeting major printed circuit board (PCB), IC substrate, and OSAT makers in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

A Taiwan machinery maker bets on AI to challenge Japan's grip on advanced capacitors

Yunnie Cheng — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:43:08 GMT

High-end multilayer polymer capacitors (MLPCs) — increasingly critical to power delivery in AI servers and high-wattage GPUs and CPUs — have historically been dominated by Japan's Panasonic, which has held over 90% of the market. Now, a Taiwan-based machinery maker is aiming to challenge that grip.

DIGITIMES Insight: Taiwan can power its AI chip boom — but not with green energy

Scarlett Yu — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:37:05 GMT

DIGITIMES Intelligence observes that discussions at the semiconductor sustainability and energy forum during SEMICON Taiwan 2026 centered on two questions: whether Taiwan will have enough electricity to support continued semiconductor expansion driven by AI, and whether that electricity will come from renewable sources.

South Korean NPU startups face validation hurdle in push for global sales

Sherri Wang — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:36:43 GMT

South Korea's neural processing unit (NPU) startups are moving from chip development toward commercial deployment, but limited experience operating at scale remains a major hurdle to winning global customers.

Apple's foldable phone faces durability test as suppliers eye crease risks

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:36:17 GMT

Apple's first foldable phone is drawing worldwide attention because its design choices could shape how future bendable devices are built and priced. But suppliers say one of the industry's oldest durability issues remains unresolved: whether the protective film over the inner display can lift over time, especially at the center crease.

Star Shining launches IPO plan as renewable energy assets reach 676MW

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:31:02 GMT

Star Shining, an AUO Group affiliate, signed an IPO advisory agreement with Cathay Securities on September 15, formally starting its capital markets process in Taiwan. The renewable energy developer said it is targeting a listing in 2028 after building and managing 676MW of renewable energy capacity.

ITRI showcases AI robots, drones to push commercialization in southern Taiwan

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:30:53 GMT

The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) held its ITRI Innovation Day on September 15 in Tainan, Taiwan, bringing together research groups and startup teams to highlight 25 cross-disciplinary technologies in AI, smart robotics, and unmanned vehicles. The event was designed to move more research and development results into industrial use through demonstrations, business matchmaking, and an innovation market.

China's humanoid robot race, Part 2: Upstream profits gather around dexterous hands

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:30:36 GMT

Humanoid robot makers are cutting prices and scaling production, yet much of the industry remains unprofitable. Upstream suppliers are starting to show a different economics — especially in dexterous robotic hands.

AI server tracker: BMC, cable, case suppliers post August 2026 gains

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:30:12 GMT

Taiwan's AI server supply chain continued to show strong year-over-year growth in August, although performance varied significantly across baseboard management controller (BMC), cable/connector, and server-case suppliers.

DeepSeek to hire its first CFO as it aims for public listing, expands workforce

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:29:40 GMT

DeepSeek is reportedly set to hire Wentao Yan, a partner at venture capital firm GL Ventures, as its first CFO. If the appointment takes place, it would happen at an important time for the Chinese AI startup as it seeks to go public, begins a large expansion of its workforce, and invests in chipmaking and computing capacity.

Apple exits Musk's AI lawsuit, but the fight over iPhone AI access is only getting bigger

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:29:21 GMT

The recent AI antitrust case between two of the high-tech landscape's most powerful camps appears to have quietly ended following Elon Musk's legal retreat from Apple. But the battle over AI distribution control is far from settled, as pointed accusations from SpaceXAI and X regarding Apple's behind-the-scenes role in constraining generative-AI competition have left the broader industry unsettled over questions of AI access and app visibility amid Apple's increasingly open, multi-model ecosystem.

As AI data centers hit a transmission wall, GlobalFoundries pushes into silicon photonics

DIGITIMES — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:28:56 GMT

At the China International Optoelectronics Expo (CIOE), a palm-sized metal transceiver represents the shift from copper to light in data center infrastructure, one of the biggest transformations in the industry amid the AI boom.

DIGITIMES Insight: NVHBM is not a memory revolution; Nvidia seeks to platformize cHBM, dominate custom AI architectures

Charlene Chen — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:28:17 GMT

DIGITIMES observed that Nvidia's newly announced NVHBM is not a brand-new memory technology, but rather an extension of existing custom HBM (cHBM). It is a managed cHBM design that moves the memory controller, which originally sat on the XPU, into the HBM logic base die, and pairs it with custom physical-layer (PHY) and die-to-die (D2D) interfaces. In strategic terms, Nvidia is extending its moat from GPUs to the memory architecture of custom ASICs, and is trying to define how future custom AI chips connect to memory, hook into scale-up networks, and come together as complete AI racks.

DIGITIMES Insight: Taiwan's small IC design firms face a weaker second half after rebound

Jingyue Hsiao — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:25:01 GMT

Taiwan's smaller IC design firms posted a strong revenue recovery in the first half of 2026, but the gains may prove difficult to extend. DIGITIMES said higher prices and early customer buying lifted sales, even as consumer demand remained soft. The second half now looks exposed to weaker momentum.

AR glasses target 2 billion myopia users as China supply chain eyes doubling shipments

Lily Hess — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 20:31:00 GMT

Suppliers in China's AR glasses supply chain see the approximately 2 billion people worldwide with myopia as a potential market and said shipments are set to double year after year, even as the industry continues to sift winners from losers. At this year's China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE), smart glasses remained a standout theme alongside optical communications.

Chip revenue heads to US$2.4 trillion on price, not volume, Yole says

DIGITIMES — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:34:00 GMT

The semiconductor industry is on track to nearly quadruple in revenue by 2031 while shipping barely more silicon than it does today, a divergence that makes pricing power, not capacity, the defining variable of the AI buildout.

AI data centers give idle EV battery capacity a second life

Levi Li — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:32:00 GMT

Slowing EV growth in North America, tariffs, and policy restrictions are pushing automakers and battery suppliers to repurpose idle capacity. At the same time, surging power demand and grid volatility from generative AI data centers are lifting demand for battery energy storage systems (BESS), making energy storage a key diversification market alongside defense, drones, and humanoid robots.

DIGITIMES Insight: Google scales TPU systems to 1 million chips as power becomes the bottleneck

Sherri Wang — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:55:00 GMT

At SEMICON Taiwan 2026, Google outlined the direction of its AI infrastructure, and DIGITIMES notes that the discussion extended well beyond its next-generation TPU. Rather than focusing on a single chip, Google described how it links large numbers of TPUs into an integrated computing system spanning compute clusters, data centers, and ultimately multiple data centers, while also addressing the power constraints that emerge as the system continues to scale.

Amodei's AI slowdown call is unlikely to dent chip demand, industry sources say

Jingyue Hsiao — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:50:00 GMT

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call to slow frontier AI development has stirred debate over safety, but chip industry sources say global demand for AI infrastructure is likely to keep rising. For readers worldwide, the larger issue is not whether AI spending stops, but how quickly it spreads across clouds, devices, and industries.

iPhone Duo's identity shapes Apple's foldable strategy

Jingyue Hsiao — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:30:00 GMT

Apple's first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, is drawing close attention as analysts forecast shipments of 5 million to 6 million units by year-end. The device could make Apple the world's second-largest foldable phone supplier, behind Samsung Electronics, and shape how global consumers and rivals view future foldable screens.

DIGITIMES Insight: Intel may lack a price edge over TSMC on SK Hynix HBM base dies

Sherri Wang — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:15:00 GMT

SK Hynix is reportedly considering Intel as an additional manufacturing source for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) base dies beginning with the HBM4E generation, a move that could reduce its reliance on TSMC and give the memory maker greater supply and cost flexibility.

Charts: Memory has held six of the ten fastest-growing spots in Taiwan's chip sector for seven straight months

DIGITIMES — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:15:00 GMT

Of the 94 listed Taiwanese semiconductor companies DIGITIMES tracks, 80 grew year-over-year in August 2026 and 14 declined. Median year-over-year growth was 27%. Sixty-three of the 94 posted faster year-over-year growth in August than in July, when the median was 21%.

Astera Labs targets the KV cache bottleneck as agentic AI outgrows GPU memory

DIGITIMES — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:30:34 GMT

Astera Labs has added three products to its Leo memory controller line, aimed at a problem that arises as AI inference shifts from single queries to agents that run continuous loops: the key-value cache outgrows the HBM on the accelerator, and the usual fallback makes things worse.