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Sep 24
TSMC locks in 3-6% wafer out price hikes for 2027

TSMC is reportedly planning another wafer foundry price increase, with supply chain sources saying its order visibility now extends to 2030. According to the sources, the company plans to adjust wafer prices from January 2027 across different processes, with hikes of about 3-6% as tight capacity and strong AI demand keep customers in line.

At Singapore's Innovate Together 2026 conference on September 25, executives and researchers from A*STAR's Institute of Microelectronics (IME), KLA, ASM International, the National University of Singapore (NUS), the SHINE Centre, and ASMPT discussed how advanced packaging is evolving beyond conventional chip integration, with optical interconnects, panel-level packaging, and talent development emerging as key challenges.

At Singapore's Innovate Together 2026 conference on September 25, equipment makers including ASM, ASMPT, and KLA said the challenges facing next-generation advanced packaging are expanding beyond the performance of individual tools to hybrid bonding, interface materials, defect metrology, process control, optical interconnects, and panel-level packaging.

Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions division is set to announce the calculation and payout rules for its special management performance bonus in late September, after a holiday break. The move comes as SK Hynix continues recruiting experienced talent, underscoring how pay systems and workplace conditions have become key to attracting and retaining workers at South Korea's semiconductor giants.

GlobalFoundries (GF) is preparing a major global capacity expansion as TSMC is set to gradually exit gallium nitride (GaN) foundry services in 2027. GF said it was the first foundry to proactively approach TSMC and secure a GaN technology license, positioning itself to give existing customers a "seamless migration" path to its own platform.

SK Hynix has validated its HBM5 memory with TSMC's CoWoS packaging, the company said in a September 28 post on its corporate newsroom. That means work on the generation after next is already underway with the foundry, while its HBM4 is only now being built into Nvidia's Vera Rubin superchip.

MIPS, a GlobalFoundries (GF) unit, said it has completed its integration with the ARC unit acquired from Synopsys earlier this year and is using the move to position RISC-V for physical AI, while expanding from AIoT into automotive and data center applications. MIPS said the strategy lowers the barrier for global customers to adopt GF platforms across process technologies and has pushed GF and MIPS to become the world's second-largest processor IP provider.
High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is expected to account for nearly 30% of DRAM makers' total wafer capacity in 2027, up from about 20% currently, as Samsung Electronics moves to accelerate the rollout of new memory capacity amid tightening supplies of both HBM and conventional DRAM.
Semiconductors made up nearly half of South Korea's exports in the first 20 days of September, while China and Hong Kong combined accounted for more than half of the country's chip shipments in August, underscoring the growing concentration of the latest export surge by both product and destination.
Capacity at VisionPower Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (VSMC) first 12-inch wafer fab in Singapore is fully booked as the joint venture between Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) and NXP Semiconductors begins a preliminary evaluation of a second fab.
VSMC, the joint venture between Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) and NXP Semiconductors, officially opened its first 12-inch wafer fab in Singapore on September 28, completing construction in just 22 months.

Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) and NXP Semiconductors' joint venture, VisionPower Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (VSMC), officially opened its 12-inch (300mm) wafer fab on September 28 in Tampines, Singapore. Vanguard and VSMC chairman Leuh Fang said the AI-driven crowding out of capacity has spread across the global semiconductor supply chain, leaving almost no company able to say it has sufficient capacity.