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Friday 5 June 2026

OECD data show China-based semiconductor makers receive outsized industrial support

Industrial subsidies reached their highest level since the global financial crisis in 2023 and 2024, according to a June 2026 OECD release based on its new MAGIC database of industrial subsidies. The database tracks support received by 525 of the world's largest manufacturing groups across 15 industrial sectors from 2005 to 2024.

Friday 5 June 2026

Samsung's biggest union loses majority status after bonus talks

Samsung Electronics is facing a new shift in labor relations after the Samsung Electronics branch of the Samsung Group Super-Enterprise Union reportedly lost its status as a majority union following a sharp drop in membership after bonus negotiations. The move weakens the union's representation and could further fragment future labor talks and union power at Samsung Electronics.

Friday 5 June 2026

Hiwin and Qualcomm bring edge AI to PLP equipment with Load Port tie-up at Computex

Hiwin Technologies and Qualcomm Inc. announced a partnership at Computex 2026 to integrate Qualcomm Dragonwing Q6 series processors into Hiwin's Load Port products, delivering edge AI capabilities for semiconductor panel-level packaging (PLP) equipment. The collaboration positions Hiwin's Load Port as the smart edge node in front-end modules, aiming to improve real-time image processing, status sensing, and anomaly detection on the equipment side.

Friday 5 June 2026

NXP chief says factories will lead robot adoption globally

Industrial factories are likely to become the first major market for robots at scale, according to NXP chief executive Rafael Sotomayor, who said manufacturers want stable systems, dependable performance, and clear financial returns. This view suggests that the earliest gains from robotics may come in places where efficiency improvements are easiest to measure.

Friday 5 June 2026

Sambanova challenges GPU dominance in AI inference at Computex

SambaNova used a Computex 2026 session on June 4 to make its most public case yet that the GPU-only approach to AI inference is hitting a fundamental wall — and to demonstrate, live on stage, an alternative architecture it calls disaggregated inference running in a production data center.

Friday 5 June 2026

Huawei's Tau Law stirs debate over China's post-Moore's Law chip path

Huawei has formally introduced its "Tau Law," proposing a shift from traditional process-node scaling to "time scaling," a model aimed at improving chip performance through optimisation across components, circuits, chips, and systems, even under mature process technologies.

Friday 5 June 2026

Infineon India moves up the value chain as AI data centers boost power-chip demand

Infineon Technologies' India operations are moving beyond traditional engineering support into global ownership roles, as rising demand from AI data centers reshapes the power semiconductor market, according to Vinay Shenoy, managing director of Infineon Technologies India.

Friday 5 June 2026

Nexchip carves out BGBM assets to back Wuhu wafer project, refocuses on 12-inch foundry business

Nexchip Semiconductor plans to carve out its BGBM business by contributing specialised equipment assets to Anhui Ruijing Semiconductor, a newly established power device wafer-processing venture in Wuhu, Anhui Province, as the Chinese foundry seeks to focus capital and management resources on its core 12-inch wafer foundry platforms.

Friday 5 June 2026

Global semiconductor market to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2026 as memory surges 250%, WSTS forecasts

The global semiconductor market is on track to nearly double in 2026, reaching US$1.51 trillion — a 90% year-over-year increase — driven overwhelmingly by an extraordinary surge in memory chip demand, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) Spring 2026 forecast released on June 2.

Friday 5 June 2026

Nvidia's Jensen Huang to meet South Korean business leaders beyond HBM sector

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is visiting South Korea on June 5 for meetings with major Korean business leaders, as the company's cooperation with local companies broadens beyond high-bandwidth memory into robotics, automobiles, gaming, and cloud infrastructure.

Friday 5 June 2026

Infineon sees early quantum computing gains as finance leads adoption

Infineon Technologies said its long-running work in quantum computing is beginning to pay off, with early demand strongest in finance, chemistry, and life sciences. For global readers, the company's comments signal that quantum systems are moving closer to commercial relevance, even as the market remains early, crowded, and dependent on wider industry cooperation.

Friday 5 June 2026

Foxconn deepens AI push with Intel on inference racks

Intel and Foxconn have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate on AI rack infrastructure, edge AI, physical AI platforms, and custom chip design services. The deal highlights Intel's bid to regain ground in artificial intelligence (AI), while broadening Foxconn's role in the global AI supply chain.

Friday 5 June 2026

Analysis: Intel turns to Foxconn partnership to strengthen position in evolving AI market

Foxconn and Intel have announced a strategic partnership focused on AI racks, Edge AI, and Physical AI. The move signals Intel's effort to rebuild competitiveness in a market increasingly shaped by Nvidia's dominance in AI training and inference.

Friday 5 June 2026

Arm says Taiwan powers its rise as agentic AI lifts PC growth

Arm CEO Rene Haas told the COMPUTEX keynote on June 2 that Taiwan has been inseparable from Arm's growth over the past 30 years, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that agentic AI will trigger the biggest PC industry transformation in 40 years and could expand the global PC market by 10 times.

Friday 5 June 2026

TSMC CEO says rising profits mean greater social responsibility, clarifies bonus considerations

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) held its shareholders meeting on June 4, during which CEO C.C. Wei addressed recent talk surrounding its employee bonus system. He opened the meeting by preemptively clarifying the issue, saying there are misconceptions in the public discussion.

Friday 5 June 2026

TSMC says AI demand is straining entire supply chain, not just chipmakers

TSMC chairman C.C. Wei said on Wednesday that AI demand is rising so quickly that the whole supply chain is struggling to keep up, with bottlenecks spanning power, chip capacity, equipment, and upstream suppliers.

Friday 5 June 2026

South Korea's only SRAM-CIM IP firm Articron targets edge AI

South Korean semiconductor IP startup Articron is challenging the traditional AI chip design bottleneck by using a memory-centric architecture, with its self-developed SRAM-CIM compute chip IP "ART" now in testing and aimed at the power- and area-sensitive edge AI device market. The company says it expects to launch a commercial product in about two years.

Thursday 4 June 2026

Samsung's rumored CIS production shift highlights industry debate over fab ownership

Samsung Electronics' decision to place a key image sensor production line under its System LSI division highlights a broader question facing the CMOS image sensor (CIS) industry: whether chip designers should own manufacturing capacity or rely on external foundries as competition intensifies across smartphones, automotive systems, and AI-enabled devices.

Thursday 4 June 2026

TSMC chairman dismisses rival cluster pushes, says Taiwan's supply chain remains unmatched

TSMC chairman C.C. Wei spoke at a media briefing on June 4, 2026, after the company's shareholders' meeting. South Korea's push to build a semiconductor cluster, Arizona's efforts to establish a supply chain ecosystem, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recent trip to South Korea were all topics of discussion.

Thursday 4 June 2026

TSMC shareholders clear record 2025 results, putting AI capacity roadmap in focus

TSMC shareholders approved the company's 2025 business report and financial statements at its 2026 annual shareholders' meeting on June 4, giving investors a formal look at a year in which the world's largest contract chipmaker converted the AI semiconductor boom into record-scale earnings.

Thursday 4 June 2026

LG Innotek targets Intel EMIB substrate chain with SK Hynix samples

LG Innotek is seeking to enter the supply chain for substrates used in Intel's EMIB advanced-packaging technology, supplying early samples to SK Hynix as it tries to move deeper into high-end semiconductor substrates, according to ZDNet Korea.

Thursday 4 June 2026

TSMC chair says CoPoS could scale within years while downplaying risk from Terafab

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) told shareholders on June 4 that the AI surge is creating major opportunities, but also leaving TSMC with the bulk of the investment and operating burden. Chairman C.C. Wei said the company's long-term edge still rests on technology, manufacturing efficiency, and customer trust.

Thursday 4 June 2026

Southern Taiwan Science Park January-April 2026 revenue tops NT$1 trillion on AI boom

Driven by the booming semiconductor industry, the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) posted revenue of nearly NT$1.1 trillion (approx. US$35.04 billion) for January to April 2026, up 21.3% compared with the same period in 2025, surpassing the NT$1 trillion mark. This performance not only underscores the park's strong expansion momentum but has also reinforced its position at the core of the global high-tech supply chain.

Thursday 4 June 2026

TSMC sees no sign of capex slowdown as demand stays strong

TSMC chairman C.C. Wei told shareholders on June 4 that the company sees no reason to cut capital spending, citing strong demand for advanced chips, continuing expansion in the US, and growing interest in robots and autonomous vehicles.

Thursday 4 June 2026

Applied Materials to add 1,000 Southeast Asia jobs as Singapore role grows

Applied Materials plans to expand its Southeast Asia workforce by about 25% this year, adding at least 1,000 workers mainly in Singapore as the city-state becomes a more important manufacturing, logistics, and advanced-packaging hub for the US chip-equipment maker, Nikkei Asia reported.

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