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Friday 17 July 2026
Tata's India chip debut reportedly to lean on 90nm, a humbler start than its 28nm pledge
India's first large-scale wafer fab will begin production on decades-old 90nm technology rather than the 28nm node the Tata group publicly touted, a step that underscores how far the country still has to travel to build a chip industry from scratch, even as New Delhi commits fresh billions to the push.
Friday 17 July 2026
Hygon forecasts higher first-half 2026 revenue and profit
Hygon Information Technology said its first-half 2026 results are expected to rise sharply, signaling continued demand for domestic high-end chips as AI, cloud computing, and localization trends reshape technology supply chains for global customers, investors, and competitors. The company said the forecast is preliminary and unaudited.
Friday 17 July 2026
TSMC welcomes EMIB relief as MediaTek pressure eases

TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei said on July 16 that if more competitors can offer advanced packaging solutions that meet customer needs, the company welcomes the added supply-chain flexibility. His comments, made at TSMC's earnings call, suggested that customer growth has already been somewhat constrained by tight back-end packaging capacity.

Friday 17 July 2026
TSMC boosts US manufacturing as Taiwan chip designers wait on moving production

TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei formally announced on July 16 that the company will invest an additional US$100 billion in the US, funding several 2nm and more advanced logic wafer fabs as well as advanced packaging plants to support continued strong demand from major US customers.

Friday 17 July 2026
TSMC's US$100 billion bet: AI growth, US pressure and the cost of staying ahead
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) posted record second-quarter earnings for 2026, issued third-quarter revenue guidance above market expectations, and raised its full-year US dollar revenue growth forecast to more than 40%. The company also increased its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to US$60-64 billion. However, investors focused more closely on its softer gross margin outlook for the third quarter, the additional US$100 billion investment planned for Arizona, and the company's evolving global manufacturing strategy.
Friday 17 July 2026
South Korean suppliers ramp up hybrid bonding R&D beyond HBM5
As high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks add more layers, requirements for chip-to-chip bonding accuracy and signal transmission efficiency are becoming more demanding.
Friday 17 July 2026
Taiwan backs TSMC's US expansion while reaffirming advanced chip leadership at home
TSMC said on July 16 that it will add US$100 billion to its US investment, bringing the total to US$265 billion. Taiwan's Executive Yuan said it respects companies expanding in the US to meet global market demand, while also backing the chipmaker's continued fab expansion in Taiwan.
Friday 17 July 2026
AI-driven chip price increases put automakers on alert as shortages stay limited
Semiconductor suppliers have begun rolling out one to two rounds of price increases and tighter allocations in the first half of 2026 as demand from GenAI, geopolitical tensions and inflation continue to reshape the market. Automakers have been watching closely for signs of a repeat of the pandemic-era auto chip shortage, but supply-chain sources said production has so far remained stable.
Friday 17 July 2026
South Korean bill could let SK Hynix bring in outside investors for new fabs

A South Korean lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow a second-tier subsidiary of a general holding company to retain a stake of at least 50% in a jointly funded semiconductor venture, rather than the 100% currently required under the country's holding-company rules.

Friday 17 July 2026
CPU demand rebounds in AI data centers as TSMC stands to benefit across architectures

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) held its second-quarter 2026 earnings conference on July 16, where chairman and CEO C.C. Wei discussed the latest developments in AI demand, saying the market continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

Friday 17 July 2026
Cica-Huntek opens Arizona plant to support advanced chip manufacturing in the US
Cica-Huntek Chemical Technology said on July 16 that its subsidiary facility in Phoenix, Arizona, had been completed and officially opened after about US$8 million in investment. The move was designed to support a core customer's global production expansion and meet rising demand for advanced semiconductor facility systems in North America.
Friday 17 July 2026
China's AI chips hit three walls — and bet on 3D memory to break through
China's AI chip industry is moving beyond a contest over process nodes and into a broader race involving memory, advanced packaging, chip interconnects and system architecture.
Thursday 16 July 2026
C.C. Wei on EMIB, memory envy, and why TSMC won't squeeze its customers
TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei used the company's second-quarter 2026 earnings call to push back on two narratives gaining traction among analysts: that rival packaging technologies threaten TSMC's advanced packaging business, and that the company should be extracting windfall margins from its dominant market position.
Thursday 16 July 2026
TSMC says 2nm has four times as many tape-outs as 3nm at the same stage
Customer tape-outs for TSMC's N2 process have reached four times the number recorded by its 3nm technology at the same stage, showing faster design activity as the foundry ramps production of its first 2nm process.
Thursday 16 July 2026
AI chips are running hotter — and Niching is betting its future on keeping them cool
As AI chips and HPC chips continue to draw more power, major advanced packaging orders at ASE, Powertech Technology, and Amkor remain strong, lifting demand for heat spreaders. Semi-conductor materials supplier Niching incorporated heat spreader maker Ming Chun Yuan Micro Precise Technology into the group on July 1, 2026, and analysts expect the merger to lift revenue by 30% and gross margin by 10%.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Taiwan OSATs expand non-China capacity with US and SEA push
As the global AI boom drives up demand for semiconductor packaging and testing, Taiwan's OSAT players are accelerating overseas capacity expansion beyond their home market and China. ASE, SPIL, KYEC, Greatek, and Tong Hsing are all pushing ahead in 2026 to strengthen supply-chain resilience amid geopolitical risk.
Thursday 16 July 2026
TSMC boosts US investment by US$100B as C.C. Wei outlines long-term capacity planning with customers

To address structural long-term growth in semiconductor demand, TSMC chairman C.C. Wei said the company works closely with customers — and its customers' customers — to jointly plan future capacity.

Thursday 16 July 2026
TSMC eyes record quarter: 2nm ramp drives 3Q26 guidance above US$44B

TSMC is projecting its strongest quarter ever, guiding third-quarter 2026 revenue to between US$44.6 billion and US$45.8 billion on the back of accelerating demand for leading-edge chips and the steep ramp-up of its 2-nanometer process technology.

Thursday 16 July 2026
TSMC lifts 2026 revenue growth above 40% on strong AI demand from cloud giants

TSMC expressed strong confidence during its July 16 earnings conference that demand for its advanced process technologies remains robust, with chairman C.C. Wei saying the company's 2nm process has entered volume production and is progressing smoothly through its production ramp.

Thursday 16 July 2026
TSMC 2Q26 profit surges 77% to a record on AI demand, first 2nm revenue

TSMC reported record second-quarter 2026 results on July 16, with revenue, profit, and earnings per share all surpassing market expectations, underscoring sustained demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips.

Thursday 16 July 2026
InP substrates emerge as strategic asset as optical engine supply chain heads for reshuffle
As AI server interconnects advance toward 1.6T and co-packaged optics (CPO), high-power continuous-wave (CW) lasers are becoming a strategic battleground for global technology companies. At the heart of these optical engines, indium phosphide (InP) manufacturing is shifting toward larger 4-inch and 6-inch wafer production. While existing suppliers have yet to fully meet growing demand, Taiwanese companies may find an opportunity to break into the market by addressing the widening supply gap.
Thursday 16 July 2026
India trims chip subsidies but widens their reach as it courts electronics supply chain away from China
India approved two large incentive packages on July 15 that together recast how New Delhi subsidizes electronics manufacturing: learner-per-project chip subsidies spread across a much broader slice of the value chain, paired with a new smartphone scheme designed to reward domestic components and homegrown brands rather than assembly alone. The twin moves signal a shift from simply attracting fabs and iPhone assembly toward deepening local value addition, as India tries to pull more of the global electronics supply chain away from China.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Samsung weighs outsourcing Google TPU back-end design as 2nm demand grows

Samsung Electronics is considering outsourcing some or all of the back-end design work for an input/output die in Google's reported 10th-generation tensor processing unit, as growing demand for Samsung's 2nm foundry process reportedly stretches its internal engineering resources.

Thursday 16 July 2026
Commentary: Chip lead times extend as cloud AI squeezes capacity
Reports of longer chip lead times have been mounting. ADI has notified customers that, as recovering demand tightens supply, lead times for some analog chip products have stretched to six months, and it has urged customers to place orders early to avoid delivery delays. Meanwhile, a channel player said STMicroelectronics (ST) MCU lead times have extended to 52 weeks, prompting distributors to begin asking customers about demand for all of 2027.
Thursday 16 July 2026
ASML's rumored move to raise lithography prices sets up rare clash with TSMC as AI hands toolmakers pricing power
An AI-fueled earnings beat has emboldened ASML to do something it rarely does: raise prices on the lithography machines that are essential to making advanced chips. That plan is now setting up an unusual confrontation with its largest customer, TSMC, and threatens to fall hardest on Chinese chipmakers with the fewest alternatives. It also lands in the middle of a broader 2026 repricing cycle that is sweeping through foundry, memory, and packaging costs at once, one whose bill ultimately reaches Nvidia, Apple, and every buyer of advanced silicon.