TYLSemi, a semiconductor startup founded by former executives of AlphaWave, the connectivity chip specialist acquired by Qualcomm, has emerged from stealth with US$43 million in early-stage funding to help companies develop custom AI chips through an open, chiplet-based approach.
The US has become the leading source of helium and other noble gases for Taiwan, South Korea and Japan as disruptions to Qatari production and China's temporary export ban reshape supply routes for materials used in semiconductor manufacturing, according to a Nikkei Asia analysis of customs data and related reporting.
Intel has unveiled Starfire, a space-grade processor that leverages its leading-edge 18A manufacturing process for satellites and other systems designed to survive beyond Earth's atmosphere. The move extends Intel's most advanced node — the centerpiece of its foundry turnaround — into a defense-and-space niche long dominated by specialist radiation-hardened suppliers. It stakes the design on a selling point that rivals cannot easily match: domestic US production.
South Korea is accelerating plans to supply electricity to a new semiconductor cluster in the country's southwest by 2030, potentially expanding the domestic energy-storage market as chip fabs and AI data centers add to power demand.
As early inventory stocking by brand customers winds down, China's 618 Shopping Festival delivers weaker-than-expected sales, and LCD TV panel prices begin to retreat, demand for monitor and notebook (NB) panels is cooling in the third quarter. Despite the slowdown, panel makers remain reluctant to cut prices amid elevated production costs, and IT panel prices are expected to remain flat in July as buyers and suppliers enter a period of pricing negotiations.
Six-inch silicon carbide (SiC) substrates, a third-generation semiconductor product that has faced oversupply and falling prices for the past two years, have clearly bottomed out and are even starting to recover as capacity remains constrained and demand emerges across multiple sectors. Semiconductor distributors say supply is now tight, and customers who want to buy more must pay more, with new orders becoming increasingly hard to absorb.
German automotive supplier and chipmaker Bosch has begun sample production at its first US semiconductor factory after finalizing an agreement for up to US$225 million in federal funding. Commercial production of silicon carbide chips at the Roseville, California, site is expected to begin in 2026.
US President Donald Trump recently claimed that Taiwan's TSMC will double the size of its Arizona fab project, reviving attention on his goal of raising the US share of the global chip market to 50% before the end of his term. TSMC declined to comment on the report, but investors may press the company on the issue at its second-quarter 2026 earnings call.
Taiwan's silicon foundry industry posted a strong performance in June 2026, with aggregate revenue reaching US$15,131.2 million, up 5.9% from May and 54.0% from a year earlier — underscoring the sector's continued ride on AI and advanced-node chip demand.
Intel is developing a new memory architecture aimed at challenging the dominance of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), with commercialization targeted for around 2030. Although the path is fraught with ecosystem barriers and compatibility hurdles, Intel's parallel development of Z-angle memory (ZAM) and cross-batch memory (XBM) underscores its determination to re-enter the DRAM market, as it simultaneously bets on AI compute and storage.
The AI race is expanding from computing power to data transmission, making optical interconnects a critical battleground for next-generation AI infrastructure.
