DIGITIMES Semiconductors: IC manufacturing news

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Monday 14 September 2026

After mature-node price competition from 2023 to 2025, AI demand has spread from GPUs and HBM to power management ICs (PMICs), power components, networking chips and specialty processes. At the same time, aggressive price cutting by mature-node players in China has eased, pushing quotes for Taiwan foundries broadly higher since the start of 2026.

Monday 14 September 2026

STMicro lead times top 1 year, boosting Taiwan chip makers

AI crowd-out effects are rippling through the supply chain, with lead times for microcontroller units (MCUs) from STMicroelectronics reportedly stretching beyond 1 year and triggering severe shortages in industrial control MCUs. That is opening the door for Taiwanese chip makers to push into high-end industrial MCUs, while supply is expected to remain tight through 2027 and stable delivery becomes key to defending market share.

Monday 14 September 2026

DIGITIMES Insight: High NA EUV chips near production, but economics will be the pacemaker

ASML's latest update suggests High NA EUV is no longer confined to laboratory validation. With 10 systems already operating across four customers worldwide, and three more in shipment or installation, the technology is beginning to enter production ramp-up. The shift matters because adoption now hinges less on optical promise and more on whether chipmakers can justify the added cost.

Monday 14 September 2026

DIGITIMES Insight: Taiwanese firms lead in FOPLP as overseas rivals race to catch up

Taiwanese chip packaging firms are advancing fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) and glass-substrate development as AI processors demand ever-larger reticle sizes and more complex packaging. Their early manufacturing scale, automation progress, and substrate design choices could help determine who controls the next bottlenecks in high-end chip assembly.

Monday 14 September 2026

China optical firms target photonics with mixed high-end, lower-cost push

The 2026 China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE) closed on September 11. While near-eye display applications such as AR/VR and smart glasses drew attention, vendors' latest moves in optical communications also attracted strong industry interest.

Monday 14 September 2026

South Korea broadens espionage law to counter rising tech leaks

South Korea's revised Criminal Act took effect September 13, extending the scope of espionage offenses from acts benefiting North Korea to those benefiting any foreign country or equivalent organization, as South Korea strengthens protection of semiconductors and other strategic technologies.

Monday 14 September 2026

Samsung, Qualcomm deepen 2nm talks as pricing and yield hurdles persist

Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm are expanding discussions over 2nm foundry cooperation, with pricing, yield, and process optimization still unresolved as Samsung seeks to regain a share of Qualcomm's flagship processor business.

Monday 14 September 2026

Gritek to take full control of 12-inch silicon wafer venture in major restructuring

Gritek plans to strengthen its position in China's large-diameter silicon wafer market by acquiring the remaining stakes in two semiconductor materials companies, according to a company announcement.

Monday 14 September 2026

AI's energy demand ignites global nuclear rush, straining Taiwan's restart

A worldwide nuclear comeback, fueled by artificial intelligence data centers and semiconductor demand, is tightening supply chains and labor markets just as Taiwan considers restarting idle reactors.

Monday 14 September 2026

India semiconductor deals hit a multi-year high ahead of SEMICON India 2026

India's semiconductor companies have raised nearly half of their all-time equity funding since the start of 2025, and deal activity this year is already at a multi-year high. The figures arrive days before SEMICON India 2026, the country's flagship semiconductor conference, opens in New Delhi on September 17.

Monday 14 September 2026

Hua Hong Grace completes Huali Micoelectronics acquisition, state parent raises stake

Hua Hong Grace (HHGrace) has completed the share issuance for its acquisition of a 97.4988% stake in Huali Microelectronics (HLMC), strengthening the company's position in China's semiconductor foundry market.

Monday 14 September 2026

CPO nears mass production — next battle about interfaces, yield and maintenance

As AI computing bandwidth keeps rising, optical interconnect architectures are moving beyond pluggable optical modules toward near-packaged optics (NPO) and co-packaged optics (CPO). But large-scale deployment will depend on more than optical-engine performance. Precision alignment, serviceability, manufacturing yield, and whether the supply chains for light sources, packaging, testing, and materials can advance in step are becoming equally critical.

Monday 14 September 2026

AI server tracker: Taiwan ASIC design houses diverge as AI projects enter different revenue cycles

Taiwan's ASIC design-service suppliers all posted year-over-year revenue growth in August 2026, but the underlying figures point to sharply different stages of the custom-silicon cycle.

Monday 14 September 2026

AI server tracker: Taiwan testing suppliers accelerate as AI chip complexity raises interface demand

Taiwan's semiconductor testing supply chain continued to ride strong AI and high-performance computing (HPC) demand in August 2026, with all four major suppliers posting year-over-year revenue growth.

Monday 14 September 2026

India's chip show nearly doubles in two years, with suppliers leading the build-out

The exhibitor list for Semicon India 2026 suggests the country's semiconductor push has moved past announcements and into procurement. The show has drawn 535 exhibiting companies, up 52% from 351 in 2025 and 97% from 271 in 2024. Moreover, the sharpest growth is not in chipmakers, but in areas that fabs purchase only once construction is real: cleanroom and utility contractors, specialty gas and chemical suppliers, and metrology and inspection tool vendors.

Monday 14 September 2026

Weekly news roundup: HBM4 strain, Intel price hikes and the next AI infrastructure buildout

AI demand remained the dominant force across semiconductors, memory, foundry and data-center infrastructure this week. Intel raised CPU prices while Qualcomm and MediaTek targeted openings in IPC and IoT; memory inventories tightened as HBM4 and server demand strained DRAM and NAND supply; and Micron, Taiwan Mobile, Samsung Electronics, ASML, Synopsys and Eaton advanced plans tied to AI, advanced-node manufacturing and higher-density data centers. Below are the most-read DIGITIMES stories from September 7–13, 2026.

Monday 14 September 2026

India roundup: India says it cannot build electronics without China

India is accelerating its semiconductor and electronics ambitions, courting Taiwan, easing China restrictions, expanding local manufacturing and chip infrastructure, while global technology companies deepen investment despite rising costs and regulatory risks.

Saturday 12 September 2026

ViTrox sees chip inspection moving upstream as advanced packaging raises defect costs

Advanced packaging is stretching semiconductor inspection in two directions at once: packages are getting larger while the features inside them are getting smaller.

Saturday 12 September 2026

Interview: Resonac maps five PLP hurdles, eyes 510x515mm pilot line

Advanced packaging is reshaping the semiconductor value chain, making materials innovation a key source of technical breakthroughs. As large-format panel-level packaging (PLP) gains traction, Resonac CTO for semiconductor materials Hidenori Abe told DIGITIMES that the company sees five major materials challenges: warpage, plating, coating, bonding, and polishing.

Friday 11 September 2026

ASE to buy AOI, AVI equipment from Machvision for NT$334M

ASE announced at a news briefing on September 11, 2026, that ASE's board had approved the purchase of equipment, including automated optical inspection (AOI) and automated visual inspection (AVI) systems, from related company Machvision to meet capacity expansion needs. The cumulative pretax transaction value for the past year and future purchases, based on the quotation and negotiation process, came to NT$334 million (US$10.6 million).

Friday 11 September 2026

Taiwan unfazed by Trump's renewed chip tariff threat as MOU already locks in preferential US treatment

Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's expected visit to the US on September 24, US President Donald Trump has again discussed the issue of bringing chip manufacturing back to the US. Although he did not repeat his previous claim that Taiwan "stole" America's chip industry, Trump said Taiwan's chips should have been subject to heavy tariffs long ago, with tariffs of 100% or even 200%.

Friday 11 September 2026

ficonTEC breaks CPO test bottleneck, teams with Hermes Testing

German silicon photonics (SiPh) test equipment maker ficonTEC has broken through a major bottleneck in co-packaged optics (CPO) "electrical-in, optical-out" testing and launched what it calls the industry's first Insertion 2 automated optical test solution. As demand for photonics-integrated testing rises, the company expects equipment requirements to become more diverse and shipments to top 1,000 systems in the next 18-24 months.

Friday 11 September 2026

Chipmaking equipment spending could hit US$270 billion by 2030, Futurum says

Global wafer fab equipment (WFE) spending could reach about US$270 billion in 2030 as data center expansion drives demand for advanced logic, high-bandwidth memory (HBM), DRAM and advanced packaging capacity, according to Futurum Group.

Friday 11 September 2026

AUO, Innolux accelerate shift from displays to AI, CPO, advanced packaging

Taiwan's panel makers posted mixed August results as the industry's strategic focus shifts beyond monthly revenue toward AI, advanced packaging and co-packaged optics (CPO). AUO and Innolux, the island's two largest panel makers, are accelerating capacity reductions and asset sales while redirecting capital and technology toward higher-growth businesses. For smaller and mid-sized players, however, the path beyond displays remains far less defined.

Friday 11 September 2026

CIOE 2026: Hitachi relies on partnerships, not proprietary tech, to ride China's optical boom

At an optoelectronics trade expo in China, Hitachi High-Tech used its booth not to unveil a flagship product of its own, but to showcase a growing web of partnerships. This is a strategy the company says reflects both its late entry into the photonics race and its long-term goals in the region.

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