CONNECT WITH US
Friday 28 November 2025
Chinese analog chipmaker 3Peak to acquire Aura Semiconductor in major industry tie-up

3Peak, a leading Chinese analog chipmaker, plans to acquire Ningbo Aura Semiconductor through new share issuance and/or cash. The move advances 3Peak's push to become a global platform-based provider of analog and mixed-signal solutions.

Friday 28 November 2025
Cheng Mei delivers first CoPoS equipment to ASE
Competing with leading players, Cheng Mei Instrument Technology recently delivered the first CoPoS measurement and inspection equipment to the ASE Group, aiming to break KLA Corporation's near-monopoly in the equipment market. Cheng Mei Chairman Tony Tsai stated that in recent years, the company has been aggressively entering the advanced packaging field. He estimates that in 2025, measurement and inspection equipment in the semiconductor sector will account for roughly 60–70% of revenue, with 2026 expected to exceed 70%.
Friday 28 November 2025
Rapidus reportedly plans second Hokkaido fab for 1.4nm chips as funding gap widens, but company pushes back on timeline

Rapidus plans to begin construction on a second fabrication plant in Chitose, Hokkaido, in fiscal 2027 to produce 1.4nm and eventually 1nm chips, according to reports from Nikkei and Yomiuri Shimbun. The move underscores Japan's push to return to the front of advanced logic manufacturing, even as Rapidus works to complete its 2nm process and secure the funding required to sustain its roadmap. However, the company has since denied this reported timeline.

Friday 28 November 2025
Topco Scientific eyes strong 2026 growth in photoresist and silicon wafers
Topco Scientific (TSC) expects semiconductor material demand to remain robust through 2026, driven by AI-led advanced process capacity utilization and strong memory market momentum. The company is optimistic about next year's performance in key product lines, including photoresist, silicon wafers, and quartz, with photoresist showing the strongest growth potential amid booming advanced node requirements.
Friday 28 November 2025
Nexperia turmoil upends global auto supply chain, but Taiwan's TSC stands to gain
The turmoil surrounding Nexperia has triggered a global crisis across the automotive supply chain, but it may offer an unexpected lift to Taiwan Semiconductor Company (TSC). With roughly half of TSC's product portfolio overlapping with that of Nexperia—particularly in small-signal devices and diodes—analysts expect order reallocations to benefit the Taiwanese power-semiconductor maker. TSC has already begun shipping small volumes, and it anticipates a marked increase in shipments in the first quarter of 2026, with the company optimistic about the long-term gains.
Friday 28 November 2025
China's new TPU contender aims for Nvidia's AI chip dominance
China's AI chip startup Zhonghao Xinying has introduced its own tensor processing unit (TPU), a major step in the country's "de-Americanisation" drive as US export curbs continue to block access to Nvidia's high-end GPUs.
Friday 28 November 2025
TSMC exit fuels Taiwan-US rivalry in GaN market
TSMC announced in mid-2025 that it will fully exit the gallium nitride (GaN) foundry business within two years. The strategic move refocuses resources on advanced silicon manufacturing and packaging, reshaping the global supply chain for power semiconductors. The withdrawal has triggered a succession contest among contract chipmakers. The competition quickly centered on a US-Taiwan rivalry after GlobalFoundries secured a critical technology licensing deal with the departing industry leader.
Friday 28 November 2025
Why Jensen Huang spent Thanksgiving weekend in Taiwan
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was spotted in Taipei, Taiwan, on November 27, marking his third trip to Taiwan in the second half of 2025. While earlier reports suggested that he was in town to pay a visit to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) founder Morris Chang, sources indicate his primary purpose this time was to engage with Quanta Computer.
Friday 28 November 2025
US pushes 50-50 chip split, but Taiwan's 10x capacity lead says otherwise
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick previously proposed the idea of a 50–50 chip split between Taiwan and the US, but it is unclear whether this reflects Lutnick's personal values or an official goal of President Donald Trump. Regardless, Taiwanese negotiators have denied discussing such an arrangement with the US. Based on TSMC's ongoing production expansions in Taiwan, the US will not be able to reach that target for advanced process chip capacity during Trump's term. Taiwan's pace of capacity growth far outpaces the US's capabilities.
Friday 28 November 2025
FitTech targets 2Q26 profits with goal to become Taiwan's largest foundry
FitTech has had weak performance since 2023. It posted a net loss attributable to the parent of NT$290 million (approx. US$9.2 million) for the first three quarters of 2025, although a sharp improvement from 2024. The company has started in LED testing and is optimistic about its DFB and FEL foundry testing business in optical communications for 2026. Strong customer demand has clarified order visibility, and 2026 is expected to see multiple-fold growth. With new product layouts entering the harvesting stage, FitTech aims to turn profitable as early as the second quarter.
Thursday 27 November 2025
TSMC's 2nm secrets case erupts into raids on Intel hire Wei-Jen Lo

Taiwan's investigation into former TSMC senior vice-president Wei-Jen Lo intensified on November 26 as prosecutors carried out search and seizure operations in Taipei and Hsinchu, escalating one of the island's most sensitive technology-security cases in years.

Thursday 27 November 2025
China-EU urge an internal resolution of Nexperia dispute
China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and European Commission Trade and Economic Security Commissioner Maros Sefcovic held a video conference on November 26, 2025, to address the ongoing dispute involving Nexperia, a semiconductor manufacturer with headquarters in the Netherlands and a subsidiary in China. Both sides called for constructive communication between Nexperia's Dutch and Chinese operations, encouraging the company to resolve its internal deadlock rather than relying on government intervention.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Jtron joins Advantest and TSMC's outsourced test service chain
Jtron Technology, a semiconductor test equipment engineering and technical service provider that has joined the supply chains of Advantest and TSMC, is scheduled to list on the over-the-counter market in late December 2025. Jtron Chairman Yih-Min Lin stated that revenue in 2025 is almost certain to break a record high. The company's internal goal is to maintain steady growth in engineering maintenance service revenue while deepening development of its own product business.
Thursday 27 November 2025
TSMC's retired tools spark fierce demand in China, ASEAN
TSMC's plan to reactivate its 6-inch and 8-inch fabs at Hsinchu Science Park has drawn strong attention from the semiconductor supply chain, according to industry sources. Although the TSMC-certified tools are old, they still meet stable quality standards and represent major orders in the second-hand equipment market.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Samsung poised for memory and foundry gains as Google TPU push accelerates
Google's push to expand its in-house Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) platform is drawing fresh attention across the semiconductor sector, and analysts say Samsung Electronics could emerge as one of the biggest beneficiaries. If Google succeeds in building a broader AI ecosystem anchored by TPUs, Samsung stands to gain in both memory shipments and contract chipmaking.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Intel backs Wei-Jen Lo—raising awkward questions for TSMC, Washington, and the chip world
Intel's controversial hiring of former TSMC senior vice president Wei-Jen Lo has escalated into one of the semiconductor industry's most sensitive personnel disputes in years. The situation has become tangled in legal uncertainty, national security implications, and geopolitical imbalances in technology cooperation.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Taiwan advances in global quantum race with photon pair and entanglement chip breakthroughs
Taiwan's national quantum program is entering the final year of its first phase, with Academia Sinica and other research groups achieving significant breakthroughs. These include optical Schrödinger cat state generators using heralded photon pairs and high-integration polarization-entangled Bell-state quantum light source chips.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Rapidus denies 1.4nm fab timeline amid Japan's multi-trillion-yen chip push
Rapidus has denied reports suggesting it has started building a new 1.4nm fab or established a mass-production timetable.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
TEL absent from TSMC annual awards following 2nm leak incident
Tokyo Electron (TEL)—a long-time close partner of TSMC and a frequent awardee—did not appear on the chipmaker's 2025 Excellent Performance Awards list. The absence is likely related to an incident involving the alleged leak of TSMC's 2nm technology that surfaced in early July 2025.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
US pulling far ahead in advanced chips as Europe shifts to supply-chain defense, says McKinsey
A new McKinsey report says the global semiconductor landscape is undergoing a dramatic divergence, with the US emerging as the center of leading-edge computation while Europe pivots toward securing industrial supply chains. As 2025 nears its end, the firm notes that a clear pattern has formed in the wave of greenfield Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): the US is consolidating the future of advanced logic production, and Europe is focusing on technological security and manufacturing continuity.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Taiwan boosts 2026 budget for 5 trusted industries, semiconductors and AI in spotlight
National Development Council (NDC) minister Chun-Hsien Yeh has pointed out that shifting global geopolitical risks are disrupting supply chains. To adapt, Taiwan aims to seize the AI trend by advancing its "five trusted industries" that are closely linked with AI development. The government's strategy includes promoting 10 major AI infrastructure projects to generate over NT$15 trillion (US$462 billion) in output value, driving nationwide industrial upgrades through AI commercialization and integration toward becoming a smart nation.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Kumamoto pushes for third TSMC plant with packaging, R&D focus
Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura visited TSMC's headquarters in Hsinchu on November 24, 2025, as part of a semiconductor investment promotion event in Taipei, saying the chipmaker remains strongly interested in expanding in Japan. The visit included talks with senior TSMC executives overseeing investments and industry-academia cooperation and marked Kimura's second trip to TSMC this year.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Commentary: ASML hit by explosive spy allegations, testing limits of semiconductor neutrality
Dutch lithography leader ASML is facing an unprecedented wave of scrutiny after the publication of a new book, De belangrijkste machine ter wereld ("The Most Important Machine in the World"). The release has thrust the company into a debate unlike any it has previously encountered, sharply contrasting with the cooperative, ASML-endorsed narrative presented a year earlier in Focus – The ASML Way.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
China submits 96 papers to top chip design conference, nearly double US and South Korea
The International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) will take place from February 15 to 19, 2026, in San Francisco, US, with MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai delivering the opening keynote on semiconductor innovation amid the AI era. The conference highlights a surge in submissions and shifting geographic leadership in integrated circuit (IC) design research.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
0.18-micron tech makes a comeback in IC design research
While TSMC is actively building and expanding 2nm fabs and MediaTek's chips are advancing to the 3nm process node, the long-overlooked 0.18-micron technology is unexpectedly making a comeback. IC design industry experts state that 0.18 microns and even 28nm are mature processes still widely used in China. More importantly, 0.18 microns offers extensive room for innovation and has become a sweet spot for academic paper publications.