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May 4
Commentary: Intel names TSMC as key partner; insider drives its comeback

One year into his tenure, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan struck a markedly different tone on the company's outlook. At the first-quarter 2026 earnings call, he said the debate a year ago centred on whether Intel could survive. Today, the focus has shifted to how quickly it can expand capacity and scale its supply chain to meet surging demand.

Univacco said its Vietnam plant will begin mass production in the second quarter of 2027 as the company moves to position itself in the co-packaged optics and advanced packaging materials supply chain. The move aims to leverage tariff advantages, lower manufacturing costs, and ample labor to boost overseas competitiveness.
Rising memory prices have squeezed handset demand and are expected to widen the gap between smartphone and notebook shipment declines in 2026, according to industry reports. Global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2026 totaled about 290 million units, down 2% to 4% year on year, while notebook shipments showed a smaller sequential decline as vendors and channels adjusted to higher component costs.
Onsemi told investors during its first-quarter 2026 earnings call, held on May 4, that China remains a key growth market for its automotive power products, even as China's passenger vehicle market softened. The company reported that "Our China automotive revenue grew year-over-year in the first quarter, despite a decline in the China passenger vehicle market of 6% for the same period," framing the performance as evidence of rising semiconductor content and share gains within Chinese electric vehicle programs.
During an earnings call on May 4, Onsemi portrayed its artificial intelligence data center business and new Treo platform as central to a recovery that began in the first quarter, saying improving order patterns and product ramps are translating into higher revenue, expanding gross margins, and stronger cash returns to shareholders.
Lattice Semiconductor has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AMI, a leading provider of platform firmware and infrastructure manageability software, for $1.65 billion. The deal — structured as $1.0 billion in cash and roughly $650 million in Lattice stock — is expected to close in Q3 2026 and would effectively double Lattice's total serviceable addressable market to approximately $12 billion.
Onsemi reported a mixed but generally improving set of first-quarter 2026 results, signaling early signs of recovery in key end markets while highlighting ongoing volatility in profitability.
Intel's share price has hit historic highs as the semiconductor industry draws significant investor attention. But is this hype justified? DIGITIMES analyst Luke Lin took a deep dive into the fundamental facts, production bottlenecks, and competitive gaps behind Intel's surge during a recent podcast.
Samsung Electronics is reportedly restarting its silicon carbide (SiC) wafer foundry business, aiming to tap into the fast-growing next-generation power semiconductor market, reinforce its market position, and improve utilization rates at its existing 8-inch foundry lines. Industry estimates suggest Samsung could enter mass production of SiC chips by 2028.
The AI chip race is increasingly running into a different kind of limit — not compute, but packaging, as supply constraints around advanced technologies such as CoWoS begin to tighten.

SK Hynix is considering a shift in its DRAM investment strategy at its new M15X memory production base in Cheongju, South Korea, from fifth-generation 10nm-class, or 1b, DRAM toward sixth-generation 10nm-class, or 1c, DRAM, as the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supply chain prepares for its next technology transition, according to reports from ZDNet Korea and NewsPim.

Kioxia and SanDisk are set to present a new 3D flash memory architecture aimed at extending NAND scaling beyond 1,000 stacked layers, as memory makers seek ways to overcome the physical and electrical limits of conventional layer increases.