Yole Group, the French market-research firm that tracks the semiconductor, photonics and electronics supply chains, has sold a minority stake to Cervinvest Scale, the lower-midcap fund of Paris-based Cervinvest Capital. The deal, announced September 14, is the fund's first investment.
Fujitsu is preparing to take its advanced AI CPU overseas, with sales set to begin as early as 2027 in Japan, the US, and Asia. The company is betting on Monaka, a high-efficiency, power-saving chip developed with technologies refined through its work on the Fugaku supercomputer, to regain competitiveness in advanced logic ICs as demand for AI inference surges.
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.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have rejected a proposal to prepay KRW25 trillion (approx. US$18.7 billion) in electricity bills, highlighting the financing challenge facing South Korea as it accelerates semiconductor expansion and the power infrastructure needed to support it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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