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Friday 27 February 2026

Taiwan's patent race heats up: TSMC reigns, records tumble

Taiwan's innovation engine ran hot in 2025. The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) announced on February 26, 2026, that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) topped Taiwan-based invention patent applicants for the 10th consecutive year, filing 1,485 applications.

Friday 27 February 2026

Yageo sees strong 1Q26 on AI orders; memory shortage yet to hit demand

Yageo CEO David Wang said that although seasonal factors reduced working days from the previous quarter, capacity utilization is expected to rise by 3-5pp sequentially, supported by sustained AI demand and strong order intake. Revenue, gross margin, and operating margin in the first quarter of 2026 are all projected to increase slightly from the fourth quarter of 2025.

Thursday 26 February 2026

AI server surge lifts high-voltage MOSFET, fan demand at Taiwan power device maker APEC

Advanced Power Electronics Co. (APEC) said high-power AI servers are driving demand for medium- and high-voltage power devices, and expects demand for high-voltage components to recover in 2026. Cooling fans used in AI and general-purpose servers are also recording strong growth. In 2025, fan products accounted for 27% of total revenue, and the company expects further expansion in 2026.

Thursday 26 February 2026

Taiwan Mask posts nearly NT$100m profit in January, advanced packaging to boost revenue in 2H26

Benefiting from its group integration strategy, Taiwan Mask Corporation (TMC) is seeing operations that are gradually recovering. The parent company's core business has seen five consecutive months of profit growth. In January 2026, consolidated revenue reached NT$536 million (US$17.2 million), with the core photomask business contributing NT$340 million, accounting for over 60% of total revenue — marking nearly a one-year high. The company's monthly self-reported profit came close to the NT$100 million mark.

Thursday 26 February 2026

Fiberglass shortage persists in 2026, Unimicron increases substrate price

As demand for high-speed transmission in AI advanced packaging surges, IC substrate major Unimicron Technology said that high-end ABF substrates required for AI applications are strongly leading a market recovery, gradually breaking free from the post-pandemic overexpansion downturn. Despite the rapid market recovery for IC substrates, the short-term problem of T-glass fiberglass shortages remains. Although improvement is expected in the second half of 2026, high-end ABF substrate supply is likely to remain tight until the end of the year, and nearly all customers are facing limitations in sourcing fiberglass.

Thursday 26 February 2026

Yageo posts 82% profit jump in 4Q25 on AI-driven product mix

Taiwanese passive component giant Yageo reported a strong operational rebound in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven by continued growth in demand related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-end applications. The company also benefited from an optimized product portfolio and the completion of its acquisition of Japan's Shibaura Electronics, which was consolidated into group revenue starting in November 2025.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

Unimicron names UMC's SC Chien chair in substrate strategy shift

Unimicron held an investor conference on 25 February 2026. A day earlier, its board approved the appointment of UMC co-president SC Chien as chairman and group chief strategy officer. He will also join the Sustainable Development & Nominating Committee.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

Chart: Why Taiwan's OSAT sector just flipped the switch

The latest January revenue data for Taiwan's Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) sector—disclosed this month—confirms a powerful industry-wide resurgence.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

Unimicron's 4Q25 profit surpasses combined earnings of first 3 quarters; 2026 capex raised to NT$34 billion

Given the steady demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips, Unimicron stated that orders for IC substrates and PCBs have picked up. This has not only steadily increased capacity utilization rates, but the company has also negotiated with customers for ABF and BT substrates to gradually reflect rising raw material costs. These factors drove a marked improvement in operations in the fourth quarter of 2025, with single-quarter profits surpassing the combined total of the previous three quarters.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

Walsin Technology boosts Matsuo Electric stake to expand product lines

Walsin Technology Corporation announced plans to invest JPY508 million (US$3.27 million) to increase its shareholding in Japan's Matsuo Electric, a move the passive components maker says will support product expansion and strengthen the two companies' partnership.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

MLCC prices to climb as AI demand hits full capacity

The global multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) market is on the brink of a price surge as Japanese and Korean giants grapple with record demand from AI data centers. Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco) is reportedly shifting focus from volume to pricing, while Murata Manufacturing has signaled possible price hikes as early as March 2026.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

ASE accelerates panel-level packaging push with fully automated 310mm line by 2026

AI and high-performance computing chip demand continue to expand, keeping TSMC's CoWoS capacity tight into 2026. The supply constraint is pushing Taiwan's major OSAT providers, including ASE Holdings, SPIL and PTI Group, to accelerate advanced packaging expansion to secure AI-related orders.

Wednesday 25 February 2026

China AI server buildout strains optical module, MLCC capacity

China's AI data center supply chain gained renewed focus after the Lunar New Year holiday, as optical module and MLCC suppliers pointed to sustained demand from hyperscale infrastructure expansion.

Tuesday 24 February 2026

Chart: Small specialists outrun giants in Taiwan's semiconductor materials market

Following the February 10th disclosure deadline for Taiwan-listed companies, the January 2026 revenue reports for the semiconductor materials sector reveal a market in transition.

Tuesday 24 February 2026

CMAT sees order visibility extending two quarters ahead as test interface structural precision upgrades

The rapid development of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips is providing long-term demand support for the semiconductor advanced testing interface supply chain, driving growth in the global probe card market. Technologically, as signal contact density and probe pin counts continue to rise, the requirements for guide plate hole counts and structural precision in a single probe card are also increasing accordingly.

Tuesday 24 February 2026

Taiwan's CMAT to debut as AI chip testing boom lifts margins

Semiconductor test interface component manufacturer Certain Micro Application Technology (CMAT) announced during a media gathering that it will officially begin trading on the Taipei Exchange's Emerging Stock Board on February 25. CMAT president Li-wen Lo stated that, as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chip testing continues to expand, orders related to advanced processes have increased, leading to significant growth and structural business improvements over the past three years.

Tuesday 24 February 2026

Analysis: Foxconn's India semiconductor push signals deeper localization and supply-chain shift

Foxconn's move from assembly to semiconductor packaging in India marks a strategic deepening that could accelerate local supply-chain integration and influence global EMS competition, even as coordination challenges with state and local authorities underscore ongoing expansion risks.

Tuesday 24 February 2026

Analysis: MediaTek’s long game in cloud silicon

MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai set the climate for the company's growth trajectory at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026, centering his keynote speech on cloud AI. MediaTek will no longer be just the IC design company heavily reliant on smartphones, consumer electronics, and wireless communication chips. Instead, it is transforming into an AI system solutions provider that works closely with the semiconductor supply chain, major cloud service providers (CSPs), and AI model developers in the cloud AI market. Its years of investment in high-performance computing (HPC) and related technologies are now beginning to pay off.

Monday 23 February 2026

Weekly news roundup: memory impacts, AI infrastructure, and policy uncertainty

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES stories from the week of February 16-22, 2026.

Saturday 21 February 2026

Glass fiber shortage intensifies capacity battle, pushing prices higher and reshaping PCB supply chains

The ongoing global shortage of glass fiber, a critical upstream material for PCBs, has escalated competition among major end customers and is driving a structural reallocation of capacity toward higher-margin specialty products.

Thursday 19 February 2026

AI server supply chain tracker: PCB and CCL lead, ASIC and testing diverge

Taiwan's AI server supply chain started 2026 on firmer footing, according to January revenue data from 14 PCB, CCL, ASIC design, and IC testing firms. Year-over-year growth confirms continued AI server demand, while month-over-month shifts point to shipment timing, project concentration, and base effects rather than a change in end demand.

Wednesday 18 February 2026

Zhen Ding sees 2026 growth surge as high-end AI lifts PCB prices and volumes

Major printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer Zhen Ding Technology (ZDT) held its year-end party on February 13, where chairman Charles Shen announced that full-year 2025 revenue reached NT$182.52 billion (US$5.81 billion), up 6.33% from 2024, setting a new record high. Growth was mainly driven by gradually realized benefits from high-end product segments, including servers, optical communications, and IC substrates.

Wednesday 18 February 2026

AI server MLCC orders double capacity; Murata considers price increase

Japan's Murata Manufacturing Co., the world's largest supplier of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs), is weighing price increases for high-end MLCCs used in AI servers as demand outpaces supply.

Sunday 15 February 2026

UMC appoints new representative as Unimicron chairman Tseng retires

Leading IC substrate maker Unimicron Technology announced that chairman Tzyy-jang Tseng is stepping down upon reaching retirement age. The company said the leadership change was triggered by a representative change by corporate director United Microelectronics (UMC).

Friday 13 February 2026

E-glass capacity cuts trigger production shifts for Taiwan CCL makers

The global AI data center boom is straining not only high-end computing chips but also adjacent industries such as memory and upstream glass fiber cloth, where significant capacity squeezes are rippling through to downstream customers' production layouts worldwide.

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