Onsemi's leadership fielded a wide range of investor questions following the company's second-quarter 2026 results, with much of the discussion centered on its accelerating AI data center business, capacity utilization, and how the company is managing rising input costs.
RichWave Technology said at a recent earnings call that Wi-Fi 7 adoption continues to rise rapidly, with strong demand from telecom operators and retailers. The radio frequency (RF) front-end supplier said that the second half of 2026 should be slightly better than the first half of the year overall, but warned that tight supply of memory and passive components could affect shipment timing.
Automotive chip sales are improving across Europe and the US, but major suppliers say global carmakers and their suppliers are still buying largely for immediate needs. A fuller inventory rebuild — one that could affect prices and supply globally — has yet to begin, leaving the recovery more cautious than expected.
Taiwan and the US are deepening auto trade ties that could influence consumer choice, supply-chain resilience, and tariff policy beyond the island's borders. The latest comments from the American Institute in Taiwan come as Taiwan weighs lower car import duties, a move that could affect prices, jobs, tax revenue, and trade dynamics worldwide.
Global automakers are facing slower market growth, the rapid rise of Chinese carmakers, and sustained EV investment, with Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz under strain in recent years. While German automakers still lead the global auto industry, revenue and profitability have come under broad pressure over the past two years as competition shifts from volume growth to product value and operating efficiency.
Automotive chip demand surprised to the upside in the second quarter of 2026, with industry players saying the market could stay hot in the second half as new EV architectures become clearer and customers rebuild inventories. The strongest signal came from Texas Instruments (TI), which said the strength in automotive chips was completely unexpected.
As the global electric vehicle (EV) market enters a growth adjustment phase, the auto industry is shifting from "electrification" toward "intelligence," while AI agents move rapidly from the cloud to end devices. Qualcomm says the end devices with which future AI agents will mainly interact include about 6 billion smartphones, 2 billion AI wearables, 2 billion PCs, and 500 million connected cars, underscoring how vehicles are becoming a key gateway to AI services.
Micron has said its Strategic Customer Agreement (SCA) long-term supply deals with 16 key strategic customers include seven automotive customers — among them Qualcomm, Visteon, and Harman, all key suppliers supporting the automotive ecosystem — reinforcing its push into the auto supply chain. The memory maker said the agreements also cover CSPs and AI infrastructure players.
Nvidia unveiled a series of new partnerships in Japan on July 16, 2026, highlighting the growing adoption of AI across manufacturing, robotics, automotive, healthcare and data center infrastructure. The announcements coincided with CEO Jensen Huang's visit to Japan, where the company showcased its latest physical AI technologies and deepened collaborations with several of the country's leading industrial groups.
AI-driven demand is tightening global memory supplies, crowding out smartphones, PCs, and vehicles as DRAM and NAND Flash capacity is diverted toward data centers. Smart cars are among the hardest hit, and in China, where smart car adoption is rising quickly, automakers face sharper shortages, pricier components, and margin pressure.
Six-inch silicon carbide (SiC) substrates, a third-generation semiconductor product that has faced oversupply and falling prices for the past two years, have clearly bottomed out and are even starting to recover as capacity remains constrained and demand emerges across multiple sectors. Semiconductor distributors say supply is now tight, and customers who want to buy more must pay more, with new orders becoming increasingly hard to absorb.
German automotive supplier and chipmaker Bosch has begun sample production at its first US semiconductor factory after finalizing an agreement for up to US$225 million in federal funding. Commercial production of silicon carbide chips at the Roseville, California, site is expected to begin in 2026.
Samsung Electronics has reportedly completed the tape-out of its version of Tesla's AI5 chip for self-driving systems, with the chip scheduled to be manufactured at Samsung's Taylor, Texas, fab using the company's 2nm process.
