Solidigm, the US-based subsidiary established by SK hynix, has officially halted its review of potential pre-IPO and IPO options.

Apple's iPhone Duo has gone on sale, with pre-orders in several key markets reportedly exceeding the company's expectations. Delivery dates have stretched to late 2026 and even early 2027. The strong initial response could partly offset weaker-than-expected sales momentum for the iPhone 18 Pro series, pointing to growing consumer interest in foldable smartphones.

Western Digital argues that demand for hard drives depends less on the current wave of AI spending than investors fear. On its fiscal first-quarter earnings call on October 22, the company said demand for disk storage now comes from four separate sources: cloud services, model training, inference and AI agents, and physical AI. Each, it said, could offset weakness in the others. The company is also trying to move hard drives into faster AI workloads that are currently served by flash memory.

AI-driven growth will push the semiconductor industry past the US$1.6 trillion mark in 2026, while accelerating chip development cycles to one new product every nine months, Etron Chairman Nicky Lu said. He warned that the next 3 to 5 years will be critical for Taiwan, which risks facing intense competition unless it builds stronger software, system, and architecture advantages.

Western Digital's fiscal first quarter showed a hard-drive business turning demand into profit faster than into sales. Revenue for the three months ended October 2, 2026 rose 55% from a year earlier to US$4.38 billion, while GAAP gross margin climbed to 57.8% from 43.5%, according to the results release the company filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 22. Its guidance indicates margins will widen further in the December quarter.

Liquid cooling in AI data centers is moving toward more granular control architectures. Patrick Zeng, general manager of data center thermal management at Texas Instruments (TI), told DIGITIMES that as next-generation GPU computing power and rack power continue to rise, thermal management will shift from centralized control by a CDU to independent control for each server tray, a shift that will increase the use of sensors, drivers, MCUs, and other components within each rack.

Elan Microelectronics is pursuing drone opportunities across multiple applications, showcasing a broad range of solutions at the 2026 TAITRONICS expo. Solutions developed with Taiwanese drone maker Thunder Tiger stood out at the company's exhibition area, with several offerings expected to begin contributing to revenue in 2026 and 2027.

Samsung Electronics' foundry business will extend its 8-nanometer process, now more than eight years old, into another generation with the launch of the second-generation 8LPU+ platform in 2026. The move targets demand for automotive electronics, robots, and edge AI chips while leveraging existing deep ultraviolet (DUV) production lines to control wafer costs.

UMC and AP Memory announced a technology and manufacturing partnership on October 22 to develop next-generation power delivery solutions for AI data centers, combining UMC's deep trench capacitor (DTC) technology and wafer manufacturing capabilities with AP Memory's silicon capacitor design and system integration expertise. The collaboration comes as rising power consumption in AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips accelerates the shift towards near-chip power delivery and advanced packaging integration.

Lam Research reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of US$8.2 billion, up 22% quarter-over-quarter, and forecast fourth-quarter revenue of US$8.6 billion, plus or minus US$400 million. The semiconductor equipment maker expects the wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) market to reach the mid-US$150 billion range in 2026 and initially forecasts more than US$200 billion in 2027, with percentage growth led by DRAM.

Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) is urgently expanding its 3D AI foundry business and evaluating new plants in Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan, while exploring strategic joint ventures with customers. Its product portfolio includes integrated passive devices (IPDs), interposers, wafer-on-wafer (WoW) technology, and post-wafer finish (PWF) services, with demand for IPDs expected to remain visible through 2028 as AI server power consumption rises.