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Tuesday 19 May 2026

Analog Devices reportedly closes in on US$1.5 billion cash bid for Empower Semiconductor

Analog Devices Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire Empower Semiconductor for about US$1.5 billion in cash, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A formal announcement could come as soon as Tuesday. The deal has not been finalized and could still fall through.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

AMD gains Beijing spotlight: China courts Lisa Su for AI chip ties

Shortly after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang left China following a delegation led by US President Donald Trump, Beijing officials swiftly announced a meeting with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su, drawing market attention to a possible shift in the atmosphere surrounding US-China AI chip cooperation.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Chipmakers rejoice as Googlebook entry heats up AI PC race

Google's announcement for the upcoming Googlebook, which tightly integrates Gemini features, signals that it is no longer limiting its PC strategy to the Chromebook line and is pushing into a higher-end product tier in the AI PC era. Chipmakers, including Intel on the x86 side and Qualcomm and MediaTek on the Arm side, are also joining the race, further intensifying competition in the AI PC market.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Satellite communications boom drives Winsemi, AWSC into W band

SpaceX's IPO preparations are accelerating the commercialization of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, renewing global attention on satellite communications. The LEO sector's sharp growth in 2025 and expected expansion in 2026 could reshape connectivity worldwide, as rising demand for inter-satellite, satellite-to-gateway, and satellite-to-mobile links drives higher frequencies and services.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Google and Blackstone reportedly plan AI cloud venture to expand TPU business

Alphabet's Google and Blackstone are planning to launch a new artificial intelligence cloud company that would use Google's proprietary AI chips to compete in the fast-growing AI infrastructure market, according to reports from Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Arm faces US antitrust probe after announcing plan to design its own chips

Arm was notified by the US Federal Trade Commission in early 2026 that it was the subject of an antitrust investigation after the chip designer said it would begin engineering its own processors, according to Bloomberg. The FTC is examining whether Arm used its dominant position in chip licensing to deny or downgrade the quality of CPU blueprints it licenses to others in order to disadvantage rivals. The regulator asked Arm to cooperate and preserve related documents.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Commentary: Sanctions reshaped China's foundry sector — just not in the way markets expected

China's foundry sector is charting a different course as the global semiconductor market remains focused on AI GPUs, the 2nm process node, and advanced packaging. Led by Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) and Hua Hong Semiconductor, domestic Chinese foundries have not stalled under US sanctions; instead, they are accelerating efforts to build a China-specific foundry ecosystem amid the AI boom, recovering demand for mature nodes, and a push for supply-chain self-reliance.

Monday 18 May 2026

TSMC's Japan fab signals a turning point for overseas manufacturing

TSMC's semiconductor venture in Japan has posted its first quarterly profit since entering mass production, marking an important milestone in the company's overseas expansion strategy.

Monday 18 May 2026

Apple's chip recycling strategy deepens reliance on TSMC and pressures PC rivals

Apple has increasingly relied on "binned" chips — processors with disabled or defective cores — to expand into lower-priced devices, according to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal. The strategy allows the company to reuse chips that would otherwise be discarded, lowering costs while broadening its product lineup.

Monday 18 May 2026

South Korean court bars factory occupations and orders safety work during planned Samsung strike

A South Korean court granted Samsung Electronics an injunction on May 18, 2026, limiting union dispute actions and ordering that safety protection systems and wafer anti-deterioration operations remain fully staffed and operational during any strike, according to Seoul Economic Daily. The Suwon District Court issued the decision three days before a planned general strike on May 21, 2026, and the ruling is expected to constrain the scale and methods of any walkout.

Monday 18 May 2026

As AI redraws chip industry, TSMC faces its first real rivals

The global map of semiconductor manufacturing is beginning to shift. For years, the market for advanced chip production was dominated almost entirely by TSMC. But the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), intensifying geopolitical tensions, and mounting pressure from Washington to secure critical supply chains are beginning to loosen that grip.

Monday 18 May 2026

Samsung and union enter new round of talks ahead of planned strike

Samsung Electronics and its labor union in South Korea began a new round of negotiations on May 18, days before a planned strike that could bring its chip plants to a halt. The talks are being mediated by the government, which has signaled concern about the labor action's impact on the South Korean economy, in which Samsung contributes more than 20% of its exports.

Monday 18 May 2026

DIGITIMES Insight: Intel and AMD diverge as TSMC prepares price hikes

Global server markets may shift as DIGITIMES analyst Luke Lin says Intel's revenue gains stem largely from price rises while AMD posts stronger shipment-led growth. TSMC plans another price increase as customers prioritize capacity over cost, developments that could affect cloud providers, vendors, and data center economics worldwide.

Monday 18 May 2026

Weekly news roundup: TSMC faces AI supply strain as Samsung, Intel, and Apple test foundry alternatives

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of May 11-17, 2026:

Monday 18 May 2026

India roundup: India's semiconductor ambitions expand from AI power management to supply-chain localization

India's semiconductor and electronics sectors are accelerating across multiple fronts, from AI-driven power-chip development and domestic EV battery technology to smartphone manufacturing and semiconductor supply-chain expansion. Industry executives and analysts say the shift reflects India's broader effort to move beyond assembly into higher-value chip design, power electronics, and localized technology ecosystems.

Friday 15 May 2026

Broadcom loses South Korea appeal over fine for alleged coercive Samsung supply deal

Broadcom lost its appeal in South Korea on May 13, 2026, when the Seoul High Court upheld a KRW191 billion (approx. US$130 million) fine for allegedly coercing Samsung Electronics into an unfair three-year supply contract, according to Yonhap and Seoul Economic Daily. The court dismissed challenges brought by Broadcom's US headquarters and three South Korean affiliates against the Korea Fair Trade Commission's corrective order and penalty.

Friday 15 May 2026

Trump-Xi summit is Nvidia's best shot at getting back into China

US President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week has put Nvidia's stalled H200 sales in China back in focus, as Washington's export approvals have yet to translate into revenue for the AI chipmaker.

Friday 15 May 2026

US clears Nvidia’s H200 for China, but Beijing can still say no

The US has cleared around 10 Chinese companies to buy Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips, but no deliveries have been made, suggesting that Washington's approval alone may not be enough to revive the company's high-end China business.

Friday 15 May 2026

Analysis: Nvidia ramped up AI investments to US$45.3 billion in 2026, reshaping AI supply chain

Nvidia expanded a rapid investment campaign in 2026, deploying US$17.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended January 25, 2026, and topping US$45.3 billion so far in 2026, according to the company's financial disclosures and PitchBook data. Executives framed the activity as targeted moves across model providers, compute and cloud firms, and hardware and optical interconnect suppliers aimed at securing end demand and reducing bottlenecks in the AI inference stack.

Friday 15 May 2026

Malaysia's Arm-backed chip push lifts Oppstar, SkyeChip as startup ambitions expand beyond packaging

Malaysia is accelerating efforts to expand beyond semiconductor assembly and testing into chip design, following a government-backed initiative tied to access to Arm technology.

Friday 15 May 2026

South Korea denies plan to share semiconductor tax windfall with citizens

A political debate in South Korea over how to manage windfall tax revenues from the country's semiconductor boom has intensified after remarks by a senior presidential aide sparked widespread controversy and conflicting media reports.

Thursday 14 May 2026

QBit Semiconductor targets edge AI growth as copier chips turn oligopolistic

IC design firm QBit Semiconductor will list on the Emerging Stock Board on May 15, 2026, and chairman Simon Shen, a former Kinpo executive, said the debut marks a new milestone for the company and underscores a promising growth outlook.

Thursday 14 May 2026

Etron's robotics bets gain ground as memory cycle turns

Etron Technology is seeing momentum extend beyond its core memory business, as subsidiaries built over the past several years begin to bear fruit in robotics, edge computing, and privacy-focused applications.

Thursday 14 May 2026

Alibaba faces mounting margin pressure as AI investments accelerate

Analysts gave Alibaba Group Holding's latest results a cautious reception, warning that surging artificial intelligence (AI) investments are pressuring profitability even as cloud growth accelerates. While investors welcomed strong AI-related momentum and rising cloud revenue, several research firms said heavy infrastructure spending and weaker-than-expected earnings underscored the mounting costs of Alibaba's ambitious AI expansion.

Thursday 14 May 2026

Tencent eyes Chinese ASIC ramp in 2H26

Tencent Holdings Limited reported a 9% year-over-year increase in total revenue to CNY196 billion (approx. US$28.86 billion) for the first quarter of 2026, driven by a strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence (AI) and stabilized growth in its core gaming and advertising segments. Company executives highlighted the quarter as a turning point, noting "significant initial progress on our new AI products" while continuing to integrate machine learning across existing business lines.

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