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Tuesday 26 May 2026

Alchip: ASIC growth may outpace the broader GPU market

For the past three years, graphics processing units, or GPUs, have dominated the artificial intelligence boom. But Johnny Shen, chairman of Alchip Technologies, believes the next phase of the market may belong to something more specialized.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Nvidia and Marvell CEOs to share Computex stage— How US$2 billion turned rivals into partners

When Nvidia quietly wrote a US$2 billion check to Marvell Technology earlier this year, it was less a financial bet than a strategic maneuver — one that converted a potential rival into a committed partner. Now, for the first time since that deal was struck, the two companies' CEOs will share a stage.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Inside China's chip war: How Xiaomi, BYD, and Nio are rewriting the rules

China's semiconductor war has been underway for seven or eight years now.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Samsung's reported 900-layer V-NAND prototype puts NAND race with YMTC in focus

The race to dominate next-generation NAND flash memory has long been measured in layers — and Samsung Electronics appears to be pulling ahead. The South Korean chipmaker has reportedly developed a 900-layer-class V-NAND prototype, a significant leap that brings the memory industry closer to the 1,000-layer threshold as chipmakers intensify efforts to pack more storage into smaller chips while cutting power consumption.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Wiwynn expands US capacity as AI server boom strains power and supply chains

Taiwan-based AI server maker Wiwynn is accelerating its global expansion as surging demand for AI infrastructure creates mounting pressure on power supply, production capacity, and critical component availability.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

AMD and Nvidia deepen investments in Taiwan semiconductor ecosystem

When AMD CEO Lisa Su arrived in Taiwan on May 20, she announced plans to invest more than US$10 billion with local supply-chain partners and the island's broader semiconductor ecosystem. The goal, she said, was to help secure a long-term supply of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Win Semiconductors bets on optical and satellite communications growth

Facing expanding opportunities in both optical communications and satellite connectivity, Dennis Chen, chairman of Win Semiconductors, said the company is actively advancing a range of products, including driver ICs, continuous-wave (CW) lasers, and photodiodes, while also ramping up capacity in anticipation of growing demand from next-generation networks.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Intel's Rio Rancho fab becomes test case for AI-era chip packaging

Intel is looking to broaden its foundry strategy beyond the race for advanced process nodes, placing greater emphasis on advanced packaging and glass substrate technologies as it positions Rio Rancho — its New Mexico site — as a global hub for next-generation packaging production.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

GlobalWafers rolls out phased GaN capacity expansion to ease supply crunch

Following GlobalWafers' shareholders' meeting on May 25, Chairperson Doris Hsu stated that the company's core compound semiconductor business, gallium nitride (GaN), is addressing strong demand for high-efficiency power solutions in AI servers. The company is also beginning to see emerging demand from diversified applications such as AI robotics. As a result, production capacity in 2026 has already entered a state of supply shortage. To meet strong demand from Japanese IDM customers, GlobalWafers is launching a continuous "30% plus 20%" expansion plan.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

ASML expands Taiwan hiring and operations to meet advanced chip demand

Grace Wang, vice president and general manager of ASML in Taiwan, said that ASML plans to deploy extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and next-generation high numerical aperture (high-NA) EUV technologies to reduce energy consumption per wafer at the process level, while continuing to deepen its presence in Taiwan. The company also plans to hire around 1,000 new employees in Taiwan in 2026 to support customer expansion and rising global capacity demand.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

GlobalWafers to increase prices, targets 4Q26 shipments for square wafers, Asia capacity fully booked

GlobalWafers held its shareholders' meeting on May 25, where CEO Doris Hsu stated that the semiconductor market in 2026 has gradually moved beyond 2025's two extremes, when only AI and advanced process technologies dominated growth. In 2026, non-AI and traditional application markets began to recover, making market conditions thrive.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan Taiwan-bound for closed-door meetings ahead of Computex

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is set to arrive in Taiwan this weekend, joining AMD CEO Lisa Su and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in a high-stakes push by the world's top chip leaders to deepen ties with Taiwanese partners ahead of Computex 2026.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Wingtech sues Nexperia for US$1.2B as it fights delisting risk

Wingtech Technology, the Chinese tech company that owns Dutch semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia, has filed a civil lawsuit against Nexperia and five defendants for alleged damages worth CNY8 billion (approx. US$1.2 billion). The case is the latest development of the legal troubles between the Chinese company and its subsidiary following the Dutch government's seizure of the company in late 2025 for national security reasons.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Lightmatter joins TSMC on COUPE for 3D optical engines

AI computing's massive demand for infrastructure is making interconnect and laser technologies key to overcoming power and bandwidth limits, prompting silicon photonics unicorn Lightmatter to unveil its latest laser product, Guide DR. To advance its 3D-stacked silicon photonics engine, Lightmatter is also working closely with TSMC using its Compact Universal Photonic Engine (COUPE) platform.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Powerchip unveils 3D AI Foundry with 3D WoW DRAM stacking at COMPUTEX 2026

Powerchip announced it will present a "3D AI Foundry" showcase at COMPUTEX 2026 to demonstrate 3D wafer-on-wafer (WoW) DRAM stacking, interposers, and Si-cap integrated passive devices as part of an end-to-end offering for AI chips, addressing rising demand for GenAI and high-performance computing for memory capacity, bandwidth, and energy efficiency. The firm said it is leveraging its combined logic and memory processing capabilities, along with customer IP and product design services, to target AI workloads facing growing memory bandwidth and power constraints.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Samsung's silicon photonics push adds new layer to Korea-Dutch chip ties

South Korea and the Netherlands are looking to broaden their semiconductor partnership beyond ASML's EUV lithography machines, as silicon photonics (SiPh) emerges as a potential next field of cooperation amid rising power and bandwidth demands from AI data centers.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

TSMC promises faster bonus growth in 2026 after employees threaten Samsung-style strike

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will reportedly cut employee bonuses by 15%, prompting some employees to voice dissatisfaction on social media. They argued that while TSMC's profits have soared, the share allocated to employee bonuses has decreased rather than increased, with some employees threatening to follow Samsung Electronics' union with a strike to fight for their rights.

Monday 25 May 2026

Beyond Silicon Valley: Lam Capital's startup contest goes global

Lam Research's Lam Capital recently held its fourth startup competition, drawing teams from the US, South Korea, Singapore, India, and Taiwan to vie for a sizeable prize pool. US startup Lightfinder won the top prize with a proposal centered on silicon photonics and intelligent software for a chip-scale spectrometer.

Monday 25 May 2026

Huawei reveals post-Moore semiconductor roadmap targeting 1.4nm-equivalent chip performance

As the global semiconductor industry confronts the limits of Moore's Law, Huawei has unveiled a new roadmap aimed at extending chip performance growth through architecture, interconnect, and system-level optimisation rather than pure transistor miniaturisation.

Monday 25 May 2026

Nvidia's reporting pivot and AMD's US$10B Taiwan bet signal a new frontier in AI chip war

Nvidia's structural pivot to isolate its ACIE market and AMD's US$10 billion investment in Taiwan infrastructure signal a profound realignment in the AI chip war. Both developments reflect a shared urgency to expand beyond traditional hyperscale clouds into the booming, highly lucrative global enterprise, industrial, and sovereign AI factory frontiers.

Monday 25 May 2026

Lam Research CEO: New fabs alone will not solve chip bottlenecks

Lam Research CEO Tim Archer said artificial intelligence and robotics can help chipmakers improve fab productivity as the semiconductor industry faces memory capacity constraints, chip-scaling limits, and growing demand for faster equipment delivery.

Monday 25 May 2026

AI servers drive order growth; Weltrend's fan motor driver IC visibility strong

At its earnings conference, Weltrend Semiconductor described the first quarter of 2026 as an exceptional one. Despite the period being historically slow, the company posted year-over-year and sequential growth. Nearly all major product lines demonstrated strong growth momentum, with server-related products standing out in particular. Order visibility is now expected to remain strong throughout the full year. Meanwhile, AI servers are becoming increasingly diversified, with demand across GPUs, ASICs, and CPUs growing almost simultaneously, underpinning a highly promising operating outlook.

Monday 25 May 2026

Nan Pao joint venture nears full capacity as semiconductor demand rises

Nan Pao Resins Chemical is accelerating its push into the high-end semiconductor materials market through a joint venture with Advanced Echem Materials Company and Trusval Technology, forming Advanced Pao Trusval Technology to target advanced packaging adhesive materials.

Monday 25 May 2026

Analysis: Lisa Su moves on China — and Nvidia's CUDA moat

For AMD CEO Lisa Su, the current moment presents an opening that Nvidia does not have. Nvidia's high-end chips have repeatedly faced scrutiny and export restrictions in China, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang only recently confirmed in May that Nvidia once held as much as 95% market share there. That dominance has since been reset, with the bulk of that share ceding to domestic rival Huawei.

Monday 25 May 2026

Weekly news roundup: TSMC faces its first real rivals; Agibot claims 100% success rate in factory deployment

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of May 18-24, 2026:

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