Taiwan's Office of Trade Negotiations under the Executive Yuan said on January 13 that the core objectives of ongoing tariff talks with the US have been to secure reductions in reciprocal tariffs without stacking, and to obtain preferential treatment under Section 232 for semiconductors, semiconductor-derived products, and other covered items.

Continued capacity expansion for advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes is driving strong demand for key materials such as photoresist and quartz. Topco Scientific (TSC), a leading semiconductor materials distributor, reported December 2025 revenue of NT$6.48 billion (approx. US$205.35 million), setting a new single-month record, representing a 12.9% month-over-month and 18.9% year-over-year increase.

Taiwan's outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) industry closed December 2025 with a pattern that investors have increasingly come to expect: revenue growth was widespread on a year-on-year basis, but performance gaps between end markets widened. Demand tied to AI servers and high-performance computing (HPC) continued to concentrate the strongest momentum in advanced testing and select advanced packaging programs, while more mature consumer-facing segments remained choppy.

Because of slower customer orders and process optimization at its Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) facility, Greenfiltec's consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025 was NT$17.5 billion (approx. US$552.5 million), down 11.75% from the third quarter. However, full-year 2025 consolidated revenue reached NT$63.5 billion, a significant 42.15% increase over 2024, driven by a rise in market share for AMC filters used in semiconductors.

Taiwan dominates advanced semiconductor manufacturing, but mounting competition in emerging technologies is exposing structural gaps. To secure its position in the AI and data-center era, the government is accelerating a national push into silicon photonics and co-packaged optics, an area it sees as critical to the next wave of computing.

The Trump administration is nearing completion of a major trade agreement with Taiwan that would reduce US tariffs on Taiwanese goods while securing the expansion of semiconductor manufacturing by TSMC. Under the deal, which has been under discussion for months and could be announced soon, US tariffs on Taiwanese imports would drop from 20% to about 15%, aligning Taiwan with Japan and South Korea. In return, Taiwan would commit to more than US$300 billion in foreign direct investment and related spending in the US, significantly expanding on the US$165 billion investment plan TSMC outlined last year.

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are set to join a US-led initiative to secure artificial intelligence and semiconductor supply chains, expanding a framework Washington views as a cornerstone of its economic security strategy.

Elon Musk recently declared that the semiconductor industry has erred in cleanroom design. As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk promised that once Tesla establishes a 2nm process wafer fab, he will personally eat burgers and smoke cigars inside the facility.

South Korea is stepping up policy support for next-generation power semiconductors as part of a broader push to strengthen domestic chip manufacturing and reduce reliance on overseas suppliers, with local foundries accelerating the commercialization of silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) devices.

India's semiconductor ambitions are beginning to extend beyond fabrication and conventional packaging into secure chip personalization and cryptographic control, as Kaynes Semicon and SEALSQ detailed the roadmap for their newly approved joint venture (JV).

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories of the first full week of 2026: January 5-11.

TSMC is rapidly expanding its advanced packaging operations and is reportedly poised to appoint its first-ever "general plant manager" to oversee all facilities. The role is expected to be filled by Cheng-Xian Chen, the current head of TSMC's SoIC operations division, who is under 60 years old. Chen has held key positions, including deputy director of backend technology and services, as well as plant manager at Zhunan.

Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing side turned in a distinctly split performance in December 2025. The month can be summed up as: AI keeping advanced logic and advanced packaging near peak utilization, mature nodes staging a mild recovery, memory posting a clear cyclical reversal, and downstream segments such as outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) and power devices diverging by end market and product mix.

Rayzher Industrial, a supplier of gas supply systems for high-tech semiconductor fabs, recorded consolidated revenue of NT$228 million (approx. US$7.21 million) in December 2025, a 3.31% decrease year-over-year, primarily due to adjustments in some engineering project schedules. Despite this monthly decline, the company posted strong quarterly and annual results.

Geopolitical shifts are reshaping the global semiconductor landscape, prompting countries to build autonomous supply chains. While Taiwan leads globally in manufacturing, it remains heavily dependent on European, American, and Japanese firms for critical semiconductor equipment and materials.

India's backend semiconductor makers see temporary relief from material constraints linked to legacy packaging, as KLA opens a US$36 million R&D hub in Chennai to boost AI, software, and process control capabilities.

Yield Microelectronics Corp., a Taiwanese designer of embedded nonvolatile memory (eNVM) silicon intellectual property, has quietly established itself as a leader in multi-time programmable eNVM for logic processes. Buoyed by a growing stream of royalty income, the company has posted gross margins of 99% for two consecutive years—an exceptionally rare figure in the semiconductor industry.

Semiconductor test solution supplier WinWay recorded its highest-ever revenue in December 2025, fueled by strong demand from artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC), and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) customers. The company's December revenue reached NT$928 million (US$29.44 million), up 103.79% year over year and 48.42% from November.

With the ongoing volatility in the electronics supply chain and persistent component shortages, Chicony Power is accelerating its transformation on the back of its existing notebook power supply business. The company is cautious for 2026 with expectations that the PC and consumer electronics industries will be constrained by semiconductor supply issues. In response, Chicony Power stated that it will shift its operational focus from pursuing shipment scale to optimizing its product mix. Through strategic alliances, the company has officially entered Supermicro's modular AI containerized computing center supply chain, intending to offset volatility in the traditional consumer electronics market with high-value-added AI applications and intelligent solutions.

US President Donald Trump recently met with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan at the White House to discuss the development progress of Intel's next-generation processors and the latest status of the US government's investment in the company. Trump later posted on Truth Social that the meeting with "the very successful Intel CEO" was highly productive and emphasized that the US government's stake in Intel is a great deal, helping bring advanced chip manufacturing back to the US. In his post, Trump also wrote that Intel has launched its first CPU designed, manufactured, and packaged in the US at sub-2nm process technology.

Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has designated the silicon photonics (SiPh) co-packaged optics (CPO)-AI ecosystem as a core focus for the next decade, aiming to advance key AI computing infrastructure and technologies. This move aligns with the government's new AI-driven initiatives under the "New Ten Major AI Construction Projects," which include unmanned vehicles, smart robots, SiPh, and quantum technology development. The NSTC's decision comes amid a stalled 2026 budget proposal totaling NT$299.2 billion (US$9.5 billion), which includes funding for these critical tech sectors. If the 2026 plan is interrupted, continuation will depend on securing support beyond 2027 to maintain momentum in this strategic area.

China's domestic lithography sector is entering another phase of internal restructuring, with AMIES Technology consolidating industrial assets originally spun out from Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group) Co., Ltd. (SMEE). Corporate filings and Shanghai Securities News show that AMIES has acquired 100% of Shanghai Weiyao Industrial Co. for CNY228.5 million (US$32.5 million), replacing SMEE as the sole shareholder. The transaction completes SMEE's exit from Weiyao while keeping the asset within the SMEE-origin corporate structure.

Materials test and analysis provider MSScorps continued its record-breaking revenue performance in December 2025, buoyed by active investments by customers in advanced processes and next-generation advanced packaging technologies. Robust demand from semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) customers fueled orders for materials analysis, as well as silicon photonics (SiPh) and AI inspection and testing services.