On October 15, 2026, TSMC reported its sixth consecutive quarter of record net profit, with third-quarter earnings rising 68.7% year-over-year to NT$763.06 billion (approx. US$23.6 billion), exceeding market expectations on sustained demand for advanced semiconductors used in artificial intelligence (AI).
On October 13, Huawei unveiled the detailed architecture of its Kirin 9050 Pro chip for the first time at its Lianqiu Lake research center in Shanghai, outlining advances in LogicFolding and hybrid bonding technologies. Xu Songyu, head of wireless terminal chip product management at Huawei's semiconductor business, said the company now sees a sustainable development path for Kirin processors over the next decade.
Delta Electronics showcased its on-site solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power generation solution at Energy Taiwan 2026, alongside its first physical solid-state transformer (SST) product.
Samsung Ventures and Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, have invested in US-based Flexcompute, backing simulation technology designed to predict semiconductor packaging deformation before manufacturing. The investment comes as increasingly complex AI chips create new challenges in managing thermal stress, warpage, and manufacturing yields.
GlobalFoundries (GF) has reached a multiyear manufacturing agreement with TSMC to expand silicon interposer capacity at its Malta fab in New York, supplying TSMC's Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS) advanced-packaging ecosystem. The agreement is expected to be worth US$2 billion over an initial five-year term.
An explosion and fire at Intel's wafer fab in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, on October 14, 2026, seriously injured three employees, one of whom later died of his injuries. Authorities deployed eight firefighting and rescue teams, including a hazardous-materials unit, to investigate the cause and assess the risk of a chemical leak involving nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).
Speaking to more than 2,000 Tesla owners and investors at the X Takeover event held at Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, on October 11, Elon Musk made a candid admission: "To be clear, I don't know how to make chips." He immediately followed it with a declaration: "We'll figure it out."
Onsemi has said its latest EliteSiC hybrid power module is now being used in Sungrow's PowerTitan 3.0 energy storage platform, a move aimed at improving efficiency, power density, and reliability in utility-scale battery systems. For global power markets, the deal highlights how small gains in conversion efficiency are becoming more important as AI, electrification, and renewable energy drive electricity demand higher.
Taiwan-Asia Semiconductor Corporation (TASC) is benefiting from seasonal demand for sensing chips and new wearable launches by major US and European brands. AI server expansion has also lifted orders for passive and protection components, while its indium phosphide (InP) optical communication chips have entered customer validation. TASC remains cautiously optimistic about 2027.
Bill Frauenhofer, executive director of semiconductor investment and innovation at the US Department of Commerce, joined Entegris CEO David Reeder for a fireside chat at SEMICON West 2026, outlining the latest developments in the US-Taiwan US$500 billion investment agreement and calling on corporate executives and boards to prioritize American semiconductor manufacturing capacity.
Vietnamese technology group FPT is lining up a second Japanese distribution channel for its in-house power chips, a move that would carry Vietnamese-designed semiconductors beyond Japan and into Southeast Asian and Indian markets through a Toyota Group trading network.
ASML, the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools, has shifted from taking orders to allocating them. On its third-quarter 2026 earnings call on October 14, the Dutch company said customers want to place orders as far out as 2029 and 2030, but that it will not accept them until it has weighed total demand against its own capacity. It also confirmed, for the first time, that customers have agreed to pay more for its most critical machines.
AI chips are becoming harder to build, but that complexity is also creating new opportunities for semiconductor equipment suppliers. Applied Materials says rising transistor counts, denser interconnects, and more advanced memory architectures are expanding demand across logic, DRAM, and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) manufacturing.
Applied Materials sees advanced packaging as a key growth lever as AI chips move to multi-die designs, with the company projecting more than US$5 billion in related revenue in the coming years. The forecast underscores how hybrid bonding, metrology, and services are becoming central to competition in semiconductor equipment.
Rising demand for semiconductor wafer fabrication, memory, advanced packaging and high-end servers is driving a sharp increase in Taiwan's power consumption. Taipower estimates that the domestic semiconductor industry will consume approximately 52 billion kWh in 2026, rising to around 80 billion kWh in 2030 and 110 billion kWh in 2035, when it will account for about 30% of Taiwan's total electricity use.
Chemical and solvent distributor Yuan Jen Enterprises is actively expanding its electronic materials business. Company chairman Yuan-Jen Hsu stated that Yuan Jen established a dedicated Electronic Materials Division in September 2025 to focus on semiconductor peripheral materials. Alongside its existing portfolio of electronic-grade hydrogen peroxide, electronic-grade isopropyl alcohol (IPA), and acetone, the company is actively seeking opportunities in next-generation semiconductor materials, prioritizing advanced packaging and specialty wiring materials as its main growth vectors.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) urged the Trump administration to reduce tariffs on imported semiconductor materials and equipment, warning that higher costs could undermine US fab investments. In a report and accompanying briefing, the group also called for stronger supply-chain cooperation with allied countries because domestic production currently supplies only 21% of the materials and equipment used by the US semiconductor industry.
Memory chipmakers have become the fastest-growing source of demand for ASML, and the two largest of them have reportedly accepted higher replacement-part prices from the Dutch company. Attention now turns to TSMC, ASML's largest customer and, according to earlier reports, an opponent of price increases, as the lithography supplier prepares to charge more for its most critical tools.
GlobalFoundries' selection to run two Japan-funded chip plants in New York tests a new way of paying for American fabs: governments own the factory and its tools, and the chipmaker is paid to build and run it. For GlobalFoundries, the arrangement adds capacity without the capital bill. For Japan, it turns part of its US$550 billion US investment pledge into supply for Japanese chipmakers and work for Japanese toolmakers. For Taiwan's mature-node foundries, it puts a large, state-backed source of capacity on US soil in the segment where they have been tipped to gain from customers' supply-chain diversification.
Applied Materials tracked more than 100 wafer fabrication projects worldwide over the past two quarters as strong artificial intelligence demand continued to meet constraints in cleanroom construction and supply chain capacity. The company added more than 10 projects in each quarter, indicating that global fab development and future cleanroom availability were still expanding.
Applied Materials is increasing investments in research and development, manufacturing and its global supply chain as it targets greater market share and profitability through 2030. The semiconductor equipment maker expects advanced logic, DRAM and advanced packaging to generate about 75% of wafer fab equipment (WFE) market growth from 2025 to 2030. By 2030, it is also targeting more than 2pp of additional WFE market share, along with non-GAAP gross and operating margins of approximately 54% and 40%, respectively.
Fujifilm is expanding semiconductor materials production in Arizona as global chip demand rises, especially for artificial intelligence, advanced logic, and memory. The move aims to strengthen supply for makers in the US and beyond, while supporting new packaging technologies and faster commercialization worldwide.
Following stronger-than-expected demand for its Galaxy Z Fold8, Samsung Electronics submitted an expedited wafer production request to United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) that was ultimately turned down. As a result, Samsung scaled back its September 2026 component production volume by 10%. Amid persistent capacity tightness at mature process nodes, Samsung is now evaluating GlobalFoundries (GF) as a secondary foundry partner for its OLED smartphone DDIs, with potential adoption set for late 2027 at the earliest.
