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.

Taiwan-based semiconductor testing firm MA-tek announced December 2025 revenue of NT$501 million (approx. US$15.91 million), marking a 2.7% increase from November and a 10.65% rise compared to December 2024. The growth was mainly fueled by accelerated in-house ASIC development among cloud service providers (CSPs) and increased requirements for materials analysis (MA) and failure analysis (FA) testing amid advanced process development. For the full year, MA-tek achieved NT$5.545 billion in revenue, up 8.51% year-over-year.

TSMC reported solid year-over-year growth in December 2025 revenue, even as monthly momentum softened slightly toward the end of the year, underscoring resilient underlying demand led by advanced technologies while reflecting seasonal shipment patterns.

China has intensified pressure on Japan's supply chains. Following curbs on dual-use items and rare earth exports, the Ministry of Commerce has launched an anti-dumping probe into Japanese-origin dichlorosilane (DCS).

SAS subsidiary GlobalWafers reported consolidated revenue of NT$5.506 billion (US$173.9 million) in December 2025, up 16.86% month-over-month and 0.27% year-over-year, marking the third-highest historical level for the period. For the fourth quarter of 2025, consolidated revenue reached NT$14.502 billion, a marginal 0.06% quarter-over-quarter increase but an 11.27% decline from the previous year. Full-year 2025 consolidated revenue totaled NT$60.598 billion, down 3.24% year-over-year.

China's Ministry of Commerce said on January 7, 2026, that it has launched an anti-dumping investigation into Japanese-origin dichlorosilane (DCS). While framed as a routine trade-remedy case under existing rules, the decision reflects a more specific reality in the semiconductor materials supply chain: China now has domestic fallback capacity in this critical process material, allowing policymakers to act selectively at a sensitive juncture.

Niching Industrial, a supplier of semiconductor packaging materials, reported consolidated revenue of NT$128.37 million (approx. US$4.07 million) in December 2025, representing a 25% year-over-year and 16% month-over-month increase. The company's full-year revenue reached NT$1.275 billion, up 11% from 2024, marking its highest annual revenue in nearly 14 years.

As Taiwan's semiconductor and AI server industries rapidly expand—led by TSMC and major hardware manufacturers—the government is accelerating infrastructure planning to secure industrial land, water supply, and green energy, while balancing domestic capacity constraints with overseas investment.