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Friday 7 August 2026
Exclusive: STATS ChipPAC readies broad packaging price hikes on AI-driven OSAT squeeze

AI chip demand is sustaining a global rise in semiconductor packaging and testing prices, with STATS ChipPAC preparing a broad round of price increases for the second half of 2026. Some customers have recently received notices of varying adjustments from the Singapore-based subsidiary of China's JCET.

Friday 7 August 2026
Interview: Nvidia exec on progress of CPO production and pluggable optics
Nvidia Senior Vice President of Networking Gilad Shainer said the company is building the key network architecture and optical interconnect technologies needed for AI factory deployments at scale, in a DIGITIMES interview ahead of the OCP APAC Summit on August 11-12, 2026. He said the biggest shift in AI factories is that the computing unit is no longer a single server but the entire data center, while Nvidia's announcement that co-packaged optics (CPO) switch has entered mass production signals a new round of upgrades for the optical communications industry and the AI networking market.
Friday 7 August 2026
Inside Terafab: Musk's US$16.8B bet to turn AI chip shortages into a homegrown supply chain

Elon Musk's ambitions across AI, robotics and space infrastructure are moving into a new phase following the unveiling of Terafab, an ambitious semiconductor manufacturing complex designed to secure the compute capacity required by Tesla, SpaceX and xAI.

Friday 7 August 2026
Panel makers turn old fabs into AI-advanced packaging hubs

AI-driven demand for advanced packaging is giving old-generation panel fabs and equipment new value. As Taiwan's panel makers accelerate the phaseout of LCD capacity at the 5.5 generation and below, they are splitting into two tracks: selling factories to foundries and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) providers, or keeping lines in-house to develop fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP), through-glass via (TGV), redistribution layer (RDL), and glass core technologies.

Friday 7 August 2026
Taiwan Innotech Expo to showcase application-ready tech research

The government-organized 2026 Taiwan Innotech Expo (TIE) will open in Taipei on September 17, with the National Science and Technology Council's (NSTC) Future Tech Pavilion set to showcase the latest research achievements that are ready for proof-of-concept validation and technology licensing. This year's exhibition will spotlight six priority areas: AI applications, semiconductors, precision health, space technology, disaster prevention technology, and net-zero technology.

Friday 7 August 2026
US sets price floors and tariffs on polysilicon, sharpening tech decoupling from China

US President Donald Trump said imports of polysilicon and related products threaten national security and ordered new trade measures aimed at lifting domestic production. The proclamation reflects a broader effort to reduce the US's reliance on foreign supply for solar manufacturing, semiconductors, and other advanced technologies.

Friday 7 August 2026
Ex-White House official urges South Korea to avoid excessive digital regulation
Former White House National Security Council chief of staff Alexander Gray has called on South Korea to deepen supply chain cooperation with the US and avoid following the European Union's digital regulation path.
Friday 7 August 2026
V5 July revenue reaches NT$273 million on AI chip demand, packaging expansion
V5 Technologies reported record consolidated revenue of NT$273 million in July 2026, as demand for AI chips and semiconductor packaging capacity expansion lifted orders. Revenue rose 7.78% from June and 63.4% from a year earlier, while revenue for the first seven months of 2026 climbed to NT$1.692 billion, up 86.26% from NT$908 million in the same period of 2025.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Largan July 2026 revenue rises 11% as CPO samples progress

Largan announced on August 5 that July revenue reached NT$4.877 billion (US$150.8 million), up 31% month-over-month and 11% year-over-year. For the first seven months, consolidated revenue totaled NT$34.086 billion, up 7% year-over-year, as the company entered the traditional peak season.

Thursday 6 August 2026
Taiwan unveils four semiconductor pillars for Smart Nation 2.0 plan

On August 5, Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council said it had completed the central government's 2027 budget plan, with NT$182.3 billion (US$5.7 billion) earmarked for technology spending, up about 9.5% from 2026. The biggest increase goes to sovereign AI computing power and infrastructure as Taipei pushes ahead with its Smart Nation 2.0 initiative.

Thursday 6 August 2026
Rashi Peripherals partners with Japan's Restar to build out India semiconductor business

Rashi Peripherals, a national distribution partner for global technology brands in India, has entered a joint venture with Japanese electronics and technology company Restar Corporation. The move pushes the distributor beyond product distribution into engineering, design, and field application support for India's manufacturing sector, according to ScanX, IT Voice India, and CRN Asia.

Thursday 6 August 2026
GlobalFoundries 2Q analysis 2/2: US subsidies, Taiwan rhetoric and GF's silicon photonics test
GlobalFoundries (GF) often presents itself as an essential pillar of US semiconductor sovereignty. That claim is partly true, but requires qualification.
Thursday 6 August 2026
GlobalFoundries 2Q analysis 1/2: AI optics power earnings beat and margin gains
GlobalFoundries reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results, supported by rapid growth in AI-related optical networking and a richer mix of higher-margin technologies.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Second-tier foundries' repair rally lifts margins back to 30%
The global mature-process foundry market is set for another recovery in 2026, as AI demand spreads into mature nodes, specialty-process content rises, and product mix improves. The shift is showing up clearly in margin trends across the industry.
Thursday 6 August 2026
TSMC's CoW outsourcing spurs OSAT capacity push amid AI packaging bottleneck
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is expanding outsourcing of the chip-on-wafer (CoW) stage of its CoWoS advanced packaging to outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) providers, according to ETNews, which cited semiconductor industry sources.
Thursday 6 August 2026
India's ASIP Technologies makes FCBGA core of OSAT plan
ASIP Technologies will focus its Visakhapatnam semiconductor facility on flip-chip ball grid array packaging as it works toward volume production in the fourth quarter of 2027, Managing Director and CEO Venkata Simhadri told DIGITIMES.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Chunghwa Precision Test posts record July revenue on AI chip demand
Chunghwa Precision Test Tech. reported record monthly revenue in July 2026, as demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) testing products rose across data center and cloud markets. The testing interface maker said shipments of GPU-related chips, modules, and systems increased alongside stronger investment tied to agentic AI.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Samsung pitches 5nm as HBM4, Nvidia orders push 4nm lines to full capacity
Samsung Electronics' foundry arm is stepping up sales of its 5nm process as its more advanced 4nm capacity is expected to remain fully booked through 2027, driven by HBM4 base-die production and Nvidia inference-chip orders, according to ZDNet Korea, which cited semiconductor industry officials.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Machvision July revenue hits record as AI and PCB demand strengthens
Machvision reported consolidated revenue of about NT$359 million (US$11.1 million) in July 2026, a record monthly high that was up 1.28% from June and 31.84% from a year earlier. The Taiwan-based inspection equipment maker said order visibility remained healthy, with some high-end products already booked several quarters ahead as demand ran stronger than in 2025.
Thursday 6 August 2026
FOPLP leads production as CoPoS advances glass packaging
AI chip computing power is rising rapidly, pushing advanced packaging toward larger form factors, higher bandwidth, and greater integration. Traditional Ajinomoto build-up film (ABF) substrates and silicon interposers are increasingly hitting bottlenecks in cost, warpage, and packaging efficiency, making glass substrates and glass interposers a key focus in next-generation advanced packaging plans.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Interview: Ayar Labs CEO sees CPO scale-up volumes rising in 2028-2029
The 2026 Open Compute Project (OCP) APAC Summit will be held in Taipei on August 11-12, bringing together global cloud service providers (CSPs), semiconductor firms, silicon photonics (SiPh) players, system makers and many Taiwanese suppliers to share the latest developments in compute architecture. Ayar Labs CEO Mark Wade, who will attend the event and spoke with DIGITIMES ahead of the summit, said Taiwan's supply chain is critical to the development of co-packaged optics (CPO) and that scale-up deployment is on track to ramp up 2028-2029.
Thursday 6 August 2026
GlobalWafers says AI demand is lifting utilization and new LTA talks are underway
GlobalWafers said semiconductor demand has rebounded as AI and high-performance computing applications expanded, keeping its factories highly utilized and prompting a new round of long-term supply agreement talks. The Taiwan-based wafer supplier also said tighter supply could push spot prices higher in the second half of 2026.
Wednesday 5 August 2026
Infineon sees AI demand outpacing supply as customers lock in long-term capacity

Infineon said demand for its AI data center power semiconductors continues to exceed available supply, prompting leading customers to sign multi-year capacity reservation agreements that give the chipmaker greater visibility while securing future supply for hyperscale AI deployments.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Samsung, SK Hynix expansion puts Korea's chip supply chain to the test

Daeduck Electronics plans to invest KRW497 billion(US$349.50 million) in semiconductor production facilities through 2027, its second major expansion announcement this year, Seoul Economic Daily reported, citing a regulatory filing with South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Samsung, SK Hynix reportedly test AMEC tools to guard against tighter US curbs
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix reportedly began testing etching equipment from China's Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) about two years ago for possible use at their Chinese factories, Reuters reported on August 5, citing three people familiar with the matter.