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Wednesday 6 November 2024
To split or not to split: Intel's dilemma has no clear-cut solution
Intel is grappling with an operational crisis as its IDM 2.0 transformation plan has yet to yield results, casting doubt on when its foundry business might finally become profitable. This raises the question of whether Intel should consider abandoning its IDM model and separating its product design and manufacturing divisions—a move with both potential advantages and drawbacks. Industry leaders, including former board members, are offering advice in hopes of helping Intel find a viable path forward. However, the conflicting nature of their advice highlights the complexity of the company's dilemma
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Wednesday 25 March 2026
Commentary: How Taiwan's chip talent flow is shifting—lessons from SMIC and Terafab
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has launched the "Terafab" 2nm wafer fab project and initiated a global recruitment drive targeting high-level semiconductor talent, including engineers from Taiwan. This move recalls the talent migration wave over 20 years ago when Richard Chang led a team to establish Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) in China
Wednesday 25 March 2026
Analysis: Qualcomm restructures Asia operations, giving Taiwan greater strategic weight
At a spring banquet in Taiwan, Qualcomm used the occasion not only to recap highlights from its recent appearances at major industry exhibitions, but also to underscore the growing importance of 6G standards in an AI-driven era. More consequentially, ST Liew—Vice President of Qualcomm Technologies and President for Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Australia/New Zealand—announced a structural shift: Qualcomm's Taiwan operations will be elevated into a standalone region, reporting directly to the APAC president, on par with markets such as Japan and South Korea
Tuesday 24 March 2026
Analysis: How Nvidia is reshuffling partners for the inference era
On August 15, 2023, a routine press release landed in the inboxes of semiconductor analysts and tech journalists worldwide. Titled "Groq Selects Samsung Foundry to Bring Next-gen LPU to the AI Acceleration Market," it presented a classic David-versus-Goliath narrative
Tuesday 24 March 2026
Commentary: Trump's Middle East AI data center push under threat from Iran conflict
In May 2025, US President Donald Trump led a major investment delegation to the Middle East targeting key allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The delegation included Silicon Valley leaders from OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle, Cisco, SoftBank, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. This trip underscored the region's strategic focus on AI-driven economic growth through data centers
Monday 23 March 2026
Commentary: CPO mass production put to test as photonic integration faces challenges
Driven by massive demand from cloud AI, silicon photonics continues to gain momentum. At the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC 2026), industry players engaged in in-depth discussions on the current state of co-packaged optics (CPO) mass production. IC design experts observed that, compared with previous OFC events, which focused primarily on new technological breakthroughs, the industry in 2026 is clearly more concerned with whether solutions can be delivered on time
Saturday 21 March 2026
Analysis: Samsung's Exynos chip rebounds with mixed performance in 2nm era
Samsung Electronics' self-developed mobile application processor (AP) series, Exynos, long criticized for poor performance and overheating issues, is showing signs of revival. The new Exynos 2600, built on the advanced 2nm second-generation process (SF2), has delivered unexpectedly strong performance results compared to its previous chips, laying a foundation for the once-struggling chip line to bounce back
Friday 20 March 2026
Analysis: Supermicro co-founder's GTC star turn ends in federal indictment
At NVIDIA GTC 2026, Super Micro Computer (Supermicro) appeared firmly at the center of the AI infrastructure boom. The company showcased its deepening collaboration with Nvidia and welcomed CEO Jensen Huang to its booth in a highly public display of partnership. When the event wrapped up, however, that momentum was quickly overshadowed by a federal indictment placing one of the company's most senior figures under scrutiny
Friday 20 March 2026
Analysis: Alibaba and Baidu raise AI pricing as token-based model reshapes cloud economics
Alibaba and Baidu have raised prices for AI computing services, reflecting a broader shift in how cloud providers monetize AI as demand for tokenized workloads accelerates
Friday 20 March 2026
Commentary: Taiwan's display panel makers are quietly becoming chip companies
Taiwan built its technology identity on two pillars: semiconductors and display panels. One has thrived. The other is reinventing itself
Friday 20 March 2026
Analysis: Memory price swings leave e-reader supply chain in the red
Recent shifts in the memory market are putting significant pressure on the e-reader supply chain, from upstream manufacturers to midstream module makers and downstream brand companies
Thursday 19 March 2026
The HBM paradox: why Taipei and Seoul can't afford a diplomatic cold war
A diplomatic dispute over administrative nomenclature has escalated into a high-stakes standoff between Taiwan and South Korea, threatening to cast a shadow over one of the world's most critical semiconductor supply chains
Thursday 19 March 2026
Analysis on Micron's strategic pivot: de-commoditizing the memory industry
The most significant revelation from CEO Sanjay Mehrotra during Micron's earnings call was the structural shift in how the company engages with its largest customers
Thursday 19 March 2026
Analysis: China's on-device AI chipmakers rush to supply OpenClaw, race for edge AI silicon leadership
OpenClaw is forcing a rethink of the AI hardware stack, shifting the locus of deployment from cloud-based interaction to autonomous, always-on agents running locally on devices
Wednesday 18 March 2026
In-depth: China's AI 'five-layer cake'— impressive on the outside, underbaked in the middle
Jensen Huang's "five-layer cake" model for AI is a tidy recipe: energy, chips, infrastructure, models, applications — stacked in order. Applied to China, the cake looks polished on top. Pull it apart, though, and the middle layers are still underbaked
Wednesday 18 March 2026
Analysis: How Nvidia is leveraging DeepSeek R1 surge to cement hardware–model domination
On March 11 (US time), Nvidia announced a US$26 billion five-year investment in open-source large language models and introduced Nemotron 3 Super, its most powerful hybrid mixture-of-experts model to date. The company said the model outperforms OpenAI's open-source GPT-OSS in several benchmark tests