AI took center stage at the 2nd Hong Kong International Innovation and Technology Expo (InnoEX) and the 20th Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Spring Edition), as AI technologies and applications continue to generate buzz and attention in the tech world

Since acquiring American automotive audio maker Harman in 2016, Samsung Electronics has seemingly suspended large-scale mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for the past 8 years. Recently, there have been reports that Samsung is preparing to resume M&A deals worth trillions of Korean Won, with several key figures already in position

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) and Samsung Electronics signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms (PMT) on April 15 to provide up to US$6.4 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act. Samsung is expected to invest more than $40 billion in central Texas in the coming years, including HBM and 2.5D packaging capacities

OpenAI named the former president of Amazon Web Services's Japan arm to spearhead its push to woo enterprise clients in the world's fourth-largest economy

Apple Inc.'s iPhone shipments slid a worse-than-projected 10% in the March quarter, reflecting flagging sales in China despite a broader smartphone industry rebound

The Chinese telecom bidding market is on the upswing, as major tenders are being issued by key telecom operators

Market rumors said Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are planning to resume the capacity expansion plans at its Pyeongtaek and Cheongju fabs, which were put on hold during the previous business downturn

Taiwan-headquartered nFore has captured the attention of European and US automakers, with some visiting the company's site in private. The traction gained as carmakers found a significant portion of nFore's Digital Signal Processing (DSP) solutions when tearing down competitors' Telematics-Box (T-Box) and analyzing their software.

According to sources in Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain, Samsung Electronics visited Taiwan at the end of March

Japan-based Aisin, a Toyota Motor's affiliate, has been testing and producing Perovskite Solar Cells (PSC) at a small scale

Renesas has repurposed an old wafer fabrication facility in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, into a power semiconductor plant

Recently, growth in the TV market has slowed down

As silicon carbide (SiC) substrates continued to evolve toward larger sizes, the 200mm substrate has become a hotly contested technology field

The Advanced SoC Research for Automotive (ASRA), a research organization joined by 14 Japanese car and semiconductor companies, recently received funding from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The money will facilitate the development of next-generation automotive SoC using chiplet technology

In recent years, due to the development of the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) market, the thermal compression (TC) bonder equipment produced by Hanmi Semiconductor has attracted attention. Besides supplying SK Hynix, it has recently signed an HBM TC bonder supply contract with Micron and may receive additional orders in the future