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Friday 7 November 2025
Novatek braces for revenue dip in 2025, bets on AI ASICs to drive recovery
Novatek Microelectronics, Taiwan's top display driver IC (DDI) supplier, held its earnings call with CEO Steve Wang outlining the company's market outlook. He said the stronger New Taiwan dollar, tariff uncertainties, and weak demand in consumer electronics and PCs have led panel makers to reduce capacity to keep prices steady, softening typical peak-season demand in the third quarter of 2025.
Friday 7 November 2025
Cambricon hit with US$590M lawsuit from former CTO over stock buyback dispute
Chinese AI chipmaker Cambricon Technologies is facing a massive legal battle. The company's former chief technology officer, Liang Jun, has filed a lawsuit seeking CNY4.3 billion (US$590 million) in compensation for losses tied to a share incentive plan.
Friday 7 November 2025
TPK to acquire 23.83% stake in Ilitek, entering semiconductor sector
Touch panel maker TPK Holding announced plans to acquire a 23.83% stake in IC design firm Ilitek for NT$5.807 billion (approx. US$188 million), at NT$49.5 per share, making TPK the largest shareholder of Ilitek. The board approved signing a share transfer agreement with MagiCapital and Achi Capital, with the transaction to be settled in equivalent US dollars through offshore transfers. Completion is expected by January 2026.
Friday 7 November 2025
Elan Microelectronics posts solid results, eyes AI-driven growth in 2026
Touch IC leader Elan Microelectronics held an earnings call on November 6, reporting that third-quarter performance exceeded internal forecasts despite a weaker consumer market than in the same period in 2024. Sequentially, revenue grew 9.4% to NT$3.316 billion (approx. US$107 million), although year-over-year it fell 2.6%. Gross margin stood at 47.2%, down 0.8pp from the previous quarter and 2.1pp compared to a year ago. Operating income reached NT$792 million, rising 6.5% sequentially but declining 14.6% annually.
Friday 7 November 2025
Google launches new TPU and Arm-based instances for AI workloads
Google has introduced Ironwood, its seventh-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), designed for large-scale AI model training, reinforcement learning, and inference.
Friday 7 November 2025
Update: Jensen Huang dined with CC Wei tonight in Tainan, and will attend TSMC's annual sports day in Hsinchu
Update: Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is already in Tainan, a city about 300 kilometers south of Taipei. He dined with several key executives of TSMC, including CC Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC.
Friday 7 November 2025
“Call the mayor”: Jensen Huang’s Computex quip triggers a months-long land tussle for Nvidia’s Taipei HQ
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took the stage at Computex in Taipei on May 19, 2025, his remarks about the company's new Taiwan headquarters—called "Nvidia Constellation"—sparked both excitement and a flurry of phone calls.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Nvidia CEO credits Taiwan partners for US AI chip success, warns China's advancement
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has acknowledged the critical role of Taiwanese partners in domestic AI chip production in the US, while cautioning that China's technological progress has been underestimated. Huang highlighted the importance of supply chain collaboration during an interview with Fox News, as reported by Wccftech and FreeMalaysiaToday.
Thursday 6 November 2025
China bans Nvidia from state data centers, mandates domestic AI chips
China has escalated its campaign to reduce dependence on foreign technology. The country now requires all new state-funded data centers to use domestically produced artificial intelligence chips, according to Reuters. The regulatory directive impacts projects worth tens of billions of dollars.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Arm raises forecast after record quarter fueled by soaring AI demand
Arm Holdings raised its revenue outlook on Nov. 5 after posting record quarterly results, citing a broad-based surge in demand for its technology driven by artificial intelligence.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Arm touts AI efficiency as 'power bottleneck' hits data centers
Arm Holdings is positioning its energy-efficient chip designs as the essential solution to the global AI industry's growing power crisis, a strategy that fueled record quarterly results and a raised forecast.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Cambricon's NeuWare breaks China's dependence on Nvidia CUDA
In the AI era, competition among chipmakers goes beyond compute power and centers on ecosystem and full-stack integration. Beijing-based Cambricon Technologies, an AI chip designer affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced that its in-house software suite, Cambricon NeuWare, is now fully mature, marking a key shift away from local developers' reliance on Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem and underscoring China's pursuit of technological self-reliance.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Arm surges past US$1.1 billion for third consecutive quarter on AI and cloud demand
Arm Holdings reported robust growth for the third consecutive quarter, with revenue exceeding US$1.1 billion, driven by strong demand for its chip designs in AI and data center markets.
Thursday 6 November 2025
IC designers race to win orders despite declining margins
At its most recent earnings call, MediaTek raised its forecast for the total ASIC market from US$40 billion to US$50 billion, reflecting surging demand for cloud AI ASICS. However, an increasing number of diverse companies are entering the ASIC market, intensifying the competition. Major clients have begun handling more of their own design work, shifting pricing power towards the customer. Overall profit margins for the ASIC business have shown signs of decline, but IC design companies still race to secure orders.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Aspeed Technology to spin off remote management unit to Cupola360
Aspeed Technology, a leading provider of baseboard management controller (BMC) SoC, announced on November 5 that it will spin off its Reality Remote Management (RRM) business (formerly the Smart AV division), transferring related manufacturing and operations—including assets, liabilities, and sales—to its wholly owned subsidiary Cupola360. The tentative effective date of the spin-off is December 31, 2025.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Beyond smartphones: Qualcomm’s low-power leap into the AI data center race
Qualcomm outlined a clear roadmap for its next phase of growth, focusing on data centers and extended reality during its fourth-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call. The company's leaders described how Qualcomm's power-efficient chip designs and expanding role in artificial intelligence and smart devices will fuel future revenue opportunities.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Android momentum lifts Qualcomm as Apple dependence fades
Qualcomm's QCT business continued to drive the company's growth in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, fueled by rising demand for premium Android smartphones and expanding content per device. As the firm reduces its dependence on Apple, its Snapdragon platform and partnerships with Android OEMs have become key revenue engines.
Thursday 6 November 2025
Tax shock slams Qualcomm’s profit, but chips keep humming into 2026
Qualcomm ended fiscal 2025 with solid revenue growth but saw profits tumble due to a one-time US$5.7 billion non-cash tax charge linked to new US tax legislation. Despite the hit, the company projected up to US$12.6 billion in revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2026, signaling resilient chip demand.
Thursday 6 November 2025
From Seoul to Munich: Nvidia's AI sovereignty goes global
In less than a week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has orchestrated two of the largest national AI infrastructure deals in history—first delivering 260,000 AI chips to South Korea, then unveiling a EUR1 billion (US$1.15 billion) AI factory in Germany. The rapid-fire announcements signal a deliberate strategy: building sovereign AI capabilities that allow nations to control their own technological destinies.
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Automotive chip demand rebounds despite supply chain headwinds
Leading IDMs such as Texas Instruments (TI), NXP Semiconductors, and STMicroelectronics (STM) have reported recent quarterly results indicating a rebound in automotive semiconductor demand and inventory restocking. This trend offers a cautiously optimistic outlook for the global automotive sector despite persistent challenges, including tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and regional economic disparities.
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Commentary: Jensen Huang's South Korea charm offensive signals Nvidia's Asia pivot
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sat down for fried chicken and beer with Samsung's Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai's Chung Eui-sun on a Gyeongju street corner, the casual dinner quickly went viral across South Korea. The scene captured something larger than corporate networking: Nvidia's calculated pivot toward Asia's most agile technology hub.
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Mediatek's subsidiary Airoha sees steady 3Q25 revenue, banks on Ethernet for growth
MediaTek's subsidiary Airoha reported a steady financial performance for the third quarter of 2025, with revenue reaching NT$5.63 billion (US$182.5 million), marking a 2% sequential increase and a 1.2% rise year-over-year. The company highlighted its strong presence in networking infrastructure products and the high-end AI IoT segment as key revenue drivers amid mixed market conditions. Gross margin improved by 1.7% quarter-on-quarter and year-over-year to 52.2%. Operating profit increased by 7.5% sequentially to NT$877 million but declined 6% compared to the same period last year.
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Airoha targets Ethernet, optical communication, and Bluetooth for growth by 2026
MediaTek's subsidiary Airoha has identified Ethernet, optical communication, and Bluetooth applications as key growth drivers, expecting these sectors to account for 20% of its revenue by 2026, according to its November 4, 2025, earnings call. While the company has not finalized its 2026 budget or provided detailed forecasts, it confirmed these areas as core to its expansion plans.
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Nvidia, Qualcomm join US$1B India deep tech alliance
Nvidia and Qualcomm Ventures have joined a growing consortium of US and Indian investors backing India's deep-tech ecosystem, underscoring rising global interest in the country's push toward technological self-reliance, according to Reuters, TechCrunch, and PR Newswire.
Wednesday 5 November 2025
Musk highlights spec differences between Tesla AI5 chips made by TSMC and Samsung
Following Tesla's announcement that the AI5 chip will be produced by both Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung Electronics, CEO Elon Musk explained the slight differences in specifications for the two versions. The chips will be manufactured at TSMC's Arizona facility and Samsung's Taylor, Texas plant, underscoring Tesla's dual-fab approach to enhance supply chain resilience and manufacturing flexibility.