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Friday 22 May 2026

AMD deepens Taiwan supply chain ties with US$10B-plus push

AMD CEO Lisa Su arrived in Taiwan on May 20, 2026, on a private jet and largely followed the same itinerary as her April 2025 visit, including a meeting with TSMC, a technology forum and dinner with Taiwan supply chain partners, and an about one-hour summit forum. This time, AMD also made the rare announcement that it will invest more than US$10 billion in Taiwan's industrial ecosystem to accelerate AI infrastructure buildout.

Friday 22 May 2026

Intel's foundry reset: 14A, 10A and tougher engineering rules

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is reshaping the chipmaker's engineering culture and foundry strategy, confirming that 14A remains on track while revealing that early development has begun on next-generation 10A and 7A nodes.

Friday 22 May 2026

Lam Research launches PLP Center of Excellence, replacing wafers with panels

Advanced packaging designs are approaching the physical limitations of wafers as AI, HPC, and heterogeneous integration rapidly evolve. Subsequently, Panel Level Packaging (PLP) technology has drawn significant industry attention. Global semiconductor equipment manufacturer Lam Research announced the official establishment of its PLP Center of Excellence (CoE) in Salzburg, Austria, aimed at strengthening PLP process R&D capabilities and driving scalable manufacturing solutions to meet advanced packaging demands in the AI era.

Friday 22 May 2026

Innovation at the edge: Semiconductor startup highlights from Plug and Play Silicon Valley May Summit 2026

At the recent Plug and Play Silicon Valley May Summit, the semiconductor and supply chain sessions highlighted a critical shift toward hardware-level security, energy efficiency for AI, and AI-driven quality engineering. Startups, including Enclave Semiconductor, Bedrock Semiconductor, and Lattice, presented solutions aimed at securing and optimizing the global electronics ecosystem.

Thursday 21 May 2026

AMD CEO meets with TSMC CEO in Taiwan as it expands US chip output

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su stated that the company plans to invest more than US$10 billion in Taiwan's industrial ecosystem to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The announcement was made during her visit to Taiwan, where she also disclosed the latest progress in collaborations with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), backend packaging and testing, substrate, and AI server supply chains.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Commentary: Trump's Taiwan chip claim tests TSMC's silence

US President Donald Trump, after recently concluding a visit to China, again publicly accused Taiwan of having "stolen our chip industry." This was not the first time he had made such a claim. From the 2024 campaign period to a Fox News interview in May 2026, before his departure after visiting China, Trump has repeatedly argued that the business originally belonged to Intel and that, had the US government understood how to impose tariffs for protection, Taiwan would never have had a role in the chip industry.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Nvidia's China hopes dim as Beijing doubles down on domestic AI chips

Nvidia's H200 was a major focus after the Trump-Xi meeting, but hopes for sales into China have faded after US President Donald Trump's latest remarks. Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping is firmly committed to developing domestic AI chips, leaving little room for common ground on the issue.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Five weak links India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 must fix

India's first semiconductor mission brought fabs, OSAT units, and chip projects into the policy pipeline. Its second phase is being shaped around a harder question: whether India can fix the weak links that determine if those projects become a sustainable semiconductor ecosystem.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Demand surge for power semiconductors reshapes data-center power and cooling, pushing suppliers toward SiC and GaN

Demand for power components is surging as AI servers adopt high-voltage direct current power delivery and advanced cooling technologies. This shift could increase component density and design complexity across the data center supply chain. Taiwanese power semiconductor makers are moving into cooling and power-management MOS technologies, as well as higher-spec upgrades.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Texas Instruments sues former exec over trade secret theft at GlobalFoundries

Bloomberg reports that Texas Instruments (TI) has sued former vice president Kannan Soundarapandian, alleging he joined GlobalFoundries without fully disclosing his new employer and may bring proprietary power semiconductor knowledge into competitive use. TI is seeking to block his role, arguing it could expose confidential process "recipes, roadmaps, and know-how," with broader implications for competition in power device manufacturing and advanced process development.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Tokyo Electron Taiwan drops appeal after court fines unit and jails ex-engineer in TSMC trade secrets case

Tokyo Electron's Taiwan unit said on May 21 that it respected judicial proceedings and would not appeal following a ruling in a trade secrets case involving TSMC. The decision came after the Taiwan Intellectual Property and Commercial Court on April 27 convicted a former Tokyo Electron engineer for taking confidential TSMC materials and sentenced the individual to 10 years in prison, according to Reuters and Bloomberg.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Tokuyama to build second high-purity IPA plant in Taiwan to bolster global semiconductor supplies

In a press release on May 20, Japan-based Tokuyama Corporation said it will build a second high-purity isopropyl alcohol plant in Kaohsiung through its joint venture with Formosa Plastics, a move aimed at strengthening global semiconductor supply chains by increasing capacity and quality assurance for electronic manufacturing chemicals and improving stability for customers worldwide through enhanced technical services.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Tech Forum 2026: How much longer can semiconductors sustain Taiwan?

During a keynote discussion session at Tech Forum 2026, DIGITIMES senior reporter Monica Chen and semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu shared their views on current AI server technology transformations, concerns over capital expenditure bubbles among global cloud giants, changes in application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and chip architectures, and TSMC's global expansion strategy.

Thursday 21 May 2026

TSMC's cautious capex is averting an AI bubble, says investor

TSMC's restrained expansion strategy is helping the global market avoid an AI bubble, according to veteran semiconductor investor Gavin Baker, the chief investment officer at Atreides Management. Speaking at the 2026 Sohn Investment Conference, Baker's view runs counter to market consensus at a time when tech giants are pouring money into AI chips and global chip manufacturing is under unprecedented strain.

Thursday 21 May 2026

US targets Hua Hong's 7nm nodes while China targets South Korean partners to evade sanctions

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has reportedly issued "is-informed" letters to several major wafer fab equipment (WFE) manufacturers, ordering an immediate halt to tool shipments destined for Hua Hong Semiconductor, China's second-largest foundry. The restrictions specifically target two facilities within the Hua Hong Group, including its subsidiary Huali Microelectronics, which US officials believe are being positioned to scale China's most sophisticated logic nodes.

Thursday 21 May 2026

OSE targets AI server SMT growth as memory demand lifts outlook

Orient Semiconductor Electronics (OSE) said that strong memory market demand is lifting its outlook and expanding its role in the memory supply chain, while also strengthening its importance in surface-mount technology (SMT) for AI server boards with major US clients.

Thursday 21 May 2026

SMIC, Hua Hong form materials supply platform to cut China chip chain reliance on US

China's semiconductor self-sufficiency drive has taken another step forward, with SMIC and Hua Hong Group jointly establishing Shanghai Electronic Materials International Supply Chain, in what market observers view as more than a conventional materials procurement platform.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Samsung averts strike with last-minute labor deal, but deeper divisions remain

With less than an hour remaining before a planned strike was set to begin, Samsung Electronics and its labor union reached a tentative agreement late on May 20, narrowly avoiding what industry observers estimated could have triggered supply-chain disruptions worth more than KRW100 trillion (approx. US$66.8 billion).

Wednesday 20 May 2026

ASML to deliver first High-NA chips within months despite cost concerns

ASML expects its first advanced semiconductors made using next-generation High-Numerical Aperture (High-NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment to ship within months.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

GlobalFoundries invests in Playground Global Fund IV to advance semiconductor technology innovation

GlobalFoundries announced on May 19 that it is making a limited partner investment in Playground Global's Fund IV through GlobalFoundries Accelerate, the company's venture capital program focused on early-stage semiconductor and deep-technology innovation. The investment represents an expansion of GlobalFoundries' strategy to engage with emerging technologies and promising startup ventures in the semiconductor ecosystem.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Google and Blackstone could lift ASIC demand with TPU leasing joint venture

Recent media reports say Google is set to team up with Blackstone to form a new cloud computing leasing company, with Blackstone as the main shareholder. The new venture aims to build about 500 MW of computing capacity by 2027, most of it using Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), a move industry watchers say supports Google ASIC partners such as MediaTek, Broadcom, and TSMC.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

South Korea's defense chips 99% import-dependent as photonic supply chain crisis looms

Photonic semiconductors have become indispensable to modern defense — prized for their ultra-high-speed data processing, high capacity, low power consumption, and exceptional reliability. Yet despite their growing strategic importance, South Korea remains almost entirely dependent on foreign suppliers for these critical components. Industry leaders are now sounding the alarm: as global supply chains fracture along geopolitical lines, photonic semiconductors are no longer just industrial goods — they are national security assets, and South Korea's access to them is far from guaranteed.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Samsung braces for major strike after bonus talks collapse

Samsung Electronics faces a major labor disruption after its union said about 48,000 workers would walk off the job on May 21, beginning an 18-day strike after last-ditch government-mediated talks over performance-based bonuses collapsed, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Taipei fires back as Trump repeats chip theft claim

Trump has once again accused Taiwan of "stealing" the US semiconductor industry — his second such broadside in as many months.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

South Korea sounds alarm on manufacturing hollow-out as AI server boom lifts Taiwan

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy, demand for data centers is rapidly redrawing the export map of nations.

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