MediaTek has completed pricing on US$3.9 billion of overseas convertible bonds, more than NT$120 billion and what the company says is the largest overseas CB ever issued in Taiwan's capital market. Nvidia subscribed for US$3.5 billion of it — roughly 90% of the offering.
Demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) continues to drive semiconductor process development, with advanced nodes and advanced packaging entering a new cycle of capacity expansion. Gudeng chairman Bill Chiu said on August 31, 2026, that the company's advanced packaging business is expected to post double-digit revenue growth from 2027 as global demand continues to expand.
TSMC is sharpening its silicon photonics (SiPh) roadmap to address the widening gap between AI compute growth and chip-to-chip data movement, unveiling two bandwidth-scaling paths for its next-generation COUPE platform and outlining a broader role for heterogeneous integration in future co-packaged optics.
To capture surging global demand for memory chips driven by artificial intelligence (AI), SK Hynix is actively exploring manufacturing and investment options in Japan.
Chip design company Agentrys announced last week that it raised US$24.5 million in funding from backers including MediaTek. It is one among an emerging crop of startups using agentic tools to power the design of semiconductors, a step in the chip process that still involves considerable amounts of time and labor.
Gudeng Precision Industrial chairman Bill Chiu said on August 31, 2026, that trust is the core foundation of Taiwan's place in the global supply chain, as he commented on sensitive issues including alleged country-of-origin labeling violations involving PCB maker Unimicron. He said Taiwanese firms gain opportunities in global markets because of Western customers' trust, warning that undermining that trust would be self-defeating.
Unimicron Technology shares plunged to Taiwan's 10% daily downside limit on August 31, the first trading session after prosecutors disclosed an investigation into alleged false country-of-origin labeling. The stock opened at NT$999 (approx. US$31.5), dropping out of Taiwan's NT$1,000-plus share club, with sell orders briefly approaching or exceeding 100,000 lots while only a few thousand lots changed hands during early trading.
Kingboard Laminates, a leading Chinese copper-clad laminate (CCL) maker, has issued another price increase notice as shortages of core materials such as fiberglass cloth and copper foil intensify and prices surge. Effective immediately, the company will raise FR-4 substrate prices by 10% across the board, while prepreg (PP) prices will rise 10% for thick cloth of style 7628 and above, and 20% for thin cloth below 7628.
MetaX posted its first half-year profit since listing, with rising GPU shipments and the mass production of its C600 accelerator strengthening its commercial position while China's domestic AI chip sector increasingly splits between profitable vendors and peers still absorbing heavy R&D costs.
On August 26, the Shanghai municipal government released its 15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Strategic Emerging Industries, setting a target for added value in strategic emerging industries to reach CNY2.1 trillion (approx. US$312.5 billion) by 2030. The plan puts ICs, biopharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence (AI) at the center of the city's industrial strategy, while shifting policy focus from expansion to higher-value areas such as advanced chips, advanced packaging, industrial software, and critical materials.
Co-packaged optics (CPO) is emerging as a critical next-generation technology for AI infrastructure, but unless South Korea strengthens its integration and validation capabilities, it risks being left with component-level capabilities while overseas players retain control of platforms and higher-value parts of the ecosystem.
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