A fire broke out at the Innovation Plant of semiconductor epitaxial wafer maker Episil on October 28. The extent of equipment damage, the scope of production stoppages, and the recovery timeline remain under clarification. With certain products from Episil already experiencing tight supply, largely driven by wafer manufacturing customers lacking internal adjustable capacity, any damage to existing mass-production equipment risks widening the current supply gap.
AUO has approved the sale of its Taichung Plant Phase II facilities and related infrastructure to TSMC for NT$38.8 billion (US$1.2 billion), excluding taxes, and has terminated a planned NT$19.7 billion sale of its Huaya facilities to Quanta after the two companies failed to agree on usage specifications and delivery schedules. AUO expects the Taichung transaction to generate approximately NT$18.5 billion in disposal gains after related transaction costs and estimated taxes.
Global server CPU shipments are projected to surpass the 50 million-unit milestone for the first time in 2027, reaching 52.6 million units as demand accelerates alongside the industry-wide shift from AI training to inference, according to DIGITIMES Intelligence. While Intel is expected to retain its shipment crown, rival AMD is closing in fast.
Marvell Technology is in advanced talks to acquire data-center optical component maker Lumentum Holdings, people familiar with the matter said, in what could become a major AI hardware supply-chain deal. The transaction could be announced as early as next week.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is reviewing how Nvidia's acquisition of Hugging Face could affect competition in the AI industry, while a years-long antitrust investigation continues into the company's broader practices. The probes target a chipmaker that has grown into the world's biggest company by market capitalization, with business interests spanning multiple parts of the AI value chain, and is a major backer of data center development.
South Korean semiconductor packaging and testing company LB Semicon reportedly plans to invest KRW30 billion (approx. US$22.4 million) to expand its power management IC (PMIC) back-end capacity under a 10-year supply agreement with Qualcomm.
KLA expects global wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) spending to exceed US$200 billion in 2027, as semiconductor manufacturers accelerate investments in advanced logic, DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), according to executives on the company's October 28 earnings call. The projection marks an improvement over its outlook for the current year and reflects growing confidence in a prolonged semiconductor investment cycle.
Volkswagen Group and NXP Semiconductors have agreed on a strategic partnership under which NXP's S32K5 microcontrollers (MCUs) are intended to serve as a building block of the carmaker's future software-defined vehicle architecture.
United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) expects wafer foundry pricing to continue rising in 2027, with CEO Jason Wang projecting approximately 10% year-over-year growth in the company's full-year average selling price (ASP).
SpaceX's Starship super-heavy rocket completed its 14th test flight on September 28, successfully reaching Earth orbit and deploying 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. A 15th test flight is expected within weeks.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are undertaking their largest-ever equipment investments in 2026, but the memory supply increase is not expected to materialize until 2028. By then, however, new South Korean plants and expanded capacity at China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) are expected to come online simultaneously, potentially triggering price competition in commodity DRAM.
More coverage
