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Mar 26
Arm's self-developed chip sparks cross-industry clash, TSMC-backed GUC faces impact
Arm has officially unveiled its first fully self-designed physical chip, the Arm AGI CPU, targeting data center mass production. The announcement came at the Arm Everywhere conference in San Francisco, sending shockwaves through an already fiercely competitive AI chip market.

SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung is expected to meet Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud and AI at Microsoft, in Seoul this week to discuss memory supply, according to Maeil Business Newspaper, citing industry sources.

Intel has confirmed it has begun raising CPU prices for OEM customers in response to ongoing supply constraints and rising raw material costs. According to Nikkei Asia, both Intel and AMD have notified clients of planned price increases in March and April 2026. The report notes that AI-driven global memory shortages are pushing hardware costs higher and extending delivery times, placing unprecedented margin pressure on channel partners.
The 2026 Taiwan International Machine Tool Show (TMTS), an annual machine tool industry exhibition, has returned to Taichung this year, a move seen as particularly significant given the city's role as a central hub for the machine tool industry cluster. Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), attended the opening ceremony to show support.
The surge in AI applications driving PCB material upgrades is exacerbating upstream raw material supply shortages. Notably, besides ongoing price hikes, some IC substrate makers report that limited production capacity for glass fiber cloth and copper foil has tightened supply of copper-clad laminates (CCL) for months. This shortage has extended product lead times to as long as 6 months, forcing related companies to implement a "quota system."
Taiwan's ALi bets on custom chips for 2026 turnaround
Mar 27, 16:27
At a series of year-end gatherings in Hsinchu and Taipei this week, Star Fusion and its affiliated companies outlined their business outlook for 2026, pointing to a shift toward higher-value chip design as a key growth driver.

Nexchip reported 2025 revenue of CNY10.89 billion (approx. US$1.58 billion), up 17.69% year-over-year, with net profit rising 32.16% to CNY704 million and earnings per share increasing 33.33% to CNY0.36. Growth was driven by higher shipment volumes, expanding revenue scale, and gains from the transfer of photomask-related technologies.

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) more than doubled revenue to about US$8 billion in 2025, as surging demand from artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers drove up memory chip prices, according to Bloomberg. The growth provides a boost to the strategically important Chinese chipmaker ahead of a planned domestic IPO.

C SUN and Contrel have announced a significant equity partnership, as C SUN agreed to invest approximately NT$1.02 billion (approx. US$32 million) as a strategic investor to acquire 20,000 private placement shares in Contrel, becoming its largest single shareholder with a 10.82% stake. The deal also formally brings Contrel into the G2C+ alliance, a growing consortium focused on advanced semiconductor equipment.
Innolux sells Fab 2 to SPIL
Mar 27, 14:56
Innolux is selling multiple factories to strengthen its financial position and operations. Following an announcement of a standard factory sale to ChipMOS, Innolux disclosed on March 24, 2026, the sale of its Fab 2 plant to ASE's Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL), expecting a disposal gain of about NT$5.8 billion (US$181.8 million).

Japan's power semiconductor sector is moving toward consolidation, with Rohm, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi Electric entering negotiations to integrate their power chip businesses, according to Yomiuri Shimbun and Nikkei. The talks target scale in electric vehicles, AI data centers, and power infrastructure, where demand for power control semiconductors is rising.

The global semiconductor industry is set to surpass the US$1 trillion revenue mark in 2026, driven by accelerating artificial intelligence demand, but the milestone comes with mounting structural pressures—particularly in memory—that are beginning to ripple across the broader electronics ecosystem.