As geopolitical tensions and energy transport risks heighten volatility in the global semiconductor supply chain, the stability of upstream critical materials — particularly photoresists — is coming back into focus.
Tescan's expansion of its Seoul site integrates a Demo Lab with office space to better serve semiconductor clients amid global AI-driven memory demand, promising faster failure analysis and reliability testing for advanced packaging customers worldwide and reducing testing wait times for partners pursuing heterogeneous integration and chiplet technologies.
Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jae-yong is attending the China Development Forum (CDF) in Beijing on March 22-23 and is expected to meet major Chinese business partners following the event, according to Asiae and Korea Times.
The semiconductor market's supply-demand imbalance is affecting more than consumer gadgets, with industrial PC (IPC) makers reporting component shortages and price hikes that dented profitability in the fourth quarter of 2025 and could ripple into 2026, raising risks of order delays and strained supply stability for industrial customers worldwide.
At its GTC 2026 conference, Nvidia showcased a slate of technologies and new products squarely aimed at the next wave of artificial intelligence inference. With the integration of Groq's LPU technology, Nvidia's portfolio appears markedly more competitive on the inference side — widely seen as a strategic effort to defend its market share and discourage customers from turning to application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs.
Jeng-Ywan Jeng, a professor from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), recently highlighted TSMC's efforts to nurture domestic semiconductor-related industries during a lecture at the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court. He noted that local companies entering TSMC's semiconductor manufacturing supply chain not only drive growth in related sectors but also help lower supply chain risks.
SK Hynix is reportedly evaluating the use of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 3-nanometer process for producing the logic die in its seventh-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4E).
Samsung Electronics is facing escalating labor tensions after its largest union secured approval for a strike, raising concerns over potential disruptions to semiconductor production at a critical juncture for the global AI supply chain, according to Korean media reports, including SEDaily and Chosun Ilbo.
Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of March 16-22, 2026:
Elon Musk has unveiled one of his most ambitious industrial visions yet: a "Terafab" that would allow Tesla and SpaceX to design and manufacture their own semiconductors for artificial intelligence, robotics, and even space-based data centers. While the project reflects Musk's sweeping vision of a vertically integrated, AI-driven future, analysts and industry realities suggest the plan may face formidable technical, financial, and structural obstacles.
Driven by massive demand from cloud AI, silicon photonics continues to gain momentum. At the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC 2026), industry players engaged in in-depth discussions on the current state of co-packaged optics (CPO) mass production. IC design experts observed that, compared with previous OFC events, which focused primarily on new technological breakthroughs, the industry in 2026 is clearly more concerned with whether solutions can be delivered on time.
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