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Thursday 29 January 2026

Analysis: China's chip price spiral has begun; a grey rhino threatening the 2026 supply chain

China's semiconductor supply chain is sending a clear signal: a wave of "chip inflation" driven by mature-node manufacturing, memory, and packaging costs is no longer theoretical; it is becoming a structural reality. Following Cmsemicon's decision to raise prices on MCU and NOR Flash products by 15% to 50%, long-stable commodity chips have officially entered an inflation cycle.

Thursday 29 January 2026

AI boom threatens global chip supply, automakers warned

The Covid-19 pandemic once sparked a wave of upgrades for personal computers and smartphones, fueling strong demand for semiconductors. However, it also exposed vulnerabilities in supply chains, leaving companies like TSMC entangled in the global automotive chip crunch and prompting the US and Europe to invite TSMC to build factories on their soil.

Thursday 29 January 2026

Analysis: how SK Hynix is binding customers to its AI memory

SK Hynix is moving to lock out competitors in the high-stakes battle for AI memory, deploying a "one-team" operational strategy that integrates the chipmaker directly into its customers' design processes just as it confirms the mass production of its next-generation HBM4.

Thursday 29 January 2026

Earnings call summary: Samsung 4Q25 profit rides memory boom to record revenue

Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly revenue and operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2025, underscoring how AI-driven demand for advanced memory has become the company's main earnings engine, even as smartphones, TVs, and home appliances faced seasonal slowdowns and margin pressure.

Thursday 29 January 2026

IPC cost and memory supply pressures accelerate product upgrades

The surge in AI demand is driving massive memory consumption, pushing the memory industry into a bullish phase. Market consensus expects tight memory supply and demand conditions to ease only by 2028. This shift is impacting industrial PC (IPC) manufacturers not just through short-term inventory fluctuations but evolving into mid- to long-term structural changes. IPC players are now comprehensively adjusting pricing mechanisms, product platforms, and procurement strategies to adapt to this new environment.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

SK Hynix bets $10B on Silicon Valley with new U.S. AI subsidiary

SK Hynix announced on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, it will establish a new US-based entity dedicated to artificial intelligence solutions, backed by a planned US$10 billion investment.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

SK Hynix reports record-breaking 2025 earnings driven by AI memory boom

SK hynix Inc. announced record-breaking financial results for fiscal year 2025 on Thursday, driven by its dominant competitiveness in the AI memory sector and high-value products like High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Phison's Pascari SSDs power world's first lunar data center, set new reliability benchmark

Taiwan's leading NAND controller and storage solution provider, Phison Electronics Corp., recently announced that its enterprise SSD brand Pascari has partnered with US space data company Lonestar Data Holdings on the award-winning Freedom Mission, a milestone project highlighting the rising strategic importance of secure and resilient data storage in the AI era.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Powertech posts 4Q25 profit high, eyes growth momentum into 2026

Memory testing and packaging firm Powertech Technology (PTI) reported that its revenue and earnings met expectations in the fourth quarter of 2025. Quarterly revenue reached NT$21.41 billion (approx. US$681.38 million), up 25.2% year-over-year. Net income attributable to the owners of the parent totaled NT$1.86 billion, increasing 21.2% quarterly and 22.3% year-over-year, while earnings per share stood at NT$2.52.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Macronix restarts NT$22B capex to boost MLC eMMC and NOR flash output

Memory giant Macronix (MXIC) has decided to resume its capital expenditure plan, allocating NT$22 billion (approx. US$704 million) in 2026 to aggressively expand its severely short-supplied MLC NAND production capacity and fill market gaps left by major players exiting MLC NAND.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Apple's iPhone 17 powers a strong quarter as memory costs soar

Apple is set to report fiscal first-quarter 2026 earnings on January 29, with strong sales of the iPhone 17 expected to drive record operating performance and solid smartphone shipments. The iPhone 17 lineup, which offers added features without price increases, has seen particularly strong demand in China and the US.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Samsung reportedly channels most 1c DRAM capacity into HBM4 for early 2026 mass production

Samsung Electronics is emerging as the leading supplier of sixth-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM4) to Nvidia and AMD as of February 2026, backed by growing confidence in its production ramp.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Analysis: SK Hynix's exclusive supply to Microsoft reflects HBM3E market consolidation

Recent reports indicate that SK Hynix has become the exclusive HBM supplier for Microsoft's next-generation AI accelerator, Maia 200, underscoring its competitiveness in the HBM3E market. As medium- to long-term demand expands, Microsoft may eventually adopt a multi-supplier approach, which could intensify market competition.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

KGD joins memory price rally with China vendor raising prices by up to 80%

A fresh wave of memory price hikes is sweeping across the semiconductor supply chain, spreading from AI memory products into manufacturing, packaging, and testing, and upstream materials and critical components. Known Good Die (KGD), long a low-profile yet tightly linked segment of the ecosystem, is now emerging as a key pressure point in the latest pricing surge.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

TI accelerates capacity push, shrugs off memory shortages

Texas Instruments (TI) signaled urgency around capacity planning, stressing that today's capital spending choices will determine its ability to serve demand years ahead, while downplaying fears that rising memory prices are constraining near-term demand across its core markets.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Micron's US$100 billion New York megafab attracts local oversight

As the Trump administration intensifies its push for US-based semiconductor manufacturing, Micron recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for its planned megafab in the town of Clay, north of Syracuse, New York, braving freezing temperatures to mark the start of the project.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Samsung phases out MLC NAND as 3D NAND shift cuts supply in 2026

NAND flash prices are soaring, with industry insiders expecting upstream contract prices to surge over 100% in the first quarter of 2026. As NAND manufacturers aggressively upgrade their processes, Samsung Electronics will cease shipments of MLC NAND by the end of the second quarter of 2025, repurposing cleanroom space for DRAM production. Meanwhile, 3D NAND capacity is shifting toward V8 and V9 stacking technologies, leading to a substantial reduction in overall NAND output in 2026.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

China's conditional H200 approval rewire Samsung-SK Hynix rivalry

China has reportedly been conditionally approving corporate purchases of Nvidia's H200, reshaping HBM supply-demand dynamics. According to Seoul Economic Daily and G-enews, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities granted conditional approval for major Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Tencent Holdings, and ByteDance to purchase Nvidia's H200. Due to the H200's heavy HBM requirements, this development will also impact Samsung and SK Hynix.

Wednesday 28 January 2026

Memory shortages raise alarm across the auto industry

A deepening global memory chip shortage is beginning to raise serious concerns within the automotive industry, as surging demand from artificial intelligence (AI) applications increasingly crowds out supply. With software-defined vehicles (SDVs), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and in-vehicle infotainment becoming mainstream, automakers are now facing mounting risks tied to memory availability, pricing, and product design.

Tuesday 27 January 2026

Samsung favors high-margin memory clients, squeezing TV and appliance units

Samsung Electronics' television and home appliance divisions are struggling to secure memory supplies as rising prices prompt the company's semiconductor arm to prioritize higher-margin customers and products, according to South Korean industry outlet Dealsite.

Tuesday 27 January 2026

TPCA predicts 13.9% rise in global PCB market in 2026 amid AI-driven capacity shift

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) computing is fueling a new wave of structural growth in the global printed circuit board (PCB) industry.

Tuesday 27 January 2026

Micron breaks ground on US$24 billion advanced NAND fab in Singapore

Micron has started construction on an advanced wafer fabrication facility at its existing NAND manufacturing complex in Singapore, marking a planned investment of approximately US$24 billion over 10 years. The new facility is expected to provide 700,000 square feet of cleanroom space, with wafer production scheduled to begin in the second half of 2028, aiming to meet growing demand for NAND memory driven by AI and data-intensive applications.

Tuesday 27 January 2026

Memory crunch accelerates notebook orders, reshapes 2026 demand

Rising memory prices and persistent supply tightness are prompting PC brands to pull forward notebook orders, disrupting traditional seasonal patterns and keeping shipments elevated through the first quarter of 2026, supply-chain executives said.

Tuesday 27 January 2026

AI and localization reshape China's semiconductor supply chain as price hikes arrive

After navigating pandemic tailwinds, US-China conflicts, and tariffs under US President Donald Trump, the global semiconductor and electronics industries are emerging from inventory adjustments and price bottoms starting in 2025. While China's electronics sector has yet to fully recover, AI infrastructure, high-performance computing (HPC), automotive, and industrial control applications are driving a new AI-led pricing cycle across components and semiconductor supply chains.

Tuesday 27 January 2026

Memory chip super cycle opens door for China to challenge South Korea

The ongoing surge in memory chip prices has brought a substantial profit boom for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Although prices are expected to continue trending upward, industry experts caution that this persistent supply shortage could present Chinese memory manufacturers with an opportunity to enter the market and narrow their technology gap.

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