Unimicron held an investor conference on 25 February 2026. A day earlier, its board approved the appointment of UMC co-president SC Chien as chairman and group chief strategy officer. He will also join the Sustainable Development & Nominating Committee.

Given the steady demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips, Unimicron stated that orders for IC substrates and PCBs have picked up. This has not only steadily increased capacity utilization rates, but the company has also negotiated with customers for ABF and BT substrates to gradually reflect rising raw material costs. These factors drove a marked improvement in operations in the fourth quarter of 2025, with single-quarter profits surpassing the combined total of the previous three quarters.

Walsin Technology Corporation announced plans to invest JPY508 million (US$3.27 million) to increase its shareholding in Japan's Matsuo Electric, a move the passive components maker says will support product expansion and strengthen the two companies' partnership.

The global multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) market is on the brink of a price surge as Japanese and Korean giants grapple with record demand from AI data centers. Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco) is reportedly shifting focus from volume to pricing, while Murata Manufacturing has signaled possible price hikes as early as March 2026.

AI and high-performance computing chip demand continue to expand, keeping TSMC's CoWoS capacity tight into 2026. The supply constraint is pushing Taiwan's major OSAT providers, including ASE Holdings, SPIL and PTI Group, to accelerate advanced packaging expansion to secure AI-related orders.

China's AI data center supply chain gained renewed focus after the Lunar New Year holiday, as optical module and MLCC suppliers pointed to sustained demand from hyperscale infrastructure expansion.

The rapid development of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips is providing long-term demand support for the semiconductor advanced testing interface supply chain, driving growth in the global probe card market. Technologically, as signal contact density and probe pin counts continue to rise, the requirements for guide plate hole counts and structural precision in a single probe card are also increasing accordingly.

Semiconductor test interface component manufacturer Certain Micro Application Technology (CMAT) announced during a media gathering that it will officially begin trading on the Taipei Exchange's Emerging Stock Board on February 25. CMAT president Li-wen Lo stated that, as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chip testing continues to expand, orders related to advanced processes have increased, leading to significant growth and structural business improvements over the past three years.

Foxconn's move from assembly to semiconductor packaging in India marks a strategic deepening that could accelerate local supply-chain integration and influence global EMS competition, even as coordination challenges with state and local authorities underscore ongoing expansion risks.

MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai set the climate for the company's growth trajectory at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026, centering his keynote speech on cloud AI. MediaTek will no longer be just the IC design company heavily reliant on smartphones, consumer electronics, and wireless communication chips. Instead, it is transforming into an AI system solutions provider that works closely with the semiconductor supply chain, major cloud service providers (CSPs), and AI model developers in the cloud AI market. Its years of investment in high-performance computing (HPC) and related technologies are now beginning to pay off.

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES stories from the week of February 16-22, 2026.

The ongoing global shortage of glass fiber, a critical upstream material for PCBs, has escalated competition among major end customers and is driving a structural reallocation of capacity toward higher-margin specialty products.

Taiwan's AI server supply chain started 2026 on firmer footing, according to January revenue data from 14 PCB, CCL, ASIC design, and IC testing firms. Year-over-year growth confirms continued AI server demand, while month-over-month shifts point to shipment timing, project concentration, and base effects rather than a change in end demand.

Major printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer Zhen Ding Technology (ZDT) held its year-end party on February 13, where chairman Charles Shen announced that full-year 2025 revenue reached NT$182.52 billion (US$5.81 billion), up 6.33% from 2024, setting a new record high. Growth was mainly driven by gradually realized benefits from high-end product segments, including servers, optical communications, and IC substrates.

Leading IC substrate maker Unimicron Technology announced that chairman Tzyy-jang Tseng is stepping down upon reaching retirement age. The company said the leadership change was triggered by a representative change by corporate director United Microelectronics (UMC).

The global AI data center boom is straining not only high-end computing chips but also adjacent industries such as memory and upstream glass fiber cloth, where significant capacity squeezes are rippling through to downstream customers' production layouts worldwide.

Geopolitical tensions stemming from the US-China trade war and global tariff barriers are driving major changes across the printed circuit board (PCB) industry, prompting structural shifts in Taiwan–US import-export dynamics and the accelerated diversification of manufacturing networks.

Amid mounting tariff pressures and geopolitical risks, the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) announced that it will showcase a Taiwan advanced packaging zone at Apex Expo 2026, a global printed circuit board (PCB) trade event held in Southern California. This initiative aims to help Taiwanese companies seize opportunities arising from supply chain restructuring and to accelerate Taiwan-US business collaborations.

As artificial intelligence workloads push traditional computing architectures to their limits, the photonics industry is emerging as a critical enabler of next-generation data center infrastructure. The third Asia Photonics Expo (APE 2026), which concluded on February 6, 2026, reflected this shift, bringing together more than 240 exhibitors and nine international pavilions to showcase how optical technologies are becoming increasingly intertwined with semiconductor manufacturing and high-performance computing systems.

Affected by the continued rise in tungsten carbide prices, PCB drill manufacturer Topoint Technology said that it plans to implement another price increase in the first quarter of 2026. The adjustment will extend from tungsten white drills to high-end coated products, passing on cost pressure to downstream customers.

Surging demand for artificial intelligence servers and high-performance computing (HPC) has tightened capacity across the semiconductor supply chain. For many small South Korean communications IC designers relying on mature process technologies, the bottleneck has shifted from wafer fabrication to packaging and testing.

Because of rising raw material costs, Taiwanese chip resistor manufacturers have begun increasing prices, with the wave spreading from major passive component makers such as Yageo and Walsin to smaller players like Ta-Yi Technology and Ever Ohms. After issuing a price increase notice to customers, Ever Ohms said that long-term competition in the Chinese market had kept chip resistor prices under pressure. However, recent surges in the costs of silver, palladium, ruthenium, tin, and copper have forced several Taiwanese and Chinese passive component suppliers to raise prices.