
After mature-node price competition from 2023 to 2025, AI demand has spread from GPUs and HBM to power management ICs (PMICs), power components, networking chips and specialty processes. At the same time, aggressive price cutting by mature-node players in China has eased, pushing quotes for Taiwan foundries broadly higher since the start of 2026.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have rejected a proposal to prepay KRW25 trillion (approx. US$18.7 billion) in electricity bills, highlighting the financing challenge facing South Korea as it accelerates semiconductor expansion and the power infrastructure needed to support it.
Sandisk is making an unusual push into engineering recruitment in South Korea, seeking talent across NAND system architecture, NAND core design, VLSI design, and mask design while listing experience in HBM, LPDDR, and GDDR among key qualifications.

