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Apr 9
Why global chipmakers want to join TSMC's certified supply chain
TSMC's long-established supplier verification and management system is gradually becoming an industry standard, attracting major players worldwide. Samsung Electronics, Intel, Japan's Rapidus, China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), Hua Hong Semiconductor, Nexchip Semiconductor, and even Tesla CEO Elon Musk are actively engaging with Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Samsung is in discussions with the Vietnamese government to establish an IC testing facility, which could become the company's second overseas backend semiconductor site outside South Korea after China. Bloomberg also reported that Samsung is planning a phased investment of about US$4 billion in Vietnam, underscoring its continued expansion in Southeast Asia.

Industry sources report that the recent supply concerns over semiconductor-grade helium triggered by the US-Iran conflict have eased, as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix secured long-term contracts ensuring stable access to the critical gas.

AUO eyes CPO and LEO satellites as Innolux pushes FOPLP growth
Apr 10, 08:04
AUO and Innolux are accelerating their expansion beyond traditional display panels, with Innolux's non-display revenue surpassing 51% in 2025, mainly driven by automotive applications. AUO also aims to obtain a non-display revenue share exceeding 50% in 2026.
China's largest memory maker CXMT is targeting mass production of 12-layer high-bandwidth memory (HBM) by 2027, positioning itself to challenge mainstream specifications long dominated by South Korean suppliers — all within three years of entering the segment.
As AI and high-performance computing (HPC) demand surges and the semiconductor supply chain undergoes accelerating restructuring, structural changes are emerging in the critical materials market long dominated by major US and Japanese players. Praise Victor Industrial (PVI), specializing in polyurethane (PU) material technology and operating three main product lines — semiconductor polishing pads and consumables, medical and sports products, and eco-friendly adhesives — counts Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), Nexchip, TSMC, UMC, and Micron among its customers. The company plans to go public in May 2026.
Transcom Technology expects flat full-year revenue for 2026 amid stalled progress in Taiwan's defense budget, which is potentially delaying deliveries of Gong-3 and Gong-4 missile systems. A first mass-production order for a high-frequency SSPA module from an Indian client, however, could help the company expand its international revenue share to 30%.

Taiwan-based touch IC design leader Elan Microelectronics announced its March 2026 and first-quarter revenue figures, posting robust growth despite a traditionally slow season.

Memory prices are rising sharply, with Transcend Information chairman Peter Shu warning that supply-demand pressure will intensify through 2026 despite weakening consumer demand.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are reportedly shifting to multi-year memory supply agreements, marking a structural change in how the global memory industry prices, allocates, and plans capacity in the AI era.

Although Taiwanese firms have largely missed the core AI chip development battlefield, a few with critical technological barriers have broken through—most notably Aspeed and ASMedia. These two companies boast remarkable profitability and capital market performance that even outpace MediaTek, Taiwan's largest IC design firm. Significantly, their founding management teams mostly originated from the once-dominant PC chipset giants Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) and VIA Technologies.
The market continues to closely watch the deployment of co-packaged optics (CPO) technology in cloud AI, driven by the desire of the silicon photonics (SiPh) ecosystem to see a tangible revenue impact. Cloud AI vendors are also hoping that adopting SiPh will simultaneously improve both cost efficiency and computational performance limits.