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Monday 18 May 2026
TSMC's Japan fab signals a turning point for overseas manufacturing

TSMC's semiconductor venture in Japan has posted its first quarterly profit since entering mass production, marking an important milestone in the company's overseas expansion strategy.

Monday 18 May 2026
Apple's chip recycling strategy deepens reliance on TSMC and pressures PC rivals
Apple has increasingly relied on "binned" chips — processors with disabled or defective cores — to expand into lower-priced devices, according to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal. The strategy allows the company to reuse chips that would otherwise be discarded, lowering costs while broadening its product lineup.
Monday 18 May 2026
South Korean court bars factory occupations and orders safety work during planned Samsung strike
A South Korean court granted Samsung Electronics an injunction on May 18, 2026, limiting union dispute actions and ordering that safety protection systems and wafer anti-deterioration operations remain fully staffed and operational during any strike, according to Seoul Economic Daily. The Suwon District Court issued the decision three days before a planned general strike on May 21, 2026, and the ruling is expected to constrain the scale and methods of any walkout.
Monday 18 May 2026
As AI redraws chip industry, TSMC faces its first real rivals
The global map of semiconductor manufacturing is beginning to shift. For years, the market for advanced chip production was dominated almost entirely by TSMC. But the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), intensifying geopolitical tensions, and mounting pressure from Washington to secure critical supply chains are beginning to loosen that grip.
Monday 18 May 2026
Samsung and union enter new round of talks ahead of planned strike
Samsung Electronics and its labor union in South Korea began a new round of negotiations on May 18, days before a planned strike that could bring its chip plants to a halt. The talks are being mediated by the government, which has signaled concern about the labor action's impact on the South Korean economy, in which Samsung contributes more than 20% of its exports.
Monday 18 May 2026
DIGITIMES Insight: Intel and AMD diverge as TSMC prepares price hikes
Global server markets may shift as DIGITIMES analyst Luke Lin says Intel's revenue gains stem largely from price rises while AMD posts stronger shipment-led growth. TSMC plans another price increase as customers prioritize capacity over cost, developments that could affect cloud providers, vendors, and data center economics worldwide.
Monday 18 May 2026
Weekly news roundup: TSMC faces AI supply strain as Samsung, Intel, and Apple test foundry alternatives
Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of May 11-17, 2026:
Monday 18 May 2026
India roundup: India's semiconductor ambitions expand from AI power management to supply-chain localization

India's semiconductor and electronics sectors are accelerating across multiple fronts, from AI-driven power-chip development and domestic EV battery technology to smartphone manufacturing and semiconductor supply-chain expansion. Industry executives and analysts say the shift reflects India's broader effort to move beyond assembly into higher-value chip design, power electronics, and localized technology ecosystems.

Friday 15 May 2026
Broadcom loses South Korea appeal over fine for alleged coercive Samsung supply deal
Broadcom lost its appeal in South Korea on May 13, 2026, when the Seoul High Court upheld a KRW191 billion (approx. US$130 million) fine for allegedly coercing Samsung Electronics into an unfair three-year supply contract, according to Yonhap and Seoul Economic Daily. The court dismissed challenges brought by Broadcom's US headquarters and three South Korean affiliates against the Korea Fair Trade Commission's corrective order and penalty.
Friday 15 May 2026
Trump-Xi summit is Nvidia's best shot at getting back into China
US President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week has put Nvidia's stalled H200 sales in China back in focus, as Washington's export approvals have yet to translate into revenue for the AI chipmaker.
Friday 15 May 2026
US clears Nvidia’s H200 for China, but Beijing can still say no
The US has cleared around 10 Chinese companies to buy Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips, but no deliveries have been made, suggesting that Washington's approval alone may not be enough to revive the company's high-end China business.
Friday 15 May 2026
Analysis: Nvidia ramped up AI investments to US$45.3 billion in 2026, reshaping AI supply chain
Nvidia expanded a rapid investment campaign in 2026, deploying US$17.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended January 25, 2026, and topping US$45.3 billion so far in 2026, according to the company's financial disclosures and PitchBook data. Executives framed the activity as targeted moves across model providers, compute and cloud firms, and hardware and optical interconnect suppliers aimed at securing end demand and reducing bottlenecks in the AI inference stack.
Friday 15 May 2026
Malaysia's Arm-backed chip push lifts Oppstar, SkyeChip as startup ambitions expand beyond packaging
Malaysia is accelerating efforts to expand beyond semiconductor assembly and testing into chip design, following a government-backed initiative tied to access to Arm technology.
Friday 15 May 2026
South Korea denies plan to share semiconductor tax windfall with citizens
A political debate in South Korea over how to manage windfall tax revenues from the country's semiconductor boom has intensified after remarks by a senior presidential aide sparked widespread controversy and conflicting media reports.
Thursday 14 May 2026
QBit Semiconductor targets edge AI growth as copier chips turn oligopolistic
IC design firm QBit Semiconductor will list on the Emerging Stock Board on May 15, 2026, and chairman Simon Shen, a former Kinpo executive, said the debut marks a new milestone for the company and underscores a promising growth outlook.
Thursday 14 May 2026
Etron's robotics bets gain ground as memory cycle turns
Etron Technology is seeing momentum extend beyond its core memory business, as subsidiaries built over the past several years begin to bear fruit in robotics, edge computing, and privacy-focused applications.
Thursday 14 May 2026
Alibaba faces mounting margin pressure as AI investments accelerate
Analysts gave Alibaba Group Holding's latest results a cautious reception, warning that surging artificial intelligence (AI) investments are pressuring profitability even as cloud growth accelerates. While investors welcomed strong AI-related momentum and rising cloud revenue, several research firms said heavy infrastructure spending and weaker-than-expected earnings underscored the mounting costs of Alibaba's ambitious AI expansion.
Thursday 14 May 2026
Tencent eyes Chinese ASIC ramp in 2H26
Tencent Holdings Limited reported a 9% year-over-year increase in total revenue to CNY196 billion (approx. US$28.86 billion) for the first quarter of 2026, driven by a strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence (AI) and stabilized growth in its core gaming and advertising segments. Company executives highlighted the quarter as a turning point, noting "significant initial progress on our new AI products" while continuing to integrate machine learning across existing business lines.
Thursday 14 May 2026
Analysis: How OpenAI is playing the Cerebras card to reshape its AI supply chain
OpenAI's deep partnership with chipmaker Cerebras has taken a public turn as Cerebras prepares to list in the US, a development that underscores OpenAI's effort to restructure its compute supply chain without abandoning existing suppliers. The listing arrives amid OpenAI's ongoing legal dispute with Elon Musk.
Thursday 14 May 2026
MediaTek courts Intel as Google pushes for alternatives to CoWoS
MediaTek's decision to pursue advanced packaging partnerships with both TSMC's CoWoS ecosystem and Intel's EMIB platform has become one of the semiconductor industry's most closely watched strategic moves.
Thursday 14 May 2026
Lam Research to hire 1,000-plus engineers in Taiwan on AI chip demand
Lam Research said it will hire more than 1,000 professional engineers in Taiwan in 2026 as customer demand mounts and the company expands technical support services for foundry, memory and assembly and test customers.
Wednesday 13 May 2026
L&T Semiconductor Technologies signs multiyear agreement with Synopsys for AI-enabled power module design
L&T Semiconductor Technologies' multiyear agreement with Synopsys to use AI-enabled multiphysics simulation software could accelerate the development of power modules and intelligent power modules, potentially affecting global electric mobility, renewable energy, and industrial automation by improving design efficiency, reliability, and time-to-market for next-generation power electronics, and by enhancing supply-chain resilience.
Wednesday 13 May 2026
Malaysia explores semiconductor listings to strengthen domestic capital markets
Malaysia is exploring ways to encourage more semiconductor-related companies to list on Bursa Malaysia as the government seeks to better align the country's capital markets with its growing role in the global chip supply chain.
Wednesday 13 May 2026
China CPU vendors seize AI inference surge as Intel, AMD supplies tighten

The global race for AI computing power continues to intensify, beyond ongoing GPU shortages. CPUs, long viewed as secondary components in servers, are once again becoming critical parts of data center infrastructure due to the rapid rise of AI inference and AI agent applications.

Wednesday 13 May 2026
Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain posts broadly positive April; AI demand clearly visible across ecosystem
Of the 238 Taiwan-listed semiconductor and related companies tracked by Digitimes, 73% (173 companies) posted positive year-on-year revenue growth in April 2026, and 58% (139) grew month-over-month. Memory makers, AI server assemblers, and advanced packaging houses led the advance, while silicon wafer suppliers and a handful of fabless names faced ongoing headwinds.