Samsung Electronics' third-quarter profit came almost entirely from charging more for memory chips, not from selling more of them. On its earnings call, the company also told investors the shortage behind those prices will last into 2028, even as chipmakers raise spending.

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's leading producer of DRAM memory, is reportedly planning to begin production of HBM3E, despite yields so far only reaching 20% to 30%. This reflects the memory shortage faced by China's market as it seeks to expand its domestic capacity while facing restrictions on critical equipment imports.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are undertaking their largest-ever equipment investments in 2026, but the memory supply increase is not expected to materialize until 2028. By then, however, new South Korean plants and expanded capacity at China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) are expected to come online simultaneously, potentially triggering price competition in commodity DRAM.

Nvidia is reportedly adjusting the fourth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) specification for its Vera Rubin NVL72 platform, cutting bandwidth per GPU from the previously announced 22TB/s to 19.2TB/s, a reduction of about 13%. South Korean industry observers said the move could increase supply flexibility and help balance performance with mass-production delivery, although the reason for the change and its actual impact on supplier orders remain unconfirmed.

Soaring memory prices have pushed some IC design firms to develop and manufacture their own SRAM as a substitute for DRAM, while electronics assemblers and brand manufacturers that still need DRAM face challenges in passing on higher costs and securing supply through long-term contracts.

Samsung Electronics' next-generation semiconductor process data was allegedly removed without authorization by a university-industry research partner in South Korea, raising concerns over security vulnerabilities in industry-academia collaborations. The researcher, who reportedly retained Samsung employee access while working on the project, was indicted after allegedly transferring extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography information to a personal cloud account for use in the collaboration.

Memory module maker Team Group reported record third-quarter results for 2026, with earnings per share soaring 1,482.55% year-over-year, while its board approved plans for a new plant in New Taipei City that is scheduled to begin production in the second quarter of 2027 and increase total capacity by about 50%.

Macronix International posted record profits in the third quarter of 2026, surpassing $10 billion for the first time in company history. Chairman Miin-Chyou Wu announced that the company will phase out its traditional game console-related read-only memory (ROM) business and freeze NOR Flash capacity expansion. Instead, Macronix will allocate more than NT$30 billion (US$925 million) in capital expenditure toward embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) and NAND Flash. The initial phase of new capacity is expected to ramp up gradually from the second half of 2027 through year-end. "As long as we target the right customers, contract price hikes are inevitable," Wu said.

Taiwan-based Phison Electronics received two awards at Micron Supplier Day 2026, marking the third consecutive year the company has earned recognition from the US memory chipmaker.

The global memory shortage is no longer lifting only the commodity DRAM giants. Ingenic Semiconductor, a Beijing-based fabless chip designer whose memory chips go mainly into cars, factory equipment, medical devices, and networking gear rather than smartphones and PCs, reported third-quarter net profit attributable to shareholders of CNY1.419 billion (US$212.39 million), up 2,595.49% from a year earlier, as tight supply pushed up prices for the specialty DRAM, static random-access memory (SRAM), and flash products that now make up most of its sales.

Samsung Electronics' latest results show AI infrastructure demand increasingly determining the group's earnings, with soaring semiconductor profit offsetting continued losses in its consumer-device division. The company said a sharp expansion in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) sales and rising memory prices drove another record quarter, while its outlook pointed to supply pressure further as customers expand AI investment.

US AI startup Anthropic has formally filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), identifying competitive pressure from Chinese AI companies, model distillation, and cross-border technology restrictions among its operational risks.

SK Hynix said customers are seeking more than twice the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) volume it can currently supply, as moves toward shorter memory stacks reflect supply shortages rather than weakening demand.

SK Hynix plans to extend the life of its existing 6F-squared DRAM cell architecture through extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and process improvements, keeping 4F-squared and three-dimensional (3D) DRAM on its technology roadmap as China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) prepares to unveil a product based on a smaller cell design.

Solidigm, the US-based subsidiary of SK Hynix, is in talks with the US Department of Commerce over a potential US$45 billion investment in a new NAND flash memory fabrication plant, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.

SK Hynix is looking beyond its position as a leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), using venture investments to gain a greater say in how next-generation AI infrastructure is designed.

SK Hynix is reassessing how to finance the US manufacturing expansion of its NAND flash subsidiary Solidigm after shelving a potential initial public offering (IPO), as the South Korean memory maker prepares for higher capital spending in 2027 while committing approximately KRW100 trillion to shareholder returns this year.

SK Hynix is turning to high-bandwidth flash (HBF) to address growing memory bottlenecks in AI inference, as increasingly complex AI agents generate more data than can be economically stored in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and DRAM alone.

Micron Technology is heading to South Korea to recruit engineers for its Taiwan operations, with interviews scheduled in Seoul in late November, as a bonus dispute at its Taoyuan plant remains unresolved. The company and the Taoyuan union held a second round of negotiations on October 27 without reaching an agreement, and a third round has been tentatively set for November 6. At the same time, Micron is advancing a global compensation overhaul, reflecting how profit sharing and competition for technical talent have become a focus for the industry as AI memory demand expands.

SK Hynix's third quarter suggests that, for now, the memory industry's familiar boom-and-bust pattern is giving way to something closer to a contracted, supply-constrained business. The South Korean chipmaker said on October 28 that quarterly revenue passed KRW100 trillion (US$75.38 billion) for the first time, rising 328% from a year earlier and 32% from the second quarter, with an operating margin of 80%. More telling than the record is how the company now describes its order book. Long-term agreements with 14 major customers already cover more than half of its production capacity for 2027 and 2028.

South Korean memory module substrate maker TLB has begun developing substrates for SOCAMM3, a next-generation low-power memory module for AI servers, with two major memory customers at home and abroad, according to sources. The company expects SOCAMM3 to enter mass production in 2028 as it expands SOCAMM2 production and builds capacity to retain its position in the high-end memory module substrate market.

China-based IC design firm Goke Microelectronics will raise prices for its Known Good Die (KGD) packaged products by US$0.5 to US$1.5 per unit from November 2026, depending on capacity. The move marks the second price adjustment known to customers in 2026, as AI-driven memory demand keeps double data rate (DDR) memory supplies tight and pressure spreads to niche memory and integrated packaging products.

China's CXMT has reportedly declined Apple's inquiry about purchasing DRAM, prioritizing supply to domestic customers instead. As global memory supplies tighten and prices rise, the Chinese memory maker's capacity allocation and companies' efforts to secure supply have drawn attention.

Memory maker Macronix International set a new quarterly record in the third quarter of 2026, with gross margin reaching 70.5% and net profit after tax totaling NT$109.5 billion (approx. US$3.37 billion). Chairman Min-chiu Wu said future growth will come mainly from price increases, as limited existing capacity and investment lead times of more than one year prevent rapid expansion through capacity additions.

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Playground Global has returned to Taiwan alongside a cohort of portfolio companies specializing in memory, power management, optical communications, and advanced packaging to showcase joint technical breakthroughs and commercial strategies. The firm is also hosting an executive dinner with Foxconn Chairman Young Liu, highlighting their deep-seated partnership and ongoing commitment to Taiwan's technology ecosystem.