Applied Materials

TSMC has sped up the pace of fab building 5x the historical pace and has 13 under construction in Taiwan and another 5 to 6 in progress overseas – nearly 20 in all, but still cannot meet demand, said Co-COO Cliff Hou, media report, naming construction workers as a key bottleneck. Also, TSMC’s demand for equipment has nearly doubled since the end of last year – a pace equipment suppliers cannot keep up with. $ASML(ASML.US) $Applied Materials(AMAT.US) $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

Morgan Stanley: WFE

Iggy's Journal: Frencken Falls 8% After a S$100 Million Placement

28 August 2026, PM

News:

Frencken (E28) fell as much as 8.3% on Friday after proposing a S$100 million share placement, Business Times reported (Shikhar Gupta, 28 August 2026). It opened as low as S$2.33, down S$0.21 from Tuesday's close of S$2.54. Trading was halted on Wednesday and Thursday.

The placement is 44.1 million new shares at S$2.2687, a 10% discount to the 25 August volume-weighted average price of S$2.5207, placed privately with institutional and accredited investors. That is about 10.3% of existing issued shares, and 9.3% of the enlarged base after completion. BT (Young Zhan Heng, 27 August 2026) said completion is expected on 3 September.

The company said the raise is to fund expansion in manufacturing, mechatronics, and advanced plastic solutions, and to leave room for strategic investments and M&A. After fees, about S$87.4 million (90%) is earmarked for that expansion and the balance sheet, and about S$9.7 million (10%) for working capital or bank-loan repayment. As at 30 June, Frencken had S$123 million in cash and S$53.2 million in borrowings. Mechatronics, including the semiconductor business, was 90.1% of first-half FY2026 revenue.

Year to date Frencken is still up 78.9% on the AI boom, BT said. Customers named include Applied Materials and ASML. 

Just Reporting:

This is a placement story, not a yield story. Frencken is not on the forensic ledger, so there is no zone line to restate. The 8% open is the market pricing a 10% discounted issue after a 78.9% year. On BT's own figures they already hold S$123 million of cash against S$53.2 million of borrowings, so this is not a cash-hole raise on those numbers. Whether the extra shares fund real capacity or just sit in front of the same earnings is a different question. AEM's year and UMS's year stay their own facts. They do not confirm anything about this name.

Not financial advice. 

Cheers, Iggy 🦖

Goldman Sachs: WFE

Taiwan’s ‘Big 5’ chip packaging and testing firms (OSATs) will spend over NT$460 billion (US$14.4B) this year on capex in a bid to catch up with AI-related demand, media report. Industry giant ASE said its biggest problem now is how to accelerate construction, equipment installation, and capacity rollout at 13 new projects and 8 renovations:

Source: Dan Nystedt

Semicap DRAM revenue is on fire. New peaks are loading. ASML has been gaining share in DRAM, driven by higher EUV adoption. AMAT stable. Lam and KLA cyclical gainers. TEL has been a share donor and surprisingly underperformed.

Source: Sravan Kundojjala

Taiwan DRAM maker Nanya Tech plans to build new 12-inch wafer fabs in Yunlin and Pingtung, Taiwan for DRAM and customized DRAM, media report.

Source: Dan Nystedt

Breaking: Michael Burry has finally admitted he's wrong in his updated positions

Semiconductor test and metrology have become the key factor in AI chip yield, cost, performance and mass production speed, moving this formerly behind-the-scenes work to the fore, media report, citing SEMI Taiwan President Terry Tsao. Instead of just catching defects, modern test and metrology equipment now feeds real-time insights back to the design, fabrication and packaging stages for faster troubleshooting. System-Level Testing (SLT), burn-in testing, and reliability verification have all moved up in importance. #Advantest $Teradyne(TER.US) $Applied Materials(AMAT.US) $KLA(KLAC.US) $Onto Innovation(ONTO.US) $Nova(NVMI.US)

Source: Dan Nystedt