AI Gossip

Ardentec plans to invest NT$6 billion (US$185M) in new chip testing lines due to strong AI-related demand, media report, its 3rd investment in Taiwan this year. The investment is via 100%-owned subsidiary Giga Solution Tech. Co. Ltd. The money will be for new production lines and equipment for plants in the Hsinchu Science Park and in Hukou. $Teradyne(TER.US) #Advantest #ChromaATE #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

TSMC and one of Taiwan’s top engineering schools have made a breakthrough in next-generation transistors with a high-performance, single-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) top-gate transistor, media report, adding researchers globally have been looking at novel materials as a way to move chip technology further below 1nm. MoS₂ could be used in 0.7nm chips (7-Angstrom) and CFET architectures, the chip industry’s main next-generation transistor architecture. (Complimentary Field-Effect Transistor). TSMC worked with a research team from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU). $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

Winbond, Taiwan’s 2nd biggest memory chip maker, plans to become the top SLC NAND supplier in the world by 2027, media report, amid rising demand from a range of new businesses: robotics, drones, Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites, in addition to industrial control and automotive. NAND Flash revenue +65% in the 2nd quarter, and SLC NAND accounted for 40%.

Source: Dan Nystedt

$Advanced Semiconductor Engineering(ASX.US) filed ~$160M of equipment POs in the last 48hrs:

Source: Chips & Wafers

Foxconn is expected to see August sales top NT$1 trillion (US$30.9B) for a fresh record high, and subsequent months to continue higher due to strong AI server related demand, media report. AI server sales are up 230% in the 1st half of 2026 due to strong sales of new products (Nvidia GB300, upcoming Vera Rubin), while the 2nd half is also peak season for consumer devices like iPhones, Google Pixel smartphones, more.

Source: Dan Nystedt

Nanya Technology’s board approved to raise 2026 capex to NT$69.7 billion (US$2.2 billion) from NT$52 billion to speed up work on its new Fab 5A, media report, which is ultimately expected to cost up to NT$346.6 billion (US$10.7B) by 2029. It’s the biggest investment by a Taiwan DRAM maker in 20-years. $Micron Tech(MU.US) $SK Hynix(SKHY.US) $SSNLF $Applied Materials(AMAT.US) $KLA(KLAC.US) $Lam Research(LRCX.US) #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

Wistron Chairman Simon Lin said AI servers currently account for 95% of its server business and that the AI trend is so strong that even high memory chip prices haven’t slowed customer spending, media report, adding he doesn’t fear even higher memory prices because “customers will still buy.” He said Wistron’s business has been mainly from one major enterprise client, but new enterprise clients will start taking shipments in the 2nd half. $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) $Dell Tech(DELL.US) $Hewlett Packard Enterprise(HPE.US)

Source: Dan Nystedt

Inventec, the AI server maker, said July sales rose 65.75 year-on-year to NT$90.2 billion (US$2.8B), its 2nd best level ever, media report, and management said its server business will see strong double-digit % growth in the 3rd quarter over the 2nd. $Alibaba(BABA.US) $Baidu(BIDU.US) $Tencent(TCEHY.US) #AIservers

Source: Dan Nystedt

Foxconn: July sales rose 54.2% year-on-year to NT$946.5 billion, a fresh record high and the 1st time over NT$900 billion in a single month, on strong demand and pull-in orders for AI-related products & components. July was up 15.2% over June.

Source: Dan Nystedt

ABF substrate makers are being forced to move faster on expansion plans as AI chip die get bigger, driving demand for larger substrates, media report, noting long term agreements (LTAs) are no longer enough: clients are paying firms to launch 2029-2030 expansion plans now, using a variety of methods:

Source: Dan Nystedt

Silicon wafer production continues to tighten as demand recovers, said GlobalWafers, the world’s 3rd biggest maker, adding 12-inch, 8-inch and 6-inch capacity is nearly full, media report. Chair Doris Hsu said 2027 will see meaningful revenue growth as new 12-inch capacity comes online in Texas and Italy (Novara), along with the ramp up of high-end wafers such as SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator). GlobalWafers inked a 10-year agreement to supply Micron, gaining a US$500 million prepayment, and is now in talks with multiple clients on long term agreements (LTAs). $Micron Tech(MU.US) $SK Hynix(SKHY.US) $SSNLF #GlobalWafers #ShinEtsu #SUMCO #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

AI server giant Wistron will invest an additional NT$13.5 billion in new plants and equipment to further boost production this year amid strong demand for Nvidia GB300 and Vera Rubin based AI servers, media report, citing top executives at Wistron’s Q2 conference.

Source: Dan Nystedt

Prices for the production of older chips (mature processes) will rise even higher next year than this amid strong AI-related demand, media report, citing Taiwan chip foundries. Vanguard (VIS) said 2027 prices will outpace this year due to AI, and UMC and Powerchip (PSMC) both said they too would continue raising prices. VIS Chairman Leuh Fang said AI is driving strong demand for power management chips (PMICs) and discretes, and the shortage will run into 2027. $United Microelectronics(UMC.US) #VIS #PSMC #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

Nanya Technology, Taiwan’s biggest DRAM memory chip maker, said July revenue rose 719.6% year-on-year to NT$43.87 billion, also up 49.3% over June’s NT$29.39 billion on hot demand for memory chips used in AI servers. January through July revenue hit NT$175.5 billion, up 660.9%. Market estimates put DRAM prices up 60% in the 2nd quarter over the 1st, while bit shipments were flat. $Micron Tech(MU.US) $SK Hynix(SKHY.US) $SSNLF

Source: Dan Nystedt

Ibiden Q1: BEAT AND RAISE 🔥

Source: Chips & Wafers

Sony’s talks with TSMC over joint venture development of image sensor production lines at Sony's new fab in Koshi City, Japan (Kumamoto) “are progressing smoothly with a view to signing definitive agreements,” Sony said, adding it has already set aside ¥10 billion yen for the JV, in which it will be the majority shareholder. Sony is partnering with TSMC for its “world class semiconductor process technology” to boost future image sensors not just in mobile, but also physical AI (autos, robotics). $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) $Sony(SONY.US) #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt

Prices of consumer graphics cards are up 30% over the past week in China, with buyers diving in to avoid paying more later, media report. At the world’s biggest wholesale market for graphics cards in Shenzhen, prices of popular cards have gone up the most: Nvidia RTX 5060 hit 3,100 yuan (US$460), up from 2,500 yuan four days ago; Nvidia RTX 5080 over 11,000 yuan ($1,630), up 1,700 yuan vs early July. Taiwan graphics card makers Asustek, MSI, Gigabyte are seen benefitting, as well as China’s Colorful.

Source: Dan Nystedt

A shortage of Apple’s best-selling MacBook Air caused by memory chip shortages show the supply chain disruption in consumer electronics is just beginning, media report, adding Apple’s woes will ripple down its supply chain to hit partners like TSMC, Quanta, Foxconn. The story cites Bloomberg for the MacBook Air shortage news. $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) $Apple(AAPL.US)

Source: Dan Nystedt

TrendForce said AI server shipments are forecast to rise 31% year-on-year in 2026, up from a 28% target previously. The world’s 9 biggest Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), including Google Cloud and Amazon AWS, are forecast to spend US$886.7 billion on capex this year, up 90% from 2025, and 1.32 trillion in 2027, up 49%. The combined capex of China’s 4 biggest CSPs, ByteDance, Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu, will increase by more than 80% in 2026. $Amazon(AMZN.US) $Alibaba(BABA.US) $Baidu(BIDU.US) $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) $Microsoft(MSFT.US) $Meta Platforms(META.US) $Oracle(ORCL.US) $Tencent(TCEHY.US) #ByteDance

Source: Dan Nystedt

Intel’s EMIB-T advanced packaging costs 50% less than TSMC CoWoS, media report, adding EMIB-T will begin mass production next year as yields now exceed 90% - though another report says a 50% substrate yield remains the bottleneck.

Source: Dan Nystedt

KLA's purchase commitments jumped from $2.75B to $4.83B in one quarter. For the last 2 years, this number grew 2-5%. KLA's lead times are now about 12 months vs 7-9 months 10 months ago and 6 months in 2020-21. For certain products, lead times stretched to 18-24 months. KLA's own supply chain has 12-24 month long lead times for some critical items.

Source: Sravan Kundojjala

Intel’s EMIB-T advanced packaging wins ASIC project, and the technology is making good progress for 2028 mass production:

Source: Dan Nystedt

TSMC clients like Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom are vying for advanced processes as TSMC ramps up capacity, media report:

Source: Dan Nystedt

Nvidia Senior VP Gilad Shainer said Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) has entered mass production to meet the massive data throughput and speeds required by Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, which is at least 3x faster than GB300, media report, noting the bandwidth performance of scale-up (intra-rack/chip interconnection) will be 10x that of scale out (inter-rack data center networking). Switches developed by Nvidia and partners have already been sent to key clients and deployed at Nvidia. Shainer is head of R&D for Nvidia InfiniBand and Ethernet high-speed transmission technologies. The announcement is seen as Nvidia’s answer to industry researchers that have recently said broad deployment of CPO might be delayed until 2028-2029 due to heat challenges and complex ASIC integration. $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) $Lumentum(LITE.US) $Coherent Corp.(COHR.US)

Source: Dan Nystedt

Rumor: Google is expanding orders for TPU AI server chips as demand heats up, with market researchers putting TPU demand at 15 million by 2028, more than Nvidia’s current 13 million per year, media report, adding Google turned to Intel for EMIB packaging because Nvidia pre-booked over 50% of TSMC’s CoWoS packaging for the next 3-years. $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) $Intel(INTC.US) #semiconductors

Source: Dan Nystedt