Summary: TSMC CEO C.C. Wei confirmed on Thursday, October 15, 2026 that the company is considering expanding its American production capacity beyond Arizona, with Texas as one option; teams have been sent to Texas for evaluation, and TSMC has discussed with a customer attempting to build a fab called Terafab (Elon Musk). If TSMC joins the project, it would insist on operating the fab. Discussions are ongoing and no agreement has been reached yet.
Russian chipmakers demonstrated homegrown RISC-V and Arm chips with retro games at the Microelectronics 26 (ME26) forum in Sochi on October 11, 2026, as reported in an article published October 15, 2026. The demo featured a Baikal Electronics BE-U1000 microcontroller-based NES clone, an Elvis Hypercom-U SoC, and MCST's Elbrus-based PCs. The source does not state the cause. The event status is observed demonstration.
Dutch company Prodrive Technologies said at SEMICON West 2026, held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Oct. 13 (the event runs Oct. 13 to 15), that it plans to open an office in South Korea between late 2026 and early 2027 to strengthen support for local customers, including Hanwha Semitech, and expand its presence through sales activities. The company said it is recruiting local employees in preparation for the office opening and expects to open "around the end of this year or early next year," considering Dongtan and Pangyo as potential locations. The Korean office will handle sales and customer support, with a small team being recruited; a representative said there are no plans to establish manufacturing facilities in Korea because Korean customers can be supported from Malaysia, China and Europe. Prodrive is also building a new manufacturing facility in Malaysia, operates production sites in the Netherlands, Boston in the US, and China, has sales offices in Japan and Israel, and employs approximately 2,300 people worldwide. It develops modules and provides system integration services for semiconductor equipment manufacturers; in South Korea, Hanwha Semitech collaborated with Prodrive to develop a hybrid bonder, and earlier this year the second-generation hybrid bonder, SHB2 Nano, was manufactured and assembled at Prodrive's Netherlands facility before being brought to South Korea. Prodrive also supplies linear motors and servo drives for magnetic levitation systems used in ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment.
On October 15, 2026, Dutch specialty foundry XIVER announced it has acquired an ASML PAS 5500 DUV lithography tool for its Eindhoven foundry, with the tool expected to be operational in 2027. The DUV stepper will complement XIVER’s existing i-line lithography equipment, enabling finer and more precisely aligned structures, including double-sided wafer patterning and sub‑micron 3D micromachining. XIVER says it will be the only mid‑size pure‑play foundry offering in‑house DUV lithography. the source does not state the cause. XIVER was carved out of Philips at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven and acquired by Dutch investors in early 2025. Since then, it has been expanding its manufacturing capabilities in line with its customers’ roadmaps and expected capacity needs.
ASML PAS 5500 DUV lithography toolXIVER, ASMLEvertiqCapacity Change
ASML reported record third-quarter 2026 sales of €11.7 billion ($13.6 billion), up 25% from the previous quarter, as growing demand for AI chips continues to drive semiconductor equipment investment.
On its third-quarter 2026 earnings call held on October 14, ASML said it has shifted from taking orders to allocating them: customers want to place orders as far out as 2029 and 2030, but it will not accept those orders until it has weighed total demand against its own capacity. ASML also confirmed, for the first time, that customers have agreed to pay more for its most critical machines. The source frames this against a deepening EUV shortage.
Memory chipmakers have reportedly become the fastest-growing source of demand for ASML, and the two largest Korean memory makers have reportedly accepted higher replacement-part prices from the Dutch company. ASML is preparing to charge more for its most critical tools. Attention now turns to TSMC, ASML's largest customer, which according to earlier reports was an opponent of the price increases; whether TSMC accepts remains an open question.
ASML replacement parts for lithography toolsASML most critical toolsASML, TSMCDigiTimes AsiaPrice Movement
ASML's Q3 2026 financial results show shipments to China surged to 23% of system sales, up from 14% in the previous quarter, becoming one of its strongest areas. Chinese semiconductor manufacturers are rushing to stockpile more tools. Taiwan remains the largest buyer at 32%, followed by South Korea at 31%. The United States is reportedly pressuring the Dutch government to completely halt tool exports to China. CXMT and YMTC have secured sufficient DUV lithography tools from ASML to support their growth plans for the next three years.
shipments to Chinasystem salesASML, Chinese semiconductor manufacturers and 4 totalTechPowerUpInventory Shift
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ASML, Chinese semiconductor manufacturers, CXMT, YMTC
On October 14, 2026, TrendForce reported from the OCP Global Summit 2026 that Arm said the CPU market is expected to surge from $52 billion in 2026 to $300 billion by 2030 due to agentic AI redefining data center architectures; Arm’s AGI CPU debuted in March 2026.
On its earnings call, ASML warned that even with a planned 30% capacity increase in 2027 followed by another targeted 30% expansion in 2028, its planned capacity would fall short of customer demand in both 2027 and 2028; Reuters, citing CEO Christophe Fouquet, notes that orders for 2028 are already pouring in, with some customers looking to secure equipment as far ahead as 2029 or even 2030. ASML expects to ship around 65 systems, up more than 50% from last year, and the outlook for DUV immersion tools has improved significantly: after initially anticipating a decline in shipments, the company now expects volumes to remain roughly flat year over year. ASML confirmed it will introduce the NXE:3800F EUV scanner in 2027, boosting wafer throughput from today's 230 wafers per hour to 260 wph, a breakthrough the company said is expected to meaningfully scale customer production capacities starting in 2028 and beyond; it is also upgrading key DUV immersion tools scheduled for delivery in 2027 to a record 330 wph. On pricing, ASML said pricing discussions with major customers have concluded, with the impact expected to be minimal in 2026, beginning in 2027 and fully visible from 2028 onward; according to The Elec, ASML is reportedly seeking a 10% price hike on replacement parts supplied to South Korea, with Samsung Electronics and SK hynix already notified. Financially, ASML posted record third-quarter net sales of €11.66 billion, up from €9.33 billion in the previous quarter; net profit surged to €4.96 billion from €2.92 billion and gross margin expanded to 57.5% from 54%. It forecasts Q4 revenue of €14.2 billion–€15.2 billion ($15.9 billion–$17.0 billion) with gross margin around 57%, and raised the lower end of full-year revenue guidance by €1 billion to €44 billion–€45 billion while maintaining the upper end, with gross margin of approximately 56%. The price impact has not yet taken effect and the capacity expansions remain planned.
Intel proposes an open software blueprint that positions open software as connective tissue linking CPUs, GPUs, data, and business applications, emphasizing upstream contributions to frameworks like PyTorch, SGLang, and vLLM, aiming for Day 0 readiness, describing Xeon as the operational foundation for inference, extending to disaggregated inference, and presenting microservices and enterprise agent toolkits as building blocks; the article notes it is a blueprint, not proof of execution.
Per the title, TSMC and ASML are eyeing 12-inch photomasks to unlock High-NA EUV lithography's full-field potential; this is exploratory/planned in nature, with no indication of implementation. The body provides only background: advanced semiconductor manufacturing is progressing toward 2nm and angstrom-era nodes (Å; where 1 nm equals 10 Å), bringing high-numerical-aperture extreme ultraviolet (High-NA EUV) lithography into focus. No quantities, prices, timeline, or implementation status are given in the source.
According to Commercial Times, the CPU price-hike wave is gaining momentum in October, fueled by growing demand for AI PCs and servers and rising advanced-node manufacturing costs. Intel has raised processor prices three times since late last year, and reportedly introduced price adjustments across its product lines starting September 1, with high-end Panther Lake models seeing the largest increases of 15% to 20%, compared with 5% to 10% for Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake. The latest hikes do not apply to the entire Panther Lake lineup but focus on models with high-end GPU tiles, which are manufactured by TSMC on its N3E, while Panther Lake adopts a heterogeneous integration architecture combining these GPU tiles with CPU compute tiles produced on Intel's own 18A. According to Commercial Times, citing supply chain sources, Qualcomm increased prices for PC processor platforms including Snapdragon X and X2 Elite by approximately 10% starting in October. AMD is reportedly preparing price adjustments for certain CPUs, although the magnitude, scope, and timing remain unconfirmed. Foundry pricing is a key factor: according to Central News Agency, analysts forecast TSMC will raise manufacturing prices further in 2027, with increases of 5% to 10% for advanced nodes, 10% to 15% for advanced packaging, and 3% to 5% for mature nodes. According to TrendForce, CPU supply has improved significantly since 2Q26, allowing brands to normalize procurement and production; as CPU shortages ease in 2H26, the decline in global notebook shipments for full-year 2026 is expected to narrow to 9.4% YoY, though continued increases in DRAM and SSD prices alongside higher CPU costs continue to pressure notebook makers. Per Reuters, CEO Lisa Su said on October 6 that AMD is working with partners including TSMC to expand CPU and GPU production capacity to meet growing AI demand; AMD has begun ramping its sixth-generation EPYC processors (Venice) on TSMC's 2nm and plans to substantially increase chip supply in 2027.
CPUprocessorPC processor platformIntel, Qualcomm and 4 totalTrendForcePrice Movement
According to The Elec, ASML reportedly plans to raise prices by 10% on all replacement parts supplied to South Korea, covering both EUV and DUV lithography systems. The report notes that ASML notified Samsung Electronics and SK hynix of the planned increase through its South Korean subsidiary in early September, and the new prices will apply to deliveries starting in January 2027. The increase covers everything from regularly purchased consumables to major components replaced due to failures or declining performance; while ASML has previously adjusted prices for individual parts due to rising raw material costs or supply shortages, an across-the-board 10% hike is unusual, and industry sources suggest the company is seeking a larger share of its customers' profits. ASML is also reportedly discussing higher prices for newly ordered lithography equipment with major customers. For context, ASML generated €8.193 billion in revenue from services, replacement parts, and upgrades for installed equipment last year, roughly 25% of its total revenue of €32.667 billion, and expects this business to grow by more than 30% this year. According to Reuters, its EUV machines priced around US$200 million each are nearly sold out through 2027, and next-generation High-NA EUV systems are priced at roughly US$400 million each. ASML has also reportedly sought a 10% price increase for DUV lithography equipment, with some Chinese customers accepting, while TSMC is said to be resisting price hikes for both EUV and DUV systems; Applied Materials said in August that higher prices were supporting margin expansion, Tokyo Electron said in late July it was negotiating price adjustments to offset rising costs; lead times for certain deposition equipment components have increased from four months to as long as 10 months, and some Japanese-made laser-processing components face delivery times of up to 40 months. The source does not state a single definitive cause, linking the increases to AI-driven capacity expansion, inflation, and rising raw material costs.
EUV光刻系统更换零部件DUV光刻系统更换零部件EUV光刻设备ASML, Samsung Electronics and 6 totalTrendForcePrice Movement
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ASML, Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, TSMC
ASML will raise prices by 10% across replacement parts supplied to South Korea, covering all parts for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems, with the new prices taking effect for deliveries starting in January 2027. According to industry sources, ASML headquarters notified Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix of the proposed increase through its South Korean subsidiary in early September, and the increase was finalized after discussions with the purchasing organizations of both companies. Prices will rise for everything from consumable parts purchased regularly to major components replaced because of failures or performance degradation, raising the cost of keeping the equipment operational. Industry sources say ASML has traditionally adjusted prices for individual parts only when raw material costs rose sharply or specific materials became difficult to procure, making a blanket 10% increase unusual; an industry official said component prices have risen across the board but ASML also appears to be seeking a larger share of the profits its customers are making. ASML separately reports revenue from services, parts and upgrades for installed equipment, which totaled €8.193 billion last year, accounting for 25% of total sales of €32.667 billion, and the company forecast this revenue would grow by more than 30% this year. Prices for newly ordered equipment are also likely to increase, and ASML is discussing equipment price increases with major customers. The Information reported in July that ASML had notified Chinese semiconductor manufacturers and other customers of a 10% increase in DUV equipment prices, with some customers accepting, while largest customer TSMC was reportedly opposing the increase. Industry observers expect the across-the-board increase, accepted by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, to strengthen the position of other equipment and component suppliers seeking price increases: Applied Materials said in August that prices had risen for both new and existing products, Tokyo Electron said in late July it was pursuing price adjustments including for equipment already on the market, and Advanced Energy Industries said it had raised prices for some product lines. The source states the cause: AI data center investment has prompted memory makers and foundries to expand capacity simultaneously, driving up equipment and component orders while suppliers need time to expand production, creating a supply-demand imbalance; rising inflation and raw material costs have added to supplier cost burdens, giving suppliers greater negotiating leverage.
EUV lithography system replacement partsDUV lithography system replacement partsASML, Samsung Electronics and 3 totalThe ElecPrice Movement
A team including researchers at KAIST and South Korean startup TDS Innovation published a paper, "Spatially deterministic nucleation of 2D semiconductors by etching flux," in Nature on October 7, demonstrating a way to control where 2D semiconductor crystals begin growing: the etching-flux-mediated single-centred nucleation (EF-SCN) process uses oxygen released from an oxide barrier to create a lateral etching flux that suppresses nucleation everywhere within each patterned growth region except at its geometric center. FETs built with the process reported higher charge-carrier mobility than previously reported for selectively grown MoS₂ transistors; in a separate test across a two-centimeter substrate, the process produced single crystals at 397 of 400 patterned sites, a yield of 99.3 percent, which is not yet a demonstration of commercial chip production. Paper co-author Kibum Kang is co-CEO of TDS Innovation, which develops equipment and materials for 2D semiconductor devices. TDS's Jony Jung said the firm is aiming to enable commercial use of 2D semiconductors around 2030, and that accelerating demand from AI, including physical AI and robotics, could help bring adoption forward, although production timing will depend on further validation; the paper does not say when 2D semiconductors made this way will appear in production chips.
Hyper-NA EUV could be ready around 2036, based on the roughly ten-year development outlook reported by ASML and Zeiss engineers in October 2026. No firm shipment schedule has been announced; ASML has begun development but has not committed to producing the machine.
ASML has begun a ten-year programme to reduce feature sizes from 8nm to 5nm, naming the new tool Hyper NA EUV, which raises the numerical aperture from 0.55 to at least 0.75, with an estimated machine cost of $724 million; Zeiss says it can already produce the mirrors to the required precision.