ACM Research, a US semiconductor equipment maker, is expanding beyond China as its panel-level packaging equipment advances through customer evaluations in Taiwan, while the company invests in South Korea and Oregon. The company expects overseas operations to grow faster than its China revenue, although the source states that technology adoption, packaging-size standards, and US-China tensions could affect its plans. The expansion remains a plan/expectation, customer evaluations are ongoing, and no completion is reported.
Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Spanish company Ingeteam have announced an MOU forming a strategic partnership to distribute, integrate and jointly develop advanced energy infrastructure solutions for US data centers. The alliance combines MHI's expertise in integrated power, cooling and energy management with Ingeteam's expertise in rotating electrical machines, power electronics, control and automation and digital technologies, helping data center operators address power quality and grid-integration challenges created by next-generation AI workloads. Through the alliance, MHI and Ingeteam intend to collaborate on expanding the availability of Ingeteam's power conversion solutions and related software for the US data center market through MHI Group, while exploring opportunities to integrate selected technologies into energy infrastructure architectures developed by MHI Group. The collaboration remains at the MOU stage, with joint development and market expansion being stated intentions.
power conversion systemsintegrated power, cooling and energy managementrotating electrical machinesMitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), IngeteamEvertiqPartnership/M&A
Background article (part 1 of a two-part series) traces the origins of TSMC's success: its modern-day success can be traced back to a public call from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for innovative designs that could break through the 25nm physical limit. Chenming (Calvin) Hu, then a professor at UC Berkeley, was among those who answered the call, and he would go on to become TSMC's first chief technology officer in 2001. The article contains no price, capacity, inventory, or current supply-demand information; the source does not state the cause of any specific event.
On October 19, 2026, MintNeuro announced a USD 5 million investment round to scale its chip platform for neural devices, planning to grow engineering and commercial teams, bring products to market, support customer adoption, and strengthen its US presence alongside its UK and European base.
German equipment maker Von Ardenne is entering the semiconductor industry with coating technology aimed at panel-level packaging, a segment where the choice among competing panel dimensions remains unresolved. Its tray-based systems can handle different substrate sizes without a new platform, potentially reducing equipment risk as manufacturers and customers worldwide weigh standards for advanced packaging and glass-based processes.
panel-level packagingadvanced packagingglass-based processesVon ArdenneDigiTimes Asia
Spanish semiconductor metrology startup Wooptix, whose technology originated in astronomical observation, is accelerating efforts to enter the supply chains of leading semiconductor foundries. The company targets leading chipmakers with its wafer metrology technology and eyes production adoption within 3-5 years. The source does not state the cause, and this progress remains planned, with production adoption not yet achieved.
SK Hynix is strengthening its metrology and inspection (MI) capabilities as the transition toward 3D DRAM architectures and increasingly complex NAND stacking creates new challenges for conventional semiconductor inspection technologies. The source does not state specific measures, timelines, or impacts on capacity or pricing.
Lens Technology is pursuing a proposed US$25 million acquisition of a controlling stake in PMG International to enter the AI server cooling market, gaining access to server rack manufacturing and liquid-cooling technologies. The transaction remains proposed and has not been effected; the source does not state the cause. This move would further diversify the company beyond its existing consumer electronics and automotive components businesses.
server rack manufacturingliquid-cooling technologiesLens Technology, PMG InternationalDigiTimes AsiaPartnership/M&A
Clunix and NeoAI Cloud have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop an integrated AI and HPC operating environment at the Pohang AI Data Center. Under the agreement, Clunix will integrate its AI and HPC management technology with the next-generation GPU infrastructure being built by NeoAI Cloud, and will use its AI orchestration platform NovaTier to establish an operating environment for bare-metal GPU cluster provisioning, integrated AI and HPC workload scheduling, and rack-scale systems such as NVL72. The data center is being developed as a fully liquid-cooled, AI-dedicated facility with a total project cost of 600 billion won; the first phase targets a capacity of 40 megawatts, accommodation for approximately 10,000 Nvidia next-generation Vera Rubin GPUs, and a high-density design exceeding 150 kilowatts per rack, with completion scheduled for November 2027. NHN Cloud has pre-leased half of the available capacity, or 16 MW, and will jointly operate the facility. The companies also plan to leverage Clunix's HPC customer base in manufacturing and research to attract computing demand from Pohang's steel, materials and secondary battery industries.
GPUAI and HPC operating environmentClunix, NeoAI Cloud and 3 totalThe ElecPartnership/M&A
China is moving to tighten oversight of technology transfers that support its companies' overseas expansion, proposing export bans and licensing requirements for artificial intelligence (AI), biomedicine, and solar manufacturing, and requiring exporters to register covered transactions immediately. No specific date is given in the source, and the measure remains a proposal, not yet effective or implemented.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang endorsed the open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw as a foundation for future technology, especially robotics, drawing renewed attention to OpenClaw. His remarks also highlighted the security challenges of autonomous systems, including behavioral drift, and Nvidia's efforts to contain agents through sandboxing, permissions, monitoring, and hardware-based controls.
AUO Chairman and CEO Paul Peng said the company is positioning its growth around artificial intelligence, diversification, and cooperation across the group. As the display technology company marks its 30th anniversary, it will build on three established businesses while seeking fourth and fifth growth pillars through technologies and partnerships, with directions including co-packaged optics and glass core substrates. This is a stated plan; the source does not state investment scale, timetable, or the cause.
Tata's Dholera fab faces customer and shareholder tests; the fab is a planned capacity project, with no reported implementation or completion. Meanwhile, India's semiconductor push is broadening, with packaging, chip services, AI hardware and infrastructure investments accelerating across the country's domestic technology ecosystem. The source does not state the cause.
Lite-On Technology was invited to participate in the Nvidia MGX Ecosystem Ceremony at the 2026 Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit, joining Nvidia and global ecosystem partners to highlight advances in AI infrastructure. During the OCP exhibition, Lite-On showcased its 800VDC Power Rack and 800V-to-50V Power Brick, underscoring its capabilities in next-generation AI power infrastructure.
800VDC Power Rack800V-to-50V Power BrickLite-On TechnologyDigiTimes Asia
Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has opened applications for the country's second five-year quantum technology program, running from 2027 to 2031, with international collaboration as a main focus. The source does not state any direct effect on specific semiconductor component supply or prices.
Micron is developing edge inference memory (EIM) for physical AI applications, which stacks low-power DRAM atop a logic die to improve data processing efficiency, with mass production expected in the second half of 2028.
According to a Wccftech interview with NVIDIA's Vera team reported on 2026-10-19, NVIDIA has chosen a monolithic compute die for its Vera CPU over the chiplet architectures used by major x86 competitors; Vera also features a custom LPDDR5X memory subsystem and NVIDIA's second-generation Scalable Coherent Fabric. As the report explains, unlike traditional cloud workloads that prioritize high core counts and throughput, agentic AI requires strong single-threaded performance, high memory bandwidth, and low latency to execute sequential tasks quickly and keep GPUs highly utilized. The monolithic design allows CPU cores to communicate without crossing boundaries between separate chiplets, reducing data movement latency. NVIDIA says Vera delivers 3.4 TB/s of bisection bandwidth, three times that of the leading x86 processor used in its comparison; Vera delivers 1.5 times the performance of its predecessor, Grace; and for agentic workloads involving sequential tasks such as Python scripting and code compilation, the company claims up to twice the performance of leading x86 processors, with a 1.6-times advantage on a geometric-mean basis. Vera also introduces NVIDIA's Spatial Multithreading technology. NVIDIA initially positioned its Grace CPU primarily as a host processor for GPU systems, but the report states that growing demand for agentic AI and reinforcement learning has prompted a shift toward standalone Vera CPU racks. Separately, according to the Central News Agency, NVIDIA Senior Vice President of Personal Computing Jeff Fisher denied during an interview in Taiwan rumors that NVIDIA plans to discontinue its flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, calling them untrue and stressing that the RTX 5090 remains a key product that NVIDIA will continue to supply; he acknowledged supply constraints are affecting the global industry, not just NVIDIA, but said the company is doing everything possible to bring products to market. TechPowerUp adds that the RTX 5090 remains difficult to find near its US$1,999 MSRP, with some listings on Amazon and Newegg exceeding US$8,000.
Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology published a survey titled 'Can Autonomous Vehicles Keep Their Cool? A Survey of Thermal Side-Channel and Perception Attacks,' highlighting that thermal side channels create new security risks for autonomous vehicles. According to an abstract excerpt, the survey systematizes thirteen representative works into thermal perception integrity, telemetry leakage, and model-information extraction, comparing them by privilege, timescale, co-tenancy, deployability, and AV relevance. The source does not state any direct supply-chain or price impact.
According to Commercial Times, citing institutional investors, Google's TPU v9 project, involving MediaTek, could see its initial tape-out delayed until January 2027 following design revisions, with shipments potentially pushed back to the first quarter of 2028; the November 2026 sampling target remains unchanged, and the production-version tape-out is expected in the second quarter. The report notes that revisions to Google's TPU v9 Core A design, codenamed Humifish... wait, Humufish, have delayed development by approximately three weeks, affecting the Core B and I/O designs handled by MediaTek. According to TrendForce, the chip is expected to adopt Intel's EMIB-T advanced packaging, with substrate yields remaining a key challenge to production scalability and cost competitiveness. Bloomberg, citing sources, reports that ByteDance is nearing an agreement to purchase MediaTek's data center chips, potentially making it MediaTek's second major ASIC customer after Alphabet's Google. Among Taiwanese ASIC design firms: GUC, supported by cloud customers' CPU and ASIC programs, reported record September revenue of NT$7.145 billion, up 97.8% year over year; Alchip posted September revenue of NT$9.979 billion, surging 496% year over year as shipments of 3nm AI accelerators increased. Faraday has obtained Samsung's 2nm process design kit (PDK) to pursue related design opportunities; per Commercial Times, Samsung's 4nm capacity is reportedly fully utilized, prompting some AI ASIC customers to evaluate its 2nm node. Faraday has also completed its design environment setup for Intel's 18A-P and begun offering design services, with plans to pursue more projects in 2027. Commercial Times, citing institutional investors, projects global AI ASIC accelerator shipments to reach 14.1 million units in 2027, up approximately 69% year over year.
Google TPU v9Core A (codenamed Humufish)Core BMediaTek, Google and 11 totalTrendForce
According to Seoul Economic Daily (with ZDNet having reported in September that Samsung is pursuing a dual-track strategy for custom HBM, tapping both its own foundry and rival TSMC), NVIDIA has asked Samsung, SK hynix and Micron to adopt TSMC's 3nm process for the base dies of its NVHBM, unveiled in August. Samsung's Device Solutions (DS) division reportedly agreed to the requirements following an internal review. The stated causes are NVIDIA's push to standardize production across suppliers to ensure consistent HBM performance and simplify product validation; additionally, industry estimates place TSMC's 3nm yields above 90%, versus around 60% for Samsung Foundry's 2nm (SF2) process. NVHBM's custom base die integrates the memory controller traditionally housed in the GPU; according to NVIDIA, the technology offers up to 30% more memory bandwidth, 15% lower HBM power consumption and 25% more XPU compute die area than standard HBM4E. The partnership is not entirely new: according to Seoul Economic Daily, Samsung and TSMC first collaborated four years ago to ensure HBM compatibility with TSMC's GPU packaging process, and this latest tie-up extends into HBM manufacturing for the first time. Samsung is keeping its own foundry in play: with TSMC's 3nm capacity facing competing demand from AI accelerators and smartphone chips, Samsung is validating NVHBM base die production on its 2nm process as a potential alternative should TSMC face capacity constraints. TSMC flagged tight 3nm capacity at its October 15 earnings call, with the node accounting for 33% of third-quarter wafer sales, its largest share among all process nodes; according to Economic Daily News, Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei announced plans for another 3nm fab in Tainan, on top of existing expansion projects in Arizona, Japan's Kumamoto and Taiwan's Southern Taiwan Science Park, with the additional fab slated to begin mass production in the first half of 2028. Samsung also continues in-house base die production for its standard HBM lineup: HBM4, which entered mass production earlier this year, and HBM4E, now undergoing production validation, both use Samsung Foundry's 4nm process for base dies, while their core dies are manufactured on 1c DRAM lines at its Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek campuses; Samsung plans to maintain its turnkey approach to base die production for custom HBM supplied to other customers, including AMD.
NVHBMNVHBM base dieHBM4NVIDIA, TSMC and 5 totalTrendForcePartnership/M&A