[News] MediaTek’s Google TPU v9 Shipments May Slip to 1Q28; ASIC Race Heats Up as Taiwan Firms Eye Opportunities

What happened

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.

Impact and signal

Affected components and suppliers

Source and time

Source: TrendForce · 10/18/2026 · View original source