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Hand-picked coverage from the Techstrong Semi editorial team.
TSMC Crushes Q2 Earnings Expectations, Raises Outlook
Just days after Samsung’s record-breaking second-quarter earnings, history repeated itself when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) reported record second-quarter earnings on the chipmaker’s central role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer posted second-quarter revenue of NT$1.27 trillion (US$40.2 billion), a 36% increase from Q2 of 2025. Net income […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 16, 2026 · 2 min
Arteris, Arm Partner for Secure Chip Development
Semiconductor IP company Arteris is expanding its longstanding partnership with Arm Holdings to provide advanced hardware security verification across a broader range of Arm’s CPU portfolio. With so many technologies, the development cycle is focused on getting it running, making it run faster and then securing it, in that order. Security has a tendency to […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 16, 2026 · 2 min
China’s Chip Ambitions Rise as CXMT Launches $10 Billion IPO
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. is launching a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) on Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR Board to raise nearly $10 billion, one of the largest in Asian history and a crucial test of investor appetite for China’s burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain. The Hefei-based DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) champion has […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 15, 2026 · 2 min
Meta to Begin Production of Custom Iris AI Chips in September in Bid for 14-Gigawatt Power Grid: Report
Meta Platforms Inc. plans to begin manufacturing its next-generation custom artificial intelligence (AI) chip in September, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters. Code-named Iris, the in-house silicon is part of a broader effort by the social media giant to double its computing infrastructure capacity to 14 gigawatts by next year and reduce its […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 14, 2026 · 2 min
Apple’s M7 Ultra is About Securing the Homeland
Apple may be preparing to build one of the most formidable AI server processors in the market. That does not mean it wants to become the next AWS. According to Mark Gurman’s latest Bloomberg Power On report, Apple is accelerating development of an AI-focused M7 generation, including an M7 Ultra designed to support as much […]
Alan Shimel · Jul 14, 2026 · 8 min
Samsung Posts Record Q2 Preliminary Profit
The AI memory boom has produced at least one big winner: Samsung Electronics, one of the three major memory makers, posted preliminary Q2 earnings that blow away all prior sales figures. The South Korean technology giant said it expects second-quarter operating profit of 89.4 trillion won (US$58.4 billion), a nearly 19-fold increase from a year […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 13, 2026 · 3 min
MIT Researchers Unveil Petabit Photonic Networking Chip
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they have made a series of breakthroughs that could pave the way for computer chips capable of transmitting more than a petabit of data per second while consuming far less energy. The work comes from MIT’s Future of Integrated Photonics and Electronics Microsystems (FUTUR-IC) research program, […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 13, 2026 · 2 min
Is SK hynix the Power Behind NVIDIA’s Throne?
For most of the computer era, memory chips were the semiconductor industry’s supporting cast. Necessary, certainly. Occasionally scarce. Often expensive at precisely the wrong moment. But they were not what made people line up for product launches or drove investors into a frenzy. Processors were where the action was. Memory was the mundane stuff sitting […]
Alan Shimel · Jul 13, 2026 · 9 min
SK hynix Places $8 Billion Chipmaking Equipment Order
SK hynix is making one of the largest manufacturing investments in the semiconductor industry’s history, with a proposed 11.9 trillion won (roughly $8 billion) purchase of advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems from Dutch chip equipment maker ASML. The purchase, disclosed in regulatory filings tied to SK hynix’s planned Nasdaq listing, comes as it ramps […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 10, 2026 · 1 min
Micron Bets $250 Billion on AI Boom with Expanded U.S. Manufacturing
Micron Technology Inc. on Thursday announced an expanded $250 billion U.S. investment strategy through 2035, placing itself squarely at the forefront of the domestic semiconductor manufacturing boom. Driven by skyrocketing artificial intelligence (AI) demand and a federal push to secure critical supply chains, the memory chip giant increased its previous capital expenditure commitment by $50 […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 9, 2026 · 2 min
DeepSeek Developing Custom Inference Chip Amid China’s AI Hardware Push
Chinese startup DeepSeek is reportedly developing its own AI inference chip, a move that would lessen its reliance on processors from NVIDIA and Huawei and place it on a growing list of AI developers building proprietary silicon. The planned processor is intended for inference, when an AI model produces responses to user prompts. That segment […]
James Maguire · Jul 7, 2026 · 2 min
Apple, Broadcom Extend Custom AI Chip Partnership Through 2031
Broadcom Inc. has secured a major long-term extension to supply custom semiconductors to Apple Inc. through 2031, the company announced Monday. The expanded partnership leans heavily on application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) designed to power Apple’s growing artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, effectively easing Wall Street concerns regarding the iPhone maker’s efforts to phase out third-party silicon. […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 6, 2026 · 3 min
AI Boom Could Extend Memory Shortage Until 2030
The artificial intelligence revolution is reshaping the global memory market, and not for the better, but in ways that could keep shortages and higher prices in place for years, according to a new report from consulting firm Kearney. The report, titled “The Great Memory Reallocation,” states that the industry is facing more than a traditional […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 2, 2026 · 3 min
South Korean Government Proposes Massive Investment in Memory Manufacturing
The government of the Republic of Korea has unveiled a plan to invest at least $880 billion in memory capacity to ease the global shortage brought on by AI investment. South Korea is home to two of the three dominant DRAM makers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. The third is Micron Technology, headquartered in Boise, […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 30, 2026 · 2 min
Qualcomm Makes Data Center Push Targeting AI Infrastructure
Qualcomm recently held an Investor Day conference where it laid out an aggressive strategy to push into data center market, while working alongside dominant players like NVIDIA and Intel rather than competing with them. If all goes according to plan, Qualcomm will have diversified its market considerably beyond just smartphones and become a major supplier […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 29, 2026 · 3 min
Apple Seeks White House Approval to Buy Chips From Blacklisted Chinese Maker Amid AI Supply Crunch
Apple Inc. is lobbying the Trump administration for federal permission to purchase memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. (CXMT), a prominent Chinese semiconductor firm currently blacklisted by the U.S. government, according to a report by The Financial Times. The tech giant approached the Commerce Department more than a month ago and has engaged White […]
Jon Swartz · Jun 28, 2026 · 2 min
IBM Breaks the 1NM Barrier With New ‘Nanostack’ Architecture
IBM is not the first name that comes to mind when it comes to chip design, but in fact it is on the bleeding edge of semiconductor development, thanks in part to its multi-decade partnership with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. And once again, IBM has unveiled a first: it has developed the first transistor technology below […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 26, 2026 · 2 min
ON Semiconductor to Acquire Synaptics in $7 Billion Physical AI Push
ON Semiconductor Corp. has agreed to acquire Synaptics Inc. in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $7 billion, marking the largest deal in the company’s history. The acquisition signals an aggressive expansion beyond ON Semiconductor’s core power and sensing business into the rapidly growing market for physical AI, intelligence that runs locally on hardware rather […]
Jon Swartz · Jun 26, 2026 · 2 min
Micron, Anthropic Partner for Next-Gen AI Infrastructure
Micron Technology and Anthropic have announced a strategic alliance to jointly develop the next generation of artificial intelligence infrastructure. The partnership will focus on optimizing memory and storage solutions for large-scale AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude systems. “Our compute strategy depends on getting every layer of the stack right, and memory and storage are central […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 26, 2026 · 2 min
TSMC Signals Broad Price Hikes Across Advanced Chip Portfolio, Threatening Tech Margins: Report
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s dominant contract chipmaker, […]
Jon Swartz · Jun 25, 2026 · 3 min