As more AI GPU, CPU, and ASIC customers ramp up their market push, advanced packaging capacity continues to face tight supply. This has prompted upstream IC packaging substrate makers to adopt a more aggressive investment and capacity expansion stance, supported by improved order visibility.
OpenAI is reportedly in negotiations with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to secure funding and collaborate on AWS's in-house developed application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The move comes as OpenAI faces challenges scaling its existing AI partnerships into broader commercial deployments, prompting questions about the strategic significance of this potential alliance.
In a post-earnings analyst call on December 17, 2025, Micron Technologies outlined plans for capital expenditure in fiscal year 2026, driven by global construction projects and the ramp-up of its India assembly facility in Sanand. The company also noted flat operating expenses through the mid-fiscal year, strong SSD demand, and a phased rollout of HBM4 on the 1-beta process node.
The global memory market is being gripped by its most severe shortage and price surge in years, one driven by structural shifts rather than the familiar boom-and-bust cycles of the past. Industry executives across the supply chain say the disruption could persist until 2027.
Micron Technology is ramping up capital spending to address tightening memory supply, raising fiscal 2026 capex to about US$20 billion as it accelerates investments in high-bandwidth memory and advanced DRAM nodes to meet surging AI-driven demand.
Micron Technology signalled confidence in sustaining elevated gross margins as its memory portfolio shifts further toward high-value products, even as new fab investments begin to introduce start-up costs from late fiscal 2026.
Apple is reportedly in preliminary talks with Indian chip manufacturers to assemble and package components for the iPhone, potentially marking a first step in shifting part of its semiconductor operations to India.
Micron Technology's latest financial results point to a deepening structural upswing in the memory market, with AI-driven demand pushing pricing, margins, and investment plans higher, while management signals supply tightness extending well into 2026 and beyond.
After sharp price hikes across multiple memory categories caused by tight supply-demand conditions, overall supply-chain costs have come into sharper focus. Memory is far from the only component facing increases. Advanced-node wafers may also see price adjustments as supply tightens, while prices of various precious metals have risen steadily throughout 2025. Some key chemical materials, constrained by limited supply, also face upward pricing pressure. Combined with tariffs and ongoing supply-chain diversification, the sense that "everything is getting more expensive" has become difficult to ignore.
Taiwan has long dominated advanced semiconductor manufacturing, with TSMC's global R&D headquarters in Hsinchu alone employing over 10,000 researchers. The government continues to foster collaboration between academia and industry to advance both technology and talent development. Against this backdrop, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is launching a new initiative in 2025 to sustain Taiwan's leading position in next-generation chip manufacturing over the next five to ten years.
Leatec Fine Ceramics, an upstream supplier of ceramic materials for passive components, held an in-person investor conference on December 15. CFO Chen Yung-tsang said rising global macro uncertainty has made downstream customers more cautious since the second quarter of 2025. Procurement patterns have shifted clearly from long-term contracts to short-term orders, compressing overall order visibility to around one month.
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