India's first semiconductor mission brought fabs, OSAT units, and chip projects into the policy pipeline. Its second phase is being shaped around a harder question: whether India can fix the weak links that determine if those projects become a sustainable semiconductor ecosystem.

AI is shifting the semiconductor supply chain's next bottleneck from wafer fabrication and HBM memory to ABF substrates — a lower-profile but critical packaging material used in high-end CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, and networking chips.

Demand for power components is surging as AI servers adopt high-voltage direct current power delivery and advanced cooling technologies. This shift could increase component density and design complexity across the data center supply chain. Taiwanese power semiconductor makers are moving into cooling and power-management MOS technologies, as well as higher-spec upgrades.

Bloomberg reports that Texas Instruments (TI) has sued former vice president Kannan Soundarapandian, alleging he joined GlobalFoundries without fully disclosing his new employer and may bring proprietary power semiconductor knowledge into competitive use. TI is seeking to block his role, arguing it could expose confidential process "recipes, roadmaps, and know-how," with broader implications for competition in power device manufacturing and advanced process development.

LG Innotek has secured substrate supply terms with major technology customers that increasingly resemble long-term agreements used in the memory-chip sector, boosting the South Korean supplier's revenue visibility and reducing profit volatility, according to reports.Hankyung and Yonhap, citing a KB Securities report, said the proposed contracts include large upfront payments, binding multi-year supply commitments with penalty clauses, and equipment investment support from customers.

Tokyo Electron's Taiwan unit said on May 21 that it respected judicial proceedings and would not appeal following a ruling in a trade secrets case involving TSMC. The decision came after the Taiwan Intellectual Property and Commercial Court on April 27 convicted a former Tokyo Electron engineer for taking confidential TSMC materials and sentenced the individual to 10 years in prison, according to Reuters and Bloomberg.

SK Hynix is reportedly moving to reshape part of its Cheongju campus around wafer testing, a shift that underscores how high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, is putting new pressure on the back end of the chipmaking process.

In a press release on May 20, Japan-based Tokuyama Corporation said it will build a second high-purity isopropyl alcohol plant in Kaohsiung through its joint venture with Formosa Plastics, a move aimed at strengthening global semiconductor supply chains by increasing capacity and quality assurance for electronic manufacturing chemicals and improving stability for customers worldwide through enhanced technical services.

During a keynote discussion session at Tech Forum 2026, DIGITIMES senior reporter Monica Chen and semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu shared their views on current AI server technology transformations, concerns over capital expenditure bubbles among global cloud giants, changes in application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and chip architectures, and TSMC's global expansion strategy.

TSMC's restrained expansion strategy is helping the global market avoid an AI bubble, according to veteran semiconductor investor Gavin Baker, the chief investment officer at Atreides Management. Speaking at the 2026 Sohn Investment Conference, Baker's view runs counter to market consensus at a time when tech giants are pouring money into AI chips and global chip manufacturing is under unprecedented strain.