Short updates from the semiconductor industry, with context and links to the relevant chapters. RSS
Sort: Newest first · Oldest first
October 6, 2026 Devices & Products
Samsung Electronics has reportedly started front-end wafer mass production of the Exynos 2700 mobile application processor. Planned output is set at more than 10% above the Exynos 2600 as Samsung prepares broader use of its in-house chips across the Galaxy S27 lineup.
October 6, 2026 Research
imec has outlined a scalable sCFET architecture that combines split-gate and common-gate options without sacrificing area efficiency. The work also introduces a 5T+1 CFET SRAM bit cell and improves back-end-of-line routability for dense standard cells.
October 6, 2026 Industry & People
South Korean memory makers are reportedly quoting much higher long-term contract prices for sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory. HBM4 is expected to sell for about US$500 to US$550 in 2026, while 2027 quotes could reach US$1,400 to US$1,600, reflecting a 1.8x to 1.9x increase.
October 6, 2026 Devices & Products
Continuity testing is the first step in a semiconductor test flow. It verifies that the DUT is correctly connected to the ATE by checking for opens and shorts and by using the expected behavior of the device’s ESD protection diodes to confirm the pin path.
October 6, 2026 Supply Chain & Sites
Reports of a possible TSMC collaboration with Elon Musk’s “Terafab” plan are already reshaping expectations in Taiwan’s semiconductor facility engineering supply chain. Some contractors are drawing up Texas strategies, while others have begun establishing local offices before any official TSMC announcement.
October 7, 2026 Companies & Market
Infineon Technologies has inaugurated a new backend manufacturing site in Bangkok, Samut Prakan, to expand its global production footprint and add capacity for future growth. The greenfield facility is designed for scalable high-volume output, with cleanroom, assembly, test and wafer test capabilities supported by advanced automation.
October 7, 2026 Research
The U.S. Department of Commerce has finalized a CHIPS and Science Act R&D award of up to $1 billion for Anderon, IBM’s quantum foundry in Albany, New York. IBM is matching the award with another $1 billion in cash and is adding intellectual property, assets and skilled workers to scale production of quantum wafers on a 300 mm line.
October 7, 2026 Companies & Market
Infineon has introduced a 27 kW three-phase power supply unit reference design for AI server power architectures. The solution targets OCP Open Rack V3 systems and combines SiC, MOSFET, gate-driver, sensing and control components to reach more than 98% peak efficiency and 116 W/in³ power density.
October 8, 2026 Research
Applied Materials is bringing UCLA Samueli School of Engineering into its EPIC Center in Silicon Valley as a research partner. The collaboration is meant to shorten the path from breakthrough semiconductor research to commercial production, with work centered on materials, integration, 3D chip scaling, advanced packaging and new materials for energy-efficient AI compute.
October 8, 2026 Companies & Market
GlobalFoundries will add manufacturing capacity in Malta, New York, to supply silicon interposers for TSMC’s CoWoS advanced packaging ecosystem. The multi-year agreement is aimed at expanding the U.S. base for AI and high-performance computing packaging and is expected to support volume ramp-up from the first half of 2028.
October 8, 2026 Manufacturing & Processes
Advanced process control is moving closer to the tool, but the sensor data needed for in-situ AI/ML analysis is growing faster than fabs can easily absorb. Streaming traces, higher sampling rates and broader equipment parameter sets are pushing fabs to balance faster yield learning against the loss of process context.
October 8, 2026 Industry & People
Test vendors are adapting their production tools for near-packaged and co-packaged optics as data center deployments move toward higher volume. The main pressure points are optical alignment, connector uncertainty, thermal load, and the lack of optical design-for-testability in today’s flows.
October 9, 2026 Companies & Market
GlobalFoundries has marked the topping-out of its SPRINT expansion in Dresden and set out FDX Fusion, a next-generation FD-SOI platform planned for development and manufacturing at the site. The expansion is intended to lift annual 300 mm wafer output to more than one million by the end of 2028, while FDX Fusion targets energy-efficient computing for demanding Physical AI workloads.
October 9, 2026 Companies & Market
GlobalFoundries has outlined FDX Fusion, a new FD-SOI platform aimed at Physical AI workloads and scheduled for manufacturing in Dresden in 2028. The first generation is expected to deliver seven-nanometer-class digital performance, more than 2x density versus first-generation FDX and RF operation up to 0.5 THz ft/fmax, while combining low leakage, analog and mixed-signal functions, embedded non-volatile memory and in-memory computing.
October 12, 2026 Companies & Market
Applied Materials has unveiled the EPIC Center in Sunnyvale, a $5 billion facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment R&D. The company says the site is built to compress the path from materials innovation to high-volume manufacturing for next-generation chips in the AI era.