Semicon Briefing

SK Hynix and other SK Group units have signed a long-term supply contract worth $750B with Nvidia for HBM and AI infrastructure – in addition to the well-known Samsung-Broadcom deal. This allows South Korean chipmakers to lock in US AI demand for years and strengthen their market power against Micron and other competitors.

Apple is negotiating with CXMT and YMTC over memory chips despite Pentagon blacklist status, as a global memory shortage forced Apple into price increases; Micron is pushing Washington for a ban and otherwise threatens to withdraw $250B in investment commitments. Polymarket currently rates the Apple-CXMT scenario at 40% probability – a political issue that is hollowing out US export controls from within.

Huawei's chip revenue is expected to reach $12B in 2026 after US export controls forced China into massive state R&D investments – Huawei's chairman publicly thanked Washington for the push. Analysts and high-engagement X users warn that the US strategy so far has had the opposite effect and China is building a largely self-sufficient chip supply chain.

TSMC has increased its planned US investments in Arizona to $265B, with $100B newly added in 2026 alone – the largest single fab commitment round in CHIPS Act history. Despite these investments, a critical packaging gap remains according to TechTimes, as CoWoS capacity continues to be fully booked.

China has imposed export restrictions on indium phosphide (InP), a key raw material for optical AI chips – resulting in price increases of 250% for InP wafers. This directly impacts US and European chipmakers and shows that China is increasingly actively leveraging its raw materials lever as a counter-strategy to Western export controls.

A widely noted X analysis with broad Reddit resonance shows that the EU Chips Act, despite Infineon Dresden and €659M in new German subsidies, will only bring an increase from 10 to 11% global market share by 2030 – without a single leading-edge node. The EU thus remains structurally dependent on TSMC, Samsung and Asian manufacturing, while Chips Act 2.0 now focuses on demand control rather than capacity building.