Semicon Briefing

SK Hynix and NVIDIA have signed a Letter of Intent valued at over $500 billion – this would be one of the largest supply contracts in semiconductor history. The deal secures NVIDIA with long-term HBM capacity for AI accelerators and cements SK Hynix as the dominant memory supplier in the AI era.

Qualcomm, Meta, and Amazon are diversifying their chip supply chains as TSMC raises prices – Samsung benefits with improved 2nm yields and gains new orders. This represents a structural shift in the foundry market: TSMC loses pricing power to a serious competitor for the first time.

SK Inc. is selling its majority stake in wafer manufacturer SK Siltron to Doosan for approximately $1.61 billion. The deal reshapes the ownership structure of a critical supplier to global semiconductor manufacturers and could reorganize wafer supply relationships.

Linde secures a long-term contract to supply semiconductor fabs in Arizona with process gases and announces a $1 billion investment. This underscores the buildout of a complete U.S. semiconductor supply chain aligned with the CHIPS Act ecosystem.

ASML and Tata Electronics announced a strategic partnership on May 16, 2026 to develop India's semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. India is positioning itself as the third major semiconductor hub alongside the U.S. and Europe – with direct access to ASML lithography technology.

The Trump Administration expands its state semiconductor portfolio to 30 companies and takes equity stakes in six additional chipmakers – an unprecedented industrial policy intervention in the U.S. semiconductor sector. This signals sustained government control of strategic technology companies, far beyond traditional subsidies.