Semicon Briefing

Infineon, NXP Semiconductors, and STMicroelectronics announced on March 16 joint partnerships with Nvidia for the humanoid robotics market – presented at GTC 2026. The cooperation aims to supply specialized semiconductor hardware for autonomous robot systems and significantly strengthens Europe's position in the AI hardware ecosystem.

Micron has officially completed the acquisition of the PSMC Tongluo P5 semiconductor facility in Taiwan and plans to construct a second fab before the end of fiscal year 2026. The deal strengthens Micron's DRAM and HBM production capacity outside China and is a direct strategic move to secure the AI memory supply chain.

GlobalFoundries has begun expanding its Dresden facility, financed through federal and state funds under the European Chips Act. The project is part of the EU's strategy to double the global semiconductor market share from 10 to 20 percent by 2030 – Infineon managers are simultaneously pushing for larger, more highly automated 300mm fabs.

Semtech (NASDAQ: SMTC) completed the acquisition of HieFo Corporation for $34 million on March 17. The deal expands Semtech's portfolio in high-precision semiconductor solutions and is part of a broader M&A wave in the chip sector in early 2026.

Although Nvidia has been permitted to sell H200 chips to China since the December 2025 White House deal (under the condition of sharing 25% of computing power), the company has generated zero revenue from China according to its own statements. The practical implementation of the much-watched deal is thus stalling significantly – an important corrective to previous euphoric reporting.

Intel is reportedly working on large-area AI chip packaging to catch up with its foundry disadvantage versus TSMC and Samsung – supported by finalized CHIPS Act funding of $7.86 billion and new ASML High-NA EUV orders for the 14A process. This move is central to Intel's transformation into a serious foundry competitor and for US semiconductor sovereignty strategy.