Semicon Briefing

TSMC has established an alliance of over 30 Taiwanese companies for co-packaged optics (CPO), aiming for mass production by end of 2026. Samsung is copying TSMC's photonics test platform and plans its own silicon photonics foundry service for 2027 – with Broadcom as a potential customer.

Infineon has closed the acquisition of the analog/mixed-signal sensor business from ams-OSRAM for €570 million – the deal immediately adds ~€230 million in annual revenue and is EPS-accretive. ams-OSRAM stock has risen 130% since the start of the year, confirming the company's strategic reorientation.

Samsung has locked in approximately 70% of its HBM production capacity in long-term contracts through 2031 with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Google. This solidifies Samsung's position in the AI memory market and reduces planning uncertainty – but also signals potential capacity constraints for other customers.

Arm is expanding its role as chip architect and working with Samsung Foundry on the next generation of AI silicon based on Samsung's 2-nm process. This strengthens Samsung's foundry business in competition with TSMC and gives Arm direct influence on premium AI chip designs.

TSMC achieved approximately 73% of global foundry revenue in Q2 2026, driven by custom AI chips from Google (TPU), Amazon (Trainium 3), Microsoft (Maia 200), and Meta (MTIA). The dominance demonstrates how strongly hyperscaler in-house developments cement the foundry hierarchy.

TSMC and Samsung have confirmed they will deploy ASML's High-NA EUV technology only from the 1-nm node (~2030) onwards and are initially relying on multi-patterning alternatives. This gives Intel a strategically important head start as the first High-NA production customer, which shifts ASML's rollout calculus.