Semicon Briefing

On September 8, 2026, TSMC (from 2030) and Samsung (from 2028) coordinated their commitment to ASML to integrate the $400 million High-NA EUV machines into series production – despite TSMC calling the costs unjustified in April. For the first time, all three leading foundries (including Intel) are committed to a common lithography roadmap, cementing ASML's monopoly position and structurally addressing the AI chip capacity bottleneck.

In parallel with the High-NA EUV commitments, TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and ASML founded the 'Large Mask Consortium' on September 8 with the goal of coordinating the transition from 6-inch to 12-inch photomasks and thus eliminating a 30 percent throughput loss in High-NA EUV systems through stitching. This industry consensus is a rare example of coordinated standard-setting among direct competitors and will become a critical prerequisite for economically viable sub-1-nm manufacturing.

Intel has surpassed one million wafers processed on High-NA EUV, including production layers for Panther Lake – this is years ahead of Samsung's 2028 target and TSMC's 2030 target. The lead in High-NA EUV process experience could decisively strengthen Intel's foundry positioning, even though competitors have now caught up.

Samsung Electronics has participated in Mistral AI's new 3 billion euro financing round and plans to integrate Mistral's AI models directly into its semiconductor manufacturing. The strategic equity deal signals an acceleration of the trend in which leading chip companies acquire AI capabilities not just for products, but for their own production.

China's MIIT ministry has unveiled a $532 billion plan to build AI computing capacity of 9,800 exaflops by 2030 – explicitly based on domestic chips to circumvent US export controls. The plan demonstrates how US restrictions are accelerating China's semiconductor self-development rather than slowing it, which threatens Western market share in the AI infrastructure market in the long term.

NVIDIA has announced the acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.9 billion (not yet completed), underscoring NVIDIA's strategy of combining hardware dominance with the leading open-source AI model platform. In parallel, Flex acquired EPC Power for $4.4 billion and Amazon secured warrants for approximately a $4 billion Qualcomm stake, marking a broad M&A wave in the semiconductor/AI sector.