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Semiconductors
35 posts
Semiconductor industry coverage, including chips, lithography, foundries, memory, packaging, chipmaking equipment, export controls, supply chains, and the hardware behind AI and modern computing.
OpenAI’s Jalapeño Benchmarks Turn Inference Power Into the AI Chip Fight
OpenAI published first benchmark results for Jalapeño, its Broadcom-built inference chip, claiming higher performance per watt and lower latency than leading commercial AI systems. The useful question is not whether it replaces Nvidia immediately, but whether custom inference silicon can turn power limits into a product advantage for ChatGPT, Codex, and agentic AI workloads.
NVIDIA’s Ohio Backstop Turns OpenAI’s Data Center Demand Into Infrastructure Finance
NVIDIA is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy and backing land, power, and shell capacity for OpenAI's planned PORTS-Pike AI data center in Ohio. The deal shows how frontier AI demand is pushing chipmakers deeper into power, real estate, financing, and local infrastructure.
Qualcomm’s Chip Price Hike Could Make Android Upgrades More Expensive
Qualcomm has reportedly told customers it will raise chip prices by a double-digit percentage for shipments after September 1. The move could push Android phone makers, smart-glasses vendors, and Windows-on-Arm PC builders toward higher prices, tighter specs, or delayed launches.
Chip Sales Just Hit a Record as AI Demand Spreads Beyond GPUs
SIA says global semiconductor sales reached $120.6 billion in May 2026, the highest monthly total it has recorded and more than double the level from a year earlier. The data suggests the AI chip boom is now lifting a wider stack of memory, networking, logic, and foundational semiconductors across every major region.
Apple’s Broadcom Deal Makes Edge AI a Supply-Chain Commitment
Broadcom’s July 6 SEC filing says it will supply custom ASIC silicon for multiple generations of Apple products through 2031. The sparse disclosure does not confirm specific Apple Intelligence hardware, but it locks in a key supplier relationship as Apple tries to make more AI run locally on phones, Macs, watches, and tablets.
NVIDIA’s AI Cloud Deals Turn GPUs Into a Revenue-Share Business
NVIDIA’s July 1 revenue-sharing and credit-support model gives AI cloud partners a new way to finance large GPU deployments, while giving NVIDIA a usage-linked cut of supported cloud revenue. Sharon AI and Firmus are the first test cases, with plans for up to 210,000 GPUs across Australia and Indonesia.
AI Memory Shortage Turns Into a Fight Over Who Gets Chips
A July 1 SEMI letter warns Washington that direct intervention in memory-chip pricing or production could worsen an AI-driven shortage. The fight now reaches beyond data centers, with broadband, automotive, medical-device, retail, and consumer-electronics groups worried that HBM demand will squeeze ordinary DRAM supply.
Hong Kong’s AI Chip Trade Boom Turns Logistics Into a Policy Risk
Hong Kong re-exported $124 billion in semiconductors to mainland China in the first five months of 2026, according to Bloomberg’s review of official data. The city’s rising role as an AI-chip gateway shows why logistics, payments, and export-control exposure now matter as much as chip supply itself.
Micron’s Hiroshima HBM Expansion Shows AI Memory Is the Next Supply Fight
Micron has broken ground on a roughly $9.3 billion Hiroshima expansion that will produce high-bandwidth memory for AI processors, with shipments expected around summer 2028. The timing shows why memory, not just GPUs, has become a strategic bottleneck for AI infrastructure buyers.
SoftBank SB Neo Turns AI Cloud Capacity Into a 10-Gigawatt Race
SoftBank has formed SB Neo, a U.S.-based neocloud company meant to supply AI chips and cloud services to model developers and large enterprises. The plan, tied to SoftBank's 10-gigawatt AI infrastructure target by 2030, shows how AI compute is shifting from scarce GPU rental toward vertically managed infrastructure businesses built around power, chips, networking, and operations.