Daily Update - July 30th, 2026
SK Hynix Q2 revenue hit 79.3T won, Samsung chip profit rose 250x on HBM demand, MLCC prices rise 30% Aug. 1, Lam and Advantest results show fab equipment cycle broadening.
Good morning, it’s Thursday, July 30.
Samsung’s chip profit surged more than 250-fold and SK Hynix posted record Q2 revenue of 79.3 trillion won as AI memory shortages look set to run through 2028. Samsung Electro-Mechanics is raising MLCC prices 30% on August 1, with Taiyo Yuden eyeing a matching hike in September. Lam Research, Advantest, and UMC earnings round out a busy reporting day showing the equipment cycle broadening well past leading-edge nodes.
Let’s get into it. — Austin & Vik
Be sure to check out the Semi Doped podcast on YouTube or your favorite podcast player!
Samsung and SK Hynix Lock In Supply Deals as AI Memory Shortage Stretches to 2028
Samsung’s chip profit soared more than 250-fold on AI memory shortages, while SK Hynix reported a record Q2 with revenue reaching 79.3 trillion won, driven by high-bandwidth memory, AI server DRAM, and enterprise SSDs. Samsung’s overall Q2 operating profit hit a record 89.5 trillion won, and the company now sees the chip shortage extending to 2028, signing long-term supply deals with hyperscalers to lock in that pricing advantage. Both companies are clearly comfortable with the view from the top of a very steep shortage.
SK Hynix has signed long-term agreements with more than 10 customers, including Nvidia, covering roughly five years of chip demand. Samsung similarly moved to secure multi-year supply deals as it flagged constrained HBM and advanced DRAM availability well into the decade. SK Hynix said it expects AI investment by major technology companies to sustain memory demand into 2027, with the LTAs easing investor concerns about a post-boom downturn. Both firms now carry demand visibility that most semiconductor suppliers can only envy.
Vik: AI memory demand remains the same regardless of near term revenue misses by. SK Hynix. We covered this on the podcast.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics Raises MLCC Prices 30% as AI Server Demand Bites
Samsung Electro-Mechanics will raise MLCC prices 30% starting August 1, citing strained supply of the high-end capacitors used in AI servers, with Taiyo Yuden reportedly eyeing a matching hike on September 1. The move follows a Q2 profit surge of 107% driven by AI and automotive demand, with the company posting record quarterly sales and projecting an all-time high in Q3. Big-tech hyperscalers have already placed design wins around Samsung’s 47µF MLCC, a component whose demand is forecast to grow sevenfold. The company has also been actively cutting its reliance on Samsung Group affiliates as a revenue base, replacing that volume with direct wins at major global cloud customers.
The financial results sit inside a broader tightening of passive component supply. Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ Q3 guidance projects record revenue as AI infrastructure spending keeps pressure on capacity. The company has also inked a partnership with a Sumitomo unit targeting a 2028 glass substrate production ramp, extending the AI supply chain upgrade into advanced packaging materials. Chinese MLCC producers are catching a separate tailwind: shares of Guangdong Fenghua Advanced Technology hit the 10% daily exchange limit as first-half earnings surged on the same global AI infrastructure demand.
In related news:
Passive component pricing pressure is broad-based; supply tightness spans multiple MLCC tiers as server buildouts absorb inventory faster than capacity additions can respond.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ revenue diversification away from Samsung affiliates has accelerated alongside the hyperscaler design wins, reducing single-customer concentration risk.
The Sumitomo partnership targets glass substrates, a technology seen as a next-generation alternative to organic packaging for advanced AI chips, with commercial ramp set for 2028.
Vik: Samsung Electro-Mechanics has signed long-term agreements (LTAs) for MLCCs with about 10 companies, including top-tier hyperscalers. And all this for a specific 1005-form-factor 47 micro-Farad capacitor. The bottleneck trade has reached new heights.
Lam, Advantest, and UMC Earnings Show Equipment Cycle Broadening Fast
Lam Research, Advantest, and United Microelectronics all reported quarterly results that, read together, sketch a wafer fab equipment cycle extending well past leading-edge nodes. Lam’s June-quarter figures confirmed sustained deposition and etch demand, while Advantest posted a record quarterly profit and raised its fiscal 2026 forecast as orders for AI chip test systems kept climbing. Advantest’s revised outlook, reported by Digitimes, reflects surging demand for high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging test that shows little sign of plateauing through the forecast window.
UMC’s story is the most unexpected: the mature-node foundry lifted its 2026-2027 capital expenditure plan to $5 billion and is targeting $1 billion in AI-related revenue, a combination that would have seemed improbable for a company whose bread-and-butter has long been commodity logic. Q2 revenue grew 17 percent year-over-year, beating expectations, and management confirmed that silicon photonics is already in production at UMC fabs. Intel 12nm process design kits are due to customers by year-end, adding a capacity-hungry workload. Expansion is running across both Taiwan and Singapore sites, with AI demand cited as the primary driver for the accelerated spending pace.
Vik: When chip making equipment demand is still high, it is a signal that we will continue to add hardware. Don’t let the short term pullback fool you.
Mo’ AI, Mo’ Money
Sector Watch
Compute & AI Silicon
Arm Holdings reported Q1 fiscal 2027 results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, publishing its shareholder letter alongside a webcast for investors. (Arm Newsroom)
Huawei publicly unveiled Kirin XE90 and X90 Plus PC processors, its first disclosed desktop chips, built on SMIC 7nm despite ongoing US sanctions. (Notebookcheck)
Renesas launched Gen 3 MRDIMM chipset solutions advancing DDR5 memory performance to 16,000 MT/s for next-generation AI and HPC platforms. (Renesas Electronics)
Memory
Silicon Motion posted Q2 2026 sales up 127% year-over-year and 32% quarter-over-quarter, with SSD controller revenue rising 50-55% and eMMC+UFS controllers up 95-100% annually. (Silicon Motion)
Kioxia introduced its first PCIe 6.0 enterprise SSDs using 10th-generation BiCS FLASH and began sample shipments of 9th-gen 1 Tb TLC devices. (techpowerup.com)
US Senators issued a bipartisan warning to Apple not to source memory from YMTC and other Chinese companies on the Pentagon entity list. (The Business Times)
Foundry & Packaging
TSMC suspended construction at its second Kumamoto fab after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Kyushu, while assessing output impact at the operational plant. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
GlobalFoundries to receive $300M US government award to develop faster AI chip interconnect technology, part of explicit policy to reduce TSMC supply concentration. (Reuters)
Eliyan raises $145M at a $1B valuation to commercialize die-to-die interconnect technology targeting AI chip data bottlenecks. (Reuters)
Test & Wafer Equipment
FormFactor reported record Q2 FY2026 revenue, gross profit, and EPS, driven by strong demand across DRAM, Foundry and Logic, and Systems segments. (FormFactor)
Nikon launched Litho Booster 1000, an overlay correction system for wafer-to-wafer bonding in 3D semiconductor structures. (Nikon)
Tokyo Electron‘s Kyushu operations, which handle 91% of certain global process tool output, emerged as the true supply chain vulnerability during the Kumamoto earthquake. (XenoSpectrum)
Optics & Networking
Corning committed to silicon photonics and co-packaged optics as its primary growth vectors for AI data center connectivity despite a sharp stock decline. (digitimes.com)
CoreWeave sweetened terms on its $2.6B loan tied to the Anthropic lease agreement to attract sufficient investor demand. (Bloomberg.com)
IonQ cleared its $1.8B acquisition of semiconductor foundry SkyWater Technology after the FTC deadlocked and declined to block the deal. (Bloomberg Tech)
Data Centers & Infrastructure
Microsoft reported over $130B in new data center leases signed and said Azure crossed $100B in annualized revenue, with cloud growth at its fastest since 2022. (Bloomberg.com)
NextEra and Brookfield plan a $100B data center campus at a US uranium site in Kentucky, one of the largest single-site AI infrastructure commitments announced. (Bloomberg.com)
Quanta Computer launched Taiwan’s largest equity offering in decades, seeking up to $2.2B to fund AI server manufacturing capacity expansion. (Taipei Times)
Policy & Trade
US House Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone formally demanded documents from Elon Musk over environmental compliance at xAI’s Memphis Colossus data center. (Reuters)
Goldman Sachs is pitching $5.4B in debt financing tied to a Microsoft-linked data center project, extending Wall Street’s AI infrastructure lending spree. (Bloomberg.com)
Marvell commits $250M to expand its Bangalore facility, making India a formal node in its next-generation AI chip design and engineering network. (Marvell)
Edge & Automotive
Qualcomm wins BMW chip supply deal for future vehicle platforms, extending its automotive silicon diversification beyond smartphone dependence. (Reuters)
Infineon launched an automotive eFuse targeting software-defined vehicle architectures, expanding its SDV component portfolio. (Automotive World)
Aspeed said AI server demand will sustain revenue growth through 2027, with BMC chip orders tied directly to hyperscale rack buildouts. (Taiwan News)
ASE in their earnings call last night said they'd give guidance on optics two quarters from now. Is that too early for low volume CPO or NPO?