According to South Korean media reports, Samsung Electronics has detailed its group-wide domestic investment plan valued at 2,655 trillion Korean won. The core of this plan is to expand production bases across the country, with a focus on developing artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors, robotics, batteries, and IT components and materials. It is reported that Samsung is investing 2,030 trillion won in nurturing semiconductor clusters, including the Pyeongtaek complex and the Yongin National Industrial Complex, and plans to invest 625 trillion won in the Honam, Chungcheong, and Yeongnam regions, with a focus on AI semiconductors, robotics, batteries, and IT components and materials. 

ASICLAND announced today on its official website that it has signed a next-generation eSSD controller development contract with SK hynix. The agreement covers customized design services for SK hynix's next-generation eSSD controllers and subsequent development phases, including tape-out support. ASICLAND will serve as a technology partner, leveraging its ASIC design and verification capabilities based on TSMC's advanced processes to support the development of SK Hynix's next-generation products. The contract value is approximately 31.9 billion Korean won (equivalent to about $20.7 million USD), with a term effective from May 27, 2025, to December 31, 2027.

Applied Materials has unveiled its product line of three-dimensional (3D) chip manufacturing equipment for AI semiconductors. The series primarily focuses on planarization, deposition, and metrology and inspection required for advanced packaging processes such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), chiplets, and hybrid bonding. Specifically, the offerings include advanced chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), electrochemical deposition (ECD), and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) equipment for packaging applications, along with newly added electron-beam-based process control tools and enhanced epitaxial equipment for DRAM processes.

According to foreign media reports, Apple is reassessing Chinese memory suppliers in order to alleviate pressure from memory chip shortages and rising prices. It is said that Apple has reached out to the Commerce Department over a month ago, as well as the administration and others in Washington to try and get the green light, hoping to obtain permission to purchase memory chips from Chinese supplier CXMT.

According to South Korean media reports, amid recent government efforts to vigorously promote semiconductor investment in the Honam region, rumors have emerged that some facilities within the Yongin semiconductor cluster may be relocated. In response, the Yongin city government has clearly stated that it has directly confirmed with senior Samsung Electronics officials that the plan to build six wafer fabrication plants in the Yongin semiconductor cluster remains unchanged, and that related production lines will not be moved to other provinces. Currently, land compensation progress has reached approximately 80%, and most compensation procedures are expected to be completed by this fall. Relevant government officials have stated that the initial target is to begin construction by the end of the year, though the schedule may be delayed depending on internal circumstances or project conditions.

According to media reports, in response to the recent market-wide price increases in memory and other key components that have drawn significant attention, Luca Rossi, Executive Vice President of Lenovo and President of the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), stated that the company has secured adequate supply. However, he acknowledged that Lenovo cannot be entirely immune to the impact of rising costs, making price increases a continuing challenge. Earlier reports indicated that Lenovo plans to implement a unified price increase across all product categories starting in July, with the magnitude roughly in line with previous adjustments.

According to reports, TWSC has announced the launch of the TC301 in-car flash drive featuring a USB-C 5Gbps interface. It is reported that the drive is based on 128GB "selected" premium-grade TLC NAND flash memory from a major manufacturer, delivering sequential read and write speeds of up to 320MB/s and 255MB/s, respectively. In addition, the TC301 supports 24/7 continuous loop recording and data overwriting, meeting the performance requirements for simultaneous multi-channel video stream writing. It operates within a temperature range of -25°C to +85°C and can be stored at temperatures from -45°C to +85°C.

According to foreign media reports, Samsung Group will unveil a sweeping decade-long investment plan on Monday, pledging 1,000 trillion won ($648 billion) to anchor South Korea's next growth cycle, including a possible 300 trillion won push to build chip factories in the country's southwest. It is said that the investment, which would include AI data ‌centers, batteries and displays, will be announced at a meeting with President Lee Jae Myung at the presidential office.The specific investment timing and other details have not been disclosed.

According to media reports, Apple has announced a series of price hikes for its popular MacBook computers and iPad tablets. CEO Tim Cook said that rising prices for memory and storage components made the price increases unavoidable. The latest changes from Apple are as follows: MacBook Neo entry $599 increasing to $699; MacBook Air 512GB $1099 increasing to $1299; MacBook Pro 1T $1699 increasing to $1999; iPad Air 128GB $599 increasing to $749; iPad Pro Wifi 256GB $999 increasing to $1199. No relevant adjustments have been made to the iPhone product lineup currently.

OpenAI and Broadcom today unveiled Jalapeño, OpenAI's first Intelligence Processor, which is an accelerator designed specifically for large language model (LLM) inference tasks. The architecture reduces data movement and balances compute, memory, and networking resources to achieve realized utilization much closer to theoretical peak performance. Jalapeño was co-developed from initial design to manufacturing tape-out in just nine months. Engineering samples of the Jalapeño chip are running ML workloads in the lab at production target frequency and power, including GPT‑5.3‑Codex‑Spark.

Qualcomm announced a strategic multi-generation partnership of data center CPUs with Meta. Qualcomm's self-developed CPU, the Dragonfly C1000, purpose-built for AI data centers, is planned for deployment in Meta's next-generation servers. Additionally, according to Qualcomm, Microsoft plans to adopt its new High-Bandwidth Compute (HBC) chip architecture. This solution leverages affordable, standard LPDDR memory commonly used in smartphones and laptops, rather than NVIDIA's high-priced HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) or the SRAM (Static Random-Access Memory) used by Cerebras.

Speaking at the company's annual general meeting, chief financial pfficer Yoshihiko Kawamura said the flash memory maker plans to tap the US market after the conclusion of its current fiscal year at the end of March. Kioxia intends to offer US depositary receipts in the spring of 2027 to take advantage of runaway investor demand for exposure to AI-related semiconductor shares. Its target timing is the beginning of the next fiscal year, around April, May or June. It is said that the company is also actively studying a stock split to make its Tokyo-listed shares, now the best-performing on the MSCI World Index, more accessible to retail investors.

Qualcomm has officially launched its High-Bandwidth Compute (HBC) architecture, which places the HBC accelerator beneath a stacked LPDDR memory array and achieves interconnection between the LPDDR stack and the HBC accelerator through TSV (Through-Silicon Via) technology. Compared to HBM, HBC is designed to deliver faster, more efficient, and more scalable processing at lower total cost of ownership and higher energy efficiency. Relative to competing published product specifications, HBC delivers 6x the bandwidth per watt of HBM at card-level normalization, and 200x the capacity per watt of SRAM at rack-level normalization.