// semiconductor manufacturing

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May 11

TSMC delays advanced chip equipment, signaling Moore's Law slowdown

TSMC's decision to shelve ASML's High-NA EUV machines until 2029 exposes a hard economic reality: the cost of maintaining chip density improvements has become prohibitive even for the world's largest foundry. The decades-old assumption that each generation of chips gets smaller, faster, and cheaper is breaking. When the leading edge becomes too expensive to chase, the industry splits between premium players who can afford cutting-edge nodes and a broader market stuck on mature processes. This shifts both competition and investment patterns in semiconductors.

theme-connected hardware supply chain semiconductor manufacturing

May 8

SK Hynix's Customers Offer to Fund Their Own Chip Lines

Source: Reuters

Memory chip customers are now willing to finance dedicated production capacity at SK Hynix—a reversal that exposes how badly the supply crisis has warped buyer-supplier dynamics and how desperate major tech companies still are to lock in semiconductor access. This is a tax on scarcity, where customers effectively subsidize their suppliers' capex while surrendering negotiating power. That major tech companies are doing this with a tier-one chipmaker suggests even the oligopoly's current expansion plans aren't moving fast enough to satisfy demand from AI data centers and consumer electronics makers.