Semiconductor News 20250920

Main News

1. strategic alliance between NVIDIA and Intel: joint development of AI infrastructure and PC products

NVIDIA and Intel have entered into a partnership to jointly develop AI infrastructure and personal computing products. The agreement is said to boost Intel’s revitalization strategy, which aims to integrate Intel’s x86 and NVIDIA’s RTX technologies. nVIDIA will acquire 740 billion yen worth of Intel stock, but remains cautious about outsourcing chip manufacturing (foundry), and jointly developed products could be launched between The market is calling this the “marriage of the century” and the launch of jointly developed products could be between 2027 and 2028. The market has called this the “marriage of the century,” signaling a radical change in the semiconductor industry. This partnership also exposes the limitations of the existing ATX standard.

2. Samsung achieves NVIDIA’s HBM3E certification, establishing an advantage over Micron

In the supply chain for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), the high-performance memory for NVIDIA’s AI GPUs, Samsung has reportedly won the “critical” HBM3E certification, a sign that the long-running dispute is coming to an end. This indicates that Samsung has secured its dominance in the HBM market in the face of Micron’s alleged inability to meet NVIDIA’s HBM4 requirements, with NVIDIA reportedly seeking 10Gbps HBM4 to compete with AMD’s MI450 in the future.

Huawei’s Ascend Chip Outperforms NVIDIA’s GPU for China

Huawei has announced Ascend chips with up to 8 PFLOPS of performance and 14.4 TB/s of bandwidth, reportedly surpassing NVIDIA’s GPUs for China in terms of performance. Huawei has also announced SuperPod products such as the Atlas 950, strengthening its stance against NVIDIA. In China, domestically produced AI chips are expected to account for a majority of the market by 2027, demonstrating China’s strong will to improve its technological capabilities and become self-sufficient.

4. Apple secures majority of TSMC’s 2nm production capacity and implements strategy to limit competition

Apple has reportedly secured more than half of TSMC’s 2nm production capacity and is even implementing a “lock-out” strategy to limit supply to competitors by reserving an entire factory. Taiwan’s new Minister of National Development Council has predicted that TSMC will maintain its industry lead for the next 5-10 years, reiterating the importance of TSMC in cutting-edge processes.

5. OpenAI and Jony Ive partnered to develop next generation AI hardware

OpenAI and former Apple chief designer Jony Ive have teamed up to develop the next generation of AI hardware, tapping top Apple talent and key suppliers. This move has been noted as marking the beginning of an era in which AI technology will move beyond the traditional boundaries of smartphones and PCs to new forms of hardware.

6.DRAM prices expected to rise by double digits in October

DDR4 and DDR5 DRAM prices are expected to see double-digit growth in October 2025. This reflects both increased market demand and supply-side trends, with Taiwanese DRAM manufacturers in particular expected to benefit from this price increase. The news has a significant impact on the overall cost structure of the memory market.

7. iPhone 17 Pro “tying sales” by T-Mobile and consumer backlash

T-Mobile’s sale of the iPhone 17 Pro on the condition of a tie-in sale forcing customers to purchase an Apple Watch at the same time is causing a severe backlash among consumers. In addition, a glitch in iPhone 17 pre-orders that reduced trade-in credits by several hundred dollars has left Apple and T-Mobile scrambling to fix the problem.

8. STMicroelectronics Enters Panel Level Packaging (PLP) Competition

STMicroelectronics has begun to advance next-generation chip manufacturing technology with the construction of a pilot line for panel-level packaging (PLP) in Tours, France. Production is targeted to begin in the third quarter of 2026. This move signals STMicroelectronics’ intention to enter the race to develop advanced packaging technology in earnest and lead the future evolution of semiconductor manufacturing.

9. Nvidia’s next-generation AI inference GPU, Rubin CPX

NVIDIA has announced its next-generation GPU, the Rubin CPX, which is said to revolutionize AI inference and reshape the memory supply chain. NVIDIA also confirmed that its N1 notebook processor is a derivative of the Grace Blackwell (GB10) superchip, further strengthening NVIDIA’s dominant position in the AI inference and high-performance computing space.

10. Nintendo Switch 2 was found to have ray tracing processing capability.

The unreleased Nintendo Switch 2 (next-generation console) has been demonstrated to have ray-tracing processing power through early comparative testing of “Resident Evil Requiem”. In addition, “The Touryst Deluxe” will be able to run at 4K@60FPS in the Switch 2’s dock-connected mode, demonstrating a significant improvement in the next-generation console’s graphics performance.

News List