As AI chip packages grow 25% a year, Taiwan ATE houses, Japan's Advantest, Korea's J&T, and US Micron are all pointing at the same bottleneck
Tesla's capacity cut and Korea's +203% export print mark peak demand, but NVIDIA's rising DSI and China's 343 DUV units are the quieter signals suggesting the cycle has turned.
Tesla's confirmation that it is throttling AI5 chip capacity because memory supply cannot keep pace is the single most revealing data point in the current cycle — and the company simultaneously raised the AI5 memory specification from 72GB to 96GB, meaning per-unit DRAM demand is rising even as unit output is being cut. Pair that with Korea's August customs HS8542 semiconductor exports hitting $38.2B, up +203% YoY, and the picture is a supercycle running at redline. For SK Hynix (000660), this is the context the market is pricing — the question is whether that pricing captures what comes next.