Research

Nikkei 71,250 — Advantest alone added 325 yen over the 7-day run, but the tungsten supply shock and +17.9% YoY equipment sales point to chemicals as the next leg

Eight years after UMC stopped at 14nm, it re-entered the 3nm roster — through Intel's Fab 52, not Hsinchu — in the same 72 hours Apple, ex-SK Hynix's CEO, and Musk's Terafab also signed onto Intel's stack.

Yen, ¥370T policy, nuclear rebuilds, and the decoupling from US peers — the week Japan semis were repriced as a sovereign-AI host, not a cyclical export

When capacity is sold a year forward, equipment vendors rewrite payment terms — pricing power moved one layer down the stack

$1.1T market call, server DRAM at 56%, KOSPI nearing 10,000, K-semi Top-10 ETF imminent — all collided in the same week

16% coplanarity, 19% lower CTE, 31% higher modulus — at 24-stack HBM, the substrate becomes glass

Lee Seok-hee at Intel + Trump-backed Apple-Intel chip pact + Netlist's new HBM suit — three vectors pulled talent, demand and IP out of Korea's HBM franchise in seven days