Summary of the Latest Information on the Chip Industry in April 2026

Entering April 2026, the global chip industry is showing a strong recovery trend, focusing on three core themes: a systematic price increase across the entire industrial chain, demand driven by AI, and the regional restructuring of the supply chain. At the same time, the process of domestic substitution is accelerating, and various segments are showing differentiated development characteristics. The following is a summary of the specific latest developments.

I. A Systematic Price Increase Wave Sweeps the Entire Industrial Chain, with Significant Price Rises in Multiple Categories

Since the start of 2026, the global semiconductor industrial chain has issued more than 50 price adjustment notices. The price increase wave covers almost all key links such as wafer foundry, memory chips, and analog chips, becoming the most prominent feature of the industry. Among them, memory chips have seen the most drastic price increases. According to TrendForce data, the contract price of DRAM in the first quarter of 2026 was revised up from the initial estimate of 55% to 95%, and NAND Flash was revised from 33% to 60%. The tight supply-demand situation is difficult to ease in the short term.

In the field of analog chips, global giants have adjusted prices intensively. On April 1, Texas Instruments (TI) launched the second comprehensive price increase this year, with a range of 15% to 85%, covering all customers and core product lines; previously, Analog Devices (ADI) implemented a new round of price increases in February, with an overall average increase of about 15%, and some military-grade part numbers had a maximum increase of 30%. Infineon and NXP also followed suit, and the new price system officially took effect in April.

The wafer foundry segment has also entered a "seller's market". Leading foundries have launched continuous price increases for advanced processes, with the price of 8-inch mature process foundry increasing by about 10%. United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) raised the price of 8-inch wafers by about 10% to 15%, Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation (VIS) increased the foundry quotation of some products by 15% starting from April, and Jinghe Integrated plans to uniformly increase the price of newly produced wafers by 10% from June 1. The industry expects that the 8-inch foundry quotation will increase by 5% to 20% across the board in 2026, the first general increase since 2018.

II. The Imbalance in Supply and Demand Persists, Driven by Dual Engines of AI and Inventory Replenishment

On the demand side, the explosive demand for AI computing power and the recovery of traditional semiconductor demand form a "dual-engine drive", supporting the high prosperity of the industry. After NVIDIA launched the Vera Rubin platform at the GTC 2026 conference, CEO Jensen Huang announced that the sales scale of the Blackwell and Rubin platforms will exceed 1 trillion US dollars by 2027, driving a surge in demand for advanced process chips. TSMC's revenue in the first quarter of 2026 increased by 40.6% year-on-year, hitting a new high for the same period in history, and the capacity utilization rate of advanced processes has remained above 100%. At the same time, after the global consumer electronics industry conducted in-depth de-inventory from 2024 to the first half of 2025, the demand for end products such as smartphones and PCs stabilized and rebounded in 2026, and downstream manufacturers concentrated on replenishing inventory, further driving the demand for upstream chips.

Supply constraints have become the core driver of price increases, among which the capacity of 8-inch wafers is particularly tight. The global 8-inch wafer capacity has hardly seen new investment since peaking in 2021, and a large number of equipment has entered the aging period. However, 8-inch wafers are precisely the main process for categories such as analog chips, power devices, and MCUs, and the core product lines of Texas Instruments, Infineon, and ADI are highly dependent on this process. In terms of advanced processes, although TSMC and Samsung's 3nm/2nm production lines are continuously expanding, the speed of capacity release cannot keep up with the growth in demand from AI chip customers. TSMC's capacity utilization rate of advanced processes in 2026 has exceeded 100%, and some customers need to queue up for capacity allocation.

It is worth noting that the shortage of memory chips has triggered a chain reaction, and the industry has even coined the term "RAMmageddon". Major global memory chip manufacturers are tilting resources towards high-margin AI customers, squeezing the supply of the consumer electronics market. Companies such as Meta, Samsung, and Microsoft have successively raised the prices of end products. Among them, Meta raised the price of VR headsets in the US market starting from April 19, with an increase of 50 US dollars for entry-level models and 100 US dollars for high-end models. GSMA warned that the shortage of memory chips has pushed up the price of smartphones, which may hinder the process of global digital popularization and widen the digital divide.

III. Accelerated Regionalization of the Supply Chain, ASEAN Emerges as a Core New Hub

The global semiconductor supply chain is accelerating its transformation towards regionalization and diversification to cope with geopolitical risks and supply chain fluctuations. Southeast Asia's ASEAN countries have become key layout regions. In 2026, ASEAN countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are transforming from traditional assembly and testing centers to higher-value semiconductor hubs, attracting intensive investment from global chip giants. Currently, the ASEAN region accounts for nearly 17% of global semiconductor capacity, and it is estimated that this proportion will rise to 24% by 2032.

International giants have successively increased their layout in ASEAN. Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics have expanded their production capacity in the region, focusing on assembly, testing, packaging, and mid-to-low-end logic and analog chip production; Intel plans to open a new backend testing plant in Penang, Malaysia in 2026, and Infineon, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), etc. have also expanded their production lines in Southeast Asia. The five ASEAN countries have formed a complete industrial system of "wafer manufacturing - packaging and testing - electronic assembly - intelligent manufacturing". Malaysia's packaging and testing output value accounts for 13% of the global total, Singapore ranks among the top five in the world in terms of wafer foundry and equipment, while Vietnam and Thailand are growing rapidly in electronic assembly and automotive-grade chips. In addition, the SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026 exhibition will be held from May 5 to 7. The governments of the five ASEAN countries will participate as a group to release industrial policies and investment maps, focusing on regional supply chain coordination and technological innovation.

IV. Accelerated Advancement of Domestic Substitution, Breakthroughs in Segments

In the current wave of industry price increases, domestic chip manufacturers have shown a differentiated development trend, and many segments have ushered in development opportunities. In the wafer foundry segment, SMIC and Huahong Semiconductor, as the main domestic manufacturers of 8-inch and 12-inch mature processes, have directly benefited from the increase in foundry prices. SMIC's revenue exceeded 50 billion yuan in 2025, the capacity utilization rate has continued to recover, and the profit elasticity in 2026 is significant.

In the field of analog chips, domestic manufacturers such as Silergy, Sirip, and Novosense have already gained a certain market share in the consumer electronics and industrial control fields. After the price increase by international giants, the cost-performance advantage of domestic analog chips has become more prominent, accelerating the process of domestic substitution in the industrial control and automotive electronics fields. In the memory chip segment, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC) and Changxin Memory Technology (CXMT) have become the biggest beneficiaries. After the global memory capacity tilts towards HBM and high-end DRAM, the capacity of consumer-grade NAND and DRAM has been compressed, and the supply-demand gap has expanded. YMTC's revenue in the first quarter exceeded 20 billion yuan, doubling year-on-year, and its global NAND market share rose to 13%, ranking third in the world.

Breakthroughs have also been made in equipment localization. ACM Research and Naura Technology Group launched etching/ALD equipment below 5nm at SEMICON China, and Topping Technology's wafer bonding equipment entered customer verification, supporting HBM4e/HBM5 architecture. The localization rate of equipment increased from 25% to 35% in 2025, and the localization rate of mature processes exceeded 40%. The total scale of the third phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (Big Fund III) is 344 billion yuan, of which 86 billion yuan has been invested, 70% of which is invested in the equipment and materials field, continuously supporting the process of domestic substitution.

V. Industry Outlook: Price Increase Cycle Continues, AI Becomes a Key Variable

Historical experience shows that the semiconductor price increase cycle usually lasts 12 to 18 months. This round of price increase started with the rebound of memory chips in the fourth quarter of 2025, and accelerated to spread to the entire industrial chain in the first quarter of 2026. It is expected that the peak may appear in the third to fourth quarters of 2026. However, the uncertainty of AI computing power demand has become a key variable. If the speed of AI application landing exceeds expectations, the price increase cycle may be extended; on the contrary, if the progress of AI commercialization is less than expected, some advanced process capacity may be released centrally in the second half of 2026, exerting downward pressure on prices.

The latest report from Goldman Sachs points out that the global semiconductor market size is expected to grow by 15% to 20% in 2026, much higher than the previous expectation of 10%. The main growth comes from the two major fields of AI server chips and automotive electronics; Shanghai Simgui Semiconductor Co., Ltd. predicts that the global semiconductor market size will reach 975 billion US dollars in 2026, with a year-on-year growth of more than 25%, continuing the high growth trend of 2025, and the industry as a whole will remain in a stage of structural high prosperity.