Zero One Daily Intelligence Brief — June 30, 2026

Memory's big three face a US price-fixing suit as AI scarcity spreads into capacitors

Top Market Signals

A US suit accuses memory's big three of collusion

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS), SK Hynix (000660 KS) and Micron (MU US) are facing a proposed US class action that accuses them of colluding to inflate DRAM prices behind the cover of AI demand, with Samsung calling the allegations unfounded.

The complaint alleges the three coordinated to hold back supply and lift memory prices, and one filing puts the alleged overcharge at roughly 700% over the period. Samsung has publicly rejected the claims as without basis; the other two have not detailed a response.

The suit lands on top of an already public pricing fight. Our 29 June 2026 Blade flagged Micron commercial chief Sumit Sadana telling the Wall Street Journal that years of customers demanding rock-bottom prices had starved the industry of investment, a rare shot at buyers including Apple. The lawsuit pushes that same tension into the courts, with purchasers now arguing the suppliers went too far the other way.

What makes the case awkward is that DRAM prices really have run hard. Legacy DDR3 spot prices now sit at 7.6x year-ago levels and contract prices have climbed 50% to 100% QoQ, while the three majors shift capacity to HBM and DDR5. That surge is both the plaintiffs' evidence and the makers' defense, since the suppliers attribute it to a genuine AI-driven shortage rather than coordination. The legal overhang now sits on the market's strongest leg.

Linked stocks: 005930 KS, 000660 KS, MU US

Sources: 記憶體飆 三巨頭美光/SK/三星電子面臨壟斷指控, 缺貨加劇　DRAM 舊世代品價格飆漲、最高翻倍

AI demand ignites a passive-component price surge

Murata (6981 JT), the world's largest maker of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), jumped 7.1% to JPY11,505 as the AI-server boom spread into passive components, and Taiwan's passive makers limited up in sympathy.

Citi upgraded Murata to its top Buy rating, with the analyst arguing that high entry barriers make server-MLCC price increases relatively easy to pass through and likely to persist. Murata's book-to-bill ratio reached 1.24, a sixth straight quarter above 1 and a 20-quarter high, with orders up 38% YoY; the company guides FY26 operating profit to rise 34.8%. The shares are up about 254% year to date.

In Taiwan, Yageo (2327 TT) and peers including Walsin Technology (2492 TT) and Holy Stone (3026 TT) locked limit-up. Industry sources describe the strongest passive-component up-cycle since 2018, driven by AI servers. A single NVIDIA rack uses several hundred thousand MLCCs, hundreds of times a conventional server, alongside surging demand for TLVR inductors and polymer tantalum capacitors, producing a structural shortage and broad price hikes.

The cycle is reaching Korea too. Samsung Electro-Mechanics (009150 KS) is reportedly near an AI-server MLCC supply deal worth around KRW500bn with a US cloud provider. The AI scarcity that began in compute and memory is now driving up the price of the cheapest parts on the board.

Linked stocks: 6981 JT, 2327 TT, 2492 TT

Sources: 券商喊買、目標價上修 285% MLCC 龍頭村田飆 7%, 被動元件族群迎來強勢上漲 多檔個股鎖漲停, 三星電機傳拿下AI伺服器MLCC大單　5,000億韓元成新引擎

Foundry 2.0 grows 23% with TSMC at 38% share

The Foundry 2.0 market, a broad measure of chipmaking that adds packaging, testing, photomask making and non-memory chip plants to the traditional pure-play wafer foundries, grew 23% YoY to US$86bn in 1Q26, with TSMC (2330 TT) holding 38% share, as AI GPU and ASIC demand lifted advanced-node utilization and handed the chain pricing power.

By Counterpoint Research's breakdown, pure-play foundries are 57% of that market with revenue up 31% YoY, non-memory IDMs (integrated device makers that design and fabricate chips in-house, such as Intel) are 29% (up 12%), and OSAT (outsourced assembly and test) houses are 13% (up 21%). By share, TSMC leads at 38%, ahead of Samsung at 4%, SMIC at 3% and UMC (2303 TT) at 2%. TSMC's own 1Q revenue rose 41% YoY, and Counterpoint sees full-year 2026 revenue growth near 36%.

Pricing is the next leg. Market expectations point to TSMC raising advanced-node prices 5% to 10% in early 2027, on top of an average selling price already climbing as the mix shifts toward leading-edge nodes.

This extends the capacity reallocation our 22 June 2026 Blade flagged, when TSMC trimmed 28nm wafer starts by more than 25% to free capacity for advanced packaging. Demand is now firm enough that AI is not just lifting volumes but restoring pricing power across the front end, and the data shows the gains spreading into the IDM and OSAT layers too.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, 2303 TT, 005930 KS

Sources: 晶圓代工2.0 台積電38％市佔率第一　三星居次僅4％, 半導體廠要漲價了　外資圈集體高潮

TSMC outsourcing lifts Taiwan's packaging and test houses

Taiwan's back-end packaging and test stocks surged, with ChipMOS (8150 TT) at limit-up and ASE (3711 TT) up 8.5%, as money rotated from chip fabrication into the assembly and test layer that AI is turning into a capacity bottleneck.

ChipMOS locked limit-up at NT$99.5, King Yuan Electronics (2449 TT) climbed 9.4% to NT$337.5, Powertech (6239 TT) rose 8.5%, and packaging leader ASE closed up 8.5% at NT$680. Buying spread from the AI chip-fabrication names into the back-end supply chain.

The driver is outsourcing. As TSMC expands CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) packaging, it is handing much of the assembly work to ASE group, making the OSAT houses a direct beneficiary. They are scaling 2.5D and 3D packaging, chiplet integration, HBM stacking and panel-level packaging, turning a former cost center into a throughput gating point. Nomura estimates ASE's advanced-packaging revenue roughly doubling from US$3.5bn in 2026 to US$6.9bn in 2027.

AI competition has moved past the leading-edge node alone: who can package and test fastest now shapes chip performance, yield and time to volume, and the back-end layer is being valued accordingly.

Linked stocks: 3711 TT, 2449 TT, 6239 TT

Sources: 封測族群火力全開　南茂亮燈漲停 日月光、力成、京元電漲逾8%, 四大因素帶動日月光投控營運動能

A CO2 shortage threatens advanced chip cleaning

A shortage of the high-purity carbon dioxide used to clean advanced chips has pushed Korean memory makers' inventories below safety levels, as Middle East tensions cut the petrochemical output that yields CO2 as a byproduct.

The squeeze comes from supply, not chip demand. Refiners and petrochemical plants have cut run rates amid Middle East instability, slashing the byproduct CO2 they normally generate. Liquid CO2 prices have risen about 20% since early 2026, and the industry expects tightness through year-end. High-purity CO2 is central to the supercritical-cleaning step on narrow-pitch advanced chips. Samsung uses roughly 1,800 to 2,000 tonnes a month and SK Hynix about 600 to 700 tonnes; makers normally hold around a month of stock and are now below that line.

TSMC moved earlier. It is carbon-capturing and purifying the CO2 tail gas from a hydrogen-peroxide supplier's hydrogen production into electronic-grade CO2, a process introduced at its Fab 14B in May 2026 that also cuts about 1,200 tonnes of emissions a year.

After helium, anhydrous hydrogen fluoride and PGMEA, CO2 is the latest materials chokepoint where Middle East oil risk spills into chipmaking. The AI build-out leans on petrochemical byproducts that few investors track.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, 005930 KS, 000660 KS

Sources: 三星、SK 海力士二氧化碳庫存跌破安全水位，台積電藉碳捕捉提升供應韌性

Taiwan raids a data-center operator in a chip-smuggling probe

Chief Telecom (6561 TT), a Taiwanese data-center operator, was searched by investigators on 29 June over a colocation client allegedly involved in the illegal export of AI equipment, and said on 30 June that it is fully cooperating and that operations are unaffected.

The company said the matter has no material impact on its finances or business, that it has launched internal and external reviews, and that it will report clients to the authorities if its checks find wrongdoing. The shares fell 1.48% to NT$332. Prosecutors are examining whether restricted NVIDIA hardware, including GB300-class systems, was routed through the operator's facilities.

The probe follows the grey-market dynamics our 25 June 2026 Blade flagged, when the China street price of NVIDIA's DGX B300 server more than doubled in six months to over RMB8m as curbs tightened. Higher black-market prices raise the incentive to divert hardware, and the search shows Taiwan tightening enforcement at the data-center layer, a fresh compliance risk for the AI data-center operators hosting NVIDIA systems.

Linked stocks: 6561 TT, NVDA US

Sources: 涉走私輝達晶片案遭檢調搜索 是方聲明：全力配合調查 營運不受影響

先聲 First Word — Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Browave touches limit-up as foreign buyers return

Browave (3163 TT), an optical-component maker qualified into NVIDIA's co-packaged optics supply chain on its 800G fiber kits, touched the NT$792 daily limit (up 10%) after foreign investors turned net buyers following eight straight sessions of selling. May revenue rose nearly 30% YoY and the company returned to monthly profit, and it expects shuffle-module shipments to begin late in 3Q26 and ramp in 4Q26, targeting monthly output in the thousands by 4Q26 and 10,000 a month by early 2027. It is another Taiwanese optical name riding NVIDIA's CPO (co-packaged optics) build as high-speed interconnect demand grows. (30 Jun 2026) Source: 〈焦點股〉無懼禁閉、外資連8賣轉買 波若威盤中攻上漲停

Asia Vital Components jumps on AI liquid-cooling demand

Asia Vital Components (3017 TT) rose as much as the daily limit, last up 8.9% at NT$2,505, on ramping third-quarter liquid-cooling shipments, with ASIC components scaling from June and NVIDIA VR200 cold plates and manifolds adding to growth. It points to AI thermal management as a sustained demand line into year-end rather than a one-quarter spike. (30 Jun 2026) Source: 焦點股》奇鋐：AI散熱買氣升溫 一度漲停

Inventec adds AI-server capacity in Mexico and Taiwan

Inventec (2356 TT) said its board approved added capital spending for plants in Mexico and Taoyuan, Taiwan, totaling NT$5.39bn, to meet AI-server orders. It is another Taiwan ODM committing fresh capex for the second-half GPU and ASIC server ramp, extending the build-out across more geographies. (30 Jun 2026) Source: 英業達擴大AI產能 墨西哥、桃園同步建廠迎新單