Zero One Investment Research Daily Intelligence Brief, July 10, 2026

Micron funds its Taiwan wafer supplier as Samsung follows TSMC with foundry price hikes

Top Market Signals

Micron invests in Taiwan supplier to lock in strategic wafer supply

Micron (MU US) will put up to US$3bn into the US semiconductor supply chain, anchored by US$500m of strategic funding for Taiwan's GlobalWafers (6488 TT) and a 10-year supply agreement locking in raw silicon wafers for its US fabs.

The funding supports GlobalWafers America's 300mm (12-inch) wafer plant in Sherman, Texas, and GlobalWafers chairman Doris Hsu said the volumes under the agreement justify planning a second phase of the Texas site. GlobalWafers says it is the only silicon wafer supplier in the CHIPS for America program with advanced 300mm production capability inside the US. The two companies also plan joint work on next-generation wafer technology.

Micron paired the supply-chain program with a bigger headline number: it raised its US investment target to more than US$250bn by 2035, up from US$200bn, in service of a goal to make 40% of its DRAM in the US. Its four-fab New York project is running more than a quarter ahead of schedule on construction, and its first Idaho fab is due to produce wafers in mid-2027. Micron shares rose 7% on the announcements. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, per Bloomberg, called on Samsung and SK Hynix the same day to step up their own US memory production.

Our 9 Jul 2026 Blade flagged Apple's US$30bn commitment to US-made Broadcom chips, and our 8 Jul 2026 Blade flagged AMD's pledge of more than US$10bn into Taiwan's packaging capacity. Micron's move extends the same pattern one layer further upstream: the buyers of constrained capacity are no longer just placing orders, they are writing checks so the capacity gets built, and this time the check goes to a raw-materials supplier.

Linked stocks: MU US, 6488 TT, 005930 KS

Sources: 環球晶與美光10年長期策略合作　強化美國供應鏈, 美光與環球晶簽10年長約 將提供161億元策略性資金, Mobileworldlive, 對美投資 美光目標2035逾2,500億美元

SK Hynix raises US$26.5bn in record US listing

SK Hynix (000660 KS) priced its American depositary receipts at US$149 apiece, raising about US$26.5bn in the largest US listing ever by a foreign company, ahead of Alibaba's 2014 record, with trading due to start on Nasdaq on 10 July under the ticker SKHY.

Reuters reported the deal drew more than seven times oversubscription. Individual institutional orders ran from US$200m to more than US$1bn, with Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management and Situational Awareness Partners reported to have bid for up to a combined US$7bn. The raise gives US investors direct access to NVIDIA's lead supplier of HBM (high-bandwidth memory, the stacked memory that feeds AI processors).

The listing moved markets across Asia on 9 July. SK Hynix's Seoul shares surged more than 9% intraday and Samsung Electronics rose more than 5%, lifting the KOSPI as much as 4.09%, before Bank of Korea governor comments about a possible rate increase cut the index to a 0.62% closing gain. In Taipei, the memory group rallied in sympathy, led by Nanya Technology at limit-up ahead of its results call.

Our 9 Jul 2026 Blade flagged the seven-times oversubscription with books closing early; the new information today is the completed pricing and the final size. At US$149 the deal prices at the level sources had flagged, and the first trading session becomes the test of whether public-market demand for AI memory matches the order book.

Linked stocks: 000660 KS, 005930 KS, 2408 TT, MU US

Sources: SK海力士赴美發行ADR　傳定價149美元, 亞股兩樣情！日股收漲逾900點 韓股上沖下洗白忙一場, Bloomberg

Samsung follows TSMC with 15% foundry price hikes

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) has raised foundry prices by about 15% for new customers on its 4nm and 5nm processes plus some automotive 8nm work, following TSMC (2330 TT), which industry sources say has notified NVIDIA, Apple and AMD of wafer price increases of 5% to 10%.

TSMC's increases reportedly cover not only 3nm and 5nm but also 7nm, the workhorse process for high-performance chips. Samsung's move is narrower: industry watchers describe it as targeted at processes where demand is concentrated, rather than TSMC's across-the-board approach. AI and automotive chip demand has improved utilization at those nodes enough to give Samsung bargaining power it lacked a year ago.

The change reaches beyond the two leaders. Our 6 Jul 2026 Blade flagged UMC notifying customers of price increases effective from July after a 15-quarter revenue high; with Samsung now moving, price increases span TSMC, Samsung and UMC heading into 2H26. Foundry pricing was set by competition for customers for most of the past decade. With leading-edge and now mature capacity both tight, suppliers are setting the terms, which raises the cost of building AI servers and could flow into phone and PC prices already under pressure from memory.

Linked stocks: 005930 KS, 2330 TT, 2303 TT

Sources: 三星跟進台積電調漲價格！傳 4 奈米、5 奈米及車用 8 奈米調漲 15%

Meta's own AI chip enters production in September

Meta (META US) will start production of the latest generation of its in-house AI chips in September, according to an internal memo reported by Reuters, as the company works to cut its GPU bill and double its deployed compute from 7 gigawatts this year to about 14 next.

The chips come from Meta's MTIA (Meta Training and Inference Accelerator) program, and the memo says at least one of them cleared testing in about six weeks. Broadcom co-designs the chips, TSMC manufactures them, and the supporting bill of materials pulls in Samsung for RAM, SanDisk for storage and Sumitomo Electric for fiber optics. Meta intends to use the chips for training its ranking and recommendation models and for inference across its apps, inside a capital budget it has guided to US$125-145bn this year.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg that exploring an AI cloud business makes sense given the compute Meta is assembling, though in a market this short of hardware the company needs the capacity itself first. Meta joins OpenAI, which unveiled a Broadcom-built inference processor last month, and Amazon and Google, which already train on their own silicon.

Our 6 Jul 2026 Blade flagged Samsung winning the foundry contract for Meta's third- through fifth-generation custom chips on 2nm. The chip entering production in September is the current generation, made by TSMC, so the two reports together sketch Meta's roadmap: TSMC now, a second foundry source from the next generation.

Linked stocks: META US, AVGO US, 2330 TT, 005930 KS

Sources: TechCrunch, Bloomberg

Largan wins first AI data-center optics order

Largan Precision (3008 TT), the smartphone-lens leader, has secured its first volume orders in CPO (co-packaged optics, which moves optical connections onto the chip package to cut power and boost bandwidth), with chairman Lin En-ping saying samples ship to module customers this month and mass production could start by mid-2027.

Largan's product is the FA (fiber array), the precision part that aligns optical fibers to the silicon. Lin said current production projects use single-row FA designs, with two-row versions in proof of concept, and that Largan's edge is assembling V-groove parts and fibers to the tolerances customers demand. A pilot line is due to be finished by the end of 3Q26. He cautioned that fiber materials are expensive and pricing is not final, so margins are unknowable until yields prove out.

The order lands as TSMC (2330 TT) scales the other end of the chain. Broker data relayed by cnYES puts TSMC's PIC (photonic integrated circuit) capacity at about 500 wafers a month today, planned to grow more than 30-fold to at least 25,000 a month by 2028, with NVIDIA, Broadcom and AMD first onto its COUPE optical platform and MediaTek, Marvell and Ayar Labs following around 2028.

For Largan, whose revenue has depended on smartphone lenses, the fiber array is its first data-center product to reach volume orders, and it arrives just as the foundry capacity to consume those parts gets built.

Linked stocks: 3008 TT, 2330 TT, NVDA US, AVGO US

Sources: 大立光攻CPO 最快明年中量產, 台積電引爆矽光子革命：PIC產能三年擴增30倍 CPO供應鏈迎來商業化元年

ASUS books its first NT$100bn month

ASUSTeK (2357 TT) reported June revenue of NT$106.72bn, its first month ever above NT$100bn, up 54.46% MoM and 55.63% YoY, as AI servers and PCs grew together, and the June revenue season is producing records across Taiwan's AI hardware chain.

ASUS is in the first supplier batch for NVIDIA's next-generation Vera Rubin AI servers and raised its full-year AI-server revenue growth target to more than 100% at its May results call. Second-quarter and first-half revenue both set records, with 1H26 revenue of NT$466.1bn up 38.85% YoY.

The breadth is the notable part. Inventec (2356 TT) posted record June revenue of NT$102.26bn, up 61.6% YoY, with its Texas plant starting small shipments ahead of a 2027 volume ramp. ASE Technology (3711 TT) reported its best-ever June at NT$65.78bn, up 32.9% YoY, and a record 2Q26 of NT$191.06bn, up 10% QoQ against guidance of 7% to 9%; it has raised its advanced-packaging revenue target to US$3.5bn this year and says capex may exceed the US$8.5bn previously flagged. Unimicron (3037 TT) logged a fourth straight record month on ABF substrate demand and expects further price rises in 2H26, and Yageo (2327 TT) set another record on AI-driven passive-component pull.

One caveat inside the numbers: Inventec expects notebook shipments to fall in 3Q26 because customers pulled forward orders and memory supply is tight, a reminder that the consumer side of these companies is paying for the AI side's boom.

Linked stocks: 2357 TT, 2356 TT, 3711 TT, 3037 TT

Sources: 6月營收速報》華碩營收首破千億元 年、月增幅皆逾5成, 熱門股》營收創高 英業達一度漲停, 日月光營收月增4% 最旺6月, 焦點股》欣興：6月營收飆新高 下半年ABF載板再調漲

先聲 First Word: Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Foxconn's mainland unit sees 2Q profit doubling

Foxconn Industrial Internet (601138 CH), Foxconn's Shanghai-listed AI-server unit, guided 2Q26 net profit to RMB 12.8-13.8bn, up 86% to 101% YoY, in a preliminary earnings announcement. AI-server demand is now doubling bottom-line profit at the manufacturing layer of the chain. (9 Jul 2026) Source: 工業富聯發布業績預增公告 Q2、上半年獲利可望年增1倍

Taiwan's second-tier foundries post record June revenue

Vanguard International (5347 TT) reported record June revenue of NT$5.98bn, up 40.9% MoM on higher shipments and prices, and expects AI and HPC revenue to nearly triple this year; Powerchip (6770 TT) posted NT$6.47bn, a 47-month high, up 68.75% YoY. The mature-node foundries that sat out the first AI wave are now seeing the demand and pricing recovery reach them. (9 Jul 2026) Source: 6月營收速報》世界先進營收創單月新高 月增4成

Etron locks limit-up with orders booked into 2027

Memory designer Etron (5351 TT) closed limit-up at NT$98.2 after June revenue rose 657% YoY for a third straight record month, with order visibility already reaching 1H27. The company sees DRAM prices rising 10% to 20% per month at least through 3Q26 and shortage relief no earlier than mid-2027, among the most specific public DRAM price forecasts any chipmaker has offered this cycle. (9 Jul 2026) Source: 焦點股》鈺創：記憶體大復活！ 股價急拉漲停