Zero One Investment Research Daily Intelligence Brief, July 16, 2026

ASML pushes for higher tool prices as Intel reportedly pulls 2nm work back

Top Market Signals

ASML raises guide; TSMC reportedly resists price push

ASML (ASML NA) lifted its FY26 revenue guidance to €43bn to €45bn from €36bn to €40bn and is expanding low-NA EUV output 30% in 2027, while signaling equipment price increases that its largest customer TSMC (2330 TT) is refusing to accept.

The quarter behind the guide was strong. According to TechNews reporting on the 2Q26 release, net sales came in at €9.3bn against a €8.8bn consensus, gross margin was 54%, and net income reached €2.9bn versus €2.6bn expected, for EPS of €7.59. ASML shipped 86 new lithography systems and 5 used ones in the quarter. Installed Base Management, the service and field-upgrade line, contributed €2.76bn and was the main source of the beat. Third-quarter guidance is €11bn to €12bn at a 55% to 57% gross margin.

ASML is converting that order book into capacity rather than just price. The company plans to raise low-NA EUV (extreme ultraviolet, the lithography needed for leading-edge patterning) output 30% in 2027 from roughly 65 units in 2026, and is evaluating another 30% for 2028. DUV (deep ultraviolet, the prior-generation tool) immersion output follows the same path, up 30% in 2027 from about 130 units, with a further 30% under evaluation for 2028.

On pricing, ASML is signaling and TSMC is refusing. CFO Roger Dassen told the earnings call there is strong room for potential future price improvement on older low-NA EUV systems, while noting long lead times mean any pricing effect arrives slowly. The Information reported that TSMC is resisting increases on both EUV and DUV, having already complained that ASML's prices are too high, and in April 2026 deferred purchases of the High-NA EUV system at roughly US$400m each. Current list economics explain the fight: a leading DUV system runs about US$90m and a prior-generation EUV tool about US$220m.

Regional acceptance is splitting. Some Chinese chipmakers have agreed to pay more for DUV, which is the most advanced lithography they can legally buy under US export controls. That leaves ASML with a customer base willing to absorb increases exactly where TSMC is not.

Linked stocks: ASML NA, 2330 TT, INTC US

Sources: ASML 賺到盆滿缽滿還要漲價，最大客戶台積電強烈反對, ASML 第二季營收及淨利均優於市場預期，調升全年預估營收金額還積極擴產, 艾司摩爾報喜三度調高展望、未來兩年將大擴產 家登、帆宣、翔名受惠

Intel reportedly pulls Nova Lake work from TSMC

Intel (INTC US) is reported to have reversed its dual-foundry plan for the Nova Lake-S desktop processor, moving roughly 80% to 90% of its compute tiles back to its own 18A process from TSMC's 2nm and, if the reports are accurate, cutting more than 60% of the order TSMC had been expecting.

According to KeyBanc Capital Markets research cited by TechNews, Intel 18A yield has climbed from 65% to 85%. That still trails TSMC's N2 at 90% but is well clear of Samsung Foundry's SF2 at 50% to 60%. Economic Daily News reports that Intel's defect density on 18A has fallen to roughly 0.1 to 0.2 after several months of Panther Lake production, a maturity band that supports high-volume production of a flagship part.

KeyBanc's read adds price to the yield story: TSMC has quoted Intel less favorable N2 terms than it gives other customers, because Intel Foundry is now a competitive threat, and that Intel gets correspondingly less design support optimizing Nova Lake tiles on N2. Intel has also raised some foundry equipment orders by 30% to 40%.

Taiwanese supply-chain contacts told Economic Daily News they see the near-term revenue hit to TSMC as containable: N2 capacity is oversubscribed, and Apple, NVIDIA, AMD and other high-performance computing customers would absorb the freed slots quickly, leaving overall utilization broadly intact. The longer question runs the other way: KeyBanc lists Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, Marvell, Microsoft, Micron and OpenAI as foundry design wins for Intel's 18A and 14A nodes. Intel is also expanding 18A and Intel 3 foundry capacity to serve them.

Packaging is the second front. Economic Daily News reports Intel's EMIB-T back-end yield has passed 90%, with Google, Meta and Microsoft evaluating it. EMIB-T embeds silicon bridges with through-silicon vias directly in the substrate, so it escapes the interposer size limits that constrain TSMC's CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate). SemiAnalysis reports Google will use EMIB-T for its ninth-generation TPU, codenamed Humufish, after using CoWoS since its third generation; KeyBanc adds AWS Trainium 3 as a second EMIB-T win.

Linked stocks: INTC US, 2330 TT, GOOGL US

Sources: 英特爾傳大砍台積電2奈米訂單 業界解讀先進製程良率躍進, AMD 也下單？傳英特爾 18A 良率升、贏多筆設計訂單, 英特爾先進封裝也要急起直追, Tom's Hardware

Powerchip raises DRAM foundry prices 45% in July

Powerchip (6770 TT) has raised DRAM wafer prices 45% in July and lifted 8-inch and 12-inch logic foundry prices 10% to 15%, with chairman Frank Huang saying DRAM supply is very short.

The margin move is already visible. Per Liberty Times reporting on the 14 July results call, 2Q26 gross margin reached 28%, up 18 percentage points from 1Q26 and the highest in three and a half years. Net profit was NT$3.29bn for EPS of NT$0.76, down 77% QoQ but back in profit from a year-earlier loss. 1H26 EPS of NT$4.08 puts 1Q26 at NT$3.32, more than four times the 2Q figure, earned in a quarter whose gross margin was 18 points lower; the reports do not say what made the 1Q figure that large. President Chu Hsien-kuo said the July price applies to wafer starts, so on normal cycle times it reaches revenue from November, with 3Q26 and 4Q26 margins stepping up.

Mature logic is tightening on the same mechanism. Powerchip put 3Q26 logic demand at 1.4 times available wafer starts, which is what allowed the 10% to 15% increase on 8-inch and 12-inch capacity. AI server demand is spilling into power management chips and discrete power devices, and the pricing initiative in mature nodes is moving back toward the foundry.

Chu said hyperscalers have already booked DRAM supply years forward, and put the DRAM supply gap as running into 2027.

This extends a pattern this Blade flagged on 10 Jul 2026, when Samsung raised 4nm and 5nm foundry prices about 15% after TSMC notified customers of 5% to 10% increases. Those were leading-edge nodes, where the customers are AI chip designers who can pass the cost on. Powerchip is charging more at the opposite end of the process range, where the buyers are power management and consumer parts with far less room to do the same.

Linked stocks: 6770 TT, 2330 TT

Sources: 熱門股》法說會報喜 力積電漲停, 黃崇仁喊 DRAM 缺貨、代工價續漲 力積電漲停帶旺華邦電、晶豪科

Forecast puts CXMT's DRAM output just below Micron's

CXMT will reach roughly 350,000 wafer starts per month this year, only 25,000 below Micron (MU US), on Citrini Research's forecast model, putting China on track to become the world's second-largest DRAM production base.

The build runs across four companies under state coordination. According to TechNews reporting on the Citrini work, Beijing is pushing CXMT to transfer technology to three domestic peers: Swaysure, JHICC and XMC. If all reach production, China's total DRAM capacity excluding the Samsung and SK Hynix fabs on its soil would reach about 600,000 wafer starts per month, more than Japan, Taiwan and the United States hold combined. By 2030 the model puts China at roughly 1.41m wafer starts per month, with CXMT alone at 950,000 across new plants in Beijing, Hefei and Shanghai.

Lithography is the gate, and it connects directly to ASML's pricing signal today. China's expansion depends on DUV scanners from ASML, Canon and Nikon, none of which can add output quickly, with the US MATCH Act tightening access further. The domestic fallback is SMEE and SiCarrier building a home-grown DUV platform, which on TechNews's read would not reach the market in volume until the early 2030s.

The near-term relief is smaller than the capacity number suggests. Most Chinese output is earmarked for domestic demand, so the global shortage is not resolved by it.

Linked stocks: MU US, 000660 KS, ASML NA

Sources: 長鑫存儲產能即將接近美光，中國有望成全球第二大 DRAM 生產商

Inventec flags a widening server parts shortage

Inventec (2356 TT), the largest server motherboard maker, says the component supply gap widens from 3Q26 and is affecting shipments, with memory, CPUs, SSDs and some passive components the worst-hit categories.

DigiTimes reports the shortage that began in PCs and smartphones has now reached servers, which is the demand source that caused it in the first place. Inventec said it is not yet clear whether the gap persists beyond 3Q26.

The reporting also captures a disclosure problem worth carrying into other companies' commentary. Supply-chain participants told DigiTimes that firms short of parts are reluctant to say so publicly, for fear upstream suppliers redirect allocation elsewhere and leave them shorter still. Public commentary on this shortage therefore understates it, and Inventec naming its own gap is unusual.

Powerchip's 1.4 times demand-to-capacity ratio on 3Q26 logic wafer starts is the upstream measurement of the same squeeze.

Linked stocks: 2356 TT, 6770 TT, 2382 TT

Sources: 伺服器3Q26長短料加劇　記憶體與CPU成重災區

Delta signs 100MW solid-state transformer MOU in California

Delta Electronics (2308 TT) signed a memorandum of understanding with energy developer X LABS in California to deploy 100MW of solid-state transformers for AI data centers, with a stated path toward gigawatt scale.

The agreement is structured as energy-as-a-service: Delta supplies power capacity to the campus. Per Liberty Times reporting, it pairs Delta's solid-state transformers with an 800V direct-current architecture to lift grid-to-rack power efficiency, and feeds operating data from Delta's existing microgrid deployments into the design of the energy campuses. Vice chairman Ko Tzu-hsing framed the partnership around X LABS's ability to develop large energy campuses.

Delta says its test data shows solid-state transformers, which use digital power-electronic control in place of passive magnetics, deliver faster grid response and real-time voltage regulation compared with conventional transformers. That gap widens in value as rack power density climbs.

Delta has been signaling the timing publicly. President Chang Hsun-hai said on 1 June at NVIDIA's GTC Taipei that the next power technology shift would come from solid-state transformers, that Delta began working on them five to ten years ago, and that the category could inflect as soon as next year.

Linked stocks: 2308 TT, NVDA US

Sources: 台達電攜手X LABS 布局北美AI基建供電, 台達電斬獲北美AI大單 首波部署100MW固態變壓器

先聲 First Word: Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Formosa Plastics raises two electronic chemicals at once

Formosa Plastics (1301 TT) is raising prices on both electronic-grade hydrofluoric acid and electronic-grade isopropyl alcohol, an unusual simultaneous increase, citing TSMC's advanced-node demand plus Middle East conflict driving up sulfuric acid, fluorite and propylene feedstock. Both chemicals are consumables in wafer etching and cleaning, and Formosa holds about 55% of the domestic hydrofluoric acid market through Formosa Daikin and over half of isopropyl alcohol through Formosa Tokuyama, so the increase reaches most Taiwanese fabs. (16 Jul 2026) Source: AI 帶動需求爆發、中東衝突推升原料成本 台塑兩大電子化學品喊漲

Advantech posts its first NT$10bn revenue month

Advantech (2395 TT) posted record June revenue of NT$10.12bn, up 30.89% MoM and 73.39% YoY, with 2Q26 revenue of NT$26.13bn up 28.16% QoQ and 46.48% YoY, and 1H26 revenue of NT$46.51bn up 32.18% YoY. A 73% YoY month from the industrial-computing category leader suggests AI order flow is now reaching the edge and factory side. (16 Jul 2026) Source: 最牛一輪／研華績優 凱基5B 沾光

Taiwan Surface Mounting lifts capex 36% on its non-display shift

Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology (6278 TT) raised 2026 capex to US$150m from US$110m, a 36% increase, directed at Vietnam phase two, its north India plant, and DDR5 capacity in Hefei. Non-display work is guided to 36% of revenue this year and near 48% in 2027, at 20% to 30% gross margins, so the capex is a mix shift away from panel assembly toward memory modules, optical communications and AI servers. (15 Jul 2026) Source: 台表科上修資本支出、多頭氣回流 法人估今年 EPS 近13元