Zero One Investment Research Daily Intelligence Brief, July 28, 2026

Chip stocks shed US$1tn on China fears while Macronix targets 80% margin

Top Market Signals

Korea's index is now leveraged US AI capex

SK Hynix (000660 KS) fell below the price of its US listing and Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) dropped as much as 11% on 28 Jul 2026, dragging the KOSPI down more than 8% and taking upwards of US$1 trillion off global chip and memory equities. The trigger was competition fear out of mainland China. The reason Korea absorbed the worst of it is that its index is no longer diversified away from the AI trade at all.

Data from investment manager Rayliant, cited by CNBC, puts the 60 day correlation between the KOSPI and the Nasdaq 100 at roughly 0.50, the highest reading since 2021. Samsung and SK Hynix together account for more than half of the KOSPI's weight, and both sit in the same position in the AI hardware chain, supplying memory into US hyperscaler data centers. The two indices are now driven by one variable.

Rolf Bulk of Futurum Group put the consequence plainly: Korean equities can no longer hedge US technology risk, because when half an index's weight sits on a single cyclical theme, any slowdown in hyperscaler capital spending hits that market harder than most. He added that Korean memory names carry higher volatility than most US chipmakers to begin with, and that leveraged exchange traded fund flows amplify the swings in both directions. Rayliant's Phillip Wool made the same point from the allocator's side: investors are losing the geographic diversification that was the original reason to hold both markets.

The distinction worth holding is between price and physical demand. This session repriced sentiment toward AI hardware spending; it did not report a change in memory demand. Macronix, reporting the same day, said it sees no sign of pricing weakening and that current pull-in reflects real end demand rather than precautionary stockpiling. What the correlation figure does establish is that Korea now trades as the highest beta expression of US AI capex, and that the next hyperscaler capex disappointment will be felt there before it is felt anywhere else.

Linked stocks: 000660 KS, 005930 KS, MU US, 2330 TT

Sources: AI 浪潮繫緊美韓股市，避險功能面臨失效, Google News, Google News, Google News

NVIDIA leases an entire 1GW Texas campus

NVIDIA (NVDA US) has signed a lease for the entirety of Hut 8's 1GW Beacon Point data center campus in Texas, according to the Financial Times, citing five people familiar with the arrangement. Hut 8 (HUT US) disclosed last week that the base 15 year lease is worth about US$19.6bn and that exercising the renewal options lifts total contract value to roughly US$50.2bn over 30 years, but named the counterparty only as an existing investment grade customer.

The structure is a step beyond what NVIDIA has done before. The company has spent billions supporting neocloud operators such as CoreWeave, which buy its GPUs and resell compute. Here NVIDIA is the tenant itself, taking the power and the shell directly onto its own obligations, and may sublease the finished capacity back to those same neocloud partners. One executive familiar with the deal told the FT that NVIDIA's ability to secure grid power through its balance sheet is what guaranteed the site would run its own silicon.

Power access is the reason to do it. Developers are competing for scarce interconnection capacity, and this Texas site has already secured supply. Taking the lease converts a chip sale that depends on someone else financing a building into a chip deployment NVIDIA controls end to end.

The cost is balance sheet exposure to its own end market. The Hut 8 lease lands alongside reported talks to provide a US$250bn backstop for OpenAI's tenancy at the 10GW Ohio campus SoftBank is building, a US$5bn equity investment in Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence disclosed by Reuters, and a US$1bn stake in NAVER (035420 KS). Bloomberg reported on 28 Jul 2026 that the cost of protecting NVIDIA debt against default rose by the most on record. That is the market pricing the difference between selling chips for cash and underwriting the demand for them.

Linked stocks: NVDA US, HUT US, 035420 KS, 2330 TT

Sources: 金融時報：輝達簽500億美元租約　包下德州資料中心, 卡位 AI 算力市場！傳輝達豪砸 500 億美元承租德州資料中心, 傳輝達砸 50 億美元，投資 OpenAI 共同創辦人新創公司, Bloomberg

Macronix gross margin jumps 23.6 points

Macronix (2337 TT) reported a 2Q26 gross margin of 64.4%, up 23.6 percentage points from 1Q26 and up 48.8 points from the 15.6% it earned a year ago, on revenue of NT$19.13bn that grew 83% QoQ and 181% YoY. Net profit of NT$7.74bn was 3.35 times the prior quarter, and the company swung from a loss per share a year ago to NT$3.91. Operating margin reached 46.9%.

The mix explains the margin. NAND Flash including eMMC contributed 43% of quarterly revenue and grew 163% QoQ and 798% YoY, with eMMC revenue up 5,334% YoY off a small base. NOR Flash remains the larger line at 48% of revenue, up 48% QoQ and 101% YoY. Chief financial officer Yeh Pei Fu attributed the margin step to average selling price increases plus the release of low cost inventory, and guided 3Q26 orders and pricing to hold margin at a high level.

President Lu Chih Yuan said SLC NAND and eMMC remain in structural shortage, that pricing is negotiated monthly and that the momentum for further increases persists into 4Q26. He said an 80% gross margin is now within sight as new capacity comes on. On the demand quality question that matters most in a cycle this steep, he said the company sees no sign of prices weakening and that current pull-in reflects real end demand rather than precautionary stockpiling, with orders checked case by case to screen out double ordering.

The board approved an additional NT$15.8bn of capital expenditure, taking total planned investment to roughly NT$37bn to NT$38bn and adding 4,000 to 5,000 wafers per month of 12 inch capacity, mostly 3D NAND. About NT$11bn goes to process tools, NT$3bn to facilities and automated handling, the rest to back end test. Installation starts in 2H26, capacity contributes from 2027 and depreciation begins in 2028. Lu framed the payback case in cycle terms: a high end 3D NAND line costs around NT$100bn per 10,000 wafers per month of added capacity, this investment should pay back in under two years, and Korean and US greenfield capacity needs two to three years to arrive.

Linked stocks: 2337 TT, 2344 TT, MU US, 000660 KS

Sources: 旺宏Q2獲利創高 每股純益達3.91元 毛利率飆至64.4%, 旺宏盧志遠：需求遠不能滿足報價續漲 毛利率8成「指日可待」, 旺宏 2026 年第二季 EPS 達 3.91 元，毛利率達 64.4%

Powertech takes panel packaging into AMD's AI chips

Powertech Technology (6239 TT) chairman Tsai Tu Kung said the company will mass produce fan out panel level packaging (FOPLP, a packaging method that builds the package on a large rectangular panel instead of a round wafer) for AMD (AMD US) AI chips before the middle of 2027, making it the first outsourced assembly and test firm anywhere to run FOPLP in volume for an AI application.

The economics of panel versus wafer are the point. Tsai showed engineering samples and said Powertech can now package AI die at five times reticle size, a capability he said only TSMC otherwise has. On a wafer, a die that large yields roughly eight to nine units per substrate; on a panel it yields as many as 45. The company is targeting nine times and fourteen times reticle sizes next. Tsai also addressed the delay reports directly, acknowledging late equipment deliveries, installation problems and the need to run manufacturing qualification in parallel with new product introduction, and said the AMD project is back on its original schedule.

A second track opens the optical side. The Singapore joint venture with Broadcom (AVGO US) applies Powertech's panel experience to additive fine line redistribution layers on advanced substrates. Small volume production of micro bump optical engines is planned for end 2026, co-packaged optics switches (CPO, where the optical engine sits in the same package as the switch chip) in 2H27, and CPO AI chips in 2028. Separately, through silicon via interconnect for DDR5 has completed trial production and enters volume in 4Q26, which Powertech frames as groundwork for high bandwidth memory assembly.

The quarter underneath was strong. 2Q26 revenue of NT$23.12bn rose 8.5% QoQ and 28.0% YoY to a three year high, gross margin of 21.8% was the best since 2022, and net profit attributable of NT$2.22bn rose 20.3% QoQ and 131.1% YoY. Logic was 43% of revenue, NAND 26% and DRAM 20%. Management guided 3Q26 revenue up single digits QoQ with margin and earnings above 2Q, 4Q26 better again, and said packaging material cost increases have been passed through to customers with most accepting the adjustment. Full year revenue would top the NT$83.9bn record set in 2022.

Linked stocks: 6239 TT, AMD US, AVGO US, 2441 TT

Sources: 力成董座蔡篤恭：將成為全台第一家量產FOPLP的封裝廠, 力成第二季營收創三年新高，攜手 AMD、博通搶攻 AI 及先進封裝商機

Advanced packaging's bottleneck is engineering headcount

Faraday Technology (3035 TT) told its 28 Jul 2026 analyst meeting that most of the advanced packaging projects it had scheduled to reach volume production in 2H26 have slipped into 2027, and gave a diagnosis that reframes what the packaging bottleneck actually is.

Part of the delay sits with customers: late delivery of the customer supplied system on chip, validation failures, and designs that needed revision and a fresh tape out. Faraday said a re-spin alone pushes a project three to six months, which then cascades into packaging qualification and the production schedule. Some customers now source the production die from the foundry themselves, and are moving slowly.

The more interesting constraint is at the assembly and test houses. Faraday said the support available from packaging partners is below what it expected, and that the bottleneck is not a shortage of production capacity but a shortage of engineering validation, sample builds, process tuning and the people to run new product introduction. Those engineering resources are being allocated to the largest customers first, which lengthens the queue for everyone else. This is a different constraint from the physical packaging capacity shortage our 27 Jul 2026 Blade flagged as gating NVIDIA's optical switch output: capacity can be added with capital, engineering headcount cannot be added as quickly, and it is rationed by customer size rather than by price.

Faraday was careful to say the projects are deferred rather than cancelled. It has reserved resources with its packaging partners, customers have already sunk design and development spending, and where one customer runs late Faraday can redirect the reserved engineering and production slots to whichever project is furthest along. 2Q26 revenue of NT$3.31bn rose 28% QoQ, ahead of guidance, with production revenue of NT$2.43bn up 48% QoQ and more than 70% of the total. 3Q26 revenue is guided down a single digit percentage because customers pulled orders into 2Q ahead of supply chain price increases, with gross margin flat at about 45%. The full year target is unchanged at more than 10% revenue growth excluding prior year customer material purchases.

Linked stocks: 3035 TT, 6239 TT, 2454 TT, 2330 TT

Sources: 智原Q3營收估季減個位數 高階封裝專案遞延至明年

Kumamoto quake halts TSMC's Japan fab

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Kumamoto Prefecture at 16:27 Japan time on 28 Jul 2026 at a depth of about 10 kilometres, registering a maximum Japan Meteorological Agency intensity of 7 at Uki City and Hikawa Town. TSMC (2330 TT) confirmed that its JASM fab in Kikuyo, where intensity reached upper 5, met the evacuation threshold and that staff were evacuated and accounted for under emergency procedure.

JASM has reported that the site is fully evacuated, that all tools are stopped and that output will be affected, with the extent unknown until a restart inventory is completed. The joint venture with Sony (6758 JT), Denso (6902 JT) and Toyota (7203 JT) runs 12 inch mature nodes, principally 22/28nm and 12/16nm, serving automotive and industrial control customers.

The exposure is narrower than the headline suggests, for two reasons. JASM's share of TSMC group capacity is small and the node set is mature rather than leading edge, so the earnings effect is limited. More important for customers, the 28/22nm CMOS image sensor and image signal processor flows that JASM runs are also qualified in TSMC's Taiwan fabs, which gives an existing second source rather than a single point of failure. People familiar with fab operations said wafer breakage in process and in storage is difficult to avoid at this shaking intensity even with seismic tool anchoring, so some work in progress is likely lost.

The wider risk is logistical. Kumamoto hosts a dense cluster of semiconductor materials, equipment and component suppliers. JR Kyushu suspended all rail services including the Shinkansen, and Aso Kumamoto Airport closed its runway at 16:40. Even where fabs themselves are undamaged, disrupted power, transport and logistics can delay the surrounding supply chain, and the automotive chip chain (MCUs, automotive SoCs, image sensors and industrial controllers) is where that would surface first. Aftershocks up to magnitude 4.5 followed, and a tsunami advisory was issued for the Ariake and Yatsushiro Sea coasts.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, 6758 JT, 6902 JT, 7203 JT

Sources: 強震衝擊台積熊本廠 法人：須觀察原材料供應鏈是否延遲, 最新》日本熊本 7.1 強震，台積電 JASM 廠區緊急疏散, 日本熊本地震　台積電：JASM廠區啟動人員疏散

Qualcomm raises Snapdragon prices from September

Qualcomm (QCOM US) has notified customers that products shipping from 1 Sep 2026 will carry higher prices, with increases running to double digit percentages across its Snapdragon system on chip platforms. Bloomberg obtained the notice sent to customers and Reuters subsequently reported the same, and the increase is expected to cover the new handset SoC due to be announced in September.

The pass-through matters more than the percentage. Android handset makers are already absorbing memory cost inflation from the same shortage driving Macronix's margin, and an SoC increase lands on top of it. Chinese handset brands are the most exposed, because they compete hardest on bill of materials and have the least room to reprice without losing volume. That combination points to specification cuts or price rises at the retail end rather than margin absorption.

For the competitive read, the question is what MediaTek (2454 TT) and Apple (AAPL US) do next. Neither has announced a matching move. Qualcomm going first sets a reference point that makes it easier for a competitor to follow without being seen to lead, and harder for customers to argue the increase is vendor specific rather than a cost of goods problem across the industry.

Linked stocks: QCOM US, 2454 TT, AAPL US, 005930 KS

Sources: 高通傳9月調漲手機晶片　中國手機恐陷SoC、記憶體承壓, 高通SoC全面漲價　老對手蘋果、聯發科因應態度受矚

先聲 First Word: Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Inventec commits NT$18.1bn to plants in Taiwan, Thailand and Texas

Inventec (2356 TT) approved expansion at three sites in a single board meeting: a NT$8.8bn new plant in Taoyuan, a build to own facility in Thailand budgeted at up to THB6.1bn (about NT$5.88bn), and US$106.6m in Texas split between US$58m for land and buildings east of its Katy campus and US$48.6m for power engineering works. Power build-out is now a line item large enough to disclose separately, which is the clearest signal yet of what AI server assembly costs to site in the US. (28 Jul 2026) Source: 英業達斥資181億元 台美泰三地同步擴產

Unimicron's first half profit exceeds one share capital

Substrate leader Unimicron (3037 TT) posted 1H26 net profit attributable to the parent of NT$18.16bn and earnings per share of NT$11.70, clearing the NT$10 par value that Taiwanese investors read as a full share capital of profit in half a year. The company holds its analyst call on 29 Jul 2026, which is the first chance to hear how ABF substrate pricing and AI server allocation are splitting between its lines. (28 Jul 2026) Source: 欣興財報／上半年賺逾一股本 EPS 達11.7元

AI demand pushes Japanese and Korean MLCC shipments to five year highs

TrendForce data shows June 2026 monthly shipments at Murata, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Taiyo Yuden all reached near five year highs, at 140bn, 98bn and 40bn units respectively, driven by Google TPU and AWS Trainium pull for high capacitance, low voltage, small size parts. The three are converting consumer grade X5R capacity to AI grade X6S and X7R, squeezing 1uF to 22uF consumer supply below 30 days of inventory and pushing distributor prices up 20% to 25% with spot at two to three times original levels, which hands Taiwanese and Chinese makers order visibility they did not have a quarter ago. (28 Jul 2026) Source: 研調：AI 促日韓 MLCC 廠單月出貨新高 消費訂單外溢台陸系製造商報價上漲

TXC heads for a 58 month revenue high on 5G and automotive

Frequency component maker TXC (3042 TT) shipped strongly into 5G and automotive applications through July as its third quarter reached normal peak season levels, and institutional estimates put July revenue at about NT$1.3bn, which would be the highest monthly figure since October 2021. Quartz timing components are an unglamorous read on whether the 5G and automotive order cycle is genuinely recovering underneath the AI headlines, and this is the first 58 month high in that part of the Taiwanese component chain. (28 Jul 2026) Source: 晶技5G及車用應用出貨佳 估7月營收將站上13億元創58個月來新高