Round-up
Highlights
- Foxconn circles Singapore’s UTAC in a possible US $3 billion buy-out. The contract-electronics giant is one of several suitors eyeing the OSAT player, signalling that packaging capacity is becoming strategically as valuable as wafer fabs1.
- Nvidia quietly turns rivals into customers. Jensen Huang’s Computex send-off unveiled NVLink Fusion, a fabric that lets other companies’ custom accelerators snap into Nvidia’s ecosystem—an attempt to keep its AI crown even if hyperscalers curb capex2.
- Foreign governments warn Washington: chip tariffs could backfire on US security. A new wave of Section 232 comments argues that taxing imported semiconductors would deter investment in American fabs—an ironic twist after yesterday’s newsletter covered the first backlash to the probe3.
Other developments
- China asks the Netherlands to reopen the door on advanced lithography exports during a ministerial visit to Beijing4
- A Taiwan-hosted Global Semiconductor Forum calls for “like-minded” supply-chain alliances to blunt future shocks5
- US universities and industry leaders sound alarms over a looming 300 000-engineer shortfall as new fabs come online6
- Investors position ahead of Nvidia’s earnings next week as rising US bond yields rattle tech multiples7
- Amundi’s MSCI Semiconductors ETF posts a fresh NAV of US $189.34, up 1.2 % day-on-day despite market jitters8
- Activist Water Street Capital presses Norway’s REC Silicon to reject Hanwha’s buy-out offer, calling the polysilicon maker “dramatically undervalued”9
Did you know? If Foxconn pays the rumoured US $3 billion for UTAC, the implied multiple is about 10× the target’s estimated US $300 million EBITDA—rich for legacy packaging, but still half what advanced-node foundries fetched in 20241.
In-depth
1 · Government & Corporate Policy
-
Tariffs vs. security paradox
-
China–Netherlands export-control thaw
-
Democracies double-down on resilience
-
Workforce gap moves to centre stage
2 · Economics, Finance & Business Outlook
-
Foxconn’s UTAC play
-
Nvidia earnings on deck
-
Materials M&A heat
-
ETF flows steady
- Amundi’s semiconductor tracker recorded modest inflows despite the tariff overhang, suggesting rotational rather than wholesale flight from the sector8.
3 · Technology & R&D
-
NVLink Fusion broadens Nvidia’s moat
-
Intel Xenon 6 aims at GPU-heavy servers
-
eSIM moves inside the modem
-
Optical frequency combs hit microwave precision
- Researchers demonstrated dispersive-wave-agile optical frequency division that shrinks ultra-stable microwave sources onto a photonic chip, a potential boon for 6G and radar SOCs12.
- The technique locks comb endpoints to a reference cavity, transferring frequency stability to the repetition rate detectable as a low-phase-noise microwave signal12.
Footnotes
-
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/foxconn-among-potential-bidders-singaporean-chip-assembly-firm-utac-3-billion-2025-05-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/amid-jensanity-nvidia-signals-plans-keep-ai-crown-2025-05-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/foreign-governments-companies-chip-tariffs-endanger-us-national-security ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/en/china-netherlands-pledge-deeper-cooperation-tackle-global-challenges-2025-05-22/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/05/23/3087375/0/en/Global-Semiconductor-Forum-Highlights-Democratic-Cooperation-to-Strengthen-Supply-Chain-Resilience.html ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2025/05/23/semiconductor-manufacturing-faces-labor-crisis-can-the-us-train-enough-workers-in-time/91142/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/business/wall-st-week-ahead-nvidia-earnings-focus-rising-us-yields-debt-rattle-markets-2025-05-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://markets.ft.com/data/announce/detail?dockey=600-202505230320DGAP____UKPR_____UK_Regulatory_2144446-1 ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://markets.ft.com/data/announce/detail?dockey=600-202505230600PR_NEWS_USPRX____CN95098-1 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-launches-three-new-xeon-6-p-core-cpus-will-debut-in-nvidia-dgx-b300-ai-systems ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250522173360/en/GCT-Semiconductor-and-GieseckeDevrient-Partner-to-Launch-Innovative-eSIM-Solution-for-IoT-Devices ↩︎ ↩︎