Manufacturing and process technology GlobalFoundries will operate two new fabs in Malta, New York , under a U.S.-Japan initiative involving up to $21B in investment. The first fab is expected to come online in 2029. GF also unveiled an FD-SOI roadmap for physical AI. Applied Materials unveiled its $5B EPIC Center , a 600,000-s.f. semiconductor process and equipment R&D facility in Silicon Valley. Infineon and Wolfspeed inked a new multi-year supply agreement for 200mm SiC wafers . Nikon introduced a new lithography system for advanced packaging, offering 1.5 µm line-and-space resolution and 40% higher throughput than its predecessor, at 72 panels per hour. The maskless system supports large substrates and RDL patterning, with availability planned for April 2027. Packaging and test FormFactor and Teradyne will co-develop semiconductor test technologies for HBM, advanced packaging, silicon photonics, and HPC. Teradyne also agreed to invest $300M in FormFactor. Teradyne also introduced a semiconductor test platform for edge-AI chips. ASE expanded its PowerSiP platform with a vertically integrated 3D packaging solution that places voltage regulation closer to AI processors, reducing parasitic routing losses by 50% or more to improve power efficiency in data centers and HPC systems. China narrows the gap CXMT reportedly plans to introduce a DDR5 server RDIMM using 4F² DRAM cells by year-end, potentially improving density and manufacturing costs. The development could help narrow China’s memory gap, although CXMT has not disclosed production yields, manufacturing volumes or evidence of cost competitiveness. China-based Langdao Silex unveiled a prototype EUV light source with 90% localized components, reports SCMP. TrendForce says the source exceeds 15W output but remains far below commercial EUV power levels, with mass production still estimated to be three to five years away. Nvidia ’s AI-accelerator shipments in China fell 44% year over year in the first half of 2026, leaving it with 34% of the data-center AI-accelerator market by units shipped, compared with Huawei’s 28%, according to IDC data reported by Reuters. Around the Valley This week’s SEMICON West conference: Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi said in a keynote address that autonomous chip design can already take some customer specifications to verified RTL, while physical implementation, verification and final sign-off still require human involvement. Nvidia expanded its AI tools for semiconductor manufacturing , including the new cuPotential CUDA-X library for atomic-scale simulation. Lam Research plans to integrate Nvidia NanoVDB into SEMulator3D, which is expected to speed select wafer-etch modeling by up to 30x. Siemens and Nvidia integrated cuLitho with Calibre to speed computational lithography , saying it’s up to 12x faster for full-chip OPC workloads. It supports High-NA EUV and curvilinear inverse lithography. Fig. 1: Synopsys President/CEO Sassine Ghazi and Semiconductor Engineering’s Ed Sperling at SEMICON West this week. Source: G. Haley/Semiconductor Engineering The OCP Global Summit was also held this week in San Jose. Find all the highlights in our New Technologies section below. Earnings season heating up TSMC reported Q3 revenue of roughly US$46.7B , up 41.2% year over year in U.S. dollar terms, with 2nm accounting for 8% of wafer revenue. CEO C.C. Wei said the company has seen “no sign of slowdown” in AI demand. But rising prices and macroeconomic uncertainty are weighing on consumer and other price-sensitive markets, prompting more cautious planning for 2027. TSMC also said it has discussed participating in Musk’s Terafab, but any fab collaboration would need to be operated by TSMC. ASML reported record Q3 sales of €11.7B, up about 55% from a year earlier, and said planned supply for the next two years will not fully meet customer demand. The company is evaluating additional capacity beyond its previously planned expansion. Market and investment More than $8.