[Exclusive] Singapore's Temasek to Buy Into Samsung, SK Hynix… Its First Ever Investment in Korean Stocks Temasek, one of Asia's largest sovereign wealth funds, is making a new investment in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. This marks the first time Temasek has invested in the Korean stock market. (..) Temasek is said to hold the view that within the artificial intelligence (AI) value chain, memory semiconductors are the most undervalued area. An investment banking (IB) industry source said, "Temasek has an investment style of deploying large amounts of capital into industries that lead the market, from a long term perspective," adding, "Samsungnix has risen as much as more than 880% from last year's low, but this shows conviction that it will go higher still."

Supreme intelligence so smart... The reason operators keep A100s racked at all, given that per-MW economics favor Blackwell roughly 2:1 even after the capital charge, is that they're not competing for the same megawatt. A 1kW liquid-cooled NVL72 rack physically can't go into the air-cooled legacy halls where Ampere lives. The A100 tail exists in the shadow of the power constraint — it monetizes stranded, low-density DC capacity that has no alternative use. Which means the 2029 A100 contract isn't evidence about GPU useful life at all; it's evidence about datacenter power scarcity.

-Bottlenecks: ABF substrate shortages will be 2nd to memory in coming years. Companies are sourcing substrates from multiple suppliers now to keep up, and variations in thermal & mechanical properties are an issue. Hmmm

Why do I always end up laughing whenever I see talk of America reshoring manufacturing? Probably because those two words, America and manufacturing, drifted apart a very long time ago. The reason manufacturing looks like it is being reshored to the US right now is not that building a factory there actually pays off. It comes down to one thing: tariffs, or to put it another way, a trade barrier erected on the backs of American taxpayers. It is certainly not because building in the US brings higher productivity or efficiency. Put another way, without that trade barrier, no company in its right mind would ever build manufacturing in the US. Even less so if it is not part of the 1% of truly critical manufacturing, the strategic goods like semiconductors. Nobody is willing to pay a premium for a screw just because it was made in America. So how should we view the argument that advances in robotics will offset these costs? That one makes no sense either. Unfortunately, there is already a country making the parts for those robots far more cheaply and efficiently than the US, and that country is China. The gap between the US and China in cost, technology and efficiency keeps widening. Unless the US pours in subsidies on the scale of its own defense budget, closing that gap is impossible. And even if the US somehow advances its robotics far enough to judge for itself that it can compete and steps into the ring, China will already have achieved recursive self improvement in manufacturing. Robots building robots, pushing manufacturing cost and efficiency to the absolute limit.

Exclusive: SK hynix to Increase NAND Production in China by 50% SK hynix is resuming construction of its second NAND flash plant in Dalian, China, expanding its local production capacity by approximately 50%. Construction of the Dalian Fab 2 began four years ago but was suspended for an extended period following the memory market downturn. SK hynix plans to begin installing semiconductor production equipment by year-end and bring the fab into full operation in the first half of next year. According to semiconductor industry sources on August 11, Solidigm, the NAND subsidiary of SK hynix, resumed investment in Dalian Fab 2 in the first half of this year and restarted construction. Production equipment is expected to begin moving in as early as November, with the fab slated to establish a mass-production system and begin manufacturing NAND flash in the first half of next year. The new line is reportedly designed for monthly wafer input capacity of around 50,000 wafers. Combined with the existing Dalian Fab 1’s capacity of 100,000 wafers per month, this would increase SK hynix’s local production capacity by approximately 50%. Investment in Dalian is moving forward again after a four-year hiatus as the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers drives a surge in demand for enterprise solid-state drives, pushing NAND prices to nearly 10 times their level a year earlier. SK hynix launched Solidigm after acquiring Intel’s NAND business in 2021, taking over Dalian Fab 1 and the surrounding site before beginning construction of Fab 2 in May of the following year. However, the memory downturn and U.S. restrictions on exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China brought progress to a halt, leaving only the fab’s structural framework completed. With the construction of Dalian Fab 2, SK hynix is pursuing a two-track NAND production and sales strategy. The company plans to manufacture lower-layer NAND based on mature technology in Dalian while concentrating production of advanced, high-layer-count NAND in Cheongju. Dalian is expected to focus on improving productivity for 100-layer-class NAND based on Intel’s mature floating-gate architecture, while production of NAND with more than 300 layers is expected to be concentrated at domestic facilities such as the M17 fab in Cheongju. The company previously announced that it would invest KRW 19.1 trillion in the Cheongju M17 fab, with plans to open its first cleanroom by the end of 2028 and manufacture next-generation NAND products there. “Dalian Fab 2 is planned to use the same equipment configuration as Fab 1,” an industry source said. “My understanding is that it will have monthly wafer input capacity of between 40,000 and 60,000 wafers.”

In its Micron report, UBS said NVIDIA’s decision to lower the HBM specifications for Vera Rubin Ultra would actually increase the number of VR300 units entering the supply chain, raising total HBM consumption in 2027 from 58.7 billion Gb to 61.5 billion Gb. As I said previously, high-spec HBM4/4E is currently a bottleneck that is constraining shipments.

Samsung Electronics to Adopt High-NA EUV Technology Starting at 1nm Samsung Electronics plans to introduce a major innovation in lithography technology beginning with its 1-nanometer process, which could enter mass production as early as 2030. The company intends to deploy High-NA EUV, a next-generation extreme ultraviolet lithography technology, in volume production at the 1nm node and is currently focused on developing the technology required for commercialization. Park Chang-min, a Master at Samsung Electronics, disclosed the company’s lithography technology roadmap on August 11 at the 2026 Next-Generation Lithography + Patterning Conference (NGL 2026), held at the Suwon Convention Center in Gyeonggi Province. Lithography is the process of transferring circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers. Samsung Electronics has used EUV lithography in volume production since introducing it at advanced foundry nodes of 8nm and below. EUV has a wavelength of 13.5nm, approximately one-thirteenth that of argon fluoride (ArF), the conventional light source used in semiconductor lithography. This allows ultrafine patterns that require multiple exposures, or multi-patterning, with ArF to be produced with fewer exposures—or even a single exposure. Reducing the number of patterning steps can lower manufacturing costs and improve productivity. Samsung Electronics is also intensifying its development of High-NA EUV, the next generation of EUV technology. The company is targeting the 1nm, or A10, process for its full-scale deployment in volume production. The “A” refers to angstroms, with one angstrom equal to 0.1nm. “We had hoped to apply High-NA EUV to volume production at the 2nm and 1.4nm nodes, but the technology still requires further refinement,” Park said. “We believe High-NA EUV will become necessary from A10 and below, and we are jointly developing the technology with various partners.” Based on this roadmap, Samsung Electronics is expected to begin using High-NA EUV in mass production around 2030. The company has already commercialized its 2nm process and plans to begin volume production of its 1.4nm SF1.4 process in 2029. It is reportedly preparing to start mass production of SF1.4+, an enhanced version of the 1.4nm process, as well as its 1nm process in 2030. High-NA EUV increases the numerical aperture, or NA, of the optical system from the current 0.33 to 0.55. Numerical aperture measures an optical system’s ability to collect and focus light. A higher NA improves resolution, making it easier to create finer circuit patterns. High-NA EUV can enable single-patterning for ultrafine features that would otherwise require multi-patterning with conventional EUV. This can improve cost efficiency. Because the pattern can be created in a single exposure, it also provides greater flexibility in circuit design. However, High-NA EUV is extremely technically challenging, and the equipment is highly expensive. Related technologies and materials, including masks and pellicles, must also advance. The industry therefore expects EUV multi-patterning and High-NA EUV single-patterning to be used in parallel at future process nodes. “Multi-patterning based on 0.33-NA EUV will remain the mainstream approach through the 1.4nm and 1nm nodes,” Park said. “For the process generations that follow, I believe High-NA patterning will become the mainstream.” $ASML

From JPMorgan APAC Tech Comments SK hynix: Investors generally expect SK hynix’s shareholder returns to be at least equivalent to 50% of Samsung Electronics’ level, following management’s indication that it would provide an update by the end of 3Q. The market also expects FY27 HBM contract pricing to increase by more than 50%, driven by tight supply-demand conditions in commodity D5. However, our analyst Jay is taking a more conservative view, forecasting an annual contract price increase of less than 40%, given NVIDIA’s strategic importance and SK hynix’s ability to reprice annually. Investors also asked about the announced $38.1bn capex plan, which is primarily allocated to production from FY30 onward. JX Advanced Metals: Investors generally expect JXAM to increase InP production capacity by 20–30x by the end of FY29, well above management’s maintained 7–10x expansion plan, particularly as order inquiries continue to run ahead of the planned capacity ramp. The market is also likely to expect Sumitomo Electric to raise its InP capacity expansion plans.

Preliminary South Korean Semiconductor Exports, August 1–11 DRAM: $4.62B (+4% MoM, +32% QoQ) DRAM modules: $330M (-77% MoM, -63% QoQ) NAND: $780M (+54% MoM, +70% QoQ) MCP: $2.10B (+2% MoM, +16% QoQ) SSD: $490M (-33% MoM, -54% QoQ) August 1–11 / July Exports as a Percentage of the Previous Month DRAM: 34% DRAM modules: 4% NAND: 44% MCP: 21% SSD: 11%

Abstract of PCB Sector & Initiation & Updates 🔥 Initiating & Transferring PCB Coverage: •Initiating CO-TECH. (8358 TT / Buy / TP: NT$480): Share px -54% since June, Margin ramp-up in 4Q26, expansion of HVLP3/4, and px hikes. •Raise TP: EMC (2383 TT / Buy / TP: NT$6,538): Google share gains, product mix upgrading toward M7+/M8+. •Raise TP: Kingboard Laminates (1888 HK / Buy / TP: HK$60.8): E-glass and FR-4 price hike cycle, expansion of high-end copper foil capacity. •Raise TP: Zhen Ding Technology (4958 TT / Buy / TP: NT$729): Market share gains in VR200, leveraging MSAP, ABF supercycle. ☀️ AI Server PCBs: •Nvidia Vera Rubin: PCB content per GPU $750 (vs. $400 for GB200). •Google TPU v8t/v8i: PCB content $800–$1,000 (vs. ~$700 for v7). •TAM Expansion: AI server PCB TAM projected at $13B in 2026 and $29B in 2027. •Zhen Ding benefits from Nvidia platform gains + mSAP dominance in optical modules/CPO. •mSAP Shortage: 2027 capacity constraints due to 800G optical switch and yield limits ☀️ CCL Dynamics: FR-4 Prices doubled to ~RMB 300 since mid-2025; upcycle extends through end-2027/2028. ☀️ Upstream Supply Shortage: •E-Glass Gap: ~15% shortage; requires 3,000 new machines, but Toyota's annual output is only 2,000 units (fully booked till 2028). •HVLP4 Foil: Year-end 2026 capacity at ~1,200 tons/month with a 400+ ton shortage. #PCB# #ZDT# #NVDA# #msap# #ABF# #EMC#

at the end of last year I had postulated that H1 would be a bubble and H2 would be the beginning of the end. my conviction in this continues to grow: - memory (which us finally dominated by DC) is losing steam - similar to previous cycles the “good guy” driver no longer powering the train is bad - only cloud (renting GPUs to labs) is “actually good” at hypers. that puts crazy onus on 2 co’s that aren’t all coming up roses anymore - now that financing relies on debt, rates glidepathing up is a big problem this will take a different form that before (send it all down!) given that pods must always be long some stocks. i think this is just “big unwind” but i am not sure how the market plays it now vs. ‘22 other than increased vol

A couple of thoughts on the memory debate: 1) I think those expecting ASPs/GMs to soon fall sharply because memory makers are signaling that – amid the signing of LTAs with price caps/floors and large volume commitments – GMs won’t go any higher often don’t appreciate how much unmet data center memory demand there is right now. With memory capacity directly or indirectly affecting LLM size, context length, TPS and the ability to handle long-horizon agentic tasks, the likes of $NVDA and $AMD would undoubtedly attach more HBM to their accelerators, and both they and hyperscalers would include more main memory and flash storage in their server designs, if supply wasn’t an issue and they could be assured that prices would be around current levels or lower going forward. All of that’s worth keeping in mind when trying to gauge the longer-term impact of LTAs. Yes, LTAs have been broken before and it’s possible the ones memory makers are now signing are eventually broken as well. But given all that unmet demand, it’s also possible they lead to far more memory being attached to accelerators and servers in 2028/2029 (as supply opens up), and with the memory being sold at ASPs that yield healthy GMs by historical standards. 2) At current valuations, memory makers might be trading at single-digit multiples of what they’ll earn in a couple of years even if DRAM/NAND ASPs drop by 30% or so, especially after accounting for volume growth, cost/bit declines and buybacks. For memory stocks to look truly expensive here, ASPs would have to implode, and -- given all that unmet data center demand, as well as price elasticity for consumer memory products -- that seems unlikely to me unless AI capex meaningfully declines. And if that’s the scenario one is betting on, then memory stocks are far from the only AI infra plays one should be selling here.

Jukan got unfairly attacked over this Even though he is clearly saying that optics will outperform memory in the "short term" This also happened in the February to March period of this year Memory requires a sentiment change Buyside expectations were too high ASP increases were overestimated, and nobody expected that Hynix would sell HBM to Nvidia at a steep discount Now, what can cause a change in sentiment and multiple expansion?? Higher than expected ASP hikes for Q3 2026(low chance as the consumer electronics players are resisting it) and durability of LTAs Investors still believe that customers will break their LTAs just like previous cycles due to CAPEX spending going down/peaking soon U may believe that this is false, but everyone isn't as AGI pilled as u, anon The boomer fund managers certainly aren't

BofA expects both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to announce concrete details on shareholder returns. For Samsung specifically, the shareholder return program — utilizing 50% of FCF — would take three main forms: (1) A special dividend of over KRW 30tn to be paid in Q3 or Q4 (2) Share buybacks of over KRW 40tn in 1H 2027 (3) A year-end dividend of KRW 30tn scheduled for payment in April 2027 Separately, there would also be over KRW 30tn in share buybacks for employee compensation. For SK Hynix, BofA likewise expects 50% of FCF to be returned to shareholders, but with greater weight on buybacks than on cash dividends — for example, over KRW 40tn in share buybacks and over KRW 20tn in cash dividends.