#semiconductor materials

Tagged semiconductor materials · show all articles

A wafer-supply warehouse floor with crates from two suppliers filling most of the visible racking, a small cluster of differently-marked crates from other suppliers visible in a distant corner

Two Japanese Companies Make More Than Half the World's Silicon Wafers

Before TSMC, Nvidia, or anyone else in this cohort can do anything, they need a silicon wafer to start from. Two companies most readers have never heard of supply the majority of them.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 10, 2026 · 4 min read

An older 200mm wafer production line in a bright fab with a decommission tag caught being attached to one tool, a busier 300mm AI-grade line visible running at full activity in the background

AI Hardware & Semiconductors

SUMCO Just Bet Its Future on AI Wafers, Not Ordinary Ones

SUMCO is shutting down older production and shelving a new plant to concentrate on the high-end wafers AI chips need — capital reallocation several steps removed from any GPU.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 10, 2026 · 4 min read

Browse by Category

Surprise me →

All AI Hardware & Semiconductors 100 AI Agents & Systems 33 Foundation Models 27 Model Evaluation 15 AI Industry 9 Edge AI & Electronics 7 AI Safety 7 AI Research 7 Open Models 6 AI Infrastructure 5 Industry Analysis 2 Datacenters & Infrastructure 2 Writing & Information 1 Structural Biology 1 Small & Edge Models 1 Semiconductor Markets 1 Security & Technology 1 Security 1 Scientific Revolution 1 Robotics & Embodied AI 1 Quantum Information 1 Planetary Science 1 Physics 1 Particle Physics 1 Origins & Astrobiology 1 Open-Weight Models 1 Neuroscience 1 Metrology 1 Mathematics & Computation 1 Materials Science 1 Labour & Technology 1 Interpretability 1 Institutions & State Capacity 1 Institutions & Economy 1 Inference Economics 1 Industrial Revolutions 1 Humanity & Technology 1 History of Technology 1 History of Computing 1 Governance & Policy 1 Evolution & Ecology 1 Ethics of Technology 1 Energy & Civilization 1 Earth & Climate 1 Demography & Urbanization 1 Data & Training 1 Cumulative Culture 1 Cosmology 1 Condensed Matter 1 Chemistry & Catalysis 1 Alignment & Safety 1 Agriculture & Cities 1 Agent Evaluation 1 AI Security 1 AI & The Web 1