Silicon & Hardware · Week of September 1, 2026
China closes the memory gap as Korea's supply discipline holds and Nvidia's platform grip tightens
- CXMT Ships HBM3E and LPDDR6 as China's Memory Gap Narrows Faster Than AssumedIn a research zone in Hefei, mid-price-dispute, CXMT expelled a group of Huawei-linked engineers. That is not the behavior of a company undercutting rivals to win a market. That is the behavior of a company that already …
- HBM Tops $70 as Korea's Supply Discipline, Not Demand, Drives the Memory SupercycleAll the listed problems have a fix of "remove" but each issue analysis concludes the claim is supported and there is no actual problem ("No problem", "acceptable", "Supported"). Therefore no edits are required, and the a…
- Nvidia's $3.5B MediaTek Bet Extends NVLink Fusion Grip Over Custom SiliconNvidia wrote a $3.5 billion check to the company whose entire job is to help Amazon, Google, and Microsoft build chips that aren't Nvidia's.
- The Rubin PCB Value Surge and the Unimicron Raid Expose the Substrate Chokepoint"The Rubin PCB Value Surge and the Unimicron Raid Expose the Substrate as AI's Fragile New Chokepoint": Inside a single Vera Rubin rack — the VR200 NVL72, ODM price around $7.8 million — the printed circuit board line it…
- SB Energy Pays OpenAI $5.5B to Move In as Nvidia Co-Signs $105BSB Energy's net loss widened to roughly $3.2 billion in the first half of 2026, up from about $250 million a year earlier. The company earned $140 million in renewables revenue over the same period. It operates zero data…
Threads we are following
- Whether CXMT's stockpiled DUV and bonding tools actually deplete on the 2026–27 schedule analysts project, and what China substitutes when they do
- Whether a second qualified HBM4 supplier ramps enough to break spot below the LTA floor
- Whether UALink and ESUN gain enough hyperscaler commitment to standardize scale-up interconnect on open Ethernet before NVLink Fusion locks in.
- Whether a relabeled board is ever traced into a US-imported Rubin rack, triggering the unwaivable 40 percent penalty on an American importer of record
- Whether SB Energy's IPO prices above the warrant milestones, or public-market buyers balk at absorbing the dilution
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