Western Digital has today presented its latest effort to catch up with traditional QLC NAND Flash SSDs by improving its HDD offerings. With the latest High-Bandwidth HDDs, Western Digital has implemented two new technologies in a classical multi-platter HDD design. The first innovation comes in a form of High Bandwidth Drive Technology, which enables double the I/O bandwidth with a path to 8x the current bandwidth in the future. It relies on simultaneous reading and writing from multiple heads on multiple tracks, which is already in customer hands for validation. The second one is Dual Pivot Technology that introduces a second set of independent actuators on a separate pivot, which will not scarify drive capacity unlike older dual actuator designs.

Using Dual Pivot Technology, HDDs can pack more drive platters in a standard 3.5-inch body for higher capacities, and the performance grows by an additional 2x, which is 4x I/O bandwidth compared to today's drives. This technology will pave the way for 100 TB HDDs, that offer speeds comparable to QLC-based SATA III SSDs, at much better price/performance ratio and better data retention, prompting the massive boom of HDD development. Western Digital's drives with High Bandwidth Drive Technology are already shipping to customers, while drives with Dual Pivot Technology are in development in Western Digital's labs and are scheduled to become available in 2028, with early customer sampling probably much sooner.

TrendForce's latest research indicates that AI innovation is causing a fundamental shift in the memory market. As data access volumes continue to grow, AI systems depend more on high-bandwidth, high-capacity, low-latency DRAM to handle large-scale model parameters, long-sequence inference, and multi-task parallel processing. Additionally, NAND Flash has become essential for fast data transfer, making memory a key component in AI infrastructure and a strategic focus for CSPs.

Memory prices have continuously increased due to limited capacity and rising demand for allocations, pushing industry revenue to new record levels. TrendForce projects the memory market to be worth $551.6 billion in 2026 and to surge to a peak of $842.7 billion in 2027, reflecting a 53% YoY growth.

Intel's concluded its Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings call, revealing interesting things about its foundry operations and node selection. When talking about the upcoming 14A node, Intel confirmed that the node is on track for 2027, with yields that are in good shape. However, the bulk of the 14A external capacity Intel will dedicate depends on customers willing to sign manufacturing contracts first, before Intel spends insane amount of funds required to expand manufacturing capacity. Intel CEO Lib-Bu Tan noted "Engagements with potential external customers on Intel 14A are active. We believe customers will begin to make firm supplier decisions starting in the second half of this year and extending into the first half of 2027. We also have the opportunity to provide strong differentiation in advanced packaging, particularly with EMIB and EMIB-T."

Intel CFO David Zinsner has stated "On 14A, Lip-Bu has been very direct with us on all of this. He does not want to spend on capacity on 14A, only spend on the kind of TD spend or R&D spend associated with 14A, even in the fab until we have customers secured. We've talked about the likelihood is our customers on 14A, their window to secure, or for us to secure them will be in the back half of this year and in the first half of next year. And so once visibility improves there, we'll start to unlock the spend on 14A. I can just add a little bit more. I think on the yield improvement, we see 7%, 8% yield improvement per month." Intel has previously mentioned that while there will be a base capacity for internal use, any future expansion for third-party services will depend on customers' willingness to invest capital with Intel Foundry.

Micron has signed a letter of intent with Taiwanese Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) to buy its P5 fab in Tongluo in Central Taiwan. Micron and PSMC have agreed on a cash price of US$1.8 billion for the fab, which is PSMC's most recent 12-inch fab and should allow Micron to add additional 1x nm DRAM production capacity. The two companies are expecting the transaction to close by the second quarter of this year, but it doesn't mean that Micron will take over the facility from day one. Instead, Micron isn't expecting the fab to "contribute to meaningful DRAM wafer output" until the second half of 2027.

PSMC doesn't have its own 1x nm DRAM production today, as the company is still developing its own nodes, which could be part of the reason for the delayed "meaningful" output for Micron. That means that with the current equipment in place, Micron will end up with 2x nm DRAM to start with, suggesting it's DDR4 that's being produced at the fab today. According to TrendForce, the fab should be able to contribute as much as 10 percent of Micron's total DRAM output in 2027, which is not an insignificant amount. TrendForce also noted that PSMC is expecting to get a 1x nm (1Y or 1Z) DRAM license for its other fabs, to help it produce higher-density DRAM in the near future at its other fabs.

After it was announced in October 2025 that Amazon was making a shift away from AAA gaming and had stopped development of new content for New World: Aeternum, we speculated that the game was slowly being sunset. Originally, Amazon said that the game would be supported "through 2026," suggesting that it would not make it long into 2027. A new announcement from Amazon itself on the New World news page has confirmed this theory, stating that New World will officially go offline in January 2027. The post specifies that users will still be able to play New World: Aeternum until January 31, but the game will be delisted from all storefronts on January 15, 2026. As of the time of writing, New World: Aeternum is no longer available for purchase on Steam. Shortly before the aforementioned announcement that no new content would be released for New World, its player count on Steam peaked at an impressive 51,031 players, but that number has since fallen to around 1,200 daily concurrent players.

As part of the shutdown plans, the Nighthaven season will be extended to January 31 as well, effectively sending New World players off with a last hurrah. While all in-game features will remain active until January 31 2027, players will no longer be able to make in-game purchases after July 20, 2026. Amazon encourages players who unwittingly bought New World: Aeternum ahead of the shutdown news to contact support if they would like a refund, although there is no specific cutoff for refunds provided in the announcement. It's likely Steam will stick to its regular rules, which allow automatic refunds as long as players haven't spent more than two hours playing the game or didn't purchase it more than two weeks before the refund request.

Almost two years after it started mass production of 2 nm chips at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, TSMC is expecting to kick off 3 nm production in what will be its second fab in Arizona, USA, according to a comment by its Chairman C.C. Wei to the Taiwan media. The new fab was originally not planned to go online until 2028, but it has now been moved forward to the second half of 2027 and TSMC is also planning a fourth fab and an advanced chip assembly plant on the same plot. TSMC has pledged to invest a further US$100 billion to build a further three fabs in Arizona, alongside two IC assembly plants and an R&D centre, with 2 nm production currently slated for 2029.

The company has acquired additional land in Arizona to be able to expand its complex in Arizona into what Wei called a "megafab cluster" to be able to meet their customers' demands. What is less clear is where TSMC is going to find the factory workers, as the company has already been having issues with labour in the US. Wei also mentioned that construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan has started construction and that the construction of its fab in Dresden, Germany is proceeding according to plans. At the same time, TSMC is planning additional fabs in Hsinchu and Kaohsiung that will be building chips on its 2 nm node or more advanced nodes.

Intel Foundry has published a short video demonstration of its advanced packaging technologies, demoing silicon scaling beyond reticle limits of 830 mm². According to the video, Intel's Foveros 3D and EMIB-T interconnect can scale silicon to 12x reticle size, packaging up to 16 compute dies paired with 24 HBM5 memory modules in a single package. All of this will leverage Intel's 18A—including 18A-P and 18A-PT—and 14A nodes that the company is preparing for mass production and external customers.

The approach involves a sophisticated layering technique where base dies, manufactured using the 18A-PT process, incorporate backside power delivery to enhance logic density and reliability. These base dies house SRAM structures similar to Intel's "Clearwater Forest" architecture. They serve as foundations for compute tiles built on the advanced 14A/14A-E nodes, which feature second-generation RibbonFET transistors and PowerDirect technology. Foveros Direct 3D enables vertical stacking through ultra-fine pitch hybrid bonding, while EMIB-T incorporates through-silicon vias to facilitate higher bandwidth connections between chiplets. This combination achieves scalability beyond reticle limits and will support all HBM standard, including HBM4, HBM5, and future versions.

Mega Man: Dual Override is expected to arrive in 2027, the year the series will celebrate its 40th anniversary! The twelfth mainline entry in the Mega Man series will be full of new features so stay tuned! Override challenges and blast down legions of robots while springboarding across a new array of futuristic frontiers!

About Mega Man
The Blue Bomber first began busting bots in 1987 and instantly captivated players with its flexible gameplay, colorful characters, and rockin' music. Since then, the franchise has spawned more than 130 titles worldwide, jumping beyond the world of games into comics, TV series, and more.

Naughty Dog started development of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet back in 2020 and announced the game in late 2024, but the studio has yet to publish a launch date for the upcoming sci-fi action-adventure game. Now, a new report out of Bloomberg claims that Naughty Dog is planning to launch the Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet in mid-2027. However, it also seems as though Naughty Dog has once again fallen into crunch in order to meet that planned launch date and "get production back on track after several missed deadlines." The gaming industry is no stranger to long work hours, with games like CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 famously requiring months of crunch time ahead of the game's launch.

According to Bloomberg's insider sources, employees across Naughty Dog have been forced to work at least eight hours of overtime per week for the last seven weeks, with a maximum of 60 hours weekly. This new policy also saw developers at the Santa Monica studio return to the office five days a week, and it has been reality for Naughty Dog employees throughout the last year. That crunch-time period has been attributed to extra work as a result of needing to complete an internal demo. Supposedly, the studio will announce a new work schedule in early 2026, returning to its standard three-day work-from-home policy through at least the end of January.

NVIDIA and AMD are reportedly evaluating Intel Foundry's 14A node, while Apple and Broadcom are considering Intel's EMIB packaging for a custom server accelerator. According to GF Securities Hong Kong, these developments reflect a growing willingness among top designers to reconsider their sources for both front-end process technology and back-end assembly. Capacity limits at alternative suppliers like TSMC are likely a key factor prompting these exploratory moves, with packaging availability now a central constraint for large design houses.

Closer to Apple, supply chain reports indicate the company has engaged Intel for process evaluation and is weighing alternative packaging routes. Apple has reportedly worked with version 0.9.1 of the 18A-P process design kit and is awaiting PDK 1.0 or 1.1, expected in the first quarter of 2026, before moving into larger scale tests. The Broadcom-assisted "Baltra" server design was originally linked to TSMC's N3 3 nm processes, but limited CoWoS capacity at TSMC has led Apple to consider Intel for packaging with EMIB options. At the same time, shipments of the custom AI server parts now seem more likely in 2028, while lower-end M-series chips built on Intel process technology could appear in 2027 if PDK revisions and yield targets prove sufficient for Apple.

TSMC is speeding up advanced chip manufacturing in the U.S. According to a report from Nikkei, the company plans to start moving production equipment into its second Arizona fab around mid-2026, with 3 nm chip production targeted for 2027. Sources cited by the report say tool installation is expected to begin between July and September 2026. Once equipment is in place, it typically takes close to a year to qualify production lines and begin volume manufacturing. For advanced nodes like 3 nm, the process can take even longer as modern chip production involves well over 1,000 individual steps and extensive process validation at new sites. This updated timeline lines up with recent comments from TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei, who has said the company wants to bring U.S. production online earlier than previously planned (originally expected to start production around 2028).

In parallel, Commercial Times reports that TSMC is preparing to invite bids for construction-related contracts at its third Arizona fab by the end of the year. The first TSMC Arizona fab has already started producing chips for Apple, along with NVIDIA's latest Blackwell-based AI processors, according to Nikkei. Once the full $165 billion Arizona project is complete, including five fabs, advanced packaging facilities, and an R&D center, TSMC expects roughly 30% of its most advanced chips to be made in the U.S. Meanwhile, TSMC may adjust plans for its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan. Nikkei reports the company is considering shifting the plant toward 4 nm production instead of the originally planned 6 nm and 7 nm nodes, a move that could require design changes and potentially delay the project.

It seems that the Japanese foundry Rapidus is gearing up for strong competition with TSMC. The company has developed a panel-level packaging (PLP) prototype using a glass interposer, with plans to move towards mass production by 2028. At this week's SEMICON Japan 2025 in Tokyo, the prototype will be showcased. It replaces conventional round silicon wafers with large square glass panels, intended for use in high-performance AI packages that combine multi-chip GPUs and more than a dozen of HBM dies. This approach could reduce material waste and enable larger, denser multi-chip assemblies necessary for next-generation AI accelerators, without breaking the traditional laws of 300 mm wafer.

The company is developing 600x600 mm glass panels, which offer a significantly larger usable area than 300 mm silicon wafers and enable the production of more interposers from a single sheet. Glass substrates provide advantages in electrical performance and flatness compared to organic package materials, making them appealing for dense interconnects. However, glass also introduces new manufacturing challenges, such as fragility and potential warpage as panel sizes increase. Intel has notably discontinued its in-house development of glass substrates and has chosen to license the technology to others. The company can thus monetize its innovations, though large-scale Intel-based technology production is not anticipated until after 2030.

Global sales of total semiconductor manufacturing equipment by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are forecast to reach a record high of $133 billion in 2025, growing 13.7% year-on-year, SEMI announced today in its Year-End Total Semiconductor Equipment Forecast - OEM Perspective at SEMICON Japan 2025. Growth in semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales is expected to continue in the two following years of the forecast period, with projections of $145 billion in 2026 and $156 billion in 2027. This growth will be driven primarily by investments related to AI, particularly in leading-edge logic, memory, and the adoption of advanced packaging technologies.

"Global semiconductor equipment sales show robust momentum, with both the front-end and back-end segments projected to see three consecutive years of growth, culminating in total sales surpassing $150 billion for the first time in 2027," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. "Investments to support AI demand have been stronger than anticipated since our midyear forecast, leading us to boost the outlook for all segments."

SK Hynix held an internal company meeting, where the company reportedly presented some tough pills to swallow for many gamers. The company now forecasts the tight memory supply to last through 2028 for the commodity DRAM, which includes DDR5/DDR4, GDDR6/GDDR7, and LPDDR5x/LPDDR6. All the aforementioned DRAM variants are essential for PC and console components, making millions of gamers at risk of absorbing a massive price increase as a result. As memory supplier inventories deplete, production capacity will not increase to meet demand as it has in the past. This marks a departure from the usual response by memory manufacturers, who typically ramp up capacity in response to demand.

However, an interesting thing that SK Hynix has noted is that this situation will exclude the company's most advanced memory solutions—HBM and SOCAMM. These products are expected to get an additional capacity expansion, without tight supply impacting this part of the DRAM supply chain. These products are even in high demand as they are mostly consumed in higher volume than the regular commodity DRAM, due to their integration into AI products such as GPUs and servers.

Intel has conducted early tool qualification tests on wet etch systems from ACM Research as part of its preparations for the next-generation 14A node, which is scheduled for volume production in 2027. These evaluations have drawn external political attention because ACM has significant research and manufacturing facilities in China and has faced U.S. restrictions on its overseas company departments. The situation is further complicated by a past investment in ACM through Walden International, a firm associated with Lip-Bu Tan, who now leads Intel. Intel has not yet announced a decision to adopt ACM's tools for 14A production, nor provided any statement.

The new tool testing has led to political scrutiny and calls for stricter procurement rules for companies that have received government support. Although ACM Research is a U.S. company, its research and operations expansion in China pose a security threat to government-backed Intel, which is striving to maintain American semiconductor independence. At the same time, Intel has already confirmed its use of ASML's High-NA EUV lithography, another tool from the West that is prohibited from being sold to Chinese entities. ASML operates 12 offices across China, primarily for operational purposes, but it is not under the same level of scrutiny. We are awaiting any possible updates to determine if there are additional underlying reasons why Intel and ACM Research are facing challenges in this situation.

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) today announced the development of a nanoimprint lithography (NIL) template featuring a circuit line width of 10 nanometers (nm: 10-9 meter). The new template enables patterning for logic semiconductors equivalent to the 1.4 nm generation and meets the miniaturization needs of cutting-edge logic semiconductors used in devices such as smartphones, data centers, and NAND flash memory.

Background and Aims
In line with the shift to more sophisticated devices seen in recent years, demands have emerged for even greater miniaturization in cutting-edge semiconductors, leading to advances in Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography-based production. EUV lithography, however, requires substantial capital investment, energy consumption, and operating costs in building production lines and the exposure process. This has fed into the pressing need to balance a reduction in manufacturing costs with a lowering in the environmental burden.

Interesting developments are unfolding in the world of DRAM and NAND flash, as one of the largest players, SK Hynix, has announced product updates for 2026. The company appears to be following its competitor Samsung by slowing the ramp-up of its next-generation HBM4. Initially, SK Hynix planned to increase its HBM4 capacity in the second quarter of 2026. However, this has been postponed to the third quarter of 2026, as the company plans to expand its HBM4 manufacturing capacity. The delay is due to the high demand for its current HBM3E capacity, necessitating the continued operation of HBM3E manufacturing sites longer than expected. SK Hynix's largest customer for HBM chips, NVIDIA, is reportedly facing challenges with the volume production of "Rubin," delaying the need for HBM4, while the HBM3E-equipped "Blackwell" remains in strong demand.

Intel's 14A node is a critical product for Intel Foundry, currently under development and slated for release in 2027. As Intel collaborates on the 14A node design with customers, these potential Foundry clients can evaluate whether the upcoming node meets their needs. Patrick Moorhead, from Moor Insights & Strategy, who frequently engages with industry executives, reports that two Intel customers are very satisfied with the node's development so far. "Intel customers I've spoken to who have seen this node say that 14A is the real deal. It should be highly competitive not only in the datacenter and PC markets but also in mobile chips, which marks an important shift for the company."

He further commented, "I am eager for Intel to release its 14A 0.5 PDK and start gathering feedback. However, even without the PDK available, I'm already hearing very positive things, especially considering the progress with 18A, as each new node builds upon the previous ones." Intel is manufacturing the 14A node using High-NA EUV lithography, becoming the first in the industry to transition from Low-NA. Previously, Intel revealed that it processed over 30,000 wafers in a single quarter, achieving simplified manufacturing by reducing the required steps for a particular layer from 40 to fewer than 10, which naturally resulted in much faster cycle times.

Memory markets are currently facing a significant supply shortage, with December contract prices for key DRAM categories increasing by 80 to 100%, according to Team Group general manager Gerry Chen. He described this substantial price hike as the beginning of a multiyear memory upcycle and warned that the most severe impact will be felt in the first half of 2026, once distributors deplete their inventories. This price shock is already affecting the system bills of materials for OEMs, with memory's share in PC and notebook BOMs rising from the mid-teens to the mid-20s and higher, depending on the configuration.

Costs for DDR5 and SSDs have, on average, increased two to three times. For overall DRAM, it is 171.8% year-over-year. Cloud service providers are securing allocations for 2026 and 2027, which reduces the available supply for consumer and mainstream devices. This situation risks significant shipment declines in cost-sensitive segments like mainstream PCs, notebooks, and Chromebooks. However, even the powerful hyperscalers cannot secure all the DRAM allocations, as Tier-1 U.S. and Chinese cloud order books are filled to an effective 70% capacity, eliminating the safety stock that most buyers thought they had secured.

NVIDIA is reportedly the only customer queued for TSMC's next-generation A16 process, and the company is lining the node up for its upcoming "Feynman" GPUs. The company is lining up for samples in 2026 with volume ramps following in 2027, timing that would slot "Feynman" after "Rubin"-class products built on refined 3 nm variants. If the reports are accurate, NVIDIA's commitment would be notable as it would be the only major company opting for the "stopgap" node between N2 and A14. Customers like Apple are reserving TSMC N2 2 nm capacity and plan to transition to A14 as soon as it becomes available, bypassing the A16 node.

TSMC's A16 node is a nanosheet-focused design featuring enhanced backside power delivery, known as Super Power Rail (SPR). This design separates power routing from signal layers, reducing delivery losses. The process is expected to provide modest single-digit performance improvements, more noticeable power reductions for AI workloads, and slightly higher transistor density compared to the previous generation. For very large dies and high-power cards, these enhancements can lead to cleaner floorplanning, easier thermal management, and increased capacity for memory and interconnect bandwidth. While these improvements are significant for NVIDIA's datacenter chips, Apple's mobile and laptop chips may benefit even more from the less expensive N2 node and its variations.

According to one of the analysts closest to the Apple supply chain, Ming-Chi Kuo, Intel is expected to manufacture Apple's advanced M-series of chips by 2027. According to Kuo, Apple has used version 0.9.1 of process design kit (PDK) designed for Intel 18AP node. With performance, density, power, and every other metric going according to plan, Intel could become Apple's source of advanced node production in 2027. Additionally, Apple is reportedly waiting for Intel to release 18AP PDK version 1.0 or 1.1, which is scheduled for Q1 of 2026. When that gets released, Apple will start with lowest-end M-series chip, used by MacBook Air and iPad Pro devices.

Interestingly, Intel expected customers to adopt more of the refined 18A nodes—like 18A-P and 18A-PT—and later 14A nodes, than its current vanilla 18A. The 18A-P node enhances Intel's 18A by incorporating RibbonFET and PowerVia technologies, which offer better performance and energy efficiency. Compared to the regular 18A node, these improvements include newly designed low-threshold voltage components, optimized elements to reduce leakage, and refined ribbon width specifications, all aimed at boosting performance-per-watt metrics. Apple's designs are very similar to Intel's "Lunar Lake," which includes compute and memory on a single package. This is made using the "Foveros" advanced packaging, which we covered here.

If the performance requirements for new AI or HPC tasks demand maximum performance density regardless of power or heat constraints, Intel has a project presentation scheduled for the ISSCC conference in February 2026. One of the topics will be a 5,000 W GPU design utilizing integrated voltage regulators (IVRs). While this may seem extreme, Intel plans to leverage advanced packaging technology, specifically the Foveros-B variant, to deliver 5 kW GPUs by 2027. As accelerators scale to support larger AI and HPC workloads, traditional board-level regulators are hitting limits in current density and transient response.

Moving voltage regulation into the package shortens current paths and reduces delivery losses. Intel Foundry and its packaging division are already exploring high-density power delivery and kW-class integrated voltage regulators. Intel's Foveros roadmap targets production-ready integrated power elements by 2027, enabling customers to evaluate IVR-enabled assemblies at scale very soon. While Foveros-B is a 2027 product, customers could potentially evaluate multi-kilowatt designs with IVRs next year. Intel is not a singled-out player with multi-kilowatt designs, as NVIDIA "Rubin" silicon is rumored to have a TDP of up to 2.3 kW for highest-end models, leading to rack-level power consumption exceeding 250 kW.

KDE Plasma 6.5 recently launched, bringing with it a host of fixes and quality of life updates, along with some visual tweaks to make the desktop experience feel more polished. Now, however, KDE has officially announced that it will officially stop supporting the X11 session as of the release of KDE Plasma 6.8, which is slated to launch sometime in late 2027 or 2028. KDE has confirmed that the X11 session will still be supported until 2027. Anyone who still relies on X11 for legacy app or feature support at that point in time will be required to use XWayland for those apps. KDE says that dropping X11 support will allow the development team to "move faster to improve stability and functionality," without the bloated X11 protocol holding back development.

At the time of writing, there are still compatibility issues with XWayland, and performance is a common complaint for Linux users, especially those who game on their Linux PCs using tools like Proton or WINE. One other major point of contention when it comes to Wayland is compatibility and performance on NVIDIA GPUs, and in cases where the proprietary NVIDIA driver doesn't offer support for Wayland—almost exclusively an issue with very old NVIDIA GPUs—KDE recommends using the open-source Nouveau driver. Curiously, KDE's in-house applications, like Kate and Kdenlive, will continue to support X11, although it's unclear how long this support will be offered. In the meantime, KDE plans to fill in some of the other gaps in its Wayland session, like incomplete accessibility options, and encourages users to submit bug reports for missing features or special requirements.

It's no wonder Cyberpunk 2 has already passed the pre-production phase and is entering full-fledged development, given that CD Projekt Red just announced that the iconic RPG just surpassed 35 million sales, reportedly, earning CDPR as much as $30.2 million in Q3 2025 revenue alone, when combined with all the DLC and expansion purchases for the game.

CDPR also announced in the earnings report that it would be scaling up both its Boston and Vancouver offices, with both offices projected to grow by up to 100% before the end of 2027. Since July 2025 alone, CDPR has taken on 52 new employees, and at the time of the earnings report, there were 447 developers working on The Witcher 4, while 135 developers were working on Cyberpunk 2.

Rapidus, Japan's most ambitious chipmaker, has reportedly planned to begin constructing a second factory in Hokkaido in 2027, with the production of its most advanced 1.4 nm chips expected to start in early 2029. According to Nikkei, this project is a central part of a trillion-yen initiative supported by substantial government funding. The new facility will follow the company's first plant in Chitose, which is on schedule to begin mass production of 2 nm chips by late 2027. Rapidus reportedly wants to commence intensive research on 1.4 nm technology in 2026, continuing its collaboration with IBM, which has provided the technological foundation for its advancements.

Update 16:00 UTC: A Rapidus spokesperson reached out to us with the statement below:

Rapidus SpokespersonAlthough there have been recent media reports regarding construction and operation of a 1.4 nm-node semiconductor factory from Rapidus, these articles are speculation and did not originate from our company. We do not comment on rumors or speculation. Any updates on our roadmap will come directly from our company and if we decide on any development that should be made public, we will announce it promptly.