Tootfinder

Sources: Seoul-based AI chip designer FuriosaAI seeks to raise a $300M-$500M Series D to fund mass production of its 2nd-gen RNGD chip and is eyeing a 2027 IPO (Yoolim Lee/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-…

Honda plans to halt production in Japan and China from December 29 to January 6, showing the ongoing fallout of the global chip shortage and Nexperia takeover (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/chip-s…

Tokyo-based Resonac, a crucial cutting-edge chip chemicals supplier whose shares are up 40% YTD, says it has bolstered China production capacity to meet demand (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-17/ch…

Micron signs a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip for $1.8B to expand DRAM memory chip production, expected to close in Q2 2026 (Valentine Baldassari/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

VW plans to end vehicle production at its Dresden plant, which opened in 2001, and convert it into a research hub focused on AI, robotics, and chip design (Gregory Schmidt/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/business/volkswagen-dresden-factor…

Volkswagen to End Production at German Plant, a First in Company History
The auto giant stopped making cars at the plant in Dresden, which opened in 2001, as it faces weaker demand and steep U.S. tariffs.

A tiny side-project that I can hopefully pull through: reverse engineering an audio box for kids that works with proprietary “tokens.” Like a cassette player but rigid af. Use and dispose. #hackerspace #netz39
First stop, getting info about chips and pins. A cheap USB microcontroller it i…

Vietnam's military-run telecom company Viettel begins construction of the country's first chip plant, with trial production expected to start by late 2027 (Phuong Nguyen/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific

The Department of Commerce says the US and Taiwan have reached a trade agreement as part of which Taiwan will invest $250B in chip production capacity in the US (Kif Leswing/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/15/us-taiwan-chips-deal-china.html

Taiwan will invest $250 billion in U.S. chipmaking under new trade deal
The U.S. and Taiwan have reached a trade agreement to build chips and chip factories on American soil, the Department of Commerce announced Thursday.

A profile of June Paik, CEO of Seoul-based chip startup FuriosaAI, valued at ~$700M, whose AI chip dubbed "RNGD" is slated to enter mass production this month (Jiyoung Sohn/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/furiosa-chip-n…

Sources: the Netherlands is prepared to drop the ministerial order that gave it control of Nexperia if China allows exports of its critical chips again (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-07/dutch-ready…

Dutch Ready to Drop Control of Nexperia If Chip Supply Resumes
The Netherlands is prepared to suspend a so-called ministerial order that gave it control over Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia in a move that would de-escalate a fight with Beijing that threatens to disrupt automotive production around the world.

Jensen Huang says Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips are in "full production"; Nvidia says Rubin can train some LLMs with roughly one-fourth the chips Blackwell needs (Lauren Goode/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/nvidias-rubin-chips-are-going-into-productio…

Jensen Huang Says Nvidia’s New Vera Rubin Chips Are in ‘Full Production’
The chip giant says Vera Rubin will sharply cut the cost of training and running AI models, strengthening the appeal of its integrated computing platform.

Sources: Nvidia tells its Chinese clients that it is considering adding production capacity for its H200 chips in response to robust demand (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidia-considers-increasi…

Sources: Beijing-based Cambricon plans to more than triple its AI chip production to 500K units in 2026, including 300K of its advanced Siyuan 590 and 690 chips (Yuan Gao/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…

Sources: TSMC plans to move chipmaking tools into its second Arizona fab in summer 2026, in line with its push to accelerate US production by "several quarters" (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/tech/

TSMC to install cutting-edge 3-nm chip tools in Arizona next summer
Advanced chip production on track to start by 2027, ahead of the original schedule

Japanese chipmaker Rapidus plans to start building a second plant in Hokkaido in fiscal 2027, aiming to make advanced 1.4nm chips as early as 2029 (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/tech/semiconductors…

Japan's Rapidus to build cutting-edge 1.4-nm chip plant in race with TSMC
Construction to begin in fiscal 2027, production to start as early as 2029

Sources: Nvidia has approached TSMC to ramp up H200 chip production; Chinese companies have placed orders for 2M H200 chips for 2026, while Nvidia holds 700K (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidia-sounds…

Industry executives say nearly all major memory chipmakers are running at or near full capacity, with 2026 production slots almost "sold out" due to AI demand (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technolog…

Rampant AI demand throws the memory chip market into turmoil
Supply constraints spark warnings of price rises and launch delays for consumer electronics

Sources: Intel may start shipping a portion of Apple's lowest-end M chips as early as 2027; Apple is evaluating Intel's 18A process for the chip production (@mingchikuo)
https://x.com/mingchikuo/status/1994422001952555318

郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) on X
Intel expected to begin shipping Apple’s lowest-end M processor as early as 2027 There have long been market rumors that Intel could become an advanced-node foundry supplier to Apple, but visibility around this had remained low. My latest industry surveys, however, indicate that