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Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced that it will supply ABF substrates to NVIDIA starting in 2026.

NVIDIA announced plans to increase packaging substrate capacity to 2.5 times the current level over the next three years.

According to a report by THE ELEC, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced on October 19 that it has signed a supply contract for packaging substrates for memory semiconductors with a large global company, amounting to 360.5 billion Korean won. The contract period is from January 1, 2027, to December 31, which is equivalent to 3.2% of the company's consolidated revenue last year.This is the first time Samsung Electro-Mechanics has disclosed a long-term supply contract for packaging substrates. With this addition, the number of long-term supply contracts disclosed by the company this year has increased to seven, with a total amount of approximately 4.3 trillion Korean won. Previous contracts were mainly focused on components such as silicon capacitors, multilayer ceramic capacitors, and inductors, and this expansion includes the packaging solutions business, which produces products such as FC-BGA substrates and BGA substrates.Last month, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced plans to invest 42.7 trillion Korean won in the Sejong FC-BGA production facility and 25.1 trillion Korean won in the Vietnam packaging substrate production equipment. The company also stated that as part of a large government project, it plans to invest 80 trillion Korean won in the Sejong business site and 150 trillion Korean won in the Busan business site by 2040, and will produce FC-BGA in Busan, Sejong, and Vietnam. A related person from Samsung Electro-Mechanics stated that the growth of the AI and high-performance computing market makes high-performance packaging substrates more important, and the company will strengthen customer supply cooperation and establish a stable supply system.

Regarding the announcement "Polygon is not dead" released by Polygon's official Twitter, which is suspected to mock the shutdown of Abstract, Polygon founder Sandeep responded that the dissemination effect of the related content "did not meet expectations," and some people attributed a completely different meaning to it. The Polygon marketing team was self-deprecating, as Polygon's fundamentals are still growing, and there was no intention to imply anything about Abstract's shutdown.Sandeep added that he was also confused when he first saw the content and emphasized that he has great respect for Abstract founder Luca Netz and his team. Since Polygon itself had also terminated the zkEVM project, he empathizes with the pain and would not mock the other party, wishing Luca and the Pudgy Penguins team all the best.

According to on-chain information, shortly after the shutdown announcement of Abstract, a newly created address withdrew 1 million USD from Kraken and then quickly bought 25 Pudgy Penguins NFTs on the market. As of the time of writing, the wallet still holds ETH worth 766,000 USD.As of the time of writing, the floor price for Pudgy Penguins NFTs is reported at 3.3 ETH, with a 24-hour increase of 6.8%.Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz stated that Abstract is gradually shutting down, and its parent company Igloo Inc. will now focus all its efforts on the development of Pudgy Penguins, Pudgy NFTs, and PENGU.

NFT and IP company Igloo, Inc. announced the shutdown of its consumer-grade blockchain Abstract, reallocating personnel and resources to Pudgy Penguins, Pudgy NFT, and the token PENGU.Igloo stated that the goal of Abstract was to create a public chain for consumer scenarios, and the company invested engineering and ecological talent and infrastructure for this purpose. Its growth was constrained by the high operational costs of independent blockchain, limited liquidity, a weak DeFi ecosystem, and declining market interest. Over the past two years, Igloo has lost tens of millions of dollars to maintain Abstract's operations, expand, and seek product-market fit and profitability.The company stated that after even well-funded enterprises struggled to find product-market fit for their own blockchain, shutting down Abstract became the right decision. Moving forward, they will refine the brand path from products and content to PENGU, and then to Pudgy Penguins NFT, refocusing on this role as an IP.

The consumer-grade Ethereum Layer 2 network Abstract, supported by Pudgy Penguins' parent company Igloo Inc., announced that it will gradually cease operations and officially shut down its mainnet on December 15, 2026. The official reasons given are stagnation in growth, thin liquidity, limitations in the DeFi ecosystem, and insufficient institutional adoption. Abstract warns users that they must transfer their assets across chains before the shutdown date, or they may lose access to their funds.Abstract stated that the network has deployed over 144 applications and has attracted more than 400,000 users through consumer-grade collaborations with brands such as Red Bull Racing and Disney. However, significant changes have occurred in the industry since the project's conception, and the independent chain model focused on consumer-grade crypto has ultimately proven difficult to sustain. Igloo has continuously funded Abstract for the past 18 months, with CEO Luca Netz revealing that cumulative losses have reached tens of millions of dollars. Igloo is now redirecting resources towards Pudgy Penguins and PENGU.In July 2024, Igloo completed a financing round of over $11 million led by Founders Fund, aimed at developing Abstract and leveraging Pudgy Penguins' distribution capabilities to bring consumers on-chain. The network launched its mainnet in January 2025. Netz stated that Igloo ultimately decided not to issue Abstract tokens and would not continue funding the network at the expense of Pudgy Penguins' business.

Renowned trader Killa stated, "The 'Everything is Priced In' chart records the major catalytic events in each cycle of Bitcoin, as well as the price performance after these events occur." He believes that during bear markets, negative news typically drives BTC to continue falling, leading traders to gradually form the habit of "shorting on bad news"; however, when the high time frame trend reverses, the same news may only cause temporary panic, after which Bitcoin absorbs the selling pressure and continues to rise.Recently, the market has experienced the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes, the voting expectations for the CLARITY Act, and the failure to advance the act. At one point, the market viewed these events as reasons for Bitcoin to decline further, but BTC only briefly fell below the range's low point, quickly rebounding and showing strong resilience. Even when narratives related to a "Third World War" intensified, Bitcoin began to respond relatively positively to panic factors in terms of price. He believes this performance is a significant distinction between bull and bear markets: in a bear market, bad news drives prices down, while in a bull market, bad news may prompt traders to capitulate, after which prices continue to rise.Killa noted that the important catalyst confirming the continuation of the last cycle was the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF, while a similar catalyst for this cycle may be the CLARITY Act. Bitcoin's recent ability to digest multiple pieces of bad news is an important basis for his judgment that the trend has already changed.

Ethlabs researcher Derek Chiang stated that the collaboration between Base and Ethereum regarding account abstraction around EIP-8130 and EIP-8141 (Frames) has broken down last week, with both parties advancing their respective AA standards.He pointed out that for a long time, the EVM has been a unifying force between L1 and L2, and sharing an AA standard could have ensured a consistent multi-chain experience for smart accounts, including future post-quantum accounts. However, as the industry evolves, L1 and L2 are beginning to differentiate in terms of value and use cases: L1 pursues censorship resistance and capture, open source, privacy, and security, while L2 focuses on scalability, customization, and compliance.Both sides agree on core use cases such as gasless transactions and passkey wallets, but there are significant differences in compliance requirements. Chiang believes that a lack of unified standards may not be a bad outcome, as both parties can maximize innovation according to their visions.He proposed two paths: establishing a governance mechanism for shared resources like the EVM that covers more stakeholders, or accepting that a lack of unified standards is inevitable and focusing on building wallets and applications that can mask differences, expressing greater optimism about the second path.

On September 10, Kim Sang-hoon, the head of the packaging division at Samsung Electro-Mechanics, delivered a speech at the KPCA Show International Seminar INSIGHT 2026 held at the Incheon Songdo Conference Center, proposing a multilayer core (MLC) technology direction to address the large-scale and high-multilayer challenges of AI semiconductor packaging substrates.Kim Sang-hoon stated that in the past, the single-layer core (SLC) method, which increased the thickness of a single CCL, led to increased difficulty in processing internal vias and circuits as the core thickened, and the size of the vias became limited. The MLC approach shifts to a combination of CCL and PPG multilayers, or even a mixed structure of two CCLs, which can simultaneously enhance rigidity and wiring freedom, while also allowing for ground or signal wiring to be arranged in the PPG layer. A bonding layer added between the two CCLs can provide more stable support for the substrate, but the process is more complex.Currently, the commonly used bump pitch in mass production is above 90μm, with around 85μm being the turning point for printed fine solder ball processes. The difficulty significantly increases around 80μm, and the 55-45μm range may shift towards metal bumps. Glass cores are another option, offering higher rigidity and lower thermal expansion coefficients, which help reduce warping in large packages, but issues related to fragility and micro-hole plating technology need to be addressed. The substrate must meet signal integrity, power integrity, and mechanical integrity requirements simultaneously, with high-performance packaging substrate layers expected to evolve from about 20 layers at the 90mm level to 120mm and even more than 40 layers.

Ethlabs stated that it has reviewed over 60 EIPs proposed for the Ethereum Hegotá upgrade and updated its priority recommendations, focusing on four areas: censorship resistance, transaction confirmation speed, native account abstraction, and performance optimization.Specifically, Ethlabs supports FOCIL to enhance Ethereum's censorship resistance and neutrality; it recommends shortening time slots for the first time in the Hegotá upgrade through Quick Slots and creating conditions for further reductions in the future; it supports achieving native account abstraction through Frame Transactions, introducing passkey wallets, transaction delegation, using tokens to pay Gas, batch transactions, as well as better privacy and quantum security support. Additionally, Ethlabs emphasizes that client and protocol design should continuously prioritize performance, using optimization results to increase L1 capacity, shorten time slots, and reduce node operation requirements.

According to a report by ZDNet Korea on the 9th, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and LG Innotek are advancing into the Intel EMIB-T packaging substrate supply chain, with related product development and testing already underway. EMIB connects chips with small silicon bridges, which Intel previously used mainly for its own chips; the improved EMIB-T is expanding external sales. The next-generation AI accelerator TPU that Google plans to launch in the second half of next year will be the first to use EMIB-T. EMIB-T inserts silicon vias for power transmission within the silicon bridge.Insiders say that Samsung Electro-Mechanics has developed EMIB substrate samples over the years and is currently advancing EMIB-T supply based on the 2.1D packaging substrate concept. Recently, LG Innotek delivered EMIB-T packaging substrates to SK Hynix for sample testing, and both parties are installing HBM on the substrate to evaluate product characteristics.Currently, EMIB-T packaging substrates are supplied by Japan's Ibiden, Shinkawa Electric, Taiwan's Xinxing Electronics, and Austria's AT&S. Ibiden has decided to utilize idle factories to construct a dedicated production line for Intel's EMIB-T substrates, with an investment scale of about 20 trillion Korean won, and it is reported that they have already received advance payments from Google, Amazon, Intel, and others.

Samsung Electronics' wafer foundry division has recently surpassed 50% in the allocation of production capacity for the sixth-generation high bandwidth memory HBM4 substrate chips in the 4-nanometer process. The industry states that this division will invest more than half of its 4-nanometer wafers into HBM4 substrate chip manufacturing in the second half of this year to expand supply to companies like NVIDIA, Broadcom, and AMD.Samsung initiated mass production and shipment of HBM4 in February this year and plans to increase supply starting from the third quarter, significantly increasing the related wafer input since mid-year. This chip is based on Samsung's wafer foundry 4-nanometer (SF4) process. As of last month, over 50% of its total 4-nanometer capacity has been allocated to HBM4 substrate chips. According to insiders, Samsung's 4-nanometer process is currently at full capacity, with HBM4 substrate chips accounting for about 50% to 60%, and this high proportion will be maintained in the second half of the year.Samsung's wafer foundry production lines at Pyeongtaek Plant 2 and Plant 3 are mass-producing processes ranging from 4 to 7 nanometers, with a monthly capacity of about 30,000 wafers for the 4-nanometer process. Based on this, the wafer input related to HBM4 substrate chips is estimated to be about 15,000 wafers per month. During the second quarter earnings call, Samsung stated that it expects HBM4 revenue to increase more than threefold quarter-over-quarter in the third quarter, with HBM4 revenue in the second half expected to exceed 60% of the company's overall HBM revenue.

According to Citrini analyst Jukan, SK Hynix is working on diversifying the foundry suppliers for the substrate chips used in high bandwidth memory (HBM), which are constructed by vertically stacking multiple memory chips. It is reported that the company is considering outsourcing part of the substrate chip production for the seventh generation HBM, namely HBM4E, to Intel's foundry. So far, SK Hynix has relied entirely on TSMC for outsourcing substrate chip production.This move is seen as an effort to establish a multi-supplier foundry strategy to reduce the concentration of the supply chain on TSMC while enhancing SK Hynix's bargaining power in pricing. According to industry insiders on August 31, SK Hynix is advancing a plan where the substrate chips for HBM4E may be jointly manufactured by TSMC and Intel, potentially starting from the HBM4E generation.As the market expects the cost burden of substrate chips for HBM4E to further increase. Since HBM products are mainly covered by long-term supply agreements (LTA), SK Hynix also finds it difficult to immediately pass on the higher foundry costs to customers by raising product prices. Therefore, industry observers believe that if Intel ultimately joins SK Hynix's substrate chip supply chain, the company will gain more options in terms of cost competitiveness and supply stability.

Ethereum developer nixo.eth revealed on the X platform that Ethereum core developers have decided to change the status of the account abstraction proposal EIP-8141 from "under consideration" to "scheduled," confirming that account abstraction will be promoted as a key feature of the Hegotá upgrade.This EIP was proposed in March as a flagship upgrade, and community consensus suggests that even though there are still controversies regarding the specific implementation, account abstraction should be launched in Hegotá. In recent weeks, another proposal, EIP-8130, has emerged as a competitor, planning to be deployed on Base in September, sparking discussions about avoiding a split in account abstraction standards between L1 and L2. The authors of both EIPs and core developers are working hard to reach a unified solution without delaying the upgrade. The status change means that this feature has officially entered the planning for the Hegotá upgrade, but the specific specifications may undergo significant changes, and it is common for implementation plans to change before the official launch.

According to businesswire, Bitcoin treasury company BSTR Holdings announced that it has reached an agreement with Cantor Equity Partners to terminate the business combination agreement signed by both parties on July 16, 2025.The reason for termination is that under the current market environment, the valuation of Bitcoin and publicly listed Bitcoin treasury companies continues to be under pressure, leading to a mismatch in the capital market, which restricts the amplifying effect of financing tools such as convertible bonds and perpetual preferred stocks in Bitcoin treasury strategies.BSTR stated that it will continue to promote institutional-level Bitcoin asset management business once the market environment stabilizes.

Consumer-grade blockchain Abstract announces the launch of Builder XP, an extension of its XP system, aimed at rewarding builders who contribute to the Abstract ecosystem. This mechanism allocates Builder XP weekly based on the project's overall impact on the chain.Builder XP will further incentivize developers and project parties to continue building, promoting the development of the Abstract ecosystem. Abstract is created by the Pudgy Penguins team, focusing on consumer-grade crypto applications and on-chain experiences.

The non-profit Ethereum development lab Ethlabs published an article outlining its priority recommendations for Ethereum's next network upgrade, Hegotá. Ethlabs listed the following directions as top priorities: strengthening censorship resistance (EIP-7805 FOCIL has been confirmed as the top proposal); making Ethereum faster (suggesting the addition of EIP-8198 Quick Slots to reduce slot time and improve confirmation speed and finality); native account abstraction (recommending EIP-8141 Frame Transactions to support Passkey wallets, ERC20 Gas payments, batch transactions, and privacy, etc.); continuous L1 scaling (recommending EIP-8131 and EIP-8279 to enhance capacity and predictability).