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According to a report by North Korea Biz on October 20, Samsung Electronics' foundry division has seen its 4-nanometer process capacity nearing full load due to an increase in customer orders, while the company is also expanding efforts to attract new customers for its 5-nanometer process. The report states that contracts for the most advanced 2-nanometer process with major global tech companies are still delayed, prompting Samsung to increase the utilization rates of its relatively stable 4-nanometer and 5-nanometer processes to improve profitability.The 4-nanometer process is used for smartphone application processors, artificial intelligence semiconductors, and high-performance computing chips. The report indicates that not all chips in the expanding artificial intelligence semiconductor market require the most advanced processes; the manufacturing costs of 4-nanometer and 5-nanometer processes are relatively low while still achieving high performance, making them suitable for certain artificial intelligence inference chips and application-specific integrated circuits.Regarding the 2-nanometer process, Samsung is in discussions with major global tech companies about production contracts, but some negotiations are taking longer than originally expected. In addition to yield rates, the most advanced processes also require comprehensive verification of energy efficiency, design assets, and stable mass production capabilities, which means a longer time frame from contract signing to mass production. Samsung views the 2-nanometer process as the core growth driver for its next-generation foundry business and plans to continue using the fully surrounded gate transistor structure first introduced in the 3-nanometer process to improve energy efficiency and performance.

According to The Bell, Samsung Electronics' foundry division has delayed its contract for application processor foundry production with Qualcomm due to differences in production unit prices, and both parties have failed to narrow the price gap, prolonging negotiations. There have been no significant technical issues, and the currently discussed 2-nanometer process has received a considerable degree of stabilization evaluation.Industry sources indicate that the Qualcomm AP foundry using Samsung's 2-nanometer process may be postponed until next year, and it is unclear whether production can commence within this year. Qualcomm had previously entrusted advanced AP production to Samsung before 2021, and Samsung has been continuously striving to regain this business in recent years, having secured clients such as Tesla and Broadcom.Informed sources state that the contract delay has made it difficult for Samsung to produce APs for Qualcomm this year, and both parties may turn to discuss the next generation of products. After acquiring strategic clients, Samsung is no longer willing to accept low-price orders as it did in the past.

KB Securities released a report on September 11, indicating that Samsung Electronics' HBM market share is expected to increase from 33% in the second quarter to 40% in the fourth quarter, mainly due to HBM4 sales in the third quarter growing more than three times quarter-on-quarter, and HBM4 is expected to account for over 60% of its total HBM sales in the second half of the year.Samsung Electronics has established comprehensive mass production of HBM4, supplied HBM4E samples to core customers, adopted the HBM5 architecture with 1c core bare chips and 2-nanometer base bare chips, and outlined the roadmap for the next-generation ZHBM. In terms of its foundry business, the 4-nanometer yield has stabilized above 80%, and the 2-nanometer GAA yield has rapidly increased to over 70%. KB Securities analyst Kim Dong-Won stated that the foundry business is expected to turn profitable starting in the third quarter, and the 2-nanometer yield may help it secure orders from major U.S. clients within the year.

According to the latest MLCC industry research by TrendForce, South Korean giant Samsung Electro-Mechanics has recently taken the lead in raising prices for OEM and ODM customers for the fourth quarter of 2026, indicating that the MLCC industry has officially entered an upward trend. TrendForce estimates that Samsung Electro-Mechanics will raise the prices of consumer-grade X5R products for OEM and ODM customers by an average of 25% to 30%, in order to suppress order willingness and free up capacity to expand high-end production lines.The high-end X6S products used in AI servers will see an average price increase of 10% to 20% depending on customer negotiations. Japanese manufacturers Murata, TDK, and Kyocera are currently taking a wait-and-see approach, maintaining stable prices, and whether they will follow up with price adjustments will be key to observing whether the upward trend can expand.

According to Reuters, citing informed sources, Samsung Electronics has raised prices for some new advanced foundry service orders by up to 15%, due to a surge in demand for AI chips leading to tight capacity. The company has long lagged behind TSMC in the foundry sector. Demand from Chinese customers is particularly strong, but Samsung must prioritize serving U.S. customers and reserve some capacity to support its own chip production, making it unable to take on all orders. Affected by U.S. export restrictions on advanced chip equipment to China, Chinese companies are increasingly reliant on overseas foundries, with some Chinese customers accepting the maximum price increase.Informed sources stated that Samsung raised the prices for the 4nm (SF4) process in July, with price increases of 10% to 15% for Chinese and U.S. customers, and 5% to 10% for Taiwanese customers; the price for 5nm (SF5) wafers increased by 10% to 15%, nearly 10% higher than the older 8nm process. The SF4 production line at the Pyeongtaek factory has been operating at full capacity since the end of last year, producing logic chips for customers like Qualcomm and providing basic bare chips for Samsung's own HBM. Analysts point out that after TSMC's advanced capacity was fully booked, customers turned to Samsung and Intel, giving Samsung room to raise prices.Samsung's foundry business has been continuously losing money since 2022, but the company expects to quickly turn a profit driven by improved utilization rates, yield improvements, and rising prices. Foundry revenue in the second half of the year is expected to grow by double digits year-on-year, with advanced processes accounting for more than half, and AI and high-performance computing applications accounting for over 30%. Companies like Tesla, Apple, Broadcom, and NVIDIA have already reached relevant cooperation agreements with Samsung, and Google is also in talks to use the SF4 process.

ChainCatcher news, according to RootData, the Moemate token (MATES) has increased by 92.35% in the last 24 hours, currently priced at $0.0094.Moemate is a highly customizable AI-driven virtual companion that integrates a cryptocurrency system, allowing users to create, chat, and share personalized AI characters with the world. It uses advanced LLMs, image, and selfie generation models for the characters. Users can customize them with different voices and even clone their own voice.

ChainCatcher news, focusing on the AI decentralized underlying protocol KIP Protocol announced a partnership with the AI-Agent platform Moemate to help its 3 million Web2 users enter the Web3 space. Moemate, as the flagship project of the new KIP AI alliance, will be provided with decentralized infrastructure by KIP Protocol to establish new standards for AI interaction scalability, security, and ownership.Moemate will gradually decentralize its architecture using KIP's tools and infrastructure. The collaboration includes account abstraction, tokenization and trading of roles, skills, and models, community-driven AI asset investment and crowdfunding, and support for both fiat and cryptocurrency payments. This partnership will help Web2 AI users seamlessly transition into the decentralized AI ecosystem of Web3, showcasing the scalability and real-world applicability of KIP Protocol.It is reported that KIP recently announced partnerships with NaaS operators NodeOps and easeflow. On July 18 at 12:00 UTC, the NodeOps platform will launch KIP node sales.