IFA 2026 was the biggest one yet
240,000 visitors, more than 2,000 exhibitors, and robots in almost every hall.
Noise cancelling is now the cheap option
Apple put active noise cancellation in both AirPods 5 models, including the $129 one.
Memory is now more than half the chip market
DRAM revenue up 246%, NAND up 372%, and memory at 54% of all semiconductor revenue. What that does to a bill of materials.
Chip sales passed $400 billion in a single quarter
Global semiconductor sales reached $403.3 billion in Q2 2026 — and the queue behind that number is what matters to anyone specifying parts.
Europe’s Dresden fab moves from concrete to equipment
ESMC — TSMC with Bosch, Infineon and NXP — is fitting out its Dresden plant, targeting 40,000 wafers a month from 2027.
The 2 nm node is sold out before most people have seen it
TSMC N2 entered volume production and its capacity is reportedly spoken for through 2026, largely by AI silicon.
Gartner puts the 2026 chip market at $1.6 trillion
A 92% jump in a single year, with AI data centre silicon accounting for more than a third of all semiconductor revenue.
Designing something that can actually be repaired
With EU repair rules now in force, serviceability has become a design requirement. Most of it costs nothing at schematic stage.
How to read a quoted lead time
A distributor quoting 40 weeks is telling you several different things at once. Here is how to tell which.