B[CITIC Securities: It is recommended to pay attention to the investment opportunities of companies in the HDD, DRAM, and NAND tracks] On October 16, CITIC Securities reported that the recent global memory chip stock price fluctuations have intensified, and their performance has been significantly weaker than other sectors since October. In addition to the disturbance of macro factors (increased crude oil price fluctuations, inflation and interest rate expectations have resurfaced), the industry has also become more concerned about the progress of Changxin Technology’s 4F² technology. The main reason is that the market is worried that China's local wafer fabs will form an effective technological breakthrough in the high-margin server DDR5 market, and the narrative logic of overseas giants maintaining ultra-high bargaining power through monopolizing production capacity will be shaken. From the perspective of industry progress, the current DRAM technology is still dominated by 6F² unit structure. The implementation of 4F² technology depends on the progress of Samsung Electronics and Changxin Technology. At present, 4F² technology is still in the early verification stage. It is still necessary to observe the company's yield, output, gross profit margin, downstream customer certification and other indicators in this field. It will have a relatively small impact on the short- and medium-term storage industry. It is recommended to pay attention to the investment opportunities of companies in the HDD, DRAM, and NAND tracks. A[TSMC: It is expected that Q4 demand will continue to be strong. The CPU demand for AI intelligent agents far exceeds the current supply capacity] October 15th, TSMC released its third quarter 2026 results on the afternoon of October 15th and held an analyst meeting to introduce performance guidance, industry demand, capital expenditures, process/capacity and other aspects. The core content is as follows:
(1) About performance guidance
① The company expects sales in the fourth quarter to be US$52.3 billion to US$54.3 billion, while the market estimates US$50.35 billion; the company expects gross profit margin in the fourth quarter to be 65-67% (66.4% in the third quarter).
② The company expects revenue in 2026 to grow by approximately 44% in U.S. dollars, compared with the previous forecast of slightly more than 40%.
③There is no upper limit to profitability, but substantial improvement will not happen overnight.
(2) Regarding the demand for artificial intelligence
① We have firm confidence in the general trend of artificial intelligence. The demand for AI continues to grow, and demand in Q4 is expected to continue to be strong.
②The CPU demand for AI agents is growing, and the demand still far exceeds the current supply capacity.
(3) Regarding capital expenditures
①Capital expenditure in 2026 is expected to be US$60 billion-64 billion.
② We will remain cautious in our business planning for 2027, and it is too early to disclose the amount of capital expenditures after this year.
(4) About process/capacity
① The demand for advanced processes is very strong, and a new 3-nanometer process wafer fab will be built in Tainan.
②We are discussing with Musk whether we can utilize TeraFab’s idle production capacity. Any factory cooperation must be led by TSMC.
③We are considering expanding U.S. production capacity outside of Arizona and are conducting site selection evaluations in Texas.
④The A14 chip will start mass production in 2028. B[Partial changes in the semiconductor equipment sector, Oriental Jiasheng's straight daily limit] On October 15th, there were partial changes in the semiconductor equipment sector during the session, with Oriental Jiasheng's straight daily limit. Previously, it reached the daily limit of Pure Technology, and Haichuan Intelligent, Jingyi Equipment, Juzi Technology, Xinlai Materials, Torrens, etc. followed suit. On the news, JPMorgan Chase predicts that the global wafer manufacturing equipment (WFE) market will reach US$163 billion in 2026, a year-on-year increase of 31%; it will further increase by 38% to US$225 billion in 2027; it will reach US$263 billion in 2028, a year-on-year increase of 17%. B[Daiwa: Samsung Electronics' preliminary third-quarter results remain solid, maintaining a "buy" rating] On October 9, Daiwa released a research report saying that Samsung Electronics' preliminary third-quarter results remained solid, with revenue of 195 trillion won, up 14% month-on-month and 127% year-on-year, slightly lower than the bank and market estimates; operating profit was 107.4 trillion won, up 20% month-on-month and 782% year-on-year, in line with the bank's estimate, but slightly lower than market consensus. Although the appreciation of the Korean won brought exchange headwinds and the drag on employee bonus provisions, the continued rise in memory prices, coupled with the improvement of mobile phone and display product mix, drove the performance to remain solid. In terms of memory, the bank estimates that DRAM/NAND bit shipments will record low-single-digit/mid-single-digit growth respectively month-on-month, and the average selling price of the two will increase by about 20%; wafer foundry losses are expected to narrow; display equipment and mobile phone business profits are also better than the bank's earlier expectations. The bank expects fourth-quarter earnings to further improve due to continued strength in memory, and expects the company to announce additional shareholder returns, including a repurchase plan, during its earnings conference call on October 29. The bank maintained a "buy" rating on Samsung Electronics and a 12-month target price of 500,000 won. B[Semiconductor demand ignites the market, isopropyl alcohol has risen by more than 40% in more than two months] September 30th, since September, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) has become one of the leading varieties in the domestic chemical sector. According to SunSirs' monitoring, the domestic reference price of isopropyl alcohol was 9,308.33 yuan/ton on September 29, an increase of 23.84% from September 1; the market once hit a stage high of 9,780 yuan/ton during the month, which was a year-long low of 6,142 yuan/ton in early July, with a cumulative increase of more than 40% in more than two months. Isopropyl alcohol is an indispensable cleaning solvent for semiconductor manufacturing and is widely used in wafer cleaning, photoresist residue stripping, and precision drying. B[AI demand is strong, TSMC's joint-stock company VIS Singapore's first wafer fab is fully operational] September 28th, it is reported that TSMC's joint-stock chip manufacturer VIS held an opening ceremony for its first advanced chip manufacturing factory in Singapore on Monday, and has set its sights on building a second factory. Driven by the craze for artificial intelligence infrastructure, new factory capacity has been "sold out" as soon as it comes into operation. The fab, called VSMC, is a joint venture between VIS and European chipmaker NXP. The factory started trial production in June, and it took only 18 months from the start of construction to trial production, much faster than the more than two years it usually takes to build a chip factory. VIS said the yield rate of the first batch of chips is at least 99%. The factory plans to start mass production in early 2027. The factory will also help TSMC produce key "interposers" for advanced chip packaging, serving as substrates for connecting different types of chips and serving leading AI chip manufacturers such as Nvidia, Google and Broadcom. TSMC is the largest shareholder of VIS, holding about 19% of the shares. A[Selected evening news on September 22]
1. During his investigation in Shanghai, Li Qiang emphasized that we should accelerate the cultivation and expansion of emerging industries and future industries, and continue to expand and strengthen advanced manufacturing.
2. Alibaba stated that it will fully invest in the construction of AI infrastructure, with the goal of exceeding 20GW of global data centers operated by Alibaba Cloud by 2032.
3. The media under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued an article saying that the "de-Ningdeization" argument is inappropriate. It is normal market behavior for car companies to adjust their supply chains, add suppliers, and deploy self-research.
4. Meta’s consumer-grade AI smartphone Muse, launched in early September, has topped the list of free iPhone app downloads in the United States for three consecutive days since reaching the top last week, triggering the market’s optimistic expectations for CPU demand brought about by the popularity of smartphones.
5. Saudi Arabia has restarted its east-west oil pipeline and is preparing to resume crude oil exports from Yanbu Port later on Tuesday, trade sources said.
6. Senior Iranian officials said that Iran can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 7 days if the United States reduces military pressure and lifts the naval blockade on Iran.
7. Company news: ① Xingyun Technology: Signed a 453 million yuan computing power service procurement contract. ② Baiwei Storage: It plans to invest 4.5 billion yuan to build the third phase of the wafer-level advanced packaging and testing manufacturing project. ③CICC: 7.3219 million A-shares have effectively declared objections to the stock-swap merger and merger, and trading will resume tomorrow. ④Sichuan University Zhisheng: A case was filed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission for suspected violations of information disclosure laws and regulations.
— All loaded —
