Apple-Intel is on, says Trump; Amkor’s big win; Intel 18A-P; Amazon to sell its AI chips; Rambus’ automotive RoT; Brewer’s buy; VLSI Symposium tech; CHIPS Act funding; MIT sensor; RISC-V CPU fuzzing. Amkor inked a 10-year agreement with TSMC to provide advanced packaging and test services in Arizona, tying TSMC’s U.S. fab expansion to domestic OSAT capacity. Trump said in a post that Applewill partner withIntel on chip design and production in the U.S., marking a second reported win for the chipmaker this month. Intel Foundry will also reportedly manufacture 3 million TPUs for Google. Intel has not confirmed either deal. Brewer Science will acquireHeraeus Epurio‘s ultrapure chemical business. IEEE /JSAP Symposium on VLSI Technology & Circuits Intel Foundry said its 18A-P process has entered risk production, with performance, power, thermal, and via-resistance improvements over 18A. The foundry also highlighted longer-term work in CFETs, GaN-on-silicon power integration, and ruthenium interconnects (Fig.1 below). Fraunhofer IPMS and GF researchers integrated hafnium oxide-based ultra-fast ferroelectric FRAM memory into GF’s 22FDX technology node, enabling fast, energy-efficient data storage. NOR flash and SLC NAND contract prices more than doubled in the first half of 2026, reported TrendForce. Global The US government signed a letter of intent to provide Coherent with up to $50M to expand InP wafer manufacturing in Texas and finalized a $500M award for SandboxAQ to accelerate AI-driven semiconductor materials discovery. Nokia is expanding its advanced test and packaging operations in Pennsylvania to boost U.S. production of photonic chips and optical modules used in AI and telecom infrastructure by 10 times its current level. The S. Korean government launched a ~US$520M program to develop on-device AI chips, reports Chosun Biz. Rapidussigned an MoU with the UK Semiconductor Centre to explore semiconductor manufacturing cooperation. Major funding HyperLight raised $80M for its TFLN chiplet platform