Electronics Supply Chain Weekly Digest 8-21-26.
DATAPOINT OF THE WEEK: S&P reported flash August Eurozone mfg PMI increased to 52.8 from 51.9 in July, remaining in expansion for the seventh consecutive month, supported by growth in new orders, production and the first expansion in new export business in 4.5 years.
Germany’s flash mfg PMI significantly rose again to 54.1 from 52.2 in July, with new orders, production, and export sales all rising at their quickest rates since early-2022. S&P reported flash US mfg PMI decreased again to 53.2 from 53.8 in July, marking 13 months of being in expansion territory but a 5 month low as output and new orders grew at their weakest rate since March, appearing to reflect a slowdown in stock-building.
Headlines:
Auto/Transportation
- Hyundai opens sales for its first China-built Ioniq EV which leans on Qualcomm cockpit silicon
- US new-vehicle affordability holds flat in July at 35.4 weeks of median income as prices tick up and incentives compress 2.4% Y/Y, according to Cox
- US new EV sales rebound 3.2% M/M in July as Tesla holds 55% share and incentives compress to 11.8% of transaction price, according to Cox
Datacenter
- Nvidia commits up to $105B lease guarantee and $1.5B equity stake to anchor OpenAI’s 8GW Ohio datacenter
Connectivity
- Molex announces strategic investment in active liquid cooling startup CAEPlus with exclusive licensing rights for pluggable I/O
- SK Hynix announces CPO roadmap with global researchers, extending beyond HBM to tackle AI datacenter bandwidth wall
Industrial
- China’s humanoid robot market pushes from demos into automotive, 3C, and logistics deployments as vendors chase repeat orders, says TrendForce
Semiconductors
- Analog Devices reports a strong F3Q with $4B in revenue and guides 4Q revenue above expectations as AI datacenter and industrial chip demand accelerates
- Micron commits $10B to new Boise memory research lab targeting HBM and AI compute systems
- Nvidia denies plan to ship China-specific LPU by year-end, says no such product exists on its roadmap, according to The Information
- SMIC and Hua Hong run near capacity ceilings as AI-driven mature-node demand books SMIC’s BCD power lines through 2027, according to South China Morning Post
- STMicroelectronics readies third 2026 price hike as power device lead times stretch to 52 weeks, EE Times China reported
- Waymo unveils in-house 5nm ASIC for robotaxis, diversifying away from Nvidia and AMD
