Calterah Microelectronics, a Shanghai-based automotive radar chip unicorn, has filed for a STAR Market IPO and plans to raise 3.489 billion yuan. The company says its 2025 share of China’s in-vehicle millimeter-wave radar chip market reached 31.1%, with more than 30 million chips shipped and customers including BYD, Geely, Nio and Volvo. Over 12 years, it completed 11 funding rounds and crossed a 10 billion yuan valuation.

The automotive semiconductor cycle is turning in the second half of 2026. Major overseas chipmakers have reported a rebound, inventories across the supply chain have normalized, Tier 1 orders are recovering, and several product lines are already in a second round of price increases. Deutsche Bank and Bernstein say the industry has entered a structural uptrend, but this recovery is set to be uneven rather than broad-based. Infineon, NXP and other leaders have seen inventory days fall from above 200 to 120-140 days in the first quarter of 2026, while supplier inventory-to-sales ratios have returned to safer levels. Lead times for mainstream automotive power devices have stretched beyond 30 weeks, and SiC modules are taking more than 40 weeks in some cases. That tightening has already pushed prices up 10%-25% across multiple categories. The split is clearest in SiC, high-voltage IGBT, high-end MCU, and in-vehicle storage. 800V platforms are driving demand for higher-value semiconductors, while AI-related demand is absorbing mature 8-inch capacity. For automakers, the key issue is no longer shortage across the board, but which chips are tight, which are normalized, and which are still under pressure.

Calterah Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has moved a step closer to a STAR Market listing after the Shanghai Stock Exchange accepted its IPO filing. The company, founded in 2014, is known for bringing domestically developed automotive-grade millimeter-wave radar SoC chips into mass production in China and for breaking the long-standing dominance of overseas suppliers in the segment in 2017. According to its prospectus and public data cited in the report, Calterah held a 31.1% share of China’s automotive millimeter-wave radar market in 2025, ranking second behind Texas Instruments, while its share in the 4D millimeter-wave radar 4-transmit, 4-receive SoC niche reached 66%. The filing shows a company growing quickly but still deeply in the red. Revenue rose from RMB 206 million in 2023 to RMB 632 million in 2025, with 2025 revenue up 108.44% year over year. Yet net profit attributable to shareholders remained negative at RMB -323 million, RMB -334 million, and RMB -193 million from 2023 to 2025, followed by another roughly RMB -60.2866 million loss in the first quarter of 2026. Heavy research spending remained the main drag, while operating cash flow narrowed sharply in 2025. The company plans to raise RMB 3.4894274 billion for radar chips, ultra-wideband connectivity chips, and a technology innovation center and headquarters project.

SanDisk laid out an aggressive long-term financial model at its 2026 investor day, telling investors it expects mid- to high-double-digit revenue growth from fiscal 2028 through fiscal 2030, alongside roughly 80% non-GAAP gross margin and about 75% operating margin. The company also said it would manage sellable bit output based on profitability rather than volume alone, and return 100% of excess cash to shareholders after funding business investment needs. The market reacted quickly. SanDisk rose as much as 17.6% intraday on Thursday and finished up nearly 14%. Other storage names moved higher as well, with SK Hynix and Western Digital up more than 7%, Seagate Technology up nearly 5%, and Micron Technology gaining more than 4%. Management also pointed to a shift in the NAND business model. SanDisk said it has signed new business model agreements with eight customers, covering about 50% of fiscal 2027 bit shipments and about two-thirds of fiscal 2028 bit shipments. The company tied its confidence to AI inference demand, projected enterprise data center flash TAM at 1.2 zettabytes by 2030, and highlighted work on high-bandwidth flash and newer BiCS technologies.

Bernstein has raised its global wafer fab equipment, or WFE, spending forecasts for 2026 through 2028 and says the current upcycle in chip equipment spending still has room to run. The firm now expects WFE to reach $148 billion in 2026, $204 billion in 2027, and $259 billion in 2028, up from prior estimates of $141 billion, $175 billion, and $198 billion. That implies cumulative growth of 75% over two years. The upgrade spans most applications and regions, but Bernstein said the larger contribution comes from memory outside China and from foundry and logic spending in China. DRAM and NAND are expected to post the fastest growth, outpacing logic and foundry. For 2027, Bernstein forecasts DRAM WFE at $69 billion, NAND at $20 billion, and logic/foundry at $104 billion, each above its earlier projections. The report also points to stronger-than-expected resilience in China. Bernstein forecasts China WFE demand at $57 billion in 2026, $57.3 billion in 2027, and $101 billion in 2028, with a sharp step-up tied to broad capacity expansion across memory, advanced logic, and mature logic. It also said recent pullbacks in semiconductor equipment stocks have created more attractive entry points, while warning that the views, ratings, and price targets cited are those of Bernstein analysts and do not constitute investment advice.

Sony Group and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) plan to invest about 1 trillion yen, or roughly $6.3 billion, to form a joint venture in Kumamoto Prefecture, according to a report from Nikkei. The venture is intended to mass-produce next-generation semiconductors used in image sensors, with Sony expected to hold about 60% and TSMC about 40%. Commercial production could begin as early as 2029. Nikkei said the manufacturing base would use Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ existing site in Kumamoto rather than a newly built location. The report also said the two companies aim to establish the joint venture during fiscal 2026, while an investment agreement could be finalized in the coming months. The partnership builds on an announcement made in May, when Sony and TSMC said they would jointly develop and manufacture next-generation image sensors. Sony is expected to contribute sensor design capabilities, while TSMC would provide manufacturing and process technology. Nikkei added that Sony is already a minority shareholder in TSMC’s Kumamoto plant, meaning local cooperation between the two groups is already in place. The report said the effort is aimed not only at smartphones but also at Physical AI applications, including automotive and robotics, where demand for high-performance sensors is expected to matter more after 2029.

A South Korean court has upheld an 18-month prison sentence for a former SK Hynix employee who leaked trade secrets to Chinese companies, including Huawei-backed HiSilicon. The Seoul High Court's Criminal Division 10-1 confirmed the lower court's ruling that the ex-worker, identified only by the surname Kim, violated South Korea's industrial technology protection laws by printing and photographing confidential CMOS image sensor documents in 2022, then embedding part of that material in his resume to secure a job in China. The appellate court said the scale of the leak was severe and warned that lenient sentences would weaken corporate incentives for R&D while making it easier for overseas rivals to poach Korean technology through recruitment. It declined to increase the punishment, noting that Kim confessed fully and most of the materials were recovered. A related charge involving hybrid bonding technology was dismissed because that technique had not yet been included in the government's advanced technology notice at the time.

Monad co-founder Keone Hon has released a broad ecosystem update spanning user onboarding, on-chain activity, and protocol research, laying out what the network has built over the past eight months. On the startup side, the first Nitro cohort held its Demo Day in New York with more than 100 investors in attendance, as seven teams presented products ranging from prediction markets and stablecoin on-ramps to open credit markets and AI-assisted trading tools. On the product and adoption front, Category Labs introduced Mera, an open-source Passkey onboarding library that lets apps create crypto accounts for users through familiar biometric flows such as Face ID and Touch ID, without relying on smart accounts or backend logic. The latest Monad Economy figures show TVL at $800 million, more than 30 fiat on-ramps, live institutional lending and RWA markets, and cumulative DEX volume above $15 billion. App Hub now lists more than 130 applications, while Aave’s Monad market has reached $500 million in deposits. The update also highlights developer shipping, academic research, and infrastructure work. Category Labs accounted for 6 of 34 talks at the Science of Blockchain Conference, the testnet has deployed v0.15.2 in preparation for MIP-8 and Deterministic Raptorcast, and the Monad Foundation has launched MOST to subsidize independent open-source developers with AI tokens. BuildAnything, meanwhile, said its first hackathon drew more than 600 project submissions.