Taiwan OSAT sector's strongest 1H in years puts 2026 full-year revenue records in sight

The surge in Taiwan, China’s OSAT sector in H1 2026 stems from converging demand for AI-driven advanced packaging and consumer electronics restocking. Technically, processes like CoWoS and Fan-Out are forcing upstream material suppliers to accelerate development of low-k substrates and thermal interface materials, while pushing test equipment toward higher bandwidth and parallelism. On compliance, tightening U.S. export controls on advanced packaging tools have raised local capex costs and compelled supply chain diversification into Southeast Asia. Competitively, ASE Group’s post-merger scale is triggering Amkor and STATS ChipPAC to fast-track capacity in Vietnam and Malaysia to sidestep geopolitical friction. Even if AI chip momentum eases, HBM and Chiplet adoption will sustain above-average utilization over the next 12–24 months—though geopolitical risk premiums will continue to pressure margins.