TrendForce says Q1 top-10 global wafer foundry revenue rose 3.7% QoQ to $47.95bn, driven by continued AI/HPC shipments and customers front-loading TV and PC/NB orders and raising peripheral IC inventories; smartphone seasonality largely offset by this early restocking. Foundries report improving utilization and have signalled willingness to push wafer prices higher in H2, which could prompt some process-node wafer prices to bottom and rebound and further incentivize customer advance buying. Dema

TrendForce says Q1 top-10 global wafer foundry revenue rose 3.7% QoQ to $47.95bn, driven by continued AI/HPC shipments and customers front-loading TV and PC/NB orders and raising peripheral IC inventories; smartphone seasonality largely offset by this early restocking. Foundries report improving utilization and have signalled willingness to push wafer prices higher in H2, which could prompt some process-node wafer prices to bottom and rebound and further incentivize customer advance buying. Demand for AI-related advanced nodes and power ICs has outpaced expectations, creating order spillover and capacity squeeze. TrendForce expects top-10 foundry revenue to hit a new peak in Q2 with a faster QoQ growth rate than Q1.