Two drivers outside the leading edge
The world's top 10 foundries took in nearly US$53.49 billion in 2Q26, up 11.5% quarter over quarter and another record. TSMC held 72.5% of that revenue, and its 5/4nm and 3nm capacity was fully booked on AI server GPUs and XPUs.
TrendForce also names two drivers at mature processes. One is rising demand for peripheral AI chips, specifically PMICs and power discretes. The other is continued advance procurement in consumer supply chains for TVs, PCs and notebooks, which it says tightened capacity for some mature processes.
Leading-edge capacity is booked by a small group of large customers. Mature-process capacity is shared by almost every electronics maker, so a squeeze there reaches far more buyers.
Why AI servers need more power parts
Every accelerator board needs power conversion and regulation around it, and PMICs and discretes do most of that work. Those parts come off mature processes.
As AI server build-outs grow, demand for them grows too, at fabs that also make power parts for industrial and consumer products.
Some of the tightness comes from buyers ordering early
TrendForce attributes part of the mature-node tightening to advance procurement, meaning buyers pulling orders forward to get ahead of the market. Each buyer who does this is making a sensible call. Together they take up capacity that would otherwise be available later, so a buyer who waits for confirmation ends up competing for what's left.
Demand is still rising
TSMC's August revenue was NT$514.81 billion, up 10.1% from July and 53.3% from a year earlier, a record month. That's a demand signal, and for PMIC pricing and discrete lead times, you'll need current quotes from your own suppliers.
What Buyers Should Do Now
- This week: Take PMIC and power discrete lines out of the general bucket in your shortage review and list them by part number, with supplier and current quoted lead time.
- Next 30 days: Ask franchised suppliers to confirm in writing whether mature-node allocation has changed for these families.
- Before Q4 builds lock: Sort the list by how hard each part is to replace. Discretes often have pin-compatible alternates that qualify quickly, while PMICs frequently need layout and firmware changes, so start the PMIC qualifications first.