China jets surge near Taiwan again
Taiwan reported a large‑scale surge in Chinese military aircraft presence near the island reported on March 14, renewing supply‑chain geopolitical risk. That uptick matters for semiconductor routing and sourcing — especially given Taiwan’s outsized role in advanced packaging and foundry capacity.
Taiwan’s defense ministry reported detecting 26 Chinese military aircraft around the island over a 24‑hour period on March 14–15. politico.com The spike followed an unexplained lull of more than two weeks, with recorded air activity nearly absent between Feb. 27 and March 5—timing that overlapped with China’s annual legislative session. usnews.com Taipei’s updates said the aircraft were concentrated in the Taiwan Strait and that the PLA’s sorties normally include fighters, drones and other military aircraft tracked by ADIZ monitors. channelnewsasia.com TSMC’s foundry dominance—reported at roughly 70%+ of leading‑edge foundry share in recent quarters—means any disruption to Taiwan’s manufacturing footprint has outsized system‑level effects. design-reuse-embedded.com Advanced packaging is a bottleneck underneath that foundry concentration: industry trackers say TSMC’s CoWoS packaging lines are effectively fully booked and OSATs such as ASE are expanding capacity, with ASE forecasting advanced‑packaging revenue of about $3.2 billion in 2026. techpowerup.com Supply‑chain moves responding to geographic risk are concrete—reports say TSMC is accelerating outsourced CoWoS work and eyeing advanced‑packaging acceleration at its Arizona site, while ASE paid NT$2.8 billion for a Zhunan facility to boost capacity. pepelac.news The operational squeeze shows up in lead times and demand metrics: analysts reported 3nm accelerator lead times extending beyond 50 weeks and CoWoS wafer demand forecast to jump from roughly 484,000 in 2025 to nearly 678,000 in 2026, a ~40% increase. siliconanalysts.com
