According to the Korea Herald, RTHK and Yicai, Asian equities sold off sharply on Wednesday as a US chip rout and surging global bond yields hammered memory-chip and semiconductor names, though Hong Kong bucked the trend.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 2,134.31 points, or 3.16%, to close at 65,326.42, its lowest in two weeks and a second straight decline, as chip-equipment makers slid. Tokyo Electron dropped 3.05% to 54,660 yen and Advantest lost 2.34% to 35,020 yen.

Seoul's KOSPI tumbled 398.66 points, or 5.8%, to end at 6,471.17 after touching an intraday low of 6,400.81; program trading was briefly suspended for five minutes when a sell-side sidecar was triggered. Market bellwether Samsung Electronics plunged 7.82% to 247,500 won and SK hynix sank 9.75% to 1.5 million won, while SK Square dropped 11.54%. Daishin Securities analyst Lee Kyoung-min said foreign investors and institutions offloaded local chip shares on renewed outlook concerns as yields climbed. The won firmed past the 1,400-per-dollar level.

Hong Kong stocks were mixed, with the Hang Seng Index edging up 0.09% to 25,495.07 while the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 1.21%. Baidu tumbled more than 11% after earnings and chip name Hua Hong Semiconductor lost over 11%, but Xiaomi rose more than 4% following its results and mainland banks were active, with Agricultural Bank of China up over 2%. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing reported a record second-quarter profit of US$686 million.

Taiwan's TAIEX fell 589.33 points, or 1.3%, to close at 44,719.35, slipping below the 45,000 mark and its quarterly moving average, pressured by a TAIFEX futures settlement. TSMC closed at NT$2,350, down 1.26%. The three major institutional investors sold a net NT$70.848 billion, with foreign investors selling a net NT$41.6 billion.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite fell 2.4% to 3,894.42 and the ChiNext Index slumped 6.26% to 3,473.49, with more than 5,000 stocks declining and semiconductors leading losses. Bucking the sell-off, humanoid-robot maker Unitree Robotics surged 460% on its Shanghai STAR Market debut.