The artificial-intelligence trade just got a pretty strong signal that the good times can keep going. But tech stocks were falling anyway ahead of the open Thursday.

Higher oil prices and rising Treasury yields were preoccupying investors instead, and perhaps understandably so. However, chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's bumper revenue shouldn't be ignored -- and neither should memory-chip giant Samsung's ninefold increase in profit.

Demand for AI chips is relentless.

TSMC reported a 55% revenue jump to 511.9 billion New Taiwan dollars ($16 billion) in September. That takes its total third-quarter revenue to NT$1.49 trillion ($46.7 billion) -- a 51% increase year over year and higher than analysts' expectations of NT$1.46 trillion, according to FactSet data.

The only blemish was September's revenue falling 0.6% from August. TSMC's American depositary receipts were down 1.1% ahead of the open.

U.S. tech stocks were not taking their cue from TSMC or Samsung, though, but from higher bond yields and oil prices. Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom and Marvell were down more than 1%, while Intel fell around 2%.