The Silicon Foundation: Transistors & Chips
The modern digital economy is built upon silicon. This section breaks down the complex value chain, from design to fabrication, highlighting the market leaders and critical geopolitical choke points that define this foundational industry.
Semiconductor Foundry Market Share (Q1 2025)
TSMC's dominance, especially in leading-edge nodes (≤5nm), makes Taiwan a critical hub in the global tech supply chain. This concentration represents a significant geopolitical risk.
Semiconductor Equipment Market Share (2024)
The manufacturing of advanced chips is impossible without highly specialized equipment. ASML's monopoly in EUV lithography is a key geopolitical chokepoint, tightly controlled by export licenses.
Geopolitical Choke Points & Dependencies
The semiconductor supply chain is a web of dependencies. This flow demonstrates how raw materials from a few countries are processed using equipment from another select group, fabricated in yet another, before reaching global markets.
Raw Materials
Japan (Photoresists)
China (Rare Earths)
DRC (Cobalt)
Equipment
ASML (Netherlands)
Applied Materials (USA)
Tokyo Electron (Japan)
Fabrication
TSMC (Taiwan)
Samsung (S. Korea)
Intel (USA)
Design
NVIDIA (USA)
AMD (USA)
Apple (USA)