The semiconductor industry is one of the most complex and globally integrated supply chains in the world. A single chip can travel tens of thousands of kilometers and pass through hundreds of process steps before reaching a consumer device.
The chain begins with raw materials, primarily high-purity silicon derived from quartz sand. Silicon is purified to 99.9999999% purity, melted into cylindrical ingots and sliced into thin wafers. Specialized chemicals, gases and photomasks are also essential inputs.
Chip design comes next. Fabless companies like Nvidia, Qualcomm and AMD create circuit layouts using electronic design automation (EDA) software. Some firms, such as Intel and Samsung, combine design with manufacturing in an integrated model.
Wafer fabrication is where transistors are built. Foundries like TSMC operate billion-dollar fabs using photolithography to etch billions of transistors onto silicon. Advanced chips require extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and can take three months or more to produce.
After fabrication, wafers are diced into individual chips and packaged. Advanced packaging techniques like CoWoS and 3D stacking improve performance. Finally, chips are assembled into smartphones, servers, cars and countless other products.
MetalSemi Asia tracks each segment of this chain to identify bottlenecks, investment opportunities and geopolitical vulnerabilities.
