Semiconductors

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Overview

The Semiconductors section covers the full enabling stack for advanced chip manufacturing — equipment, materials, and tooling vendors whose products determine what is possible at the leading edge of Moore’s Law. The section focuses on the layers below the chip designers themselves: the companies building the machines, chemicals, and inspection tools that make semiconductor fabrication possible.

Subtopics

  • US Domestic Fab Expansion — CHIPS Act projects, fab construction timelines, and domestic semiconductor manufacturing independence
  • Fabrication Equipment — Lithography, etch, deposition, inspection, and metrology equipment for wafer fabs
  • Materials & Chemicals — Silicon wafers, photoresists, specialty gases, CMP slurries, and supply chain concentration analysis
  • Chip Design — EDA & IP — Electronic design automation tools, semiconductor IP licensing, and export controls on design software

Sections

  • Chip Design — EDA & IP — Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP providers: the software and design tools layer that enables chip design. Includes Synopsys, Cadence, Arm, analysis of export controls on EDA tools.
  • Fabrication Equipment — Semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment — lithography, etch, deposition, inspection, and metrology systems enabling advanced node manufacturing.
  • Materials & Chemicals — Supply chain analysis for semiconductor fabrication materials: silicon wafers, photoresists, specialty gases, CMP slurries, photomask blanks, and advanced packaging materials.
  • US Domestic Fab Expansion — Tracking major semiconductor wafer fabrication facility construction and expansion projects across the United States, including CHIPS Act funding status, timelines, and capacity targets.