Semiconductor Value Chain Explorer

Software that chip designers use to design, simulate, verify, and lay out chips. Without EDA, it's impossible to design modern chips with billions of transistors. Think of it as 'AutoCAD for chips' — but far more complex.

Pre-designed, verified building blocks (CPU cores, memory interfaces, USB/PCIe controllers) that chip designers license and embed into their chips. Avoids reinventing the wheel — designers pay a royalty every time a chip using the IP ships.

Companies that design (but don't manufacture) chips for IoT devices, smart home, wearables, and embedded systems. These are typically low-power, low-cost microcontrollers or System-on-Chips with WiFi/Bluetooth built in.

Designing chips optimized for AI training (datacenters) or AI inference (edge devices). This is the hottest segment — includes GPUs, NPUs, and custom AI ASICs. The battleground between Nvidia, AMD, and hundreds of startups.

Chips that power 5G base stations, handset modems, and network infrastructure. Includes baseband processors, RF front-ends, and mmWave chips. Highly complex RF and mixed-signal design.

Chips that manage power (PMICs), convert signals between analog and digital (ADCs/DACs), and interface with the physical world. Every electronic device needs power management. Less glamorous than AI chips, but extremely profitable.

Semiconductors made from materials other than silicon — like Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon Carbide (SiC). They handle higher voltages, frequencies, and temperatures than silicon. Critical for EV chargers, power supplies, and 5G RF.

After a wafer is fabricated, chips are cut, assembled into packages, and tested. Advanced packaging (chiplets, 2.5D/3D stacking, CoWoS) is now a strategic differentiator — Nvidia's H100 depends on TSMC's CoWoS packaging.

The actual factories (fabs) that manufacture wafers. A leading-edge fab costs $20B+ to build. TSMC makes chips for Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm and hundreds of others. Intel is trying to re-enter the foundry business.

The machines that fabs use to make chips — lithography (ASML's EUV), etching, deposition, inspection. ASML's EUV machine is a $400M device with 100,000 parts, and TSMC cannot function without it. Every new fab is a massive equipment order.

The raw materials and specialty chemicals that go into making chips — silicon wafers, photoresists, ultra-pure gases, polishing slurries. Japan dominates many of these supply chains.

Companies that provide chip design engineering services to fabless companies or IDMs. This includes RTL design, verification, physical design, DFT, and post-silicon validation. India is a major hub.

RISC-V is an open-source chip instruction set (like an open-source version of ARM). Anyone can design a chip using RISC-V without paying royalties. China, India, and the EU see it as a path to chip sovereignty.

Every chip must be tested before it ships — for functionality, speed, and reliability. Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) does this at massive scale. As chips get more complex (AI accelerators, HBM), testing becomes harder and more valuable.