What is a semiconductor foundry?
A foundry is a company that manufactures chips in a fabrication plant (fab). Such firms rely on semiconductor manufacturing equipment and materials to fabricate a chip design on a silicon wafer. Wafer fabrication is a highly capital-intensive process and requires extensive and deep knowledge, especially in the production of the most powerful, innovative chips required in modern electronics and applications. As a result, the foundry market is concentrated among a few players in specific regions around the world: Taiwan alone accounts for around 65 percent of revenues generated by the global semiconductor foundry market.TSMC is the dominant force among foundries
The foundry market leader is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), with the company contracted to complete fabrication tasks for a variety of customers including Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm. TSMC has occupied around 50 to 60 percent of the foundry market, with competitors including the likes of Samsung Foundry in South Korea, GlobalFoundries in the United States, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) in China.Investment in chip manufacturing to meet growing demand
TSMC and Samsung have both announced investments that will support semiconductor manufacturing capacity increases and supply chain resilience, particularly in the development of new fabrication plants. Intel has also committed to supporting the semiconductor ecosystem in providing greater capacity, notably through Intel Foundry Services where it operates fabs to produce chips for other firms as well as its own. In addition to the semiconductor companies themselves, governments have invested heavily in chip manufacturing capabilities, with the United States, European Union, and China all vying to have manufacturers produce more chips domestically.
