How Fragile Is the Advanced Chip Supply Chain?

sahilypatel · x · 2026-07-15

The further downstream you look in the semiconductor supply chain, the more it resembles a highly fragile global collaboration network:

• TSMC, a company located on a small island, produces over 90% of the world's most advanced chips.
• TSMC relies on EUV lithography machines from ASML in the Netherlands; ASML in turn relies on German company Carl Zeiss for sufficiently precise mirrors.
• The light source for ASML's EUV machines comes from a single company in San Diego.
• The photoresist used to print transistor patterns comes primarily from Japanese companies like JSR and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo.
• The ultra-high-purity quartz required to make silicon wafers comes from a single mine in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

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