Semiconductor industry

The global industry that designs, manufactures, packages, and tests semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. It combines specialized firms and supply chains to turn chip designs into components used in electronic systems.

Integrated circuit design: The process of specifying and creating the circuit layouts and logic implemented on an integrated circuit. Design firms create the blueprints that foundries translate into physical chips.
Fabless manufacturing: A business model in which a company designs chips but outsources their fabrication. Fabless firms separate chip design from the capital-intensive operation of factories.
Central processing unit: A processor that executes instructions and coordinates operations in a computer system. CPUs are a major product category for semiconductor designers and manufacturers.
Moore's law: The observation that the number of components on an integrated circuit historically grew at a roughly exponential rate. The industry used this trend to frame expectations for scaling and investment.
Merchant foundry: A semiconductor foundry that sells manufacturing services to external customers rather than producing only its own company's designs. It contrasts with captive manufacturing used by companies making their own chips.
Semiconductor fabrication: The process of forming semiconductor devices and circuits on wafers through repeated material and patterning steps. Fabrication turns chip designs into working structures on silicon wafers.
Semiconductor foundry: A company that manufactures integrated circuits designed by other companies. Foundries provide fabrication capacity to customers that do not operate their own fabs.
Graphics processing unit: A processor designed to perform many graphics and parallel computation tasks simultaneously. GPU demand has made advanced computing a prominent source of chip sales.
Semiconductor shortage: A condition in which demand for semiconductor products exceeds available supply. Shortages expose how chip constraints can disrupt manufacturing across many industries.
Captive semiconductor manufacturing: Semiconductor fabrication capacity reserved primarily for the chip designs of its owning company. It contrasts with merchant foundries serving a range of external customers.

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