#supply-chain
3 articles
01
·Supply Chain·FREE·8 min read
Mapping the Semiconductor Supply Chain — From Sand to Chip, Who Holds What
One pass through the whole chain that makes a chip — design (EDA/IP), equipment, materials, foundry, OSAT — and why nearly every stage collapses to a handful of firms, read through two formulas: chain availability and HHI.
02
·Supply Chain·★ MEMBER·13 min read
Upstream of Semiconductors — Wafers, Photoresist, and Specialty Gases
How sand becomes silicon that is 99.999999999% pure, gets pulled out of a melt as one giant single crystal, and is coated with a film that dissolves where light hits it. From segregation in the Czochralski process to acid blur in chemically amplified resist — and why a handful of Japanese firms still own this layer.
03
·Supply Chain·★ MEMBER·9 min read
The Geopolitics of Chips — Export Controls and Supply Chain Rewiring, Explained Technically
Why chokepoints form exactly where they do, from three conditions: physics, fixed cost, and tacit knowledge. Covers the technical reason controls are written as numeric thresholds, the common-cause formula that kills dual sourcing, and the learning curve that sets how fast a substitute can arrive.