Silicon Analytica
Independent analysis. Explicit assumptions. A clearer view of the semiconductor value chain.
TSMC's monthly revenue filing for September 2026: NT$511.9B (~US$16 billion), +54.6% from a year earlier.
Source: Market Observation Post System (MOPS), Taiwan Stock Exchange: monthly revenue disclosure
SK hynix's preliminary third-quarter revenue topped KRW 100 trillion (~US$74.5 billion) for the first time, with an operating margin of about 80%. Price increases, not only volume, are behind the margins.
Background source: SK hynix
ASML's third-quarter net sales reached a record €11.7 billion (~US$13.1 billion) with a 57.5% gross margin. The company now expects planned supply for 2027 and 2028 to fall short of customer demand.
Background source: ASML
TSMC's third-quarter revenue rose 50.9% from a year earlier to NT$1,494.24 billion (~US$46.8 billion). Gross margin fell to 66.4% as the first 2 nm volumes diluted profitability.
Background source: TSMC
Q3 2026 results trace one chain: hyperscaler capital spending, record ASML and TSMC quarters, and memory margins near 80%. Global chip sales reached $517.7 billion.
Background source: Semiconductor Industry Association
Global semiconductor sales reached $517.7 billion in Q3 2026, up 24.1% on the quarter, as September alone hit $172.6 billion.
Background source: Semiconductor Industry Association
Wall Street rallied on the election result, then turned on the AI trade. Semiconductors took the hardest hit, even though nothing in the industry's reported numbers changed this week.
Background source: CNBC / Investing.com / Reuters / Yahoo Finance / StockTitan
TrendForce expects AI server revenue to almost double in 2027 while shipments rise about a third. The gap shows how much of the boom is higher value per system.
Background source: TrendForce
What process-node names mean, which chips use them, and why manufacturing progress, revenue and capacity do not move in lockstep.
Background source: Primary company documents, WSTS, SIA/Deloitte and SEMI
A plain-language guide to the steps, the places and the bottlenecks, with the evidence and the caveats.
Background source: TrendForce, WSTS, SIA, McKinsey, IEA and company reports
Each new forecast has been far higher than the last. What the revisions show, and what they do not.
Background source: WSTS Q2 2026 release (primary), 6 Aug 2026
How process complexity, service revenue and changing competition shape the economics of semiconductor equipment.
Background source: Applied Materials, Master Class presentation (8 April 2026), p. 11; Morningstar (October 2025), p. 29, Exhibit 27; Georgetown CSET (15 September 2026)
A visual guide to lithography, etch, deposition and the companies supplying the machines behind semiconductor manufacturing.
Background source: Morningstar, Technology Observer: Wafer Fabrication Equipment (October 2025), p. 25, Exhibit 23; SEMI forecast (14 July 2026)
Microsoft plans to scale its custom AI infrastructure to multiple gigawatts from 2027. The implications reach beyond accelerator competition to memory, manufacturing and the cost of delivering AI services.
Background source: Microsoft, Maia announcement and technical paper (12 October 2026); Microsoft–AMD announcement (20 July 2026)
The new base case is 44% higher than before, while expected wafer volume growth is little changed.
Background source: Bits&Chips report on McKinsey forecast (secondary), 29 Sep 2026
China supplies a small share of direct inputs, but a much larger share of some materials further upstream.
Source: South China Morning Post report on SIA study (secondary), 12 Oct 2026
Two forecasters point to memory as a main driver of growth, and both tie it to new capacity.
Background source: WSTS Spring 2026 forecast release (primary), early June 2026 — exact date to confirm
Accelerators dominate the value of a representative AI rack. Lower-cost chips still underpin its operation.
Background source: SIA & Deloitte, Powering AI (June 2026)
A rack’s supporting trays rely on different process generations. System dependence reaches beyond leading-edge silicon.
Background source: SIA & Deloitte, Powering AI (June 2026)
Shared research infrastructure connects prototypes with manufacturing. Funding allocations show priorities, not completed commercial output.
Background source: SIA, Semiconductor R&D Programs (June 2025)
Why bandwidth, capacity and packaging belong alongside compute in the investment discussion.
Background source: NVIDIA · FY2025 results · 26 February 2025
Serving an AI model creates a different economic problem from building one.
Background source: NVIDIA · FY2025 results · 26 February 2025
ASML’s place in the value chain, and why manufacturing tools deserve their own analysis.
Background source: TSMC · 2024 annual report
The latest identified monthly release gives a more current view of TSMC than its 2024 annual total. Strong year-on-year growth coexists with a modest monthly decline.
TSMC's latest quarterly report and its September sales show how much of the AI build-out still runs through one manufacturer.
Source: TSMC · Q2 2026 earnings release (16 Jul 2026) and monthly revenue report (8 Oct 2026)
The preliminary figure for the third quarter is a company estimate, not a final result. Sales are estimated at about ₩195 trillion (~US$145 billion).
Source: Samsung Electronics
The world's largest contract chipmaker posted NT$511.86 billion (~US$16 billion) for the month, and NT$3,898.73 billion (~US$122 billion) for the first nine months of the year, up 41.1%. The numbers come one week before the third-quarter report.
Source: TSMC
The memory maker's annual revenue more than tripled, and the fourth quarter alone brought in $54.23 billion. Memory has moved from being a cyclical commodity to being a bottleneck for AI.
Source: Micron Technology
Data center revenue made up $89.0 billion. The company is guiding for $108.0 billion next quarter, without counting on data center compute sales to China.
Source: NVIDIA
AMD's second quarter shows Data Center sales more than doubling and now making up 58% of the business.
Net sales in the second quarter were €9.3 billion (~US$10.4 billion). The raised annual outlook is the company's own forecast. Note: the report is nearly three months old.
Source: ASML
SIA's annual industry report confirms a record year, driven by logic and memory chips for AI. The forecast for 2026 points even higher, but SIA's own figures differ between documents.
R&D spending rose 10.3% in a year. Measured as a share of sales, the US leads among the economies SIA compares, but Chinas total R&D spending is growing faster.
More than half of the chips in an AI data center server sit in the lowest price bucket. The pricing breakdown shows why the cheap end of the chip market matters.
Background source: SIA & Deloitte, Powering AI: The Semiconductor Ecosystem at the Foundation of Data Centers
A die-by-die breakdown of an AI server rack shows that cutting-edge process technology is concentrated in one tray, while power, cooling and management functions rely on older nodes.
Background source: SIA & Deloitte, Powering AI: The Semiconductor Ecosystem at the Foundation of Data Centers
A report by SIA and Deloitte breaks down where the value sits in an AI server rack. Semiconductors make up about 95% of the content value, and the accelerator alone accounts for more than 70% of it.
Background source: SIA & Deloitte, Powering AI: The Semiconductor Ecosystem at the Foundation of Data Centers
Deloitte's forecast in the SIA report implies close to a tenfold increase. The figure is a forecast with a wide range, not a result.
Background source: SIA & Deloitte, Powering AI
The latest finalized 2025 annual release identified from WSTS puts chip sales above SIA’s earlier $791.7B announcement. The distinction matters when comparing growth across reports.
The latest finalized 2025 annual release identified from WSTS puts chip sales above SIA’s earlier $791.7B announcement. The distinction matters when comparing growth across reports.
Fiscal 2026 revenue rose 65%, and the first half of fiscal 2027 has kept accelerating. How durable is demand for accelerated computing?
Source: NVIDIA · Q4 and fiscal 2026 results · 25 February 2026
Fabs get the headlines, but a separate cycle of research programs connects early innovation to pilot production and high-volume manufacturing. A 2025 SIA report describes how the US CHIPS research programs are meant to work.
Background source: SIA, Semiconductor R&D Programs: Essential Innovation for U.S. Technology Leadership
An SIA paper from June 2025 describes the federal R&D programs that complement factory investments, and their status at the time.
Background source: SIA, Semiconductor R&D Programs: Essential Innovation for U.S. Technology Leadership
A 2024 report by SIA and BCG projects that the US share of global chip manufacturing capacity will rise from 10% to 14%. The report is over two years old.
Background source: SIA & BCG, Emerging Resilience in the Semiconductor Supply Chain
A 2024 report by SIA and BCG projected about $2.3 trillion of private investment in wafer fabrication between 2024 and 2032 — more than three times the previous decade. The geography of capacity is expected to shift with it.
Background source: SIA & BCG, Emerging Resilience in the Semiconductor Supply Chain