Value Chains — a research layer of the Critical Materials Atlas · semiconductor chain
Critical Materials Atlas
Product chain pilot · semiconductors

The chokepoint moves as silicon becomes a chip

China dominates basic silicon. The scarce electronic-grade purification capability is concentrated in the United States and Germany. Blank wafers are led by Japanese suppliers. Fabrication then splits: Taiwan in advanced logic, Korea in memory, and China in several mature categories.

Factory location ≠ company control ≠ customs origin · history where measured, dated snapshots where it is not · forecasts explicitly marked

The rule for this page. Production evidence leads. HS 280461 and 381800 remain visible as trade context, but neither code can separate solar from semiconductor-grade material. Price is not used to guess the product.
1990–2032F
reported and forecast fab-capacity geography
2.4%
semiconductor share of 2025 polysilicon demand
>50%
blank silicon wafers supplied by two Japanese firms
87%
operating fab capacity in the five largest economies, 2025

The chain in one glance

1 · feedstock
Silicon metal
China leads production. Norway, Brazil and others remain visible in trade.
current production + 2002–2024 trade
2 · 11N purification
Electronic-grade poly
US/Germany lead; Wacker and Hemlock form the central supplier pair.
2023/2025 snapshots
3 · crystal + wafer
Blank silicon wafers
Japanese firms lead a supplier market in which six firms hold about 92%.
2007–2025 volume
4 · front-end fabs
Fabricated chips
The leader depends on chip type: Taiwan, Korea or China.
1990–2032F geography

Thirty years of fabrication geography

Commercial capacity for fabs using 200 mm and larger wafers moved from a US–Europe-centred system in 1990 to a much more East Asian system. The forecast does not show one universal winner: geography differs sharply by chip type.

Share of global commercial fab capacity

200 mm and larger, normalized to 300 mm-equivalent capacity. Sparse source years are joined for readability; 2025–2032 is forecast.

source year—

It matters what kind of chip

Top three operating locations, September 2025 · million 8-inch-equivalent wafer starts/month
Chip typeFirstSecondThird

OECD categories: Taiwan leads advanced logic; Korea leads commodity memory; China leads power/discrete, analog and mature logic. Capacity is assigned to the physical fab, not the owner’s headquarters.

The blank-wafer market through the cycle

This is a genuine semiconductor-only series: SEMI explicitly excludes solar wafers. It measures global area shipped, not where the wafers were made.

—

Supplier chokepoint. Shin-Etsu and SUMCO supply more than half of the market; six suppliers account for about 92%.
year—

The purification bottleneck

Very small, very demanding. Electronic-grade polysilicon requires at least 11N purity and represents only about 2.4% of polysilicon demand. The public record gives 38.8 kt produced in 2023 and 33.5 kt forecast demand in 2025; these are different measures and are not drawn as one continuous series.
Concentrated capability. Germany and the United States account for about 65%; China is estimated below 10%. Wacker and Hemlock alone account for roughly three-quarters of the supplier market.
Major electronic-grade polysilicon suppliers named by SIA, 2025
CompanyHome economy

snapshot There is no comparable open annual country series. The page preserves the gap rather than converting broad HS 280461 flows into fictional chip-grade production.

What the customs ledger says—and cannot say

BACI still adds value as a global trade layer from 2002 onward. It tells us who ships each broad category. It cannot identify the end use inside the two downstream codes.

trade year—
Customs categoryWorld tradeChina export shareInterpretation
Do not bridge the layers arithmetically. A 65% production estimate for electronic-grade polysilicon and a 13% export-value share for HS 280461 do not measure the same product universe. Their difference is a warning about customs aggregation, not a calculated “origin gap.”

What is measured over time

LayerPeriodWhat moves through time
Silicon customs trade2002–2024Value, tonnes, exporters, importers and concentration
Blank semiconductor wafers2007–2025Worldwide shipment area and nominal revenue
Commercial fab geography1990–2032FRegional capacity share; forecast begins in 2025
Electronic-grade polysilicon2023/2025Dated global volume and concentration snapshots only
Fab capacity by chip type2025Current operating capacity by physical location

Sources and boundaries

The long fab history and forecast come from SIA/BCG analysis of SEMI data. OECD’s 2025 fab geography uses augmented commercial facility databases and public desk research; the public aggregates are reproduced here, not the underlying proprietary records. Company-control figures are supplier-market snapshots, while fab figures use physical facility location.