Semiconductor Equipment (Semicap)
The toolmakers. Every fab on earth runs on this gear.
What this layer does
A modern fab has hundreds of tool types performing dozens of process steps to build a chip layer by layer. The semicap industry that sells those tools is a beautiful oligopoly: five companies (ASML, Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron, KLA) own >70% of the market, each with deeply entrenched positions in their step of the process. ASML has a literal monopoly on EUV lithography.
Semicap is the most cyclical layer in the silicon column — capex booms then busts — but with AI demand driving leading-edge capacity adds and CHIPS-Act-style geographic redundancy build-outs, this cycle has unusually high duration.
Sub-categories
The single most complex industrial product humans make. Required for every chip below 7nm. ASML is the only supplier on earth.
Trailing-edge and back-end-of-line lithography. ASML dominant but Nikon/Canon serve mature nodes.
Used for photomask writing and some specialty patterning. Quiet but high-margin.
Putting thin films of material onto the wafer. Largest semicap category by dollars after litho.
Selectively removing material to define structures. Critical for 3D NAND and gate-all-around transistors.
Polishing wafers flat between steps. Applied Materials and Ebara are the two real players.
Implanting dopant atoms into silicon. Smaller niche; Applied Materials and Axcelis split most of it.
Furnaces, anneal, oxidation. Mature but essential.
Wafer cleaning between steps. SCREEN dominates; consolidating market.
Measuring and inspecting wafers in-line. KLA owns the high-end. Critical-margin segment because yield depends on it.
Testing finished die. AI accelerators are driving Advantest test-time per chip up sharply.
The physical interface to a die under test. Replaced often; consumable-like revenue.
Suppliers to the suppliers — mass flow controllers, pumps, RF generators, gas panels. The unsung public-market workhorses.