The map
Japan Holds Seven of the 18 Chokepoints
SemiconductorX tracks 18 chokepoints, each a step where one company or one country supplies most of the world and no second source can scale quickly. Each one is verified on its own page in this site, and the table links to it.
Japan holds seven, most of them chemicals and materials qualified layer by layer over a decade: EUV resist, sputtering targets, ABF film, 300mm wafers and EUV mask blanks, plus the Disco grinders and Advantest testers in the back end. Taiwan holds the leading-edge wafer, CoWoS and outsourced assembly; the Netherlands holds EUV scanners and hybrid bonders; China holds the refining of gallium and rare earths; the United States holds quartz, EDA software and metrology.
- Made in US
- Some US volume
- US planned
- Made abroad
| Chokepoint | Holder | Concentration | Country | Page | US status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary gallium | Chinese refiners | About 99% of world output (USGS) | China | Critical Elements | Made abroad |
| Rare earth refining | Chinese refiners | 91% of refining, 94% of magnets (IEA, 2024 data) | China | Raw and Refined Materials | Made abroad |
| High-purity quartz | Sibelco and The Quartz Corp, Spruce Pine | About 80% of supply (BloombergNEF) | USA | Quartzite to Polysilicon | Made in US |
| EUV photoresist | JSR, TOK, Shin-Etsu | About 95% of EUV resist from Japan | Japan | Photoresist and Development | Made abroad |
| Sputtering targets | JX Advanced Metals | 64% of semiconductor targets (2023) | Japan | Sputtering Targets | Some US volume |
| ABF build-up film | Ajinomoto | Above 95% of the substrate dielectric film | Japan | Substrates and Interposers | Made abroad |
| 300mm silicon wafers | Shin-Etsu and SUMCO | About half of 300mm supply; GlobalWafers Sherman is the first US 300mm plant | Japan | Wafer Production | Some US volume |
| EUV mask blanks | AGC and Hoya | Every EUV blank in volume | Japan | EUV Mask Blanks and Pellicles | Made abroad |
| EDA software | Synopsys and Cadence | About $7.1B and $5.3B revenue against $185M for China's largest | USA | EDA Tools | Made in US |
| EUV scanners | ASML | Sole supplier; about 65 low-NA tools in 2026 | Netherlands | ASML EUV Scanner | Some US volume |
| Metrology and inspection | KLA | About 74% of a $12.9B market (2025) | USA | Metrology and Inspection | Some US volume |
| Wafer grinders and saws | Disco | Most grinders, dicing saws and blades | Japan | Dicing | Made abroad |
| Leading-edge foundry | TSMC | 72.5% of foundry revenue (2Q26); 79% of its wafer revenue at 7nm and finer | Taiwan | TSMC | Some US volume |
| HBM memory | SK hynix, Samsung, Micron | SK hynix 50%, Samsung 33%, Micron 18% (2Q26); SK hynix West Lafayette packaging from 2H 2029 | South Korea | HBM | US planned |
| CoWoS packaging | TSMC | Every CoWoS package assembled in Taiwan; no US line before 2028 | Taiwan | CoWoS | US planned |
| Outsourced assembly and test | ASE | 44.6% of top 10 OSAT revenue (2024); Amkor Peoria starts early 2028 | Taiwan | Back-End Assembly | US planned |
| Hybrid bonders | BESI | Leads die-to-wafer bonding; 23 customers | Netherlands | Hybrid Bonding | Made abroad |
| Chip testers | Advantest | About 65% of a $9.0B market (2025) | Japan | Automated Test Equipment | Made abroad |
US exposure
Eight Chokepoints Have No US Production and Three Are Only Planned
The US makes the most of two chokepoints, quartz from Spruce Pine and EDA software, and has some volume in five more, mostly through plants of foreign leaders: JX's target plant in Mesa, GlobalWafers in Sherman, ASML's light sources in San Diego and reticle stages in Wilton, KLA's US lines and TSMC's Arizona wafers. Eight have no US production at all, and the three that are planned are all in the AI chip back end.
- Made in US
- Some US volume
- US planned
- Made abroad
The AI chip is the clearest case. Blackwell wafers have come out of TSMC Arizona since October 2025, but every die flies back to Taiwan for CoWoS, and the HBM stacked beside it is packaged in Korea. The first US links in that back end arrive between 2028 and 2029.
- Made in US
- US planned
China
China Holds the Raw Materials and Is Chasing the Tools
China's chokepoints sit at the start of the chain. It produces about 99% of primary gallium and refines 91% of rare earths, and since 2023 it has licensed exports of gallium, germanium, antimony and rare earths; its ban on gallium, germanium and antimony sales to the US is suspended until November 27, 2026 (see Critical Elements).
Further down the chain China is the buyer. It bought $49.3B of the $135.1B of fab tools sold in 2025, and Chinese makers supply about 35% of the equipment in its fabs, but only about 18% of its lithography and about 10% of its metrology and inspection tools. Its largest EDA company, Empyrean, had about $185M of revenue against about $7.1B at Synopsys (see China Bifurcation and Wafer Fab Equipment).
US site limits
Power, Water, Permits and People Limit US Fabs
Four limits apply to US fabs regardless of which supplier serves them. They do not appear in the chokepoint map because no single company holds them.
| Limit | Scale | Where covered |
|---|---|---|
| Power | 350 to 500 MW peak at a 3nm fab, rising toward 700 MW | Fab Power |
| Water | TSMC Arizona Fab 1 draws about 4.75 million gallons a day; Phoenix plans for about 17 million across three fabs | Fab Water |
| Permits | The Building Chips in America Act (October 2024) exempts many CHIPS-funded projects from federal NEPA review; state and local permits remain | US Reshoring |
| People | The SIA projected about 67,000 unfilled US chip jobs by 2030 (2023 study) | Workforce Hub |
Method
A Chokepoint Here Means One Holder and a Slow Second Source
A step counts as a chokepoint when one company, or one country's companies, supply most of the world and a second source would take years to qualify. Market shares come from each linked page with its year. The US status column follows the site's five-level scale: made in the US, some US volume, US planned, made abroad and not disclosed.
The atlas leaves out steps that are concentrated but not hard to replace, such as bulk gases from Linde, Air Liquide and Air Products, and steps covered as single chips, such as mature-node MCUs (see Mature-Node MCUs).
Record
Page Record
- Covers
- The 18 chokepoints, holder country and US status, US exposure and planned US links, China's position, US site limits, method. Folded in: US Semiconductor Supply Chain Bottlenecks
- Sources
- Figures as verified on each linked SemiconductorX page (October 2026): USGS and IEA for gallium and rare earths; BloombergNEF for quartz; TrendForce for foundry (2Q26), HBM (2Q26) and OSAT (2024) shares; KLA and SEMI for metrology; Advantest and industry tallies for testers; SEMI for 2025 tool billings; Amkor, TSMC and SK hynix announcements for US packaging dates; Building Chips in America Act (signed October 2024); SIA and Oxford Economics workforce study (July 2023)
- Last verified
- October 2026