AI Industry Map / Chips / Making the chips

Making the chips

Fabricating AI chips and the high-speed memory stacked beside them, using lithography machines and advanced packaging.

How big

TSMC heading for about 44% revenue growth in 2026. ASML guiding €44B to €45B

Growth

SK hynix's quarterly operating profit rose 557% in a year.

On the map

15 companies, 2 money flows, 3 openings

Who is making money

The companies earning or raising real money in this part of AI. Suppliers are marked: they sell to the builders rather than to end users.

005930 Supplier

AI memory

33% of the AI memory market (Q2 2026)

000660 Supplier

leading maker of AI memory (HBM)

76% operating margin in Q2 2026. 50% of the memory market

makes most advanced AI chips

Up to $54.3B sales in one quarter. Profit up 69%

Makes the testers that check AI chips and memory before they ship.

About 1.13 trillion yen for fiscal 2026, up about 45% (reported)

Amkor Technology

Packages and tests chips for AI, including the 2.5D and fan-out packaging that joins GPUs to memory.

Record $1.68B in Q1 2026, with advanced products $1.37B up 29%

Makes the etch and deposition machines used to build AI memory and advanced chips.

$6.72B in fiscal Q4 2026 (reported late July 2026), up 30%

AI memory

Record $41.46B in fiscal Q3 2026 (reported)

the only maker of the machines that print the smallest chips

Raised guidance three times this year. Customers asking about 2029 and 2030

The largest outsourced chip packaging and testing firm, expanding its advanced packaging for AI.

Assembly, testing and materials revenue up nearly 30% to a record in Q1 2026

Makes CPUs and runs Intel Foundry, which is trying to become a contract chipmaker for others.

The US government holds a 9.9% stake (since August 2025)

Applied Materials

Sells the machines that deposit and shape the layers of AI chips and memory.

Hanmi Semiconductor

042700 Supplier

Makes the bonding machines that stack the layers of high-bandwidth memory.

Makes inspection and measurement tools that find defects in chips while they are being made.

China's largest contract chipmaker, producing advanced chips for Chinese AI designers under US export limits.

Makes coating, etching and cleaning machines used in chip factories, including for AI memory.

Where the money flows

Chip designers pay TSMC for wafers and packaging and the memory makers for memory. They in turn pay ASML for machines.

NvidiapaysTSMC
pays TSMC to make its AI GPUs and to package them with memory
NvidiapaysSK hynixabout 70% of Nvidia's 2026 HBM4 needs (reported)
buys high-bandwidth memory for its Rubin-generation GPUs
old.media-azi.md

The openings

Gaps still open in this area, from ones a small business could take to ones only giants can play.

Small business Tracking supply and prices of memory and components for buyers hit by shortages
Startup money AI software that finds defects and lifts yield in chip factories
Giants only New chip packaging or memory factories outside Taiwan and Korea

The sceptic's view

Memory is boom and bust, market share shifts fast (SK hynix fell from 64% to 50% in a year), and a demand pause hits factory-heavy suppliers hardest.

Sources: bloomberg.com, wsj.com, korea.counterpointresearch.com

The map updates three times a week.

241 companies across 25 areas, 62 money flows and 89 openings so far. New research lands every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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