Foundry
Foundry is a business that receives blueprints and produces semiconductors on its behalf. TSMC is overwhelmingly in first place, with Samsung Electronics chasing after it.
A foundry is a consignment manufacturing business that receives semiconductor blueprints drawn by other companies and produces chips on their behalf. In terms of clothes, it is a specialized sewing factory that makes clothes according to the design sent by the brand, and is a division of labor paired with a fabless factory that only designs.
Because high-tech semiconductor factories cannot be built by just anyone as they require tens of trillions of won in investment and high-level technology, orders are concentrated in foundries that specialize in production. Taiwan's TSMC is overwhelmingly No. 1 in cutting-edge processes, followed by Samsung Electronics, and NVIDIA's AI chips ultimately need to be made by foundries before they can be released to the world.
As demand for AI chips surges, cutting-edge process production capabilities themselves become strategic resources, and foundries are in the middle of conflicts between the U.S. and China and discussions on supply chain security. The concentration of cutting-edge production in Taiwan is often cited as a geopolitical risk.
✅ Why it matters
- It is an essential concept for understanding the AI chip supply chain and semiconductor industry structure
- This is a business field where the future of the Korean semiconductor industry, including Samsung Electronics, is at stake
- It serves as background knowledge for reading US-China conflict and supply chain security news
⚠️ Limits and debates
- The technology gap in cutting-edge processes is large, so there is a strong focus on first place
- It is difficult to catch up with latecomers as astronomical investments continue to be required
- Production is concentrated in specific regions and is exposed to geopolitical risks