The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Semiconductors are made through a long value chain of design, specialised materials, manufacturing equipment, fabrication and assembly, with several steps concentrated in a few firms and places. Shortages can stall vehicles, medical devices and infrastructure. This page sets out how the chip value chain is structured, where it concentrates, how disruptions propagate, and what evidence serves the governments and industries that depend on it.
GCRI · In development · service level R0
The semiconductor supply chain is the sequence of design, materials, equipment, wafer fabrication, assembly and testing that produces chips. Several steps are concentrated in few firms and regions, capacity takes years to build, and products depend on many chips, so a bottleneck at one step can halt industries far away.
For semiconductors and components, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on night lights, population density and true-colour imagery with true colour from NASA GIBS, framed on the Strait of Malacca; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For semiconductors and components, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on night lights, population density and true-colour imagery with true colour from NASA GIBS, framed on the Strait of Malacca; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Semiconductors and components · Assembly cluster · Bill of materials BOM-059
| Rare earth magnet | 70 | 4002 | None qualified | High |
| Gallium | 61 | 4836 | Recycling pilot | High |
| Copper wire | 40 | 1196 | Two qualified | Low |
| Lithium cells | 52 | 2554 | One qualified | Medium |
Electronics, advanced materials and fabrication inputs. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Design tools, wafers, specialty gases and chemicals, lithography equipment, fabrication and packaging are each dominated by few suppliers. A bottleneck at any step limits output.
Leading fabrication plants cost billions and take years to build. Capacity cannot be added quickly when demand changes or supply is disrupted.
Advanced fabrication and assembly cluster in a few regions exposed to earthquakes, drought, power outages and geopolitical tension.
Products need many chips, including mature, low-cost ones. A shortage of a single component can halt production lines far from where chips are made.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Wafer fabrication | The manufacturing of integrated circuits on silicon wafers in a fab. |
| Mature-node chip | A chip made with older, established process technology, widely used in vehicles and industry. |
| Back-end assembly | The stage after fabrication in which chips are cut from wafers, packaged and tested. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share of fabrication capacity by region | percent of wafer capacity | annual | Industry analyses | ESTIMATED |
| Chip trade by product code | value of trade in integrated circuits | annual | Trade statistics | OFFICIAL |
| Supplier concentration in key inputs | number of suppliers with significant share | per assessment | Value chain studies | ESTIMATED |
| Lead time for chip orders | weeks | monthly | Industry surveys | REPORTED |
| Export control measures on semiconductors | count of measures | per change | Government notices | OFFICIAL |
| Fabs exposed to natural hazards | count by hazard zone | per assessment | Site and hazard overlay | ESTIMATED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| UN Comtrade (HS headings 8541 and 8542) | Trade in semiconductor devices and integrated circuits | Free access with limits, UN terms |
| OECD studies of the semiconductor value chain | Structure, concentration and policy analysis | Public, OECD terms |
| WSTS public summaries | Industry sales by region and product category | Public summaries; full data members only |
| Government export control notices | Rules restricting trade in chips and equipment | Public records, licence per government |
| Academic and think-tank value chain mappings | Supplier shares at each step | Licence per publication (to check) |
Trade and Strategic Resources prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Ministries of industry and technology | Which value chain steps to support domestically or with partners | Value chain maps; concentration evidence |
| Critical sector operators | Which components to stockpile or qualify from second sources | Downstream dependency analyses |
| Trade and security authorities | How export controls affect domestic supply | Export control evidence; trade data |
Semiconductor manufacturing requires extreme precision, very large capital investment and accumulated know-how. Leading-edge fabrication plants take years to build and need specialised equipment from a handful of suppliers. These barriers favour concentration: each stage tends to have few capable players, and the stages are spread across different regions.
Shortages propagate widely because chips are embedded in so many products. Even inexpensive, mature-node chips can halt the production of much more valuable goods when they are missing. Long lead times and the difficulty of switching suppliers, since chips must be qualified for each product, slow recovery.
Other components share similar features: specialised capacitors, displays, sensors and advanced materials often depend on few producers and on inputs such as rare gases or high-purity minerals.
Tracing firms and locations at each production stage. Commercial confidentiality limits visibility beyond the first tiers.
Identifying central nodes and single points of failure using network science. Firm-level links are often incomplete.
Understanding critical inputs and alternatives using materials science and chemistry.
Estimating sector exposure to component shortages. Tables are aggregated and published with delay.
The industry changes quickly, and analyses state the date and sources of the information used.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.