SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT:
Smart money is watching who BUILDS the machines that make those chips.
Here’s the full value chain:
making the wafer:
Lithography: $ASML (the undisputed king), $VECO, Tokyo Electron, Nikon, Canon
Etching: $LRCX, $AMAT, Nordson — the workhorses of chip fabrication
Thin Film Deposition: $LRCX, $AMAT again — dominant duopoly
Metrology & Inspection: $KLAC, $NVMI, $ONTO, $BRKR, $KEYS — quality control is non-negotiable at 2nm
Cleaning: $ACMR, SCREEN Holdings
Ion Implantation: $AMAT, $ACLS
packaging the chip — THIS is where advanced packaging/CoWoS demand lives)
Packaging & Bonding: $KLIC, Tazmo, Hanmi Semiconductor
Advanced Packaging: $AMAT, $ACMR, $ONTO, $CAMT, $ASMPT — critical for HBM stacking
Dicing/Cutting: DISCO, Tokyo Seimitsu, Lasertec
Testing Equipment: $TER, $COHU, $FORM, $KEYS, Advantest
Probe Cards: $COHU, $FORM, Micronics Japan
Why this matters: Every AI GPU, every HBM stack, every advanced node needs THIS equipment first. You can’t build the AI infrastructure stack without it. Semi-equipment names often lead the cycle — they get orders before the fabs even ship product.
Not financial advice.