Twenty-five manufacturers produced leading-edge chips 20 years before 2021, but by 2021 only TSMC (Taiwan), Intel (United States), and Samsung (South Korea) had facilities capable of producing the most advanced chips.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by CBS 60 Minutes interview with Intel CEO, Wikipedia's semiconductor industry article, Intel SEC filing chart, and industry analyst sources, all converging on the 25-to-3 consolidation narrative, though exact baseline year varies slightly across sources (1990s vs ~2001).
Sources
- The great chip crisis threatens the promise of Moore's Law (technologyreview.com)
- https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/semiconductor-chip-shortage-60-minutes-2021-08-29/ (cbsnews.com)
- https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000050863/000005086314000078/exhibit99_3.htm (sec.gov)
- https://semiconductor.substack.com/p/chip-wars (semiconductor.substack.com)
- https://cacm.acm.org/news/and-then-there-were-three (cacm.acm.org)