Semiconductor market strengthens despite uneven supply conditions - Engineer Live

The "uneven supply" is not cyclical noise—it is structural bifurcation going public. Technical cascade: Leading-edge (3nm/2nm) and mature nodes (28nm+) are forming a barbell. AI's CoWoS packaging demand is concentrating foundry capex asymmetrically. EUV and advanced packaging tools face allocation constraints while DUV mature-node equipment slides into price competition. ASML and LAM's order books are being fundamentally restructured—the most significant capex reallocation since the 2018 HBM cycle. Compliance & risk: Export controls have carved the supply chain into a compliant tier and a non-compliant tier. Multi-sourcing compliance costs for US firms have risen 15-20% since 2022. Taiwan, China's concentration in advanced nodes (85%+ global share) has elevated geopolitical risk from a tail event to a priced-in factor; insurance and derivatives models for chip supply chains are being rewritten. Market dynamics: TSMC is leveraging yield superiority to lock in AI customers. When Samsung and Intel cannot match yield, bargaining power shifts entirely to the foundry. Intel 18A is the 2025 wildcard, but CoWoS-L and SoIC remain unreplicable within 18 months. 12-24 month outlook: "Unevenness" will calcify into a two-speed market. Mature nodes consolidate to 2-3 players; advanced nodes settle into one-dominant-plus-challengers. Abandon sector-beta thinking. Allocate by node-alpha.