Major Semiconductor Companies & Roles: * Raw Material Suppliers: Companies like Shin-Etsu Chemical provide the base materials (e.g., silicon wafers). * Wafer Manufacturers: Companies like GlobalWafers and SUMCO specialize in producing silicon wafers, the foundation of chips. * Fabless Designers: These companies (e.g., NVIDIA, Qualcomm, AMD) design and develop chips but outsource manufacturing. They are heavily involved in the "Design & Engineering" stage. * Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs): Companies like Intel, Samsung, and Texas Instruments handle all stages from design to manufacturing and often assembly, testing, and packaging. They operate across many stages. * Foundries: Companies like TSMC, UMC, and GlobalFoundries specialize in chip fabrication (manufacturing) for fabless companies and sometimes IDMs. * Assembly, Testing, and Packaging (ATP) Providers: Companies like ASE Technology and Amkor provide these crucial back-end services. * Equipment Manufacturers: Companies like ASML and Applied Materials provide the highly specialized equipment used in wafer manufacturing, chip fabrication, and ATP