Foundries
The fabs. Whoever prints the silicon.
The metrics
- Posture
- expanding — 1 of 4 (expanding 1 · hedging 1 · retrenching 1 · consolidating 1) 4 members →
- Capital · available
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
- Capital · operating
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
- Capital · deployed
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
- Capital · in
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
- Capital · out
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
- Optionality
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
- Gravity
- across 4 members — open each for the figure + sources 4 members →
What's new this week
- 🕰 Intel's 14A process posted its first real defect-density and yield data point, filling a gap this thread had explicitly named as missing. Dated 08-28, caught by the cold rotation.
- Nvidia opened higher while the broad market opened lower, which is the first real evidence on what Friday's selloff was actually about. NVDA opened around $219, up roughly 0.3–0.7% from Friday's $217.55 close, while the S&P 500 fell 0.45% to 7,677, the Dow 0.62% to 53,229 and the Nasdaq 0.43% to 26,290, on the Larak/Jordan/UAE exchange plus continued rate-hike repricing. This thread has carried two competing explanations for Friday's 4.74% Nvidia session — the vendor-financing pullback, or the hawkish Fed repricing. If financing were still the dominant driver, Nvidia would be expected to keep lagging; instead it is the outperformer against a macro-driven dip. ⚠️ One premarket and early session is not conclusive, and Micron, Intel and Broadcom are described in same-day coverage as choppy rather than clean movers either way. (CNBC, Yahoo Finance)
Members 4
capital ~$200B+ commandable/12mo (~$119B cash+mkt-securities Jun-2026 + ~$89B/yr operating cash flow, self-funded; + …
- opt
- mixed — FCF-free but a rising slice locked to the forced …
- grav
- ~$150B/yr GROSS foundry revenue atop multi-trillion …
New 08-25 (late catch, 08-24 event): TSMC is the fab behind Xiaomi's new in-house 3nm flagship SoC. Xiaomi launched the Xring/Xuanjie O3 — …
capital ~$150B+ commandable/12mo ($98B cash Mar-2026 group + ~$50-60B/yr operating cash flow)
- opt
- constrained — chaebol Lee-family control; HBM-vs-foundry …
- grav
- ~$220.7B/yr GROSS group revenue; foundry slice small …
New 08-23: unveiled zHBM at Hot Chips 2026 day two — memory stacked directly atop the compute die, claiming 230% more bandwidth and 70% …
capital ~$45B/12mo but consumed ($29.7B cash+STI + ~$14.9B/yr operating cash flow eaten by capex, net -$11.2B TTM); US …
- opt
- locked/constrained — turnaround (24k layoffs, DE/PL fabs …
- grav
- ~$53B/yr GROSS revenue; external foundry gravity tiny, …
New 08-28: the 14A process posted its first real defect-density and yield data point, filling a gap this map had explicitly named as missing …
capital ~$5B/12mo organic ($3B cash + ~$1.9B/yr operating cash flow; + CHIPS ~$2.175B incl. two new gov-equity stakes …
- opt
- mixed — self-funded but Mubadala 73% directs
- grav
- ~$6.84B/yr GROSS — specialty/mature nodes for …
Mubadala controls 73% (trimmed from 82%, May 2026) — specialty/mature-node foundry, trusted supplier to auto/defense/RF.