Global semiconductor foundry market hit a record $320 billion in 2025 as TSMC pulled further ahead
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(Image credit: TSMC)
The global semiconductor foundry market generated a record $320 billion in revenue in 2025, growing 16% year-over-year, according to Counterpoint Research's Foundry Market Supply Tracker published on Monday, March 30. Demand for AI GPUs and custom AI ASICs drove the gains across both advanced manufacturing and advanced packaging, with TSMC accounting for 38% of the total market and growing at more than four times the rate of its nearest competitors.
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Counterpoint's figures use an expanded "Foundry 2.0" definition that includes pure-play foundries, non-memory integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies, and photomask suppliers. Under that framework, pure-play foundries accounted for 54% of revenue and grew 26% YoY, while non-memory IDMs made up 27% and grew just 2%.
TSMC's full-year revenue grew 36% YoY, though quarterly growth moderated to 25% in Q4 2025 from the 40%-plus rates posted earlier in the year. The slowdown reflected a higher comparison base in high-performance computing and typical consumer electronics seasonality.
"The key question is no longer just wafer capacity, but system-level integration," Jake Lai, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said. "As front-end scaling becomes more constrained, bottlenecks are increasingly moving to the back end."
Non-TSMC foundries collectively grew a more modest 8% YoY, aside from Chinese foundries, which were the exception. SMIC posted 16% growth, and Nexchip grew 24%, both supported by ongoing localization efforts. Counterpoint expects double-digit growth from Chinese fabs to remain sustainable into 2026.
Samsung had what Counterpoint described as a mixed year, but the firm's analysts see room for improvement. "Demand for its 4nm node has been relatively solid, supporting better pricing, and the ramp of 2nm should help it secure higher-value designs, particularly in AI and mobile," Tom Kang, research director at Counterpoint Research, said.
Intel Foundry held 6% of the total Foundry 2.0 market by revenue, according to Counterpoint's breakdown, placing it alongside Texas Instruments and Infineon among the non-memory IDM segment. Non-memory IDMs largely worked through their inventory corrections in the second half of 2025. Texas Instruments posted a 13% YoY rebound, and Infineon grew 5%.
The OSAT segment grew 10% YoY in 2025 as ASE/SPIL and Amkor absorbed spillover demand from TSMC's constrained internal advanced packaging capacity. ASE grew at an above-average rate and became the second-largest player by revenue in the entire Foundry 2.0 market, behind TSMC. Counterpoint projects that industry-wide advanced packaging capacity could expand by roughly 80% YoY in 2026, driven by AI customers locking in long-term partnerships with OSAT vendors for CoWoS-S and CoWoS-L production.
"Advanced packaging is no longer just a supporting step but becoming a gating factor for AI deployment," said Counterpoint Research senior analyst William Li.
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Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
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