Semiconductors
The chips, tools and components behind digital products.
Chips calculate, store data, measure their surroundings and control power inside electronic products. An AI accelerator therefore has different requirements from a car’s magnetic sensor or a power switch. Smaller features can fit more circuitry into a chip, yet that advantage matters only when it serves the task. Other applications place more weight on durability, measurement accuracy or cost.
Meeting those requirements involves several kinds of supplier. Designers sell chips or license their designs, while factories manufacture the wafers using specialist equipment and materials. Packaging then connects the chips to other electronics and increasingly brings several pieces of silicon together in one module. Because each step needs its own expertise, a smaller European company can specialise in one difficult part of production without supplying the whole process.
Market size & opportunity
Sales across these chip categories reached US$702 billion in the first half of 2026, according to WSTS. Its Q2 update combines those actual results with the remaining growth assumptions from the spring forecast to calculate US$1.655 trillion for the full year. The annual figure therefore still depends partly on assumptions; it is neither completed annual sales nor a new forecast scenario.
Demand can still move in different directions within that total. Memory and AI-related chips serve different needs from the sensors used in factories and vehicles. Equipment makers support these markets by supplying the tools to manufacture chips. European companies are involved across those different parts of production.
Market outlook
Global semiconductor sales
Worldwide · US$ billion per year
- 2026Updated calculation1,655
- 2027Updated calculation≈ 2,100
The August update calculates annual sales from actual Q2 results and the remaining spring growth assumptions, rather than setting a new forecast scenario. These figures cover chips; chipmaking equipment has a separate market.
WSTSForecast published Calculation updated
Recent progress
On 8 September 2026, imec reported printing lines just 22 nanometres apart with a single High NA EUV exposure, a technique that uses light to create very small chip patterns. It used an established type of light-sensitive material called a chemically amplified resist. The result suggests that this material can support finer structures, although the approach has yet to demonstrate economical mass production.
Sources
- ASML · Microchips and the production chain
- WSTS · First-half sales and Q2 2026 calculation
- imec · High NA EUV patterning result, 8 September 2026
Updated
Research & reports
European tech stocks in Q3 2026
Chipmaking equipment, maritime robots, satellites, cybersecurity and RNA editing. Five developments that offer a closer look at the businesses behind European tech stocks.
How Europe built its technology giants
The histories of ASML, SAP, Rolls-Royce, Novartis and BAE Systems offer a reason to look more closely at Europe’s smaller companies today.