*Understanding the Need of Raw Materials, and Eco-Friendly and Cost-Effective Methods... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108922*

A good explanation of the overall chain is described in **Figure 4**, where it includes as input: manufacturing equipment to chemical and materials, and electronic design automation, while combined with design and manufacture explained before, provides wafers to assemble, test, and package the final product reported to the consumer [14].

Big companies in semiconductors, such as TSMC, Samsung, Broadcom, NXP, Intel, Micron, SK Hynix, Qualcomm [15], announced that they are going to increase their presence worldwide by investing in new plants of production. This news overcomes the issues of chip shortage (definition: sociological or physical change that prevented certain chips from being produced in enough large numbers to satisfy demand) and post-pandemic [16].

Some of the big supplier companies in the materials are Basf SE, Indium Corporation, Kyocera Corporation, Showa Denko Materials Co, Ltd., and Intel Corporation reported in **Figure 5**. More details are given in [9].

#### **Figure 4.**

*Semiconductor chain from input to finished product according to source PIIE [14].*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Global semiconductor material major players—Source Mordor Intelligence Pvt Ltd [9].*
