Punjab, Sept. 21 -- The investment announcements out of SEMICON India last week were not fabs. Applied Materials committed $5 billion over ten years, Lam Research around Rs 10,000 crore, and Fujifilm about Rs 800 crore. All three sell to fabs rather than run them.
Why that is the more important outcome
A fab is the visible part of the industry and the hardest place for a new entrant to build durable advantage: enormous capital, fast depreciation, and competitors with decades of yield learning.
Equipment and materials are the opposite. Lower capital per unit of output, longer product cycles, and customer relationships that are extremely hard to displace once a process is qualified around your tool.
A country with fabs and no equipment ba...