Which Countries Does the World Rely On for Chip Assembly & Packaging?

Article Highlights:

• The back-end processes of assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) are an increasingly attractive investment for nations not historically integral to the semiconductor supply chain. 
• The ASEAN trio of Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines are all among the top five in ATP production for analog/mixed signal ICs (based on total MPNs).
• When it comes to discrete semiconductors—chips, like diodes, transistors, and MOSFETs, responsible for performing single, elementary electronic functions—China currently accounts for a disproportionate amount of the assembly and packaging. 
• When it comes to semiconductor fabrication, the U.S. continues to serve as a key country of diffusion (COD) for commodity types like analog/mixed signal ICs, CPUs, and interface ICs. 
• And while the global ATP market share is certainly evolving, it’s not drifting far from its fulcrum in Asia: the countries experiencing the fastest growth in this sector include Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and other South Asian nations.

By almost any metric, the global semiconductor industry has experienced impressive growth during the 2020s. In 2019, total global sales stood at around $412 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Jump ahead five years, to 2024, and worldwide revenue topped $630 billion. This represented an increase of over 50% in just half-a-decade. And that growth is showing few signs of plateauing. The SIA projects that 2025 will serve as another record-busting year for the industry, with sales projected to eclipse $700 billion—yet another first for the sector, and an 11% increase from 2024 figures. 

The Spotlight Shifts to Semiconductor Assembly and Packing

Much of the money and prestige tied to semiconductor manufacturing has long been associated with chip fabrication. (This is often referred to as “front-end manufacturing” and its accompanying processes.) But the stratospheric growth and emerging geopolitical importance of the chip industry is now raising the profile of other aspects of the manufacturing process, too. 

The back-end processes of assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) are becoming more attractive avenues to high-tech manufacturing for many countries, offering nations not historically integral to the semiconductor supply chain the chance to participate in this lucrative sector. 

Because of this, we’re now seeing a growing contingent of countries investing in ATP, as national governments see the potential for their populations to seize a piece of the $700-billion global chipmaking pie. 

What Does the Global ATP Landscape Look Like Today?

Given the rapid expansion of the chip industry, the growing assertiveness of both governments and private industry, and the emergence of high-tech manufacturing outside the longstanding ecosystems clustered in a handful of countries, what does the global ATP landscape look like today? In order to answer this question, Z2Data carried out a data analysis to look at where the world’s most important semiconductors are being assembled, tested, and packaged today. 

Earlier this year, Z2Data published a data article analyzing where 10 of the world’s most essential semiconductors are being manufactured. Now, we’re revisiting the subject to see where the world’s most critical chips undergo the back-end manufacturing stages. The parts in this report are based on figures from our internal database. 

This analysis yielded a number of notable insights. Some can be understood as logical extensions of the takeaways established in the previous article, while others shine light on new dimensions of chipmaking and the highly globalized supply chains that sustain it. 

What Are the World’s “Most Important” Semiconductors?

To obtain the data in this article, we narrowed down all semiconductor commodity types to the 10 that are the most essential to the various industries that rely on chip manufacturing, including sectors like electronics, automotive, medical technology, aerospace and defense, and AI. To do this, we assessed a range of criteria, including global sales, breadth of applications, and manufacturing complexity. We then analyzed each category by its country of assembly (COA)—the country where chips are assembled, tested, and packaged—to map today’s global ATP footprint. 

The 10 types we arrived at include:

• Analog/Mixed Signal ICs
• Discrete Semiconductors (Diodes, transistors, MOSFETs)
• CPUs (central processing units)
• Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)
• Interface ICs
• DRAM Memory
• Flash/EEPROM Memory
• Power Management ICs
• RF/Wireless ICs
• Microcontrollers (MCUs)

Major Takeaway One: Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines Are Major ATP Players 

The federal governments for Southeast Asian nations have made no secret of their desire to bolster their countries’ role in global semiconductor manufacturing. Malaysia has invested heavily in assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) through a myriad of interconnected initiatives, including the National Semiconductor Strategy and the New Industrial Master Plan 2030. The results have been decisive: Malaysia is now responsible for 13% of the global ATP market. With a similar level of commitment from the federal government—embodied by industrial strategies like the Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy, or I3S—the Philippines is another ascendant ASEAN actor in ATP, and is currently capturing 10% of the global market. 

The data below provides a snapshot of just how prominent Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand have become in the global ATP market—particularly as it pertains to analog/mixed signal ICs and microcontrollers (among other key commodity categories).

Top Country of Assembly (COA) for Analog/Mixed Signal ICs

1. Malaysia
2. Thailand
3. China
4. Philippines
5. Taiwan

Top Country of Assembly (COA) for Analog/Mixed Signal ICs

The ASEAN trio of Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines are all among the top five in ATP production for analog/mixed signal ICs (based on total MPNs). In fact, among the five leading countries for ATP production in this commodity category, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines account for exactly two-thirds of all MPNs, and over half of all suppliers. 

Top Country of Assembly (COA) for Microcontrollers (MCUs)

1. Taiwan
2. Thailand
3. China
4. Philippines
5. Malaysia

Top Country of Assembly (COA) for Microcontrollers (MCUs)

Microcontrollers are among the more difficult commodity types to package, in large part because of the high pin count and ball grid array (BGA). As a result, they require highly specialized expertise on the part of back-end manufacturers. Even here, however, the leading ASEAN nations are flourishing, serving as the COA for over half of all microcontrollers among the top five producers. Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines are also home to a significant percentage of unique suppliers for this commodity category, an encouraging sign that these nations are cultivating a robust ATP ecosystem capable of scaling up and broadening production capacity in the years to come. 

Major Takeaway Two: China Dominates ATP for Discretes

In our previous article examining where the world’s most important semiconductors are manufactured, we pointed to evidence suggesting that China was emerging as the world’s preeminent producer of discrete chips. Based on the data in this analysis, that dominance extends to back-end manufacturing, too. When it comes to discrete semiconductors—chips, like diodes, transistors, and MOSFETs, responsible for performing single, elementary electronic functions—China currently accounts for a disproportionate amount of the assembly and packaging. 

Top Country of Assembly (COA) for Discretes 

1. China
2. Taiwan
3. Philippines
4. United States
5. Thailand

Top Country of Assembly (COA) for Discretes 

Indeed, among the top five ATP nations for discrete chips, China serves as the COA for over half of the total MPNs, producing multiple times more semiconductors than the world’s second-largest country of assembly, Taiwan. Given China’s previously established supremacy in discrete chip manufacturing, this data suggests that the country is developing a self-sufficient domestic ecosystem for this commodity type. This may be one of the reasons why technologically advanced manufacturing sectors that require large, consistent flows of discrete chips—including the automotive industry—struggle so mightily to shift their supply chains away from China. 

Major Takeaway Three: The U.S. and Europe Rely on Asia for Back-End Manufacturing  

When it comes to semiconductor fabrication, the U.S. continues to serve as a key country of diffusion (COD) for commodity types like analog/mixed signal ICs, CPUs, and interface ICs. While not nearly as prominent as America, European nations like Germany, Ireland, and France are also represented on the global fabrication map. The same cannot be said for back-end manufacturing, however. In the field of ATP, the U.S. is a far less influential player, and Europe hardly registers at all. 

Among the 10 critical commodity types we analyzed, the U.S. only ranked among the top five country-level producers in four categories—and was a relatively distant fifth in two of them (FPGAs, and flash and EEPROM memory). Not a single European country, meanwhile, ranked among the top five COAs in any category. 

Commodity Types in Which U.S. Serves as Major Back-End Manufacturer 

1. Discretes (Diodes, Transistors, MOSFETs, Thyristors)
2. RF/Wireless ICs
3. Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGAs) 
4. Memory (Flash, EEPROM)

Commodity Types with U.S. COA

Z2Data Semiconductor Manufacturing Analysis Methodology

After determining the 10 most important semiconductor commodity types, based on a combination of sales, scope of applications, and manufacturing complexity, we pulled data on all the active manufacturing part numbers (MPNs) for these 10 commodity categories. We then categorized this data based on where the semiconductor was assembled (COA). Last, we narrowed the data down to the top five countries of assembly for each of the 10 commodity types. 

Finally, it may be worth reiterating that the parts in this report are based on figures from our internal database and may not reflect the full semiconductor inventory for individual countries. 

Implications of This Analysis For Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)

The data included and analyzed in this report, as well as the three major takeaways, are intended to help engineers, procurement experts, and supply chain professionals develop a stronger, more nuanced understanding of the global semiconductor supply chain. Our hope is that the information and insights in this report will lay the groundwork for more informed strategies and investments in the years to come. 

Understand Dependencies With Greater Precision and Clarity

Executives and the sourcing professionals who are now highly focused on identifying critical dependencies in their supply chains, whether they be countries, geographical regions, suppliers, or even specific manufacturing sites. For organizations that source chips in the 10 commodity categories examined here, this report makes clear that Asia is a massive dependency for back-end manufacturing. 

Western countries, including the U.S. and much of Europe, rely heavily on China, Taiwan, and increasingly the ASEAN bloc for semiconductor ATP. And while the global ATP market share is certainly evolving, it’s not drifting far from its fulcrum in Asia: the countries experiencing the fastest growth in this sector include Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and other South Asian nations. The West’s disproportionate reliance on this region for back-end manufacturing may carry implications for onshoring and nearshoring prospects, jeopardizing the U.S.’s aim to cultivate a domestic semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem with fewer ties to Asia. Europe, meanwhile, remains far behind other regions, and there are few clear mitigation strategies for its dependencies in nations like Taiwan, China, and Malaysia.

Recognize Emerging Opportunities in Both ATP and Fabrication

The nations that are emerging as crucial manufacturing hubs for ATP today may experience a comparable rise in front-end manufacturing over the next decade. The ASEAN countries mentioned repeatedly in this report—Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines—are actively developing the manufacturing infrastructure, human capital, and institutional expertise necessary to assemble, test, and package the world’s most in-demand chips. Those developments could one day serve as the foundation for getting fabrication operations off the ground as well. Perhaps most importantly, these emerging national players are solidifying relationships with leading global chipmakers like Intel, Infineon, GlobalFoundries, and Texas Instruments, laying the groundwork for further development in the years to come. 

Gain Deep Semiconductor Supply Chain Visibility With Z2Data

For most of 2025, U.S. President Trump has threatened to impose hefty tariffs on foreign semiconductors, striking fear into U.S. original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other chip importers. Even with an across-the-board tariff on foreign chips remaining a threat rather than a fully implemented reality, however, organizations are doing everything in their power to adjust sourcing, supply chains, and COO designations to reduce tariff burdens on electronic components. 

Supply chain risk management (SCRM) platform Z2Data provides a comprehensive solution that helps businesses gather, analyze, and act on critical supply chain insights. 

Z2Data provides extensive data and intelligence on the semiconductor supply chain, including but not limited to:

• Part-to-site mapping
• Multi-tier supply chain visibility
• Parametric search
• Clean, normalized data
• Fabrication and ATP locations
• Country of origin (COO) and COD across semiconductor commodity types
• Comprehensive part profiles for over 1 billion components
• Detailed cross-references

For businesses that source semiconductors being assembled in countries like China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Z2Data has the databases and mapping capabilities to serve as the cornerstone for an effective risk management strategy. To learn more about the SCRM tool and how it can help your company manage semiconductor sourcing, COO, and COD, schedule a free demo with one of our product experts.

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