Who Are the Top U.S. Companies in the Semiconductor Industry?

Article Highlights:

• After stratospheric growth during the first three years of the 2020s, the semiconductor market is now projected to swell into a trillion-dollar industry by 2030. 
• While U.S. chip manufacturing has steadily declined over the past few decades and currently constitutes only 12% of the global supply, America remains a leader in chip design, research and development, and fabrication equipment. 
• In what should come as little surprise to those following the AI boom over the past year, chip designer Nvidia is now the largest semiconductor firm in the U.S.—and one of the most valuable companies in the entire world. 

Semiconductors have become such an integral feature of our network-immersed, hyper-connected society that there are now purported to be around 100 billion of them in active use—or nearly 19 for every single human being on earth. 

Given their growing criticality to dozens of global sectors—and range of increasingly consequential military and defense applications—it’s hardly surprising that the industry producing these devices is experiencing a rapid growth spurt. After reaching a record global revenue of well over $550 billion in 2021, the market is projected to experience a compound annual growth rate of somewhere between 6 and 8% over the latter half of the 2020s. By many accounts, it’s well-positioned to swell into a trillion-dollar industry by 2030. 

This significant expansion has also been boosted by initiatives from the Biden administration, who passed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 to bolster America’s lagging domestic chip manufacturing. While the U.S. was once an indisputable powerhouse in chip manufacturing—in 1990, U.S. firms were fabricating 37% of the world’s semiconductors—America is currently making only around 12% of the total global output (and none of the most advanced chips). The deep-pocketed legislation, with its $53 billion in incentives for semiconductor firms building or expanding operations on American soil, has sparked a frenzy in private investments. Since 2022, around $200 billion in semiconductor-related projects have been announced. 

So which semiconductor companies are leading the way for the U.S.? We break down the top semiconductor companies in the U.S. by revenue below: 

1. Nvidia

• Revenue: $96 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $53 billion (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $2.83 trillion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 26,000 employees
• Headquarters: Santa Clara, CA
• U.S. Fabs: Fabless
• Production Node Range: N/A

Nvidia’s stratospheric upward trajectory in the semiconductor world has been spectacular to witness. The company has grown so fast that its 2023 revenue is already wildly obsolete, representative of a different, smaller firm. The chipmaker’s most recent quarterly revenue reached a stunning $30 billion—a 154% leap from just a year earlier—and some analysts believe it has a legitimate chance at becoming the U.S.’s most valuable company. 

Nvidia’s GPUs are powerful processors ideal for generative AI, large language models (LLM), and machine learning, and tens of thousands of companies employing advanced computing and AI solutions are already using the leading-edge chips. Because the company employs a fabless business model that outsources chip manufacturing to other firms, Nvidia will likely not be a major beneficiary of the CHIPS Act. The world-leading chip designer is, however, collaborating closely with the U.S. government to ensure that future semiconductors produced for Chinese companies comply with existing export controls. 

2. Intel

• Revenue: $55.12 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $975 million (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $92 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 125,000 employees
• Headquarters: Santa Clara, CA
• U.S. Fabs: 12
• Production Node Range: 7-65 nm 

Founded in 1968 as a manufacturer of logic circuits and memory chips, Intel has spent the past half-century growing into one of the largest semiconductor firms in the world. The company, which has well over 100,000 employees and locations in 65 countries, produces a wide array of chips, including graphics processing units (GPUs), systems-on-a-chip (SOC), and flash memory. Intel’s line of central processing units (CPUs), all under the umbrella of the company’s flagship Intel Core family, are used by Dell, Lenovo, and HP, among other large-scale customers. 

In March 2024, Intel was awarded a total of $8.5 billion in subsidies—and another $11 billion in loans—through the CHIPS Act. The firm plans to put the substantial injection of funding toward the construction of two new fabs on its Arizona campus and another two in Ohio, where the company will attempt to launch an entirely new manufacturing hub with no preexisting semiconductor ecosystem. All four of the new fabs announced will manufacture leading-edge nodes. 

3. Broadcom Inc. 

• Revenue: $47 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $5 billion (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $759 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 20,000 employees
• Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA
• U.S. Fabs: Fabless
• Production Node Range: N/A

A multinational corporation headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, Broadcom primarily operates as a fabless designer with a broad and diversified range of semiconductor products. The company’s portfolio includes ethernet switch ICs, network adapters, RAID controllers, and other devices that are used by high-profile customers like IBM, Dell, Motorola, and Nintendo. In 2023, Broadcom finalized a multibillion dollar deal with Apple—for whom it has been a longstanding supplier—to provide 5G radio frequency components, film bulk acoustic resonator filters, and wireless connectivity parts for the company’s devices. 

Broadcom has also recently worked to establish itself as a major supplier of custom chips, also referred to as ASICs. The firm has secured large-scale agreements to provide Google and Meta with these customized integrated circuits, and financial analysts believe both deals could drive the company’s ASIC chip revenue north of $9 billion in 2024. 

4. Qualcomm

• Revenue: $37.4 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $7.3 billion (2023)
• Market Capitalization: $188 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 50,000 employees
• Headquarters: San Diego, CA
• U.S. Fabs: Fabless
• Production Node Range: N/A

Founded in 1985 and headquartered in San Diego, Qualcomm is one of the few true conglomerate corporations on this list. The firm rose to prominence by developing cell phone connectivity technology, but eventually diversified its product portfolio to include software focused on the Internet of Things and the manufacturing of semiconductors. By the 2000s, Qualcomm was primarily engaged in a fabless semiconductor manufacturing model, and was outsourcing production to firms like GlobalFoundries, Samsung Electronics, and Amkor Technology. 

Among Qualcomm’s most popular chips are its Snapdragon processors, powerful systems-on-a-chip (SoC) that are used in everything from laptops and desktops to many of the most advanced, best-selling Android smartphones in the world. Over the past few years, the multinational has made impressive headway in the growing sector of “software-defined vehicles,” where its Snapdragon Digital Chassis—a suite of technologies that confers advanced capabilities like digital connectivity, autonomous driving, and panoramic displays to vehicles—has been incorporated into the latest models from automakers like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo.

5. Applied Materials

• Revenue: $26.85 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $7.45 billion (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $155 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 34,000 employees
• Headquarters: Santa Clara, CA
• U.S. Fabs: N/A
• Production Node Range: N/A

As one of the world’s leading suppliers of manufacturing equipment, services, and software for the semiconductor industry, Applied Materials plays a crucial role in the global chipmaking ecosystem. The company counts Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Intel, and Samsung among its chief customers, and its deep repertoire of process technology products is used to fabricate many of the most cutting-edge chips powering electronics, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and cloud computing. In addition to its essential role in the semiconductor supply chain, the firm also manufactures equipment and systems used to produce flat panel displays for televisions, computers, and smartphones.

Last year, Applied Materials came under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. The company had allegedly violated export controls by shipping hundreds of millions of dollars of fabrication equipment to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). The partially state-owned company, which is China’s largest chipmaker, has been the target of U.S. export controls dating back to 2022, when the Bureau of Industry and Security first announced a bevy of new restrictions limiting China’s ability to obtain crucial semiconductor technology. Those controls were subsequently updated in 2023, with new and expanded rules reflecting BIS efforts to close loopholes, foreclose circumvention strategies, and further constrain the shipment of high-level manufacturing equipment to Chinese companies. Applied Materials is under scrutiny for multiple shipments made to a SMIC subsidiary in South Korea in 2021 and 2022, after the Chinese firm had already been added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List. 

6. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

• Revenue: $23 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $265 million (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $244 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 26,000 employees
• Headquarters: Santa Clara, CA
• U.S. Fabs: Fabless
• Production Node Range: N/A

Originally a chipmaker specializing in microprocessors, graphics processing units (GPUs), and other semiconductor devices, AMD spun off its manufacturing arm in 2009, resulting in the creation of New York-based GlobalFoundries. Today, AMD is a fabless firm that outsources all its manufacturing processes to external companies, a production strategy that allows the company to focus exclusively on chip design. 

In 2016, AMD introduced Ryzen, a new family of topline microprocessors incorporating radically redesigned chip architecture. The high-end CPUs have helped AMD reclaim territory lost to Intel’s market-dominating Core processors. More recently, the company officially entered the burgeoning and intensely competitive market for AI chips with the release of its MI300X line of GPUs. The firm’s new accelerators—which feature over 150 billion transistors and advanced 3D packaging—are expected to directly compete with Nvidia’s industry-leading processors in the race to court customers looking to power large language models and generative AI platforms. 

7. Micron Technology 

• Revenue: $21 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $332 million (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $98 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 43,000 employees
• Headquarters: Boise, ID
• U.S. Fabs: 2
• Production Node Range: 10-30 nm 

One of the few remaining American semiconductor firms that doesn’t outsource chip fabrication, Micron Technology is a leading producer of memory and storage chips, including DDR5 synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM), CXL memory expansion modules, and SSDs for data centers, automotive firms, and other customers. 

While the Boise, ID-headquartered chipmaker currently operates manufacturing sites in well over a dozen countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, and China, extensive funding from the CHIPS Act will go toward construction on several new domestic facilities. Bolstered by over $6 billion in grants from the federal government, Micron is planning to build four new fabs in Clay, New York—a project with a total price tag estimated at around $100 billion—as well as an additional fabrication site at its existing Boise location. The company is aiming to complete construction and begin operations at all its new facilities by 2029.

8. Texas Instruments 

• Revenue: $16 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $5.3 billion (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $183 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 34,000 employees
• Headquarters: Dallas, TX
• U.S. Fabs: 8
• Production Node Range: 45-350 nm 

A veritable household name to an extent not usually associated with the historically low-profile semiconductor industry, Texas Instruments boasts an illustrious array of technological milestones. In 1954, the company produced the first commercial silicon transistor. Just a few years later, an engineer working at its Central Research Labs in Dallas played an instrumental role in inventing the integrated circuit. Today, TI posseses a vast portfolio of over 80,000 semiconductor devices and electronic components, including amplifiers, microcontrollers, and memory chips. While TI has tens of thousands of customers all over the world, its principal partnerships are with Cisco Systems, Dell, HP, and Apple. 

After declaring that it would be investing a total of $11 billion to ramp up production capacity at its facilities in Utah, the company last year broke ground on a new 300-mm fabrication plant near Salt Lake City. TI is also constructing an additional four new fabs at its existing campus in Sherman, Texas. This past August, the Biden administration announced that the manufacturer would receive $1.6 billion in grants and another $3 billion in loans through the CHIPS Act—a crucial injection of federal funding for the firm’s suite of projects aimed at expanding manufacturing operations in the U.S. 

9. Lam Research 

• Revenue: $14.9 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $3.83 billion (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $99 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 17,500 employees
• Headquarters: Fremont, CA
• U.S. Fabs: N/A
• Production Node Range: N/A

The U.S. is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wafer fabrication equipment, a crucial segment of the larger semiconductor sector that is rapidly approaching annual revenue of $100 billion. While Applied Materials continues to enjoy primacy as America's top fabrication equipment firm, with revenue north of $25 billion and a customer base featuring a slew of the world’s top chipmakers, Lam Research is another key U.S. fulcrum for global semiconductor production. 

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The Fremont, CA-based firm designs and produces equipment focused on front-end manufacturing processes, including wafer cleaning, photoresist, and plasma etching. According to Lam Research, “nearly every advanced chip” manufactured today is done so using the company’s technology, and the firm’s clientele includes TSMC and Intel. 

10. Analog Devices 

• Revenue: $9.7 billion (TTM)
• Net Income: $1.66 billion (TTM)
• Market Capitalization: $112 billion 
• Exchange: Nasdaq
• Size: 26,000 employees
• Headquarters: Wilmington, MA
• U.S. Fabs: 3
• Production Node Range: 28-180 nm 

Founded in 1965 by two MIT grads, Analog Devices specializes in analog and digital signal processing hardware, including amplifiers, data converters, and embedded processors. Many of Analog’s integrated circuits are used to process real-world information like temperature, pressure, and speed and convert the data into electrical signals, making the devices applicable to a wide range of industries. The company boasts over 100,000 worldwide customers, including firms in healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, and aerospace and defense. 

Last year, Analog Devices invested more than $1 billion to expand its wafer fabrication facility in Beaverton, OR. The project is expected to substantially increase the fab’s cleanroom space and overall manufacturing capacity, particularly for devices utilizing technology node sizes of 180 nm and above. 

Titans in a Shifting Semiconductor Landscape 

For all the hand-wringing about the decline of American preeminence in the global semiconductor industry, the U.S. continues to enjoy a larger market share of the sector than any other country. But companies like Nvidia and AMD have embraced the fabless business model, and a growing roster of firms are outsourcing manufacturing to foundries in Taiwan, Korea, and other East Asian nations. The result, for the U.S., is a complex, nuanced status in what is evolving into arguably the world’s most lucrative and geopolitically consequential industry—one in which America has continued to solidify its dominance while simultaneously multiplying its supply chain dependencies. 

As the pandemic cogently demonstrated, America’s largest chipmakers—multibillion-dollar corporations that employ tens of thousands and serve as critical cogs for myriad industries—are highly vulnerable to overseas chokepoints, supply shocks, and fab shutdowns. Adding to these risk factors is the specter of geopolitical uncertainty in Asia—including China’s growing imperial ambitions in the region. 

Taken as a whole, these susceptibilities provide ample justification for the U.S. to engineer a more independent and resilient semiconductor supply chain anchored in domestic manufacturing. But while the industry has grown more multilateral and exceedingly reliant on a delicate thicket of interdependencies, America’s largest semiconductor firms have continued to assert themselves as consummate leaders and technologically adept trailblazers in the fast-moving sector. Few, if any, appear willing to cede territory—or lose out on any of the new opportunities materializing out of the current generational boom—anytime soon.