Recently, while looking at the overall landscape of the semiconductor industry chain, there is a rather obvious phenomenon worth paying attention to.

To be honest, the competitive landscape of this industry is already quite clear. The core of the global technology war lies in semiconductors, but the real chokepoints are only a handful of areas. In fields like photoresist, EDA, and lithography machines, overseas giants such as Shin-Etsu, Applied Materials, and ASML still firmly hold the upper hand. Domestic companies are trying to catch up, but the gap is indeed still there.

What’s interesting, though, is that manufacturing and packaging/testing have become the main battleground instead. Companies like SMIC and Changdian Technology already have a say on the global stage, and this is also the segment where domestic substitution is progressing the fastest. What does that reflect behind the scenes? It’s that both funding and policy are being pushed hard toward “independent and controllable.”

If you look at the movements of the main funds, you can feel that they are continuously targeting weak links such as equipment and materials. With policy support plus capital backing, companies that truly have the ability to achieve technological breakthroughs become the most desirable targets. On the overall semiconductor industry chain map, the positions of these companies are becoming increasingly important.

From an investment perspective, in the short term, the bottoming out of the inventory cycle will bring performance recovery—this is an opportunity. But in the long run, the trend toward domestic substitution with clear certainty is the real thing worth betting on. My suggestion is to focus on semiconductor equipment ETFs and leading companies in materials, but don’t let yourself get carried away by hype based purely on concepts; you still need to keep an eye on real technological breakthroughs and orders actually landing. Only those companies making solid, tangible progress are worth watching.