Risks and opportunities

•  Intensification of global competition in the semiconductor industry and increased strategic importance

•  Response to geopolitical risks and supply chain disruptions and creation of new business opportunities

• Expansion of the role of semiconductors in innovation and the resolution of social issues

• Increase in power consumption due to the spread of generative AI and rising demand for new energy-efficient semiconductors

• Increasingly complex silicon cycle

• Technological advances and market expansion in innovative fields, both in the miniaturization
  and in the 3D packaging of semiconductors; expansion of applications for older generations (legacy fields)

• Expansion of applications and social need for semiconductor technologies (such as life science-related materials, functional materials, and optical materials)

• Risk reduction and long-term stable growth through the diversification of the business and regional portfolio and multiplication of target markets

• Increase in the need for further advances, complexity, and ultrahigh purification of semiconductor materials

• Mixed presence of fields with a tight supply and fields with an oversupply in the semiconductor
  market