EWT, EWY, and SOXX: The Only 3 ETFs You Need for Semiconductor Dominance

Taiwan and South Korea sit at the center of the global chip supply chain, and three exchange-traded funds offer the most direct way to hold that exposure: the iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (NYSEARCA:EWT | EWT Price Prediction), the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (NYSEARCA:EWY), and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX). Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing sits at the center of the AI hardware boom, building the leading‑edge logic chips that drive modern accelerators. South Korea anchors the memory side of the stack, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dominating the high‑bandwidth modules that sit right next to those processors. The American designers that rely on both countries show up together in SOXX, which bundles the front‑end of the AI supply chain into one sleeve.

The market has been pricing that story all year. EWT is up roughly 49% year to date, EWY has surged about 87%, and SOXX has climbed around 68%. Each fund captures the same underlying thesis from a different angle, and the choice comes down to which link in the semiconductor chain an investor wants to emphasize.

Why the geography matters

Advanced‑node logic manufacturing is still concentrated almost entirely in Taiwan, where TSMC builds the chips designed by NVIDIA, AMD, Apple, and Broadcom. South Korea anchors the memory side of the stack, with Samsung and SK Hynix supplying the high‑bandwidth modules that determine how quickly AI accelerators can feed their compute cores. Together, the two countries form a single industrial ecosystem that the rest of the world has struggled to replicate, even with the U.S. CHIPS Act and European subsidies pulling some capacity back onshore.

That concentration shapes both the upside and the risk. Tensions in the Taiwan Strait, U.S. export controls on advanced chips to China, and the boom‑bust rhythm of memory pricing all flow straight through these exposures, making the returns powerful when the cycle runs and more volatile when the pressure points shift.

EWT: the cleanest TSMC proxy

EWT tracks the MSCI Taiwan index and functions as the most accessible way for U.S. investors to own the Taiwanese semiconductor ecosystem in a single ticker. The fund holds about $6.1 billion in net assets and charges an expense ratio of 0.59%, which is standard for a single-country emerging or developed-market iShares fund.

The headline holding is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing at 21% of net assets, the maximum weight permitted under the index methodology. Hon Hai Precision Industry, the iPhone assembler also known as Foxconn, which has pivoted aggressively into AI server manufacturing, sits at 3%. MediaTek, the mobile and edge-AI chip designer, is at 5%. The top three holdings together represent roughly 33% of the fund, meaning a single quarter from TSMC or a Foxconn server cycle can move the entire portfolio.

Beyond the chip cluster, EWT carries meaningful weights in Delta Electronics, Quanta Computer, and a handful of Taiwanese banks including Fubon Financial and CTBC Financial. That financial sleeve provides modest sector diversification, although the fund’s price action still tends to track TSMC’s earnings cycle and AI capex expectations. The tradeoff with EWT is concentration and geopolitics, as A buyer is making a direct bet on TSMC’s pricing power, foundry utilization, and the political stability of the Taiwan Strait. The currency exposure to the New Taiwan dollar adds another layer that can either amplify or offset the underlying equity moves.

EWY: the South Korea memory trade

EWY tracks the MSCI Korea 25/50 Index and offers concentrated exposure to South Korea’s two memory champions, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which together typically dominate the fund’s top positions. The expense ratio sits at 0.59%, matching EWT, and the inception date of May 2000 makes it one of the longest-running single-country funds in the iShares lineup.

The investment logic is HBM. High-bandwidth memory is the bottleneck in every AI training cluster being built today, and SK Hynix has been the primary supplier to NVIDIA’s flagship accelerators, while Samsung has worked through qualification cycles to expand its share. The result has been a memory cycle that looks structurally different from the boom-and-bust pattern of past DRAM and NAND markets, with pricing supported by AI demand rather than smartphone replacement cycles.

That thesis is reflected in the price action. EWY has run about 219% over the past year and roughly 18% in the past week alone, a pace that reflects how quickly memory pricing and AI server orders have repriced the Korean tech complex.

The fund extends beyond chips into Hyundai Motor, LG-affiliated conglomerates, shipbuilders, and Korean financials, so a buyer is also taking on exposure to the broader Korean industrial economy and the won. The tradeoff is cyclicality. Memory has historically been the most volatile semiconductor segment, and EWY’s concentration in two memory makers means a turn in HBM pricing or a Samsung Foundry stumble would feed through the fund directly.

SOXX: the customer side of the same chain

SOXX holds U.S.-listed semiconductor companies that source from TSMC and Samsung, including NVIDIA, Broadcom, AMD, and Qualcomm, as well as equipment makers such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA. TSMC’s American depositary receipt is also a top weighting, which means SOXX provides indirect Taiwan exposure within an otherwise U.S.-focused wrapper. The expense ratio is 0.34%, lower than the country funds and reflecting the more competitive U.S. sector ETF landscape.

The reason to pair SOXX with EWT or EWY is structural. Taiwanese fabs and Korean memory makers capture the manufacturing margin, while U.S. designers capture the design and software margin. Both sides benefit from the same AI capex wave, but they can decouple over short periods when, for example, foundry pricing power shifts or memory oversupply pressures designer gross margins.

SOXX has returned about 171% over the past year and around 1,849% over the past decade, the steepest long-run track record among the three. The trade-off is concentration in U.S. mega-cap chip names whose valuations already price in years of AI capex growth, and the equipment makers within the fund carry their own sensitivity to the China export-control regime.

Choosing between the three

An investor who wants the most direct exposure to advanced‑node logic manufacturing and to TSMC’s pricing power naturally gravitates to EWT. Someone who wants to lean into the AI memory cycle and is comfortable with the swings that come with Korean industrials finds the clearest expression in EWY. SOXX fits the investor who prefers the U.S.‑listed customer base of those same Asian fabs, along with the lower expense ratio and deeper liquidity that come with a broad semiconductor index.

Holding all three at once creates real overlap. TSMC appears as a top weight in EWT and again as an ADR in SOXX, while both EWY and SOXX show memory and equipment exposure. A combined position effectively layers the same AI‑driven semiconductor story three times over, which can be intentional concentration or unnecessary duplication depending on how long an investor believes the current capex cycle can run.