The mechanism: The CHIPS Act didn't pick a chip design winner — it funded concrete, cleanrooms, and tool-outs at Samsung Taylor, TSMC Arizona, Micron Idaho/New York, and Intel Ohio. Every one of those fabs, regardless of whose logic or memory comes out the far end, has to run wafers through process-control and inspection steps hundreds of times per lot. That's not optional tooling — foundries can't achieve yield, and can't qualify a node to a customer, without it. KLA Corporation KLAC sells the equipment that catches the defects: optical and e-beam wafer inspection, metrology, and reticle inspection. It holds roughly 58% share of the overall process-control market and over 85% in optical wafer inspection — a position roughly seven times its nearest competitor. Every leading-edge fab that federal subsidy dollars help build is a fab that must buy KLA tools before it ships a single qualified wafer. The chip-design horse race is genuinely uncertain; the toll booth on the track is not.