Comet Holding AG — AI supply-chain exposure

Comet makes the radio-frequency power delivery that drives plasma inside etch and deposition chambers — the generators, matchboxes and vacuum capacitors that strike and hold the plasma doing the actual work of shaping a chip — plus X-ray modules used in inspection. It sits two tiers up the chain: a component supplier to the equipment makers who in turn sell to the fabs. Its customers are the tool builders, not the chipmakers directly.

Its structural hook is that RF power is a precise, reliability-critical subsystem that equipment makers tend to design around a trusted specialist rather than swap casually — a quiet moat inside someone else's machine. That makes Comet a leveraged, second-order play on every plasma-based process step fabs add, including the etch- and deposition-heavy stages behind advanced logic and memory. The model weights it modestly and places it as a supplier: real pricing power in a narrow niche, but demand governed by the equipment cycle above it.