Semiconductor index builder to create your own semiconductor index fund from the chip stocks you pick.
Choose the designers, foundries, equipment and memory makers you believe in, decide how much NVIDIA is allowed to be, and see how the basket would have done next to the Nasdaq-100 and the chip ETFs. Then buy it at your own broker.
The backtest did not run just now. Tap Backtest it to try again.
Educational only · Never places a trade
In short
A semiconductor index is a rules-based basket of chip stocks, and the rule that matters most is how much the biggest names are allowed to weigh. On September 25, 2026, NVIDIA was 19.1% of VanEck's SMH, 11.2% of Invesco's SOXQ, which follows the PHLX Semiconductor Index, 4.9% of Xtrackers' CHPS, and not even in the top five of SPDR's equal-weighted XSD. Fees run from 0.15% (CHPS) and 0.19% (SOXQ) to 0.60% (FTXL). Building your own semiconductor index means picking 15 to 30 chip stocks, setting the cap yourself, backtesting the basket, and buying the stocks at a broker, where there is no expense ratio.
From each issuer's own fund page
Which semiconductor index fund is best, and how does each one weight its chip stocks?
The semiconductor ETFs US investors buy most, with the fee, the holdings count, the index each one follows and the five largest positions as the issuer published them. The index rule is the column that explains the rest.
| Fund | Net expense ratio | Holdings | Index and weighting rule | Largest positions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VanEck Semiconductor (SMH) | 0.35% | 25 | MVIS US Listed Semiconductor 25. Largest names held between 5% and 20% each, all others capped at 4.5% | NVIDIA 19.1%, TSMC 9.2%, AMD 5.8%, Broadcom 5.2%, Micron 5.0% (Sep 25) |
| iShares Semiconductor (SOXX) | 0.33% | 30 | NYSE Semiconductor Index. Every stock capped at 8%, outside the top five at 4%, ADRs 10% in total | Micron 8.5%, AMD 8.1%, NVIDIA 6.8%, Intel 6.3%, Broadcom 6.1% (Jun 30, before the September reconstitution) |
| Invesco PHLX Semiconductor (SOXQ) | 0.19% | 30 | PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index (SOX). Top three capped at 12%, 10% and 8%, all others at 4% | NVIDIA 11.2%, Broadcom 8.7%, Micron 8.2%, Intel 5.0%, AMD 4.9% (Sep 25) |
| Xtrackers Semiconductor Select Equity (CHPS) | 0.15% | 54 | Solactive Semiconductor Focus Index. 50 largest worldwide, including Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Netherlands listings, 4.5% cap per stock | AMD 5.5%, Micron 5.1%, Intel 5.0%, NVIDIA 4.9%, TSMC 4.5% (Sep 25) |
| SPDR S&P Semiconductor (XSD) | 0.35% | 47 | S&P Semiconductor Select Industry Index, modified equal weight | MaxLinear 3.0%, Credo 2.8%, Astera Labs 2.7%, AMD 2.7%, Rambus 2.7% (Sep 25) |
| Invesco Semiconductors (PSI) | 0.55% | 31 | Dynamic Semiconductor Intellidex. 30 stocks chosen on momentum, quality and value screens, reset quarterly | Intel 6.3%, AMD 5.9%, Micron 5.2%, Texas Instruments 4.8%, Analog Devices 4.8% (Sep 25) |
| First Trust Nasdaq Semiconductor (FTXL) | 0.60% | 37 | Nasdaq US Smart Semiconductor. 30 to 50 stocks ranked on four factors, weighted by cash flow, 8% cap | Intel 9.5%, Qualcomm 8.2%, Micron 7.8%, NVIDIA 7.1%, Broadcom 6.6% (Sep 25) |
| VanEck Fabless Semiconductor (SMHX) | 0.35% | 22 | MarketVector US Listed Fabless Semiconductor. Chip designers only, same caps as SMH | NVIDIA 18.5%, Broadcom 11.6%, AMD 7.7%, Qualcomm 5.2%, Credo 5.2% (Sep 25) |
| Roundhill Memory (DRAM) | 0.65% | 22 | No index. Actively managed memory fund, launched April 2026 | Micron 26.6%, Samsung 25.0%, SK hynix 22.4%, CXMT 5.1%, Seagate 4.8% (Sep 28, swaps included) |
| Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X (SOXL) | 0.75% (0.91% before a waiver that runs to Sep 1, 2027) | 30 stocks plus swaps | NYSE Semiconductor Index at three times the daily return | Built for short-term trading, not holding: stocks plus swaps add up to about 3x exposure (Sep 28) |
The fee column differs by about 0.45% between the cheapest and the priciest plain chip fund. The weighting column changes what you own by far more. SMH's index lets its largest names hold up to 20% each, so NVIDIA alone is about a fifth of the fund and its top five add up to more than 44%. SOXQ follows the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index (SOX), whose methodology caps the three largest stocks at 12%, 10% and 8% and everything else at 4%. SOXX follows a different index, ICE's NYSE Semiconductor Index, with an 8% ceiling on every stock and 4% outside the top five. CHPS caps each holding at 4.5% and also buys shares listed in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the Netherlands. XSD weights its 47 stocks roughly equally, which is why its top holdings are MaxLinear and Credo rather than NVIDIA.
So "which semiconductor index fund is best" really asks how much NVIDIA you want, and whether you want the small and mid-size chip companies at all. For the market's own view, SMH. For the cheapest fund on a 30-stock US-listed list, SOXQ at 0.19%. For the whole industry with no giant in charge, XSD. And if none of these caps matches the view you actually hold, that is the case for setting the cap yourself. The same funds, ranked purely by fee with the dollar cost at each balance, are in our cheapest semiconductor ETF comparison.
Decide which part of the chain you are betting on
Which stocks belong in a semiconductor index?
A chip is designed in one company's software, drawn by a second company, printed by a third on machines from a fourth, and packed next to memory from a fifth. A semiconductor index is some mix of those six layers, and the mix decides how it behaves far more than the stock count does.
1
Chip designers (fabless)
Companies that design processors, GPUs and networking chips and pay a foundry to make them. The layer most chip ETFs are heaviest in.
NVDA, AMD, AVGO, QCOM, MRVL, ARM
2
Foundries and manufacturers
The fabs that turn designs into silicon, plus integrated makers that design and build their own chips.
TSM, INTC, GFS
3
Equipment and tools
Lithography, deposition, etch and inspection machines. Every new fab has to buy from this short list.
ASML, AMAT, LRCX, KLAC, TER
4
Memory and storage
DRAM, high bandwidth memory and flash. The most cyclical layer, and the one AI servers have pulled hardest on lately.
MU, SNDK, WDC
5
Analog, power and auto chips
The unglamorous chips in cars, factories and power supplies. Slower growth, steadier margins.
TXN, ADI, NXPI, ON, MCHP
6
Design software (EDA)
The software every chip is designed in. Priced like software, but it lives and dies with chip design budgets.
SNPS, CDNS
The tickers show what each layer contains; they are not recommendations. The layers have taken turns leading. Equipment makers tend to move with fab spending plans, memory swings with DRAM and flash prices, and analog and auto chips follow car and factory demand, which is a different cycle from AI servers. A basket that is 70% designers is mostly a bet on data center GPUs and custom accelerators. Adding equipment and analog names gives you the rest of the industry.
Check the overlap with what you already own before you pick. An S&P 500 fund already holds NVIDIA, Broadcom and AMD at large weights, and a Nasdaq-100 fund holds them at larger ones. A cap-weighted chip basket on top mostly doubles those three. If your core is already an index fund, a chip index that caps the giants or leans on equipment and memory adds more new exposure per dollar. Our guide on how much of your portfolio should be in one stock covers the concentration side.
The same 30 chip stocks can be four different indexes
How should you weight a semiconductor index?
| Weighting | What it does to a chip basket | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | Follows company size. In chips that means NVIDIA, Broadcom and TSMC carry most of the basket, and the rest barely moves the result. | You want the index to look like the market sees chips today. |
| Capped market cap | Market cap with a ceiling per stock, the way the chip ETFs do it. Where you put the cap is most of the difference between SMH and SOXX. | You want size to count, within limits you choose. |
| Equal weight | Every name gets the same slice. A 30-stock basket puts about 3.3% in each, so a mid-size equipment maker counts as much as NVIDIA. | You want the whole supply chain, not the three giants. |
| Layer weights | You split by layer first (for example 35% designers, 25% equipment, 15% foundry, 15% memory, 10% analog) and weight inside each layer. | You have a view on which part of the chain earns the next dollar. |
The chip ETFs are a ready-made lesson in caps. SMH, SOXQ, SOXX and CHPS all start from market cap and differ mostly in where they set the ceiling for the largest holding: 20%, 12%, 8% and 4.5%. That one number moves NVIDIA from about 19% of the fund to about 5%, across funds that hold many of the same companies. In the builder you can set every weight by hand or use equal weight on any plan; market cap and inverse volatility weighting are on the Investor plan. To test a cap, type the capped weights in and backtest two versions of the basket side by side.
Capped and equal-weighted baskets drift. Winners grow past their slice between resets, and in chips a winner can double in a year. A quarterly reset, the schedule both SOX and SMH's index use, is a sensible default; the custom index rebalancing tool lets you backtest monthly, quarterly and yearly schedules before you pick one. The market cap vs equal weight comparison goes deeper on the trade-off.
From a view on chips to a basket you can buy
How to build your own semiconductor index in four steps
1
Pick the chip stocks
Search the catalog of US-listed stocks and ETFs, ADRs such as TSMC and ASML included, and add the names from each layer you want. 15 to 30 is typical.
2
Set the weights and caps
Type your own weights, or use equal, market cap or inverse volatility, and pick a rebalancing schedule so the caps stay where you put them.
3
Backtest against the chip ETFs
Run it against the Nasdaq-100 and the S&P 500, and build a one-line index of SMH or SOXX to put the fund on the same chart.
4
Track it, then buy it
Follow the index daily against its benchmark, export the weights, and place the basket at your own broker when you are ready.
Run the backtest through 2022 before anything else. Chip stocks fell much harder than the broad market that year, and memory and equipment names fell hardest of all. Look at your basket's maximum drawdown beside the Nasdaq-100 and beside a one-line SMH index. If your design fell 15 points further than the fund, you are paying for your view with a lot of extra risk, and a chart is the cheap place to find that out. Backtests are hypothetical and past returns do not predict future ones; use them to compare designs, not to forecast. The backtesting mistakes to avoid note covers hindsight in the stock list, which is the trap chip baskets fall into most.
Indexes designs and tests the basket. A broker holds it.
How do you invest in your own semiconductor index once it is built?
Buy the basket yourself
A broker with fractional shares lets you buy 20 chip stocks at exact weights with a few hundred dollars. Fidelity Basket Portfolios is built for it: up to 50 stocks or ETFs in one order, from $1 per position, for a flat $4.99 a month per Fidelity's page. No expense ratio, and you own every share.
A direct index on a chip benchmark
Public's Direct Index Account lists chip indexes such as an "AI Semiconductor Chip Makers Index" (10 holdings led by AMD, NVIDIA and Broadcom, rebalanced daily) for 0.19% a year from $1,000, and harvests tax losses for you. It is a managed account you fund first; design and backtest the weights before you commit. See our Public direct indexing review.
Buy the ETF after all
If the backtest shows SOXQ or SMH already behaves the way you wanted, buy the fund. One ticker and no rebalancing chores. Building first means you pick the ETF knowing how it caps NVIDIA, not because it came up first in a search.
Owning the chip stocks directly has one advantage a fund cannot match in a taxable account: each position has its own cost basis. Chip stocks move a lot and not together, so in most years at least one name in a 25-stock basket is well under water while the rest are up. You can sell that one, realize the loss against gains elsewhere, and hold a similar company in its place. Inside an ETF that loss never reaches you. Before you buy it back, run the dates through the wash sale calculator.
What Indexes does and does not do: it is index construction, backtesting and tracking software. It does not hold money, place trades or give investment advice. You design and test the semiconductor index here and hold it wherever you already invest.
Four ways to own the chip industry, compared honestly
Build your own semiconductor index vs a chip ETF vs a basket broker vs a direct index
| Chip ETF | Fidelity Basket Portfolios | Public direct index | Indexes, then your broker | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who sets the cap on NVIDIA | The fund's index rules | You | The listed index | You, and you can test it first |
| Yearly cost | 0.15% to 0.60% of the balance | $4.99 a month flat | 0.19% of the balance | From $12 a month for the software, plus your broker's cost |
| Backtest before you buy | Fund history only | No | No | Yes, against the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 |
| Which layers you own | Whatever the index picks | Your choice | The index, minus exclusions | Your choice, weighted by layer if you like |
| Per-stock tax losses | No | Yes, done by you | Yes, automated | Yes, at your broker |
| Where it falls short | You take the fund's caps | No history to test a design | A $1,000 minimum and 0.19% on every dollar | You place and rebalance the trades |
Most people who build end up combining the last two columns: design and backtest here, then hold the basket at a broker that makes multi-stock orders cheap. The ETF wins when you want zero upkeep and one of the funds already matches your view. If your thesis is wider than chips, the AI stocks index builder adds cloud, software and power, and the equal weight index builder shows what happens when every name gets the same slice.
Semiconductor index fund questions
What people ask before they buy chip exposure
What is the best semiconductor index fund?
It depends on how much of the fund you want in the largest chipmakers. SMH (0.35%) held 19.1% in NVIDIA on September 25, 2026. SOXQ (0.19%) caps its top three at 12%, 10% and 8%. XSD (0.35%) is close to equal weight. CHPS is the cheapest at 0.15% and caps every stock at 4.5%. Pick the weighting rule first, then the fee.
What stocks are in the SOX index?
The PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index (SOX) holds the 30 largest US-listed semiconductor companies by market cap, ADRs such as TSMC and ASML included. Nasdaq caps the three largest at 12%, 10% and 8% and every other stock at 4%. It is reconstituted each September and rebalanced quarterly. SOXQ tracks it for 0.19% a year.
Is SOXX or SMH better?
They are different bets. SMH (0.35%, 25 stocks) lets its biggest names reach 20% each, so NVIDIA alone was 19.1% in late September 2026. SOXX (0.33% after a cut from 0.34%, 30 stocks) caps every stock at 8% and names outside the top five at 4%. SMH leans on the leaders; SOXX spreads the money wider.
Which semiconductor ETF has the lowest expense ratio?
The Xtrackers Semiconductor Select Equity ETF (CHPS), at 0.15% a year, then the Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXQ) at 0.19%. SOXX costs 0.33%, and SMH, XSD and SMHX 0.35%. CHPS is much smaller, about $125 million on September 25, 2026 against $74.6 billion in SMH, and it includes chipmakers listed outside the US.
Does Vanguard have a semiconductor ETF?
No. Vanguard does not offer a fund dedicated to semiconductors. The closest is the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) at 0.09%, which holds NVIDIA, Broadcom and Micron among 321 tech stocks alongside Apple and Microsoft. That is a tech sector fund with chips inside it, not a semiconductor index.
How many stocks should be in a semiconductor index?
Most chip indexes hold 25 to 50. SMH holds 25, SOXX and SOXQ 30, XSD 47 and CHPS 54. For a homemade index, 15 to 30 is practical: fewer and one or two names decide the result, more and you are adding small companies with thin revenue. Spread them across designers, equipment, foundry and memory rather than adding more of one layer.
Is it cheaper to build your own semiconductor index than to buy a chip ETF?
Above a certain balance, yes. Fidelity Basket Portfolios charges a flat $4.99 a month, or $59.88 a year, with no expense ratio. That beats a 0.35% fund above about $17,100, SOXQ at 0.19% above about $31,500 and CHPS at 0.15% above about $39,900. Below those balances the ETF is cheaper, and it never needs rebalancing.
Can I backtest a chip ETF against my own semiconductor basket?
Yes. In Indexes you build your basket, then build a second index holding only SMH, SOXX or SOXQ, and compare both against the Nasdaq-100 or the S&P 500 over the same dates. That shows return, maximum drawdown and how closely the two moved, which tells you whether your design earns its extra effort.
Sources
Expense ratios, holdings counts, top holdings and assets from each issuer, read September 28, 2026: vaneck.com fund pages and holdings files (SMH, SMHX, as of September 25), invesco.com (SOXQ, PSI, September 25), etf.dws.com (CHPS, September 25), ssga.com daily holdings (XSD, September 25), ftportfolios.com (FTXL, September 25), roundhillinvestments.com (DRAM, September 28) and Direxion's SOXL holdings file and summary prospectus (September 28). SOXX's 0.33% fee is from its summary prospectus dated July 31, 2026 and its holdings from the June 30 fact sheet, because ishares.com blocks automated reading. Index rules from the Nasdaq SOX methodology, the MarketVector MVSMH and MVSMHX index guides, the Solactive Semiconductor Focus Index guideline, the SPDR XSD fact sheet, First Trust's FTXL page and the iShares statement of additional information. Fidelity Basket Portfolios pricing from fidelity.com; Public's index listing from public.com. Expense ratios and holdings change, so confirm them on the fund page before you buy. Indexes is not affiliated with any fund issuer or broker named here. We make index construction and backtesting software: we do not manage money, place trades or give investment advice, and backtested results are hypothetical.
Build the chip index you actually believe in
Pick the layers, the names and the caps, backtest the basket against the Nasdaq-100 and the chip ETFs, and track it every day. Then buy it wherever you invest.
Keep reading