I think this is a very astute comment.
It reminded me that for a while all SIM everywhere seemed to come from one european chip plant, although now I say it I wonder if they were just the assembly & packaging and fabrication was offshore?
In both cases (tpm and sim) the cynic would say it's only deciding which economy owns the back-door.
You are probably referring to NXP (formerly Philips) and Infineon (formerly Siemens), both of which have produced crypto processors, smartcards (including SIMs) and other secure elements for a really long time. Infineon is/was actually a really common supplier for the little 20-pin TPM/LPC modules.
Yes i think you're right. The nexus of sim, smart card and tpm seems strong. I e used thales and Luna (now also thales) HSM which are in hypothesis glamorous, but ultimately remarkably pedestrian secure devices. I wonder if they include logic from these companies. Supply chain behind FIPS120 class stuff would be an interesting story.
It was Gemplus. The backstory about how CIA and NSA got control over it is fascinating.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemalto#Gemplus>