Fight for Semiconductor Sourcing Heats Up

As the world experiences a shortage in semiconductors, industry leaders ban together with a new coalition.

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Semiconductors in America Coalition forms to urge congressional leaders to focus on domestic chip manufacturing and research in the United States, as the shortage causes problems in numerous manufacturing sectors. The new coalition writes a letter to congress asking to allocate $50 billion to domestic chip incentives. The letter follows an executive order put into place earlier this year, in February, authorizing incentives but lacked any real funding. 

Per SIAC

  • The push has the strong backing of President Biden, who has called for $50 billion to fund the CHIPS for America Act. Such funding could also be considered as part of the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act (S.1260), legislation introduced last month by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.). The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to mark up the Endless Frontier Act tomorrow.
  • In addition to SIA member companies, SIAC members include Amazon Web Services, Apple, AT&T, Cisco Systems, General Electric, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Microsoft, and Verizon. In its letter to congressional leaders, SIAC members stated the current global chip shortage has highlighted the need to ensure a stronger and more resilient domestic semiconductor supply chain over the long term.
  • The share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S. has decreased from 37% in 1990 to 12% today. This decline is largely due to substantial subsidies offered by the governments of our global competitors, placing the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage in attracting new construction of semiconductor manufacturing facilities, or “fabs.” Additionally, federal investment in semiconductor research has been flat as a share of GDP, while other governments have invested substantially in research initiatives to strengthen their own semiconductor capabilities.
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