As CEOs of the leading chip companies signed a letter to US President Biden urging him to prioritize funding for semiconductor manufacturing and research, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said late last week in a press briefing that industry should except an executive order to be signed within weeks.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) board of directors, CEOs and senior executives at leading chip companies sent a letter to President Biden urging him to include substantial funding for semiconductor manufacturing and research in the administration’s economic recovery and infrastructure plan. SIA represents 98 percent of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue.
The context laid out in the letter said the share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S. had decreased from 37 percent in 1990 to 12 percent today. “This decline is largely due to substantial subsidies offered by the governments of our global competitors, which have placed the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage in attracting new fab construction. In addition, federal investment in semiconductor research has been flat, while other governments have invested substantially in research initiatives to strengthen their own semiconductor capabilities.”
The SIA letter urges President Biden to prioritize semiconductor investment to reassert U.S. technological leadership and fulfill the goals of the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” plan. The CEO signatories on the letter are from AMD, Analog Devices, Cree, GlobalFoundries, Intel, Lattice Semiconductor, Marvell Semiconductor, Maxim, Micron Technology, ON Semiconductor, Qorvo, Qualcomm, Silicon Labs, Skyworks, Texas Instruments, Western Digital, Xilinx and the SIA. In addition, senior executives from Broadcom, IBM and Nvidia also added their signatures.
“Semiconductors power essential technological advancements across healthcare, communications, clean energy, computing, transportation, and countless other sectors, and chip-enabled technologies have helped keep us productive and connected during the pandemic,” said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. “By investing boldly in domestic semiconductor manufacturing incentives and research initiatives, President Biden and Congress can reinvigorate the U.S. economy and job creation, strengthen national security and semiconductor supply chains, and ensure the U.S. remains the leader in the game-changing technologies of today and tomorrow.”
By enacting the CHIPS for America Act in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress recognized the critical role the U.S. semiconductor industry plays in America’s future. Now, SIA calls on the administration and Congress to fully fund the provisions authorized by the NDAA to make them a reality.
The White House response
In the White House press briefing on Thursday, press secretary Jan Psaki said, “The administration is currently identifying potential choke points in the supply chain and actively working alongside key stakeholders in industry and with our trading partners to do more now. At the same time, we are looking down the road. The longstanding issue with short supply of semiconductors was — which was the question yesterday — is one of the central motivations for the executive order the President will sign in the coming weeks to undertake a comprehensive review of supply chains for critical goods. The review will be focused on identifying the immediate actions we can take, from improving the physical production of those items in the U.S., to working with allies to develop a coordinated response to the weaknesses and bottlenecks that are hurting American workers.”
Asked how seriously the White House was taking the issue and whether the review would take months, she responded, “Well, I said he’s going to sign an executive order soon, so he certainly is taking — we’re only three weeks in. He’s taking pretty quick action. But as is true with many policies, we want to take a comprehensive look at the most effective steps that we can take as an administration, across agencies that will have a role to play, to address what has been a longstanding challenge, which is the shortage.”
