3 ways the global semiconductor shortage is hitting the US hard
Lower capability
The increasing reliance by U.S. chip companies on international partners to fabricate the chips they design reflects the United States’ diminished capability. U.S. semiconductor companies have 47% of the global chip sales market, but only 12% are manufactured in the U.S. Meeting expectations for ever faster and smarter electronics requires chip design innovation, which, in turn, is dependent on the most advanced fabrication technologies available.
Advances in semiconductor fabrication are based on the number of transistors, the smallest of a chip’s electronic components, per square millimeter. The most advanced semiconductor fabrication technologies and facilities, known as fabs, are labeled as 5 nanometers, or millionths of a millimeter. The number refers to the process rather than any particular chip feature. Generally, the smaller the nanometer rating, the more transistors per square millimeter, though it’s acomplicated picture with many variables. The highest transistor densities are about 100 million per square millimeter.
Taiwan and Samsung in South Korea are developing 3-nanometer fabs while the U.S. does not yet have a 7-nanometer fab. Intel has announced that its 7-nanometer fabwon’t be ready for productionuntil late 2022 or early 2023. This leaves the U.S. without the means to make the most advanced chips.
[Read:How do you build a pet-friendly gadget? We asked experts and animal owners]
High global demand
With the pandemic, demand for cell phones, laptops, and otherwork-at-homedevices and increased use of the internet have put pressure on fabs to increase the number of chips they are delivering for these products. The global automotive industry predicted that demand for cars would fall during the pandemic, so it reduced its orders for semiconductor chips used in vehicle safety, control, emissions, and driver information systems. The auto industry has restarted production but is nowfaced with a shortage of semiconductor chips.
Recently, eight state governors asked Biden to redouble efforts “to urge wafer and semiconductor companies to expand production capacity and/or temporarily reallocate a modest portion of their current production to auto-grade wafer production.” This “modest” reallocation cannot be done without causing shortages elsewhere. And it cannot be done quickly. For example, Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC has reported a six-month lead time from placing an order to delivery, and producing a chip is estimated to take up to three months.
Limited federal investment
The governments of Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and China each invest tens of billions of dollars each year in their semiconductor industries, and it shows. These investments include not just the facilities themselves but also the R&D and tool development necessary to move to the next generation of fabs. Such incentives in the U.S. remain minimal.
TSMC plans to invest US$25-28 billion this year in fabs alone and has promised to invest $12 billion for a fab in Arizona. To put this in perspective, the Arizona TSMC fab is expected to start processing 20,000 wafers a month, compared with the 1,000,000 wafers in existing TSMC facilities in Taiwan and China.
Biden’s executive order about supply chains is an important step in determining the investments needed to improve the prospects for the U.S. semiconductor industry.
This article byCarol Handwerker, Professor of Materials Engineering,Purdue Universityis republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
