US Semiconductor Manufacturing
July 8, 2013, Semicon West, San Francisco—Karen Savala from SEMI talked about the US manufacturing renaissance and the drivers for continuation of this trend. The movement of manufacturing jobs to the US reverses a long-term trend that started in the last century.
The main impetus for returning the functions to the US are the need for specialized skills, increasing automation, and the need to integrate manufacturing with the R&D functions and the volumes of data in process development. The challenges of maintaining long supply chains is much more difficult when the different functions are dispersed around the world.
The semiconductor industry is one of the most important industries in the US. It is responsible for $42B in exports, which is more than shipments of corn, wheat, and soybeans combined. The semiconductor industry is responsible for about a quarter of the world-wide capital expenditures for equipment. The larger companies here; Intel, Global, Micron, TI, etc. are showing growing optimism about the economy and their markets. In addition, the foundries are trying to get closer to their fabless customers as the process and materials complexity continues to rise. In addition, the increasing complexity of the designs requires more collaboration between the fabless companies and the EDA vendors.
The big initiatives are here. The 450mm transition is starting from knowledge developed here, and about $1B in venture money is invested in semiconductor companies every year. The biggest challenges are in the policy arenas; immigration, especially for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates, tax reform and the continuation of the R&D credits, etc. The good thing is that President Obama made manufacturing a key part of his agenda.
SEMI is looking to continue working on the policy issues and helping the domestic companies get access to the levers and key movers in government, while continuing with the other agenda items for the semiconductor industry. The ability for the semiconductor industry to contribute to the domestic economy and also be a big contributor to innovation in many areas outside of electronics will depend upon the continuation of the movement back to the USA.
