Industry Expert Blogs

The semiconductor industry has always been good at extracting money from governments but the current efforts underway in the US to encourage government spending look a trifle flaky.

The SIA held a webinar earlier in the week which resurrected the arguments of yesteryear – e.g. foreign governments spending much more than the US government, cheaper labour in foreign countries, need for a level playing field etc etc.

It missed the key problems: Who in the US can fill a fab? Which US chip companies want US fab? Is the IDM model dead? Could companies share a fab? If so, is there any point building a fab operating on the foundry business model to compete with the giga-fabs of Samsung and TSMC?

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