CHIP funding must feed the future, not the company trough
America's economy is built on microelectronics, but chip shortages and security failures that have rocked industries from cars to game consoles suggest that U.S. semiconductor supplies are not resilient or guaranteed. New US-based chip manufacturing or packaging plants, however, will struggle to compete with seasoned foreign rivals such as Taiwan's TSMC or Korea's Samsung which have strong customer relationships, lower labor costs, and tax, subsidy and regulatory relief. from them. government.
To level the playing field, Congress allowed federal investment in US semiconductor production this year through the CHIPs Act. Now lawmakers are considering funding CHIP through the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, which would allocate nearly three-quarters of its $50 billion to building and equipping fabrication and packaging plants for current-generation chips. Unfortunately, this approach will not result in competitive US microelectronics, fail to exploit other corporate or private capital, and will put the US microelectronics industry at a disadvantage in the long run.
A more effective and sustainable microelectronics strategy would reverse the priorities of the Innovation and Competition Act and invest most of CHIP's money in future technologies. While the proposed bill allocates a relatively small $13 billion for research and development (R&D) over the next five years, TSMC alone plans to spend $6.3 billion on technology development during 2021. Taking advantage of the ongoing transition in chip design from simply increasing circuit density to instead adopting increasingly complex architectures, government R&D funding can help the US microelectronics industry meet future demand and gain a lasting advantage over foreign competitors.
In order to commercialize a new technology that is about five to 10 years from the market, the government will have to use most of its semiconductor R&D funding through mechanisms that can leverage private capital and expertise, such as the public-private partnership of the National Center for Semiconductor Technology founded by CHIP. Act. These efforts could accelerate "valley of death" technologies such as disaggregated and heterogeneous circuit design and related manufacturing and packaging techniques, moving the US microelectronics industry up the value chain ahead of overseas competitors. In addition to offering greater specialization and performance compared to today's dominant designs, disaggregated semiconductor architectures such as systems on a chip can increase security assurance as the final configuration of the microelectronics package can be disguised until final assembly.
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For microelectronic technologies 10 to 20 years from commercialization, the new strategic emphasis on R&D will provide greater government support for basic and applied research in approaches such as low-power digital integrated circuits, new semiconductor materials, and new computing approaches with disruptive potential for the future. consumer market. Due to its higher risk and more distant returns, this next-generation technology will rely on government sponsorship but is critical to enabling US chipmakers and packagers to continuously improve the value chain and maintain the edge they can build on in the near future through the public. -private partnership.
To increase the resilience and assurance of the current US chip supply chain, the new strategy's second-line effort will use government funding and policies to catalyze the expansion of US semiconductor manufacturing and packaging capacity. Government money will not be used to build and equip new factories, but will instead focus on closing the operating cost differential between US and overseas production through a combination of tax and regulatory incentives. As a result, the business case for the new facility will be improved, which should open up private funding for the construction of the facility and equipment.
But even at the same operating costs, US chipmakers and makers will still lag behind TSMC and Samsung in terms of customer experience and relationships. Therefore, the strategy also requires foreign chipmakers to partner with US companies when building facilities in the United States, as US allies have been doing for decades.
Ultimately, the U.S. microelectronics industry it is impossible to win the race to the bottom in terms of costs against a committed foreign competitor. It had to move to higher value semiconductors. With the Innovation and Competition Act, Congress has the opportunity to steal the attention of foreign competitors by capitalizing on the transition from increasingly dense chips to new designs that offer specialization, performance, and security. However, this opportunity would be missed if federal microelectronic investments were primarily aimed at building uncompetitive chip factories rather than using government funds to unlock potential private markets.
