The aim is to match China in its state investment in semiconductors.
$5 billion of the $37 billion would be spent on a fab to be built and run by Intel; $15 billion would go to states to incentivise local investment; $17 billion would go to R&D split between $5 billion for fundamental research, $7 billion for applied research and $5 billion for a technology centre.
“Our plan has a big number, but the cost of inaction would be far bigger to our economy, our national security and our leadership in critical technologies of the future,” says SIA CEO John Neuffer.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is preparing a bill to put some of the SIA’s proposals into law. “Advanced microelectronics are essential to future U.S. technological leadership, and we can’t allow the CCP (Communist Party of China) to control these critical supply chains,” says Cotton.
Congress is talking about providing a $110 billion boost to the chip industry.
“We are working closely with Congress and industry to ensure that the future of the semiconductor industry remains in the United States,” says Morgan Ortagus of the US State Department.
In the mid 1980s Japan got ahead of the US in both process technology and market share and the US formed the washington-backed Sematech consortium led by Bob Noyce which had regained the lead in both technology and market share by the end of the decade,