Advanced Television

Biden’s $52bn for chipset production

August 4, 2022

President Biden is set to sign a House and Senate-approved Bill to boost US production of semi-conductor chipsets. The move, (the Chips and Science Act) is part of a massive $280 billion initiative to back and subsidise US manufacturing and technological capabilities.

The overall intention is to see US chipset production significantly improved as a counter to the import of non-US supplies – in particular from China – and which have been in short supply and thus affecting end-result output of finished goods.

Data from US Congressional Research Service says that almost four-fifths of the global output of semi-conductors come from Asia while at the same time US production has plummeted from some 40 percent (of the world’s production) back in 1990 to barely 12 percent in 2020.

The leading US-based manufacturers are Intel, Texas Instrument, Micron Technology, Global Foundries and Samsung.

One early benefit will be space and satellite missions which have been badly affected by shortages.

There’s another key benefit in that US-produced semi-conductors would thus not be tampered with or have hidden code that could prove a threat to the integrity of a space mission.

Jim Taiclet, CEO at Lockheed Martin, told President Biden during a White House visit that a secure supply of chipsets is essential both to national security and to the aerospace industry’s industrial base. The White House transcript of Taiclet’s message said: “We got to have confidence in the security of the hardware itself – that it hasn’t been tampered with or degraded when we receive it and put it into our aircraft, missiles, satellites etc”.

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