Support Tax Credits for US Chip Manufacturing, SIA Board Urges Biden

The White House has “an historic opportunity” to fund initiatives in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and research, 21 Semiconductor Industry Association board members wrote President Joe Biden Thursday. “Include in your recovery and infrastructure plan substantial funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing, in the form of grants and/or tax credits, and for basic and applied semiconductor research,” asked the executives from the who’s who list of major U.S. chip companies. “Bold action is needed to address the challenges we face. The costs of inaction are high.” U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing declined to 12% from 37%, they said. “This is largely because the governments of our global competitors offer significant incentives and subsidies to attract new semiconductor manufacturing facilities, while the U.S. does not.” The U.S. is “uncompetitive in attracting investments in new fab construction and our technology leadership is at risk in the race for preeminence in the technologies of the future, including artificial intelligence, 5G/6G, and quantum computing,” they said. The White House didn’t comment.