Source: China Electronics News 2021-05-17
The recent international semiconductor industry has made waves again. The picture of U.S. President Biden holding up wafers and chips in the White House is still in sight. In less than a month, technology giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and chip manufacturers such as Intel have jointly formed a new lobbying group to try By exerting pressure on the US government to obtain chip manufacturing subsidies. According to the official website, the name of this new group is the American Semiconductor Alliance (SIAC). As soon as the news came out, it immediately triggered heated discussions.
Establish an alliance with the goal of seeking funding for chip manufacturing
"Americans have no reason to wait." Biden once read a joint letter requesting support for the development of the chip industry, revealing the anxiety of the US semiconductor industry. According to the news on the SIAC official website, the American Semiconductor Alliance covers the world’s major technology giants and chip manufacturers, including not only the major members of the American Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), but also Amazon Web Services, Apple, AT&T , Cisco Systems, General Electric, Google, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Microsoft and Verizon Communications and other technology companies, a total of 64 companies. So many well-known international companies have joined together, in fact, the motivation is very simple, and that is to strengthen chip manufacturing capabilities.
Different from the previous White House's direct request for relevant manufacturers to "prioritize the production of automotive chips," SIAC stated on its official website: "The American Semiconductor Alliance calls on congressional leaders to allocate $50 billion for domestic chip manufacturing incentives and research programs. The mission of SIAC is to promote federal policies that promote U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and research to strengthen the U.S. economy, national security, and critical infrastructure."
Recently, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger pointed out that the US semiconductor manufacturing capacity has fallen to only 12% of the global total, while Asia and China manufacture 75% of the chips. He emphasized that this is dangerous. It is against this background that the newly established SIAC is mainly dedicated to supervising the US government to support the development of domestic semiconductor manufacturing. SIAC said that the key task of its establishment is to help obtain funding for the CHIPS for America Act. It is understood that the bill was announced to the public earlier this year, approved the required semiconductor manufacturing incentives and research plans, but did not provide funds. From this point of view, the establishment of SIAC seems to be more of a consideration of commercial interests.
What is the impact?
Although the corporate giants have formed alliances, it remains to be seen whether the final result can be consistent with the original intention. From a global perspective, Sheng Linghai, vice president of research at Gartner, told a reporter from China Electronics News that the establishment of SIAC may strengthen the U.S.'s dominance and leadership in the semiconductor industry and strengthen the U.S.'s control over the semiconductor industry chain. .
Alex Capri, a researcher at the Hinrich Foundation and a lecturer at the National University of Singapore, pointed out that because the United States is vigorously transferring the semiconductor value chain and technology back to the United States, and setting up a protection net, this has made "mainland China's efforts to improve the chip industry even greater. Challenging."
From the perspective of many companies in the alliance, Xinmou Research Director Wang Xiaolong told the reporter of China Electronics News that the establishment of SIAC is based on the common interests of enterprises and is a unified voice and lobbying organization for enterprises. "Enterprises hope to win more financial support from the US government through the establishment of an alliance, and also hope that the US government can reduce its intervention in the Chinese semiconductor market." Wang Xiaolong told reporters.
However, some experts believe that the establishment of the alliance is one thing, and that the US Congress agrees to the alliance's request and whether to allocate funds is another matter. In this expert's opinion, the US Congress still cares more about national economy and people's livelihood. SIAC defines itself as: American Semiconductor Alliance-"a cross-industry alliance composed of semiconductor companies and major downstream semiconductor users in a series of important industries." For this alliance with companies from different countries, the U.S. Congress is not necessarily willing to invest large sums of money to solve its demands, because the ultimate beneficiaries are likely not only U.S. companies, but more companies from other countries.
The global chip market has an output value of approximately US$450 billion, and mainland China accounts for about two-thirds of it. The important position of mainland China in the global chip market cannot be ignored. In addition, in the list of more than 60 members given by SIAC, although none of the alliance members are from mainland China, the business focus of many alliance members is tilting toward mainland China, including Qualcomm, Broadcom, Huida, Cisco, ARM and IBM.