Those who are familiar with the history of the chip industry know that from the invention of integrated circuits by Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instruments, to the later monopoly of Intel in the global CPU market. The United States can be said to be the controller of the global chip industry, from chip design to chip manufacturing, all of which are in the hands of the United States.
However, from the invention of chips to now, it has only been about a mile, and the United States has almost completely lost the ability to manufacture semiconductors from the cradle of semiconductors back then, especially advanced chips, which almost all rely on TSMC to manufacture.
According to data from the United States, in 2022, 90% of chips of 7nm and below will be manufactured by TSMC, the other 10% will be made by Samsung, and as for the United States itself, it will be almost 0.
So the United States couldn't sit still and engaged in a $53 billion (about 400 billion yuan) chip subsidy case, wanting to revive the chip manufacturing industry and attract chip factories from all over the world to make chips in the United States.
Stimulated by this $53 billion, TSMC and Samsung have all gone to the United States to build factories, and other companies like GF, Intel, Micron, etc., are also building factories in the United States, and chips are to be manufactured in the United States.
So far, the $53 billion has basically been spent, so the question is, can the chips that the United States needs be manufactured?
The result is negative, that is, the chip that the United States wants, the United States still can't make it itself, and still has to rely on TSMC, Samsung and other foundries, and even rely on wafer factories in Chinese mainland.
As shown in the figure above, this is the analysis data of the American Semiconductor Association SIA, which in 1990, the United States accounted for 37% of chip production capacity, but it has been declining since then.
SIA believes that in 2022, the United States will only account for about 10% of the world's chip production capacity, but with the release of the $53 billion subsidy bill, it will improve slightly, but it is expected that the United States will only rise to about 11% in 2025, and even only about 13% in 2030.
You must know that the United States has always accounted for about 50% of the global market, that is to say, although the $53 billion has been spent, the United States itself can only produce 10% of it, and the other 40% still depends on TSMC, Samsung, SMIC, UMC and other foundries.
The question is, why did chip manufacturing in the United States once reach 37%, but now it is declining and cannot be recovered?
First of all, let's talk about the decline of chip manufacturing in the United States, here I would like to thank TSMC, which innovatively divided the chip into three parts: design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing.
Among them, the design value is the highest, the added value is also the highest, and the profit is also the highest, and manufacturing, packaging and testing at that time is the lowest technical content, the highest labor cost of the link, such a link, the United States does not look down, does not want to participate, feel that it monopolizes the design, so the manufacturing, packaging and testing of the two, gradually transferred to overseas, so the United States local chip manufacturing share is getting lower and lower.
And when the United States realized that chip manufacturing is also important and wanted to revive chip manufacturing, the problem came again, the chip manufacturing supply chain in the United States is not perfect, and at the same time, the construction and operating costs in the United States are also high, and the labor force is insufficient.
After all, chip manufacturing is not only an asset-intensive industry, but also a labor-intensive industry.
So not to mention $53 billion, even if it's $530 billion, it may not be able to help the United States achieve its goal of reviving chip manufacturing.