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As the founder of TSMC, the world's largest chip foundry company, Zhang Zhongmou still has a certain prestige in the global chip field. Whether when TSMC was chairman or after retirement, Zhang Zhongmou repeatedly expressed his disapproval of the development of the US domestic chip manufacturing industry. Regarding the US chip bill, Zhang Zhongmou also said that he could not succeed.
Recently, with the official implementation of the US chip bill, major chip manufacturing companies have begun plans to build factories in the United States. It seems that Zhang Zhongmou’s prediction is not accurate.
The US chip bill was implemented, and many manufacturers went to the United States to build factories
Due to the first-mover advantage, the United States has accumulated many advanced technologies in the chip field. However, due to the incomplete industrial chain of the US domestic chip manufacturing industry and the extremely high costs such as labor, the proportion of chip production capacity in the United States has been declining since 1990. In 1990, the United States' chip production capacity accounted for 37% of the world, and it continued to decline since then. By 2022, the United States' chip production capacity accounted for only 12%.
Compared with the decline in chip production capacity in the United States, the chip production capacity share in countries and regions such as East Asia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan has been increasing. Currently, more than 73% of chips in the world are manufactured by East Asian countries.
In order to alleviate the decline in chip production capacity share and revitalize the US chip manufacturing industry, the United States proposed a chip bill on June 6 this year. In this bill, the United States provided 52 billion subsidies to attract American chip companies and chip companies from countries and regions such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to go to the United States to build advanced wafer production line, in order to enhance the competitiveness of the US chip manufacturing industry and achieve the goal of revitalizing the US chip manufacturing industry. Regarding this bill, many people in the United States believe that it is the beginning of the revival of the US chip manufacturing industry.
Recently, the chip bill in the United States was officially implemented. Major manufacturers that had not implemented the bill have also begun to plan to build factories. According to relevant news, Intel invested $20 billion to build a chip processing factory in the United States, and the scale of the lack of light is even larger. It is expected to invest $100 billion in a total of $100 billion in the United States within 20 years. This plan is also the largest investment and construction plan in the history of the US semiconductor industry.
In addition to the local chip companies in the United States, South Korea's Hynix , GM and other chips also have plans to build factories in the United States, and have been initially determined. In addition to the previously confirmed Samsung and TSMC, it can be said that at present, all top chip companies except China and Europe are basically preparing to go to the United States to build chip factories.
Facing the US chip bill, EU can’t sit still
In addition to East Asia and the United States, EU countries are also leaders in the field of chip semiconductors, and there are also many excellent chip companies in China. However, like the United States, the EU’s chip production capacity share has been declining in recent years. Currently, only 9% of chips are produced by EU countries. Faced with the United States' chip bill to increase its own chip manufacturing industry competitiveness, the EU's first unstoppable existence.
Although the EU and the United States have reached relevant agreements in order to avoid the formation of a chip subsidy competition before this, after the US chip bill was implemented, the EU could not sit still, so it also introduced the chip bill.
Recently, the EU has passed a chip subsidy, which will provide nearly 300 million euros with subsidies to the top EU chip company STMicroelectronics , supporting STMicroelectronics to build a chip factory in Italy to enhance the EU's chip manufacturing capabilities.
Did Zhang Zhongmou really miscalculated? Can the US chip manufacturing industry rise?
Although Zhang Zhongmou has always claimed that it is not profitable to go to the United States to build chip factories and the United States' chip bill cannot be successful, judging from the current situation where major chip companies are heading to the United States to build factories, Zhang Zhongmou seems to have miscalculated. But is it really the case?
As Zhang Zhongmou said, the US chip bill cannot be successful, or it cannot fully achieve the goals the US wants to achieve, and the possibility of the US chip manufacturing industry re-emerge is not high. The root cause is that the chip technology and chip industry chain in the United States are not complete, and the cost of labor in the United States is too high, so chip companies' factories in the United States are likely to be unprofitable.
Although the United States has mastered many advanced technologies in the chip field, both TSMC and ASML need to rely on American technology, but the United States' technology is not complete, and the United States' chip industry chain is not complete, so the United States has no way to make its own chips. Although the United States is likely to ask for core technology and core customer data from companies that go to the United States to build factories, these companies will not surrender and obediently hand over the core technology to the United States. Therefore, the United States must rely on chip companies such as TSMC and Intel.
In addition to technical and industrial chain reasons, the price of manpower and other production costs in the United States far exceeds that of East Asian countries, which is also one of the reasons hindering the development of the US chip manufacturing industry. These companies that go to the United States to build factories now take subsidies from the United States and can also make some profits by earning subsidies. After the subsidies in the United States are used up, higher costs will only reduce the profits. In addition, chip demand will decline, these companies that go to the United States to build factories will only hand over more orders to East Asia or other real factories for production.
is written at the end: Although the US chip bill has attracted major companies to invest and build factories in the United States, it is still difficult for the US chip manufacturing industry to redevelop. What do you think about this?
