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Governments<\/a> around the world are subsidizing the construction of semiconductor factories as a chip shortage hobbles the auto and electronics industries and highlights the world's singular dependence on Taiwan for vital supplies<\/a>.
But beyond a consensus that something must be done to diversify supplies, divisions over strategy are emerging along with concerns that free-spending governments could spur over-building in an industry that has historically been highly cyclical.
Governments in the United States, the European Union and Japan are contemplating spending tens of billions of dollars on cutting-edge \"fabs,\" or chip fabrication plants, as unease grows that more than two-thirds of advanced computing chips<\/a> are manufactured in Taiwan. Earlier this week, a top U.S. military commander told U.S. lawmakers that a Chinese takeover of the island was the military's foremost concern in the Pacific.
China has also offered a myriad of subsidies to the chip industry as it tries to reduce its dependence on Western technology, including setting up a $29 billion investment fund in 2019, helping feed arguments that Western governments need to step up.
The need for chip plants outside Asia has helped prompt Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC<\/a>) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd - the only two chip contract manufacturers capable of making the most advanced computing chips - to draw up plans for new factories in the United States and vie for what could be $30 billion or more in U.S. subsidies.
And Intel Corp, another of the \"Big Three\" which also makes cutting edge chips, dramatically changed the playing field on Tuesday when it disclosed plans to throw open its factory doors to outside customers and build a new factory in Europe in addition to two new ones in the United States.
The net result could be a government-backed restructuring of the semiconductor industry after decades in which American and European chip firms outsourced their manufacturing to Taiwan and Korea in the name of efficiency and delivering ever cheap computing power to billions of people.
\"We're in a situation now where every country is going to want to build their own fab,\" Dan Hutcheson, chief executive officer of VLSI Research, told Reuters. \"We're going from this global interconnectedness to vertical silos everywhere.\"
TENSIONS AND COMPLEXITIES<\/strong>
In Japan, Canon Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Screen Semiconductor Electron will join a government funded 42 billion yen ($385 million) program that will work with firms such as TSMC to develop advanced 2-nanometer chips. Japan wants to ensure it is able to build advanced semiconductors in the future and aims to build a test line near Tokyo with help from TSMC.
Even India, with little chip manufacturing infrastructure, hopes to build on its strengths as a design center for global chip firms and lure factories with new subsidy programs.
Lawmakers in the United States, meanwhile, are preparing to authorize $30 billion or more for chip investments via an existing Pentagon<\/a> funding bill and a clutch of new measures being championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Local officials, as well as the companies, are already scrambling for the bounty. Intel this week committed to Arizona<\/a>, which has a generous state tax-abatement program as well as an established chip-making ecosystem, and analysts expect it to be a big recipient of the federal funds.
TSMC has also agreed to build a $12 billion fab in Arizona, partly at the behest of the Trump Administration<\/a>. Samsung, for its part, is negotiating a second factory in Austin, Texas.
The most complex tensions are in Europe, where EU officials are clashing with national governments over whether Europe should jump into the costly race for advanced computer chip factories - a policy promoted by powerful EU internal market chief Thierry Breton - or double down on its existing strategy of specializing in niche chips. That approach is favored by the German government and many companies.
Intel in its announcement this week indicated its interest in building in Europe, and became the first of the \"Big Three\" chipmakers to back an EU goal of doubling its share of high-end chip output to 20% over the next decade.
\"Europe dropped out of this race a long time ago and no longer has the necessary local know-how,\" said Helmut Gassel, head of strategy at German chipmaker Infineon, which has specialized in power chips and is the leading supplier to the car industry.
At the same time, frustration is growing about slow progress of an existing EU project on microelectronics. German officials have said 50 companies - virtually all of them pursuing the niche chip strategy that has been successful in recent decades - have applied for funds from the program.
A resolution of the split could come by summer. Peter Altmaier, Germany's economy minister, and French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, regularly discuss along with Breton the possibility of attracting a foreign semiconductor giant to improve Europe's advanced chip-making capacity, a senior official at France's finance ministry said.
\"Each time they see each other they talk about it. The goal is to have a decision by June,\" the official said, adding that the cost of such a project could be as high as $20 billion.
THE BIG GAMBLE<\/strong>
If the plans among world governments come to pass, the semiconductor industry could come to look much more like it did in the 1970s and 1980s, when each nation viewed chips as critical to their communications and defense.
But the risk, said VLSI's Hutcheson, is that the world builds too much chipmaking capacity, sending prices down and wiping out big swathes of the industry, similar to a crash in the 1980s that shuttered chip factories from Australia to South Africa.
\"From a taxpayer perspective, it really begins to be this question of, do we really want to start another Cold War, where semiconductor fabs are the equivalent of nuclear weapons, where we're wasting all these resources?\" Hutcheson said.
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政府世界各地的补贴半导体工厂的建设作为一个芯片短缺阻碍汽车和电子行业,强调世界的奇异台湾的依赖至关重要的供应。
但除了达成共识,必须采取一些多元化供应,战略分歧是新兴连同担心挥霍无度的政府可能刺激项目在这一行业历来是高度周期性的。
政府在美国,欧盟和日本正在考虑花费数百亿美元尖端“晶圆厂”,或芯片制造厂,随着不安的三分之二以上先进的计算机芯片在台湾制造。本周早些时候,美国高级军事指挥官告诉美国国会议员说,中国收购台湾军方在太平洋地区最重要的问题。
中国也提供大量的补贴芯片行业,因为它试图减少对西方的依赖技术,包括在2019年建立一个290亿美元的投资基金,帮助西方政府需要加强饲料参数。
亚洲以外的芯片工厂的需要促使台湾半导体制造公司(台积电)和三星电子有限公司-只有两个芯片能够制造最先进的计算芯片的合同制造商——为新工厂计划在美国和争夺可能是美国补贴300亿美元或更多。
和英特尔(intc . o:行情),另一个“三大”,这也使得尖端芯片,极大地改变了比赛的场地周二披露计划开放其工厂大门时向外部客户和建立一个新工厂在欧洲除了两个新的在美国。
最终的结果可能是一个政府支持的重组半导体行业经过几十年的美国和欧洲的芯片公司将生产外包给台湾和韩国的名义效率和提供廉价的计算能力数十亿人。
“我们现在的情况下,每个国家都想建立自己的工厂,”Dan Hutcheson VLSI Research的首席执行官告诉路透。“我们从这个全球互联性垂直竖井无处不在。”
紧张和复杂性
佳能公司在日本,东京电子有限公司和屏幕半导体电子将加入一个政府资助的420亿日圆(3.85亿美元)的计划,将与台积电等公司合作,开发先进2-nanometer芯片。日本想要确保它能够构建未来先进的半导体,旨在构建一个测试线东京附近与台积电的帮助。
甚至印度,芯片制造基础设施,希望建立在其优势作为全球芯片公司设计中心和吸引工厂新的补贴项目。
与此同时,在美国国会议员正准备授权300亿美元或更多的芯片通过现有的投资五角大楼拨款法案和一批新措施被参议院多数党领袖查克•舒默(charles Schumer)支持。
当地官员,以及公司,已经在争抢赏金。英特尔本周承诺亚利桑那州,慷慨的国家减税计划以及一个既定的芯片制造的生态系统,和分析师预计这将是一个巨大的联邦基金。
台积电还同意建立一个120亿美元的工厂在亚利桑那州,部分的要求特朗普管理。三星,就其本身而言,是谈判第二工厂在奥斯汀,德克萨斯州。
最复杂的紧张局势在欧洲,欧盟官员正在与各国政府发生冲突在欧洲是否应该进入先进的计算机芯片工厂的昂贵的种族——政策提升强大的欧盟内部市场首席蒂埃里布列塔尼人,或双现有专业利基战略筹码。这种方法是由德国政府和许多企业青睐。
英特尔在本周宣布表示兴趣建立在欧洲,并成为第一个“三巨头”的芯片制造商支持欧盟的高端芯片产量翻番的目标在未来十年的20%。
“欧洲退出这场比赛很久以前,不再有必要的当地知识,”赫尔穆特•Gassel说,德国芯片制造商英飞凌战略主管,专门从事电力芯片和汽车行业的领先供应商。
同时,挫折是成长对现有微电子欧盟项目的进展缓慢。德国官员表示,50家公司——几乎所有人追求的利基芯片战略成功的最近几十年,已经申请资金计划。
一项决议的分裂可能会在夏天。德国经济部长彼得•奥特梅尔和法国总统,Bruno Le Maire定期一起讨论布列塔尼人的可能性吸引外国半导体巨人改善欧洲先进的芯片制造能力,在法国财政部一位高级官员说。
“每次他们见面谈论它。6月目标是有一个决定,”这位官员补充说,这样一个项目的成本可能高达200亿美元。
大的赌博
如果计划在世界政府,半导体行业可能会看起来更像在1970年代和1980年代,当每个国家都认为芯片作为其通信和国防至关重要。
VLSI的Hutcheson说,但风险是,世界构建芯片容量太多,发送价格下降和清除大的行业,类似于1980年代崩溃,关闭芯片工厂从澳大利亚到南非。
“从纳税人的角度看,它真的开始的这个问题,我们真的想要开始另一个冷战,在半导体晶圆厂的核武器,我们浪费这些资源在哪里?”Hutcheson said.
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