UPDATE President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to help create more resilient and secure supply chains for critical and essential goods, including semiconductor chips, used in telecom devices. As an example, the White House called last year’s personal protective equipment shortage for frontline healthcare workers “unacceptable.”
“While we cannot predict what crisis will hit us, we should have the capacity to respond quickly in the face of challenges. The United States must ensure that production shortages, trade disruptions, natural disasters and potential actions by foreign competitors and adversaries never leave the United States vulnerable again,” stated the White House.
The Executive Order launches a comprehensive review of U.S. supply chains and directs federal departments and agencies to identify ways to secure them against a range of risks and vulnerabilities. The 100-day review cites four key products specifically, including semiconductors, large capacity batteries, critical minerals and certain drug components used to fight COVID.
The order calls for a more in-depth one-year review of a broader set of U.S. supply chains, focusing on the manufacturing base for six key sectors: defense; public health and biological preparedness; information and communications technology; energy; transportation; and agricultural commodities and food production.
The review will include risks for agencies to consider on their assessment of supply chain vulnerabilities and action recommendations. The White House committed to a regular, ongoing supply chain resilience review and plans to consult with outside stakeholders, such as those in industry, academia, non-governmental organizations, communities, labor unions, and state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.
The Semiconductor Industry Association, which includes Broadcom, Qualcomm, IBM and others, welcomed the news yesterday. SIA, along with the tech industry, had raised the alarm about the shortages to the administration, Inside Towers reported.
“As part of this effort, we urge the president and Congress to invest ambitiously in domestic chip manufacturing and research,” said SIA Board Chair Bob Bruggeworth, who’s also the president, CEO & director of Qorvo. The semiconductor company designs, manufactures, and supplies RF systems for applications used in wireless and broadband communications. “Doing so will ensure more of the chips our country needs are produced on U.S. shores, while also promoting sustained U.S. leadership in the technology at the heart of America’s economic strength and job creation, national security, and critical infrastructure,” Bruggeworth added.
SIA says it represents 98 percent of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue. Bruggeworth noted the share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S. has dropped from 37 percent in 1990, to 12 percent today. Last week, SIA and a coalition of other business leaders urged Biden to work with Congress to fund the provisions in the CHIPS for America Act. The new law calls for incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacturing and investments in chip research. However funding for these provisions must come through congressional appropriations.
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