Federal funding and public private partnerships and subsidies are keys to building long-term U.S. competitiveness in the semiconductor industry, commented PC market share leaders HP and Dell Technologies, plus contract manufacturer Foxconn, in postings Tuesday in docket BIS-2021-0011. Comments were due Monday in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security inquiry to help shape recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve semiconductor supply chain bottlenecks (see 2103110054). Public and private sector investments in “people and education” are a good “first step” in developing “a ready and trained workforce that can sustain a U.S. semiconductor ecosystem,” said Foxconn in a rare public policy statement. “Decades of outsourcing has taken its toll on a semiconductor ready workforce,” said the self-described world’s largest electronics manufacturer. SIA also commented (see 2104060064)
The U.S. should adopt “smart policies” to eliminate or reduce “vulnerabilities” in the global semiconductor supply chain “and enhance the U.S. economy, national security, and supply chain resilience,” the Semiconductor Industry Association told the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. Comments due Monday in docket BIS-2021-0011 will help shape recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve supply chain bottlenecks (see 2103110054). Though “geographic specialization” in semiconductor production “served the industry and its consumers well, it has also created potential vulnerabilities in the global value chain,” said SIA. The industry features more than 50 “points” across the value chain “where one region holds more than 65% of the global market share,” it said. About three-quarters of global chip manufacturing capacity is concentrated in China and East Asia, “a region significantly exposed to high seismic activity and geopolitical tensions and lack of fresh water and power,” it said: Virtually all the world’s “highly advanced” semiconductor manufacturing capacity is based in Taiwan (92%) and South Korea (8%). The global value chain features “single points of failure” susceptible to “natural disasters, infrastructure shutdowns, or geopolitical conflicts and may cause large-scale interruptions in the supply of essential chips,” said SIA. “Geopolitical tensions may result in trade restrictions that impair access to crucial providers of essential technology, unique raw materials, tools, and products that are clustered in certain countries.” The association fears those restrictions could result “in a significant loss of scale and compromising the industry’s ability to sustain the current levels of R&D and capital intensity needed to maintain the current pace of innovation.” The smart policies the U.S. government will need to deploy to mitigate the multiple vulnerabilities should include “targeted investments to fill high-risk gaps,” plus collaborating with “allies and partners globally to strengthen supply chains,” said SIA. “The semiconductor industry needs targeted government policies and incentives.” The U.S. government should work through existing “multilateral and plurilateral forums,” including the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “to coordinate key semiconductor supply-chain related issues,” it said: Supply-chain resilience, cybersecurity, joint R&D, export controls, intellectual property protection, subsidies and market access barriers should top the list of priorities. SIA urged a U.S. goal of achieving “a more diversified geographical footprint by building additional semiconductor and unique raw material manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and expanding the production sites and domestic sources of supply for unique and critical materials.”
Revitalizing U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and R&D could “drive innovation across many different sectors for decades,” the Information Technology Industry Council told the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. Comments due Monday in docket BIS-2021-0011 will help shape recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve bottlenecks (see 2103110054). For the U.S. semiconductor industry to remain competitive and to strengthen the resilience of critical semiconductor supply chains, the administration “should prioritize incentivizing research, development, prototyping, and manufacturing of advanced semiconductors” domestically, said ITI. “Federal investment and incentives to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing will level the capital expenditure playing field ... enabling firms to build new or expand existing manufacturing capacity in the U.S versus other locations where governments heavily subsidize semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure.” Promoting such financial incentives is “the single most important action” the U.S. can take “to strengthen these critical supply chains,” said ITI. “Augmenting domestic production of semiconductors, coupled with ensuring the continuity of necessary global supply chains, would make America’s semiconductor supply chains more resilient to future crises and ensure the U.S. can supply the advanced chips needed.”
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security plans a virtual forum April 8 at 2 p.m. EDT to collect input on how the Biden administration can help boost the competitiveness and capacity of the U.S. semiconductor industry, says Tuesday’s Federal Register. Comments are due April 5 on the BIS notice of inquiry on semiconductor competitiveness (see 2103110054). The comments and feedback from the forum will help shape Commerce’s policy recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve bottlenecks in the chip supply chain. Registration for the virtual forum closes Thursday.
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security plans to issue another set of emerging technology controls this year and hopes to propose them for multilateral control in 2022, said Matt Borman, BIS acting assistant secretary-export administration. Borman said he hopes BIS can fall into a more predictable “sequence” for its emerging and foundational technology control effort and move past last year’s pandemic disruptions. The “ideal scenario” is to seek comment “during the course of this year, so that we can tee them up early next year” for a Wassenaar Arrangement meeting, Borman told the department's Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “That's the sequencing I'd like to get us into.” BIS plans to share the proposals with advisory committees “relatively soon,” he said Friday. “We want to make sure that the regime discussions are as informed as possible."
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments on how the Biden administration can help boost U.S. semiconductor industry competitiveness and capacity amid global chip shortages, says Monday’s Federal Register. The comments, due April 5 in docket BIS-2021-0011, will help shape Commerce’s policy recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve bottlenecks in the semiconductor supply chain.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted 21-3 Wednesday to advance commerce secretary nominee Gina Raimondo, likely setting up a floor confirmation vote in the coming days. Committee Republicans continued to raise concerns that Raimondo hasn’t unequivocally ruled out the Commerce Department rolling back restrictions on Huawei and other Chinese telecom and tech firms. The Wednesday vote was likely the last committee activity to occur with Republicans in control. The Senate agreed by unanimous consent Wednesday to approve a resolution to organize the 50-50 chamber, giving Democrats control of committee gavels.
Commerce secretary nominee Gina Raimondo told Senate Commerce Committee members before a planned Wednesday vote that she doesn't believe there's reason for the Commerce Department to remove Huawei and other Chinese companies from current departmental restrictions, like the Bureau of Industry and Security’s entity list. Raimondo’s comments, posted Tuesday, came amid rising GOP concerns about her failure at last week's confirmation hearing to definitively rule out removing Huawei from the entity list (see 2101260063). Senate Commerce's meeting to vote on Raimondo will begin at 9:30 a.m. in 325 Russell. The Senate also confirmed Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary and Alejandro Mayorkas as homeland security secretary (see personals section of this publication's issue).
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is experiencing significant delays to its Huawei licensing decisions due to telework amid the pandemic, BIS' Eileen Albanese said. Communication between agencies has been hampered, leading to lengthy license adjudications and a backlog of applications, Albanese, director of the Office of National Security and Technology Transfer Controls, told a Friday Massachusetts Export Center event. “COVID-19 really did have a significant impact on Huawei licenses, more so than any other group of licenses.” Kevin Wolf, an export controls lawyer with Akin Gump, said his clients have applications that have been “pending for months and months and months,” some to 2019. He said clients got a “flurry” of Huawei license denials. “It seemed as if the floodgates opened up" Thursday, he said. A BIS spokesperson said the agency is continuing to work through the applications. Huawei didn't comment Tuesday.
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security loosened its license review policy for exports of certain drones controlled under export administration regulations. After similar action by the State Department in July (see 2007280006), this imposes case-by-case license review on certain unmanned aerial systems (UASs) rather than presumption of denial. The U.S. “remains committed to the goals” of the multilateral missile technology control regime, in which the drones are still controlled under a “strong presumption of denial,” but “rapid advances” in drone technology and “growing commercial uses” for UAS warrant loosened export restrictions, BIS ruled in Tuesday's Federal Register.