Zhang Zhongmou complained about the US semiconductor subsidy policy: 50 billion US dollars is not enough to build a complete local supply chain.

Published: Oct 28, 2021 11:43
[Zhang Zhongmou complained about the US semiconductor subsidy policy: 50 billion US dollars is not enough to build a complete local supply chain.] according to a number of media reports, TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou attended a public event on Tuesday night local time. He gave a negative view on the US government's policy of spending money to attract semiconductor companies to set up local factories.

On Tuesday night, local time, TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou gave a negative view of the US government's policy of spending money to attract semiconductor companies to set up local factories, according to a number of media reports.

Zhang Zhongmou vividly described the US government's move as "trying to turn the clock back", stressing that the US government is now offering 52 billion US dollars in subsidies to increase the proportion of semiconductor manufacturing, which is absolutely not enough. Now it is impossible to rebuild an entire semiconductor supply chain in the United States. even if you spend tens of billions of dollars, you will still find that the supply chain is incomplete, and the cost of the supply chain caused by such an investment will be very high. it's even more expensive than the existing supply chain.

It should be noted that the aforementioned $52 billion subsidy actually refers to the chip funding bill passed by the US Senate in June this year, but the bill has also been shelved by the House of Representatives because the two parties are still wrangling over infrastructure funding. The original purpose of this legislation is to support semiconductor companies to set up factories in the United States.

According to the American semiconductor association, American wafer factories once accounted for 37% of global semiconductor production in the 1990s, but have fallen to 12% today.

Interestingly, Zhang Zhongmou also mentioned Intel's new CEO Kissinger in his speech, saying bluntly that Intel advocated the local wafer industry chain to ensure that it could get a piece of the government subsidies. But Zhang Zhongmou also said that although Kissinger is "impolite", he is still a talented person, and when he met him in 2015, it took 15 minutes to explain what kind of company (VMware) was.

Weirui, a software company owned by Dell Technology, provides software and services for cloud computing and hardware virtualization, and claims to be the first virtualized x86 architecture to be successfully commercialized.

The elder TSMC also pointed out that in the past, under the background of globalization and free trade, American and Asian enterprises grew and prospered together, but now the world is no longer "flat." it will pose a challenge to the Asian semiconductor industry, the global semiconductor industry and Intel.

It is worth mentioning that Zhang Zhongmou's speech on Tuesday was also the first time that he directly and openly questioned the US government's subsidy policy to rebuild the semiconductor manufacturing industry. TSMC has already announced plans to build plants in Japan and Arizona.

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