The United States has "the most advanced" integrated equipment manufacturers and fabless chip companies, but the global chip shortage during covid-19 exposed the lack of chip manufacturing capacity of American foundry. After evaluating the global semiconductor supply chain, the Biden government also acknowledged that although the United States is in a leading position in system on chip design, it seriously lacks a foundry to expand the scale of chip production to reduce the risk of chip shortage in the future

The United States hopes to comprehensively promote the whole chip production process by overcoming subsidies and infrastructure constraints. It also raised funds through the American chip act and pressure on allies with chip manufacturing capabilities. Under pressure from the United States, TSMC decided to invest in the United States. Samsung has pledged to invest billion in a foundry for semiconductor production in the United States

Although South Korea and Taiwan are major players in the global chip market, their share in semiconductors and advanced chip production facilities is only a small part of the industry. In the areas with the largest market revenue - integrated equipment manufacturers, fabless companies and system chips as final products, the United States is still ahead of advanced chip design capabilities. Global leadership in the semiconductor field requires the evaluation of the entire chip production ecosystem from research to design and manufacturing, as well as the evaluation of production capacity by chip type

In the .5 trillion semiconductor industry, the United States dominates the integrated equipment manufacturers (15%), fabless factories (25%) and microprocessors (17%). At the same time, South Korea and Taiwan are less leading in the field of OEM (13%) and memory chips (7%). The United States maintains its leading position in the field of microchips through innovation, and is currently seeking a leading position in the system and memory chip market

Although the government has been reluctant to lead the industrial policy for a long time, the goal of the United States is to improve its large-scale production capacity by attracting agent factories to consolidate the domestic complete supply chain

The friction between the United States and China and the chip war between Japan and South Korea show that the ultimate goal of the United States is to merge East Asian allies into a global supply chain dominated by the United States. Due to relevant disputes, Japan has imposed export restrictions on three key semiconductor production materials in South Korea - fluorinated polyimide, hydrogen fluoride and photoresist - since July 2019, which has opened the door to the semiconductor material market in South Korea for American companies. These restrictions prompted South Korea to establish facilities to produce fluorinated polyimides at home and diversify the import sources of hydrogen fluoride, thereby reducing its dependence on Japan to 10% Moon Jae in

stressed that self reliance would be a sign of a gradual reliance on Korea. However, Japan is still an important exporter of semiconductor materials, leading the global market share (24%), followed by the United States (19%)

South Korea's Ministry of trade, industry and energy managed to obtain US million from US investor DuPont for the production of photoresist at the new plant in Tian'an, which is a limiting factor for South Korea's difficult transition to domestic production. Several Japanese exporters of these three elements have reduced or transferred production to South Korea. Japan's export controls reveal the source of risk for Korean chip manufacturers. This has led to incentive efforts for self-sufficiency or alternative sources. With the WTO Appellate Body paralyzed, South Korea continued to seek recourse against Japan under the 1994 general agreement on Tariffs and trade. It is expected that the post covid-19 economy will lead to the explosive expansion of the semiconductor market. The core position of cutting-edge semiconductors that provide artificial intelligence algorithms for defense systems also makes it necessary for the United States to integrate chip production at home

At a time when the post pandemic recovery is invisible and electrification and digitization are rapidly unfolding, the United States seeks dominance. As the United States strengthens its measures to prevent the flow of chip technology to China, semiconductors will become the main source of this driving force. Regardless of the friction between South Korea and Japan, the United States will maintain its policy of taking the lead in the chip field < p > reprinted from" semiconductor industry observation "