WASHINGTON – The Semiconductor Industry Association and several US chip companies sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to provide "substantial funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing" as part of his recovery plan.

Intel, Qualcomm, Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices signed the letter.

The letter said US share of semiconductor manufacturing decreased from 37% in 1990 to 12% in 2021.

"This is largely because the governments of our global competitors offer significant incentives and subsidies to attract new semiconductor manufacturing facilities, while the US does not," the group said.

In 2020, Congress authorized subsidies for chip manufacturing and semiconductor research, but lawmakers must determine the amount of funding. The letter asks Biden to provide funding in the form of grants or tax credits.

"Working with Congress, your administration now has an historic opportunity to fund these initiatives to make them a reality," the letter said. "We believe bold action is needed to address the challenges we face. The costs of inaction are high."

Over the past three years, Intel has generated net income of $60 billion, Micron $23.1 billion, Qualcomm $4.7 billion and AMD $3.2 billion. The cost of a state-of-the-art wafer fab plant, based on reports surrounding TMSC’s project to be built in Chandler, AZ, is around $12 billion.

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