SIA White Paper: Facts about Semiconductor Manufacturing

by Semiconductor Industry Association

A newly published SIA white paper affirms that U.S. semiconductor companies do the majority of their manufacturing in the United States, and semiconductors are one of America’s top manufactured exports, behind only aircraft and automobiles.

The paper, titled “Made in America: The Facts About Semiconductor Manufacturing,” seeks to counter the common misconception, even among knowledgeable policymakers and industry stakeholders, that semiconductor manufacturing in the United States has gone the way of other electronics that are manufactured mostly overseas. The paper concludes that the U.S. semiconductor industry continues to maintain a strong and vital semiconductor manufacturing presence in the United States.

The paper’s key takeaways are as follows:

1. U.S. semiconductor companies lead in global semiconductor market share, accounting for 51 percent of total global semiconductor sales in 2014.
2. U.S. semiconductor companies do most of their manufacturing (52 percent) in the United States.
3. Semiconductors are one of America’s top manufactured exports, behind only aircraft and automobiles.

The below graph, excerpted from the paper, shows the share of U.S.-headquartered semiconductor firm front-end wafer capacity by location. The majority of this production capacity is currently in the United States, which may be news to many who believe that hardly any high-tech industry still maintains a significant share of its production capacity in the United States anymore. Clearly this is not the case with the U.S. semiconductor industry!

Percent of U.S.-Headquartered Firm Front-End Semiconductor Wafer Capacity by Location