CCU in the News
A few weeks ago, our partners in New York held a town hall to urge Micron to ensure its facility in Clay will protect neighbors, workers, and the environment from the impacts of semiconductor production. They also called for more time to read and respond to an environmental impact statement that is over 19,000 pages. The current public comment period lasts 45 days and closes August 11. Here’s a nice TV story on the press conference.
National News
In the name of national security and to the applause of the chemical industry, President Trump delayed by two years an EPA rule on emissions from chemical plants. The HON Rule would have imposed stricter air emission standards on facilities that manufacture synthetic organic chemicals, polymers, and resins, and was intended to reduce hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
In Congress, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle introduced the Chip Security Act, a bipartisan effort to block advanced U.S. artificial intelligence chips from ending up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Recent evidence found that chips made in the US have been funneled into China via shell companies and may be powering powering Beijing’s military and surveillance infrastructure.
Bloomberg editors say “Don’t make a dumb trade war any dumber,” and argue against tariffs on semiconductor imports.
News from Around the Country
Arizona: TSMC says it plans to monitor its Arizona factory with drones. Workers, beware.
Idaho: The Idaho National Laboratory will lead a new national initiative called SMART USA, a CHIPS Act-funded project that supports US semiconductor research. The lab will provide chip-makers with “digital twin technology” to support their manufacturing. What’s that, you ask? Well, a digital twin is a perfect virtual copy of a manufacturer’s equipment or product, before they have made it IRL. It’s “essentially a high-tech way to monitor and improve a design through constantly updated real-time information to test ideas, predict problems, and make better decisions without actually touching the real thing.”
Michigan: Remember the megasite in Mundy Township that had neighbors (understandably) upset? Well, the planned tenant – Sandisk – has now backed out, despite the state offering more than $6 billion in incentives. Apparently the Commerce Dept. was also working with Sandisk to offer the company a CHIPS Act incentive grant. Governor Whitmer blamed Trump’s tariffs for the collapse of the project.
New York: Our buddy Sen. Chuck Schumer cut the ribbon for the country’s first National Semiconductor Technology Center at Albany Nanotech, created by the CHIPS and Science Act. Sen. Schumer, who helped secure $825 million in federal funding, said the milestone establishes Upstate NY as the heart of America’s semiconductor industry. The new center will host the CHIPS for America Extreme Ultraviolet Accelerator, making it a leading hub for the use of advanced semiconductor equipment.
Corporate News
Intel: The job apocalypse is coming. The layoffs are growing. After sending out a few practice pink slips last week, Intel has quadrupled the number of workers whose necks are on the chopping block. The company announced 584 layoffs in California, 696 in Arizona, and 2,400 in Oregon. Altogether, Intel is laying off about 4,000 US workers. Unlike the layoffs in 2024, there will be no voluntary retirement or buyouts this time around. Intel leaders have said the company is trying to get rid of mid-level managers to flatten the organization and focus on engineers, but the cuts in Oregon are hitting engineers and technicians heavily: 325 module equipment technicians were laid off, 302 module development engineers, 126 module engineers, and 88 process integration development engineers. Only 8% of the lay-offs are impacting people with “manager” in their titles.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan told his employees: “we are not in the top ten semiconductor companies.” Yup.
The latest federal lobbying numbers are in, and Intel spent more than a million dollars on lobbying in Q2, a lot of it around CHIPS Act implementation. The same link allows you to see which members of Congress bought or sold Intel stock during the latest period.
Micron: More details on the company’s expansion in Idaho and Virginia.
TSMC: Second quarter earnings are in, and TSMC is doing great. Year-over-year revenue is up 38%. The company showed a 12% revenue increase and 10% net income jump from Q1. As a result, stocks surged, and TSMC has now joined the very small (eight-member) club of companies worth more than a trillion dollars.
Going forward, TSMC will accelerate production amid strong demand. The company plans to build 15 new chip fabs in Taiwan, and here are its plans for US production. In case you were wondering, TSMC spent just under a million dollars on federal lobbying in the last quarter.
Environmental News
The market for treating semiconductor wastewater is booming. As chip manufacturing involves complex processes and large volumes of water, wastewater treatment has become essential to meet environmental regulations and sustainability goals. In addition to expansion, the industry is introducing innovations in filtration, chemical treatment, and membrane technologies to address the high purity demands of semiconductor operations
The draft environmental impact statement for Micron (see above under CCU in the News) reveals the company’s plan to send hazardous waste offsite to private contractors, including to various US facilities of the French multinational Veolia. Which makes this a good time to mention that Veolia was recently caught on film pumping toxic pollutants from a large landfill into protected wetlands in Colombia.
They’ve already eliminated environmental review for CHIPS Act recipients, but now GOP members of Congress have proposed digitizing the environmental review process for government actions that still require environmental review. This can’t be good.
An article on the importance of chemicals in semiconductor manufacturing.
Speaking of chemicals, the NC chemical company Chemours, which makes mountains of toxic PFAS chemicals for the semiconductor industry, spent $760,000 on federal lobbying in the last quarter. Follow the money to find out what Congress is or isn’t doing to protect us from hazardous chemicals.
On the bright side, Arizona State University is launching a research project with Cargill Bioindustrial to build semiconductors out of bio-based materials to improve sustainability.
Labor and Workforce News
A bipartisan bill introduced in Congress, the STEM RESTART Act, would provide funding to support mid-career internships, known as “returnships,” for workers seeking to return to or transition into the STEM workforce.
McKinsey says investing in the manufacturing workforce is the way to boost productivity.
In case you’re interested, here’s a 60-minute class lesson designed to introduce 9th and 10th graders to the world of semiconductor manufacturing.
Economic News
The machines and equipment used to build semiconductors are in high demand. The sector is expected to bring in over $125 billion globally in 2025. Most of that equipment is destined for China, Taiwan, or Korea.
Crazy if true: a new analysis concludes there will not be enough computer chips produced in the entire world to supply the data centers projected to be built just in the United States.
AI saved the US semiconductor industry. But what if AI is a bust?
Reshoring and foreign direct investment in the US surged in 2024, with 244,000 jobs announced. Only some of this is attributable to the CHIPS Act.
Global Politics
China’s tech giants are defying expectations and advancing chip technology, despite sanctions.
This analysis says it’s a good idea to let US companies sell second-tier chips to China.
Chinese hackers targeted Taiwan semiconductor companies this spring, using a phishing campaign known as Voldemort.
According to this article in Fortune Magazine, the reason why so much chip production is located in Taiwan and other countries is that these cultures value high-quality manufacturing, an ethos that is lacking in the US. Take it with a few grains of salt.
What Taiwan can learn from Ukraine. tl/dr: “The lessons from Ukraine are clear: reliance on reactive diplomacy risks devastation. Taiwan must act preemptively to translate its semiconductor dominance into binding alliances, institutional guarantees, and strengthened readiness.”
We’re also reading
What’s all the fuss about manufacturing? NPR’s Planet Money digs in.
Some people reject the idea that there’s any problem with US manufacturing. This article says manufacturing decline denialism results from fear of protectionism and/or blind faith in market forces.
There can’t be a manufacturing renaissance without innovation, but erratic trade policies and cuts to science are undermining US competitiveness. Cuts to R&D are an attack on US prosperity.
That’s it for now. See you next week!
