The value of US semiconductor imports grew 13% over the first three months of this year, showing there’s a long way to go before the country can satisfy its chip needs at home.

Asia continues to be the key source, though supply lines have shifted since last year. Malaysia, home to many chip testing and packaging facilities, shed close to a third of the value of its direct exports to the US, while Thailand nearly doubled its output. China shrunk further, as trade tensions and sanctions between the world’s two biggest economies escalate, while India saw a 39-fold jump in its exports.

Overall, the US imported $15.4 billion in chips through March this year, underscoring the scale of the challenge for its chipmaking domestication project. Washington’s CHIPS and Science Act provides subsidies for international chip fabrication specialists to set up facilities on US soil, but those projects take years to get off the ground.

Taiwan, whose Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is building an Arizona facility with two chipmaking fabs, retained its ranking as second on the list of exports by value. The island’s role in the chip supply chain is in reality far larger, as many of the parts exported from other Asian nations are first fabricated in Taiwan or nearby South Korea, home to memory-making leaders Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc.

Vietnam and Thailand together now account for a fifth of US imports. The two nations are benefiting from US firms looking for greater geographic diversity of supply to help offset the risk of China-US relations deteriorating further.

Upstarts like Cambodia and India have expanded their share at an astronomical rate, even cutting into the share of traditional strong players like Japan.

India grew its shipments to $497.1 million, more than 38 times last year’s number, while Cambodia’s rose nearly fivefold to $499 million.

Semiconductors, essential to everything from computers and smartphones to electric vehicle batteries and large-scale data centers, are now a point of focus for US lawmakers. Last year’s legislation to encourage TSMC and Samsung to increase their investment on American soil is just one part of its broader contest with economic rival China — whose semiconductor shipments to the US dropped nearly 11%.

By: DocMemory
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