Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1506834
50 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2023 Certainly. In two key slides from the presen- tation, I made the point that too much empha- sis continues to be placed on semiconductors. While this is absolutely important, it is insuffi- cient. e U.S. has no substrate capability; this is not a "bring it back" issue. We face a "bring it here for the first time" challenge. From a packaging and assembly perspective, we have limited capacity. If we do not look at it from a holistic standpoint, recognizing we do not have substrate or assembly packaging capabili- ties, then the new foundries being built in the southwest U.S. right now will actually lengthen the supply chain, not shorten it. Once that sili- con is produced, it will board a plane destined for somewhere in Asia or Southeast Asia. Which brings us to our grand challenge: We need to build an efficient, resilient domestic electronics manufacturing ecosystem for crit- ical systems. is is a very important point. If we're going to do that, we need to: • First establish U.S. IC substrate capability and capacity with a longer-term R&D runway • Strengthen that existing packaging, assembly, and test capability to produce a certain category of critical components • Look on the system side from a printed circuit board/ultra HDI printed circuit board capability so we can join these devices into the system • Enable domestic final system assembly for identified critical systems now Clearly, the argument is that we need this for defense types of applications. But there are other applications: HPC data centers, 5G and 6G wireless communications, medical, and automotive. e feedback that we're getting is that we need to spend more time on clearly identify- ing the overall CHIPS Act objective. ere are three main options that we see (Figure 1). Option 1: If the objective is to protect and advance U.S. semiconductor dominance— which we have—then we need to invest in semiconductor fabrication exclusively and continue working with allied nations within the global supply chain just as we have been for Figure 1.