The United States is pressuring Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers to allocate part of their supply to American automakers facing a shortage of critical components, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday.
Read also: STMicro surfs on the surge in demand for semiconductors
Washington is also looking for ways to boost domestic production of a range of industrial components to reduce its dependence on foreign suppliers, especially those from China, she said at an event hosted by the Americas Society. . Taiwan's high-tech chip foundries are among the largest and most advanced in the world, with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) leading this market.
"We are working hard to see if we can get the Taiwanese and TSMC, a large company in the country, to prioritize the needs of our automakers,"
said Gina Raimondo, arguing that there were
"very many American jobs in the country. game ”
.
"Not a day goes by that we don't put pressure on them,"
she said.
Concern of automakers and electronics
Officials in other countries are also urging Taiwan to help resolve the chip crisis, the vast majority of which are produced in Asia.
Auto makers in Detroit have cut production.
Ford announced last week that it would halve its second-quarter production.
The supply crunch has also raised concerns in the personal electronics industry, generating potentially higher prices for popular products like game consoles and tablet computers.
“Currently, we manufacture 0% of the advanced chips in the United States.
It's a problem, we should produce 30%, which would correspond to our demand, ”
said Gina Raimondo.
“We definitely need to relocate a large part of our supply chain
,” she added.
TSMC revises its targets downwards
President Joe Biden issued an executive order in February calling on federal agencies to look into the matter within 100 days. The decree also covers three other key elements: pharmaceuticals, critical minerals and high capacity batteries. Earlier last month, TSMC announced plans to invest $ 100 billion over three years to increase production capacity without specifying where those investments would go. But last year, it announced it would spend $ 12 billion on a foundry in Arizona, its second manufacturing site in the United States.
Company president Mark Liu, who met Joe Biden last month, told CBS's "60 Minutes" program on Sunday that TSMC hopes to meet
"minimum"
requirements
for automakers by June. But he also warned that there would be a lag for auto chips which have a
"long and complex"
supply chain
.
