American Semiconductor Is Taking A Step Towards U.S. Domestic Chip Packaging

American Semiconductor Is Taking A Step Towards U.S. Domestic Chip Packaging

Integrated circuit packages protect the silicon chips from the environment, and provide a way of ... [+] connecting their circuits to the outside world. Widespread shortages of semiconductors over the last year have caused many people to focus on supply chain resilience, with calls to increase chip manufacturing in the U. S. The U. S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which passed the Senate last June, proposes $52 billion to aid domestic semiconductor production, and is awaiting House action. While the main focus for many people is on growing the domestic share of production of silicon chips, we should not overlook chip packaging – the essential process of encapsulating those chips in order to protect them from damage and make them usable by connecting their circuitry to the outside world. This is an area that is going to be important both for supply chain resiliency as well as to sustain future technological advances in electronics. Integrated circuit (IC) chips are produced on silicon wafers in multibillion dollar factories known as "fabs." The individual chips or "die" are produced in repeating patterns, manufactured in batches on each wafer (and across batches of wafers). A 300 mm wafer (about 12 inches in