Where a semiconductor supply chain is vulnerable

A factory is one part of the chain

A semiconductor is the product of connected stages, specialised inputs and services. A manufacturing announcement is therefore a starting point for a resilience inquiry, not its conclusion. The relevant question is which dependency a new facility changes and which dependencies remain.

The OECD’s Mapping the semiconductor value chain provides a structure for that inquiry. It examines segments, actors, inputs and cross-country relationships. Its emphasis on concentration and specialisation directs attention to the links between stages rather than a single national capacity total.

Separate the industry’s record from its outlook

The Semiconductor Industry Association’s 2024 State of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry covers manufacturing, research, workforce and policy from an industry perspective. That perspective is useful and should remain visible. Its investment announcements and future capacity projections refer to different stages of an industrial process.

Read projected capacity with the report’s assumptions and date. A later change in policy, financing, equipment delivery or demand can change the path to the projected result. The presence of an investment announcement in a 2024 report does not establish that the associated capacity is operating today.

Define resilience before comparing it

Resilience can mean the ability to replace an input, absorb a disruption, move production or restore service. These are different capabilities. Geographic diversification at one stage may coexist with concentration at another. An aggregate share can be informative while leaving a specialised bottleneck unmeasured.

A practical comparison should name the stage, product or process, the disruption being considered and the time available to respond. Then identify alternative suppliers, qualification requirements and the records that establish actual capacity. Without those boundaries, the word resilience can conceal more than it explains.

Use the wider industrial comparison carefully

The IEA’s Energy Technology Perspectives 2024 offers a neighbouring perspective on clean technology manufacturing and trade. It can help formulate questions about industrial scale and dependencies. It cannot replace semiconductor-specific evidence; the technologies, qualification processes and measures of capacity differ.

Our reading of these sources is that a useful supply-chain assessment should connect a map of dependencies to dated evidence about alternatives. A new facility matters most when the analysis can explain the specific constraint it changes. That is a more informative claim than treating every additional factory as an equal increment of security.