President Joe Biden’s executive order calling for a review of supply chains for critical products put a spotlight on the decades-long decline in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Semiconductors are the logic and memory chips used in computers, phones, vehicles, and appliances. The U.S. share of global semiconductor fabrication is only 12%, down from 37% in 1990, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. It might not seem important that 88% of the semiconductor chips used by U.S. industries, including the automotive and defense industries, are fabricated outside the U.S. However, three issues make where they are made critical to the U.S.…
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