{"id":36474,"date":"2022-05-25T07:37:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T07:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/archives\/36474"},"modified":"2022-05-25T07:37:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T07:37:00","slug":"new-inquiry-looks-at-the-state-of-uk-chips-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/?p=36474","title":{"rendered":"New inquiry looks at the state of UK chips"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With Arm, the UK\u2019s biggest chip firm, listing on Nasdaq rather than a dual listing with the LSE (London Stock Exchange), Parliament\u2019s Foreign Affairs Committee has started an inquiry looking at the state of the UK\u2019s semiconductor industry.<\/p>\n

The committee overseeing the inquiry said it will gather evidence submitted up until 14 June 2022. Among the areas it will cover is the current and future anticipated demand for common products built with semiconductor materials both in the UK and globally, and whether the UK\u2019s  end-to-end semiconductor supply chain is secure.<\/p>\n

The committee said the inquiry will also cover the potential weaknesses and strengths of the UK semiconductor industry to meet future requirements of electronic device manufacturing, how to support and develop skills in the sector, and potential national security concerns or vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

Committee chair Darren Jones said: \u201cSemiconductors are growing in technological and geopolitical importance. With scarce global supply, it is essential that we conduct a stock-take of the UK\u2019s capacity and what the government can do to raise it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new inquiry follows the publication in March of a Foreign Affairs Committee report looking at the acquisition by Nexperia of Newport Wafer Fab.<\/p>\n

Although the National Security and Investment Act has been in place for more than three months, Tom Tugendhat, who chaired the committee looking into the takeover of Newport Wafer Fab, said: \u201cSemiconductors are essential to every aspect of modern life and Newport Wafer Fab is one of the country\u2019s leading manufacturers. Their takeover by Nexperia left many wondering why we are, seemingly, handing over critical security infrastructure to overseas companies with well-documented links to the Chinese state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Newport semiconductor production site was first established in 1982. Originally, it was the fab plant for Inmos\u2019s transputer chip. When Computer Weekly spoke to David May<\/a>, chief designer of the transputer, in 2016, he described Inmos as a full-scale semiconductor-manufacturing organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was part of industrial policy of the then Labour government \u2013 through the National Enterprise Board \u2013 to revitalise industry,\u201d he said, referring to the \u00a350m grant Inmos was given to start up a UK semiconductor industry.<\/p>\n

Although it failed commercially, parts of the transputer\u2019s legacy exist today. For instance, Xmos, a fabless semiconductor business founded by May, develops artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration chips for intelligent internet of things (IoT).<\/p>\n

Nexperia said the acquisition of Newport Wafer Fab \u201csignificantly enhances\u201d its automotive-qualified product supply capability. <\/p>\n

But Tugendhat warned of the potential risks to UK security, saying: \u201c\u201cThe long-term security of our nation relies not just on our armed forces, but on the resilience of our economy and that means ensuring our future stability is never sacrificed for the sake of short-term advancement.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the new inquiry, UK policymakers will look at how the European Union (EU) has responded to China\u2019s influence on the global semiconductor market, and the industry investments this has led to. The European Commission (EC) has proposed a European Chips Act<\/a> to encourage the development of what it regards as a \u201cthriving semiconductor sector\u201d from research to production and a resilient supply chain. The EC aims to mobilise more than \u20ac43bn of public and private investments and set measures to prevent, prepare, anticipate and swiftly respond to any future supply chain disruption.<\/p>\n

To tie in with the European initiative, in March, Intel unveiled an initial \u20ac17bn<\/a> investment in a semiconductor fab \u201cmega-site\u201d in Germany, the creation of a new R&D and design hub in France, and a commitment to invest in R&D, manufacturing and foundry services in Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Arm, the UK\u2019s biggest chip firm, listing on Nasdaq rather than a dual listing with the LSE (London Stock Exchange), Parliament\u2019s Foreign Affairs Committee has started an inquiry looking at the state of the UK\u2019s semiconductor industry. The committee overseeing the inquiry said it will gather evidence submitted up until 14 June 2022. Among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[533],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}