The Integrated Circuit Industry at a Crossroads: Threats and Opportunities

Abstract

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the persistent chip shortage, war in Ukraine, and U.S.–China tensions, the semiconductor industry is at a critical stage. Only if it is capable of major changes, will it be able to sustain itself and continue to provide solutions for ongoing exponential technology growth. However, the war has undermined, perhaps definitively, a global order that urged the integration of markets above geopolitical divergences. Now that the trend seems to be reversed, the extent to which the costs of this commercial and technological decoupling can be absorbed and legitimized will have to be understood.