Transistors, microchips and fabs were all born and thrived in USA. One would think USA would have first mover advantage because this is very very hard to replicate tech but for some reason, fabs got completely eradicated from USA.
Have you ever wondered what's inside a new $20 billion Fab made of that makes it so expensive? Where is that equipment designed, developed and manufactured?
There exists extremely high-tech sector called "Semiconductor Capital Equipment Industry". All the instruments and equipment involved in deposition, lithography, etch and clean, inspection, metrology, and prosess control is super expensive.
Most of that technology is in the hands of Japanese (Nikon, Canon, Hitachi High-Technologies,Tokyo Electron and too many others to name), ASML Holding is big European player and largest supplier of photolithography systems. American companies involved are Applied Materials (their Semiconductor Systems), Lam Research and KLA-Tencor.
Yes absolutely, but why not protect these innovations by operating these machines completely under our own supervision?
It's a lot easier to duplicate a production chain if you have full access to the machines (which come with extensive training). And you can even copy the process on a machine-by-machine basis, which makes it much simpler.
1) You do realize a large amount of people here aren't american?
2) Many (including myself) believe that a tightly coupled international trade is the by far most efficient way we have of avoiding violent conflict between countries.
There are still plenty of fabs in the USA. The Wikipedia page on the list of fabs puts over a hundred in the US[0]. I remember at one point when Samsung made most of the A Chips for Apple, the fab was actually in Texas though they do have a bunch in South Korea as well.
