Taiwan bars tech exports to US in blow to chips plan

A new law will ensure American processors stay behind the island nation's, but the real barrier may be Donald Trump, writes Patricia Clarke

- Patricia Clarke

On Tuesday, Donald Trump's commerce secretary visited a semiconductor factory in Arizona owned by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

He was there to highlight the Trump administration's commitment to expanding what it calls "the golden age of American manufacturing".

But saying it and doing it are different things. The world's most advanced chip-making is overwhelmingly concentrated in Taiwan for a reason. Since the 1970s, the island nation has built a world-leading semiconductor sector made up of cutting-edge fabrication, an integrated supply network, highly specialised engineering talent, and strong government subsidies.

"If it is not the most complicated thing that humans do, it's one of them," Jeff Koch, a research analyst at SemiAnalysis, says of Taiwan's chip-making. "There's a thousand process steps, and every single one is basically manipulating atoms. So, it's incredibly precise. It's incredibly complex. There's all these different things that can go wrong. And people spend whole careers in just one little niche part of this process."