Inside Apple's push to build an all-American chip

control of Taiwan.

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Chips are found in everything from missiles and jet fighters to smartphones, AI servers, appliances and electric toys. Americans struggled to buy new cars during the Covid pandemic partly because of chip supply disruptions.

As a result, the U.S. government has applied pressure and offered financial incentives to spur the domestic build-out, while major chip buyers have pushed for domestic sources to reduce dependence on an island that could be invaded, or face steep tariffs, and that is prone to major earthquakes.

One beneficiary of Apple’s supply-chain power is Global-Wafers, a Taiwanese company that turns raw silicon into the blank wafers that companies such as TSMC pattern with trillions of transistors to turn into chips. Last year Global-Wafers opened a new plant in Sherman, Texas.

The quarter-mile long facility begins with a digital-era Stonehenge: a room of 35-foot tall machines that grow torpedo-shaped silicon ingots weighing hundreds of pounds. The ingots are cut into wafers, polished and placed into special shipping containers that will carry them throughout the chip supply chain so their delicate properties aren’t ruined.

Apple is helping the company sell its wafers by pushing TSMC and other chip makers to use them, said Mark England, president of Global-Waiers’s U.S. operation. The company hopes Apple’s help will enable it to expand the facility faster, said England, in part to take advantage of tax credits.