The UK is missing out on investment in the semiconductor industry, according to a House of Commons Committee report, which said this is putting business in the country at risk as other nations seek to build greater resilience into their own supply chains.
That isn't to say that the UK doesn't have strength in areas such as design, intellectual property, and compound and advanced material semiconductors, with chip designer Arm being a key example. But there is no complete supply chain, and as one witness told the BEIS Committee, the UK's status in the global semiconductor industry"is very high in terms of our capability. In terms of our footprint, it is very low at the moment.
There are no fabrication plants in the country capable of producing the most advanced silicon semiconductors, defined here as a node of 28nm or smaller, and the report states there is"little immediate prospect of such facilities being constructed in the UK, given the very high costs involved." But the report claims that these well-developed clusters put the country in a good position to capitalize on growth; that there is the ambition and potential to expand these sites, both in their current location and beyond, but that this can only be achieved with large-scale investment, as seen in the US.
The fact that the UK does not have a local supply of rare earths is possibly the largest factor here. Otherwise, as you pointed out, we have have Arm.
The missus and I both work for startups in the States and both of us are losing are jobs next year. I was thinking why Britain will NEVER have 'the next' Silicon Valley. Can't happen!
Thay happened when the committee to net zero.
Oh, the best thing we could do is bet on the next big thing, then as it comes to fruition - sell it off like every other innovation we muster. Is Google product release modelled on the UK?